The Totem-Maker (part thirty-one)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Four

To Be and to Choose

(part thirty-one)

Cime was given the chip of obsidian used to mark the unfired clay. He signed before this room of witnesses. The clerk inked the tile and pressed it to a stretched cloth, which by another was carefully removed for drying.

Lady Nyma spoke: “For thirty days, I have weighed one question, upon which all other questions the court shall consider in this case, must of necessity hinge. From Dal Ruggia, where archives pertinent to the matter are found, I have returned, after many days’ study.

“We allow that a slave is regarded property of his master. What we must determine, here and today, is whether a slave can be a person of will; can choose his actions independently of his master’s will. If this is so, the law being the same law, its weight accorded in the same degree, to every person whose circumstances are in principle the same, the law’s bearing on a slave must be as upon a free person—if the slave’s conduct is not that of mindless property, but results from considered choice, as would the conduct of a citizen. The law being derived from natural right, and this right being apparent, a verdict’s fairness, when applied without caprice, must be manifest. For to apply the law in such a way that it thwart its own purpose, or flout the commands of our gods, is to apply no law at all.

“Let us then consider instances that illustrate what a slave is, and what a slave is not.” She paused at a murmur. “Those who have objections may at the close of my remarks raise them. Suppose Ami, the Father of Lotoq, bids his son shake the earth, to our great destruction.”

She gauged us all, for she had boldly invoked the nameless, the god we dreaded. Nor did Lady Nyma make the sign…but many others touched their fingertips and bowed their heads.

“If the guest of a householder dies by the fall of a pillar, we do not curse the god. We live only by our Maker’s will; we dispute with him least when his anger is greatest. Yet we do not blame the pillar. Such things we build are subordinate to our choices, and we ourselves are to blame for them. Yet suppose the house were poorly constructed… The householder would be held at fault; she might win in her turn recompense from the builder.

“Suppose that a neighbor plants his corn, and the householder’s chickens, being let to roam free, eat the seed and deprive him of his harvest. We do not blame the chickens; and yet, we do not blame the seller of the chickens to the householder. Fowl must be penned; unpenned fowl are a known hazard, thus ruled the fault of their owner, who pays. By this we acknowledge that fowl, left to themselves, will wander and peck.

“Suppose the householder does not pen them, and the neighbor sets his dog on them. We do not blame the dog for the loss of the fowl, but we acknowledge that the creature performs the will of its master, a thing we do not accuse fowl of doing. In such cases, the magistrate will order that the parties come to terms, recognizing fault on both sides. But if the master sets the dog on a fellow citizen, and does him bodily harm, an officer must confine the dog and destroy it. This is written in the law because we will not trust the dog to be safe, when it has proved itself dangerous. Heed, Citizens, that here, and well established, lies a distinction: we acknowledge in the dog both the status of property, and the embodiment of human will—yet without human conscience.

33

To Be and to Choose

The Totem-Maker (part thirty-two)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)