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By Root 731 0

divided from the main one in biparous fashion, jigged rapturously to the sound of stringed instruments. The noise was incessant, and in the frenetic movements of the dancers – heads jerking, fingers twitching – an onlooker might have found cause for alarm. But there were few non-participants. The tall, saturnine doctor, Lindsey, was one; Fermour was another, too slow for this whirl; Wantage was another, pressing his maimed face away from the throng; the Public Stroker was another. The latter had his appointments to keep, and at the proper time appeared before Complain with a guard escort. Roughly, the clothes were stripped from his back and the first instalment of his punishment was administered.

A crowd of eyes usually watched these events. For once there was something better happening: Complain suffered almost privately. Tomorrow he might expect more attention.

Pulling his shirt down over his wounds, he went sickly back to his compartment. He entered, and found Marapper the priest awaiting him.

III

Henry Marapper the priest was a bulky man. He squatted patiently on his haunches, his big belly dangling. The posture was not an unconventional one for him, but his time of calling was. Stiffly, Complain stood before the crouching figure, awaiting greeting or explanation; neither came and he was forced to say something first. Pride stifled everything but a grunt. At this Marapper raised a grubby paw.

‘Expansion to your ego, son.’

‘At your expense, father.’

‘And turmoil in my id,’ capped the priest piously, making the customary genuflection of rage without troubling to rise.

‘I have been stroked, father,’ Complain said heavily, taking a mug of yellowish water from a pitcher; he drank some and used some to smooth down his hair.

‘So I heard, Roy, so I heard. I trust your mind is eased by the degradation?’

‘At considerable cost to my spine, yes.’

He began to haul his shirt over his shoulders, taking his time, flinching a little. The pain, as the fibres of the garment tugged out of the wounds, was almost pleasant. It would be worse next sleep-wake. Finally he flung the bloody garment on to the floor and spat at it. Irritation moved in him to see how indifferently the priest had watched his struggle.

‘Not dancing, Marapper?’ he asked tartly.

‘My duties are with the mind, not the senses,’ the other said piously. ‘Besides, I know better ways to oblivion.’

‘Such as being snatched away into the tangles, I suppose?’

‘It pleases me to hear you taking your own part so sharply, my friend; that is how the Teaching would have it. I feared to find you in the doldrums: but happily it seems my comfort is not needed.’

Complain looked down at the face of the priest, avoiding the bland eyes. It was not a handsome face. Indeed, at this moment it hardly seemed a face at all, but a totem roughly moulded in lard, a monument perhaps to the virtues by which man survived: cunning, greed, self-seeking. Unable to help himself, Complain warmed to the man; here was someone he knew and could consequently deal with.

‘May my neuroses not offend, father,’ he said. ‘You know I have lost my woman, and my life feels considerably down at heel. Whatever I have laid claim to – and that’s little enough – has gone from me, or what remains will be forcibly taken. The guards will come, the guards who have already whipped and will whip me again tomorrow, and turn me out of here to live with the single men and boys. No rewards for my hunting, or comfort for my distress! The laws of this tribe are too harsh, priest – the Teaching itself is cruel cant – the whole stifling world nothing but a seed of suffering. Why should it be so? Why should there not be a chance of happiness? Ah, I will run amok as my brother did before me; I’ll tear through that fool crowd outside and cut the memory of my discontent into every one of them!’

‘Spare me more,’ the priest cut in. ‘I have a large parish to get round; your confessions I will hear, but your rages must be kept to entertain yourself.’ He rose to his feet, stretching, and adjusted the greasy cloak round his