learning."
The youth flushed and stepped up to the pole squatting a little on his legs put widely apart.
Caustic ointment with strong smell was rubbed into the swollen scars, and the man on the bench hissed like a snake biting his lower lip.
The man twisted himself with an effort trying to see his own back. Only his third attempt was successful. A look at the polished hilt of the whip that lay near the bench, carefully rolled up, made him feeble.
"How strange, – said the man hardly moving his parched lips. – I thought it was all bloody..."
"Why?" – Master was surprised.
"Really, why?" – the man smiled.
"You can kill with a whip, – the Master noticed in a mentor's tone. – You can only let one's blood. And you can loosen one's tongue."
"I'd loosen mine gladly, – the man signed. – But I'm afraid it won't save me. Am I really guilty that they continue to come to me?"
"Who's "they"?" – Master lingered in the doorway.
"People. I even moved away from the town, but they are still coming and coming. And everyone has a concern of his own. They tell me, and they feel better. But the town seniors complain to the Supreme: people began to cheek, to ask unwanted questions, they follow the Heresyarch, and he's an impostor, the Lodge hasn't accepted him. "Him" means me. But I'm not a Heresyarch at all! I'm simply a collocutor. One old man had named me so. I lived at his home when a kid."
"A collocutor? – The Master rattled the bolt. – Well, see you tomorrow... collocutor."
"See you tomorrow, Master."
The judge's quadrangular little cap tried again and again to slip onto his brow tickling his cheek with the tassel, and the judge with a vexated gesture threw the tassel back.
"Do you plead yourself guilty, you the verbiage man, incited by your immeasurable insolence in tempting the simple-minded? Do you admit your teaching the mob in the forbidden craft of composing words into invocations, the above-mentioned invocations, or so-called "stain-glasses", having the power over the Elements, and do you admit your attempt to push aside the law..."
"They are gonna kill him, – the Master thought suddenly. – It's clear as day, they are gonna kill him... Look how the judge is singing! The man's a collocutor indeed, everyone begins to talk freely in his presence, and he listens... He's listening even now, on the rack... But when they kill him, who would be listening to them? It's only to talk that we all are able..."
He realized that he wasn't right: some people are unable even to talk, and those who are masters in talking are unable to listen to anybody...
He squatted near the hearth and put the pincers into the fire. He didn't like to work with pincers. It makes much dirt, many cries and little sense. Nothing but stink. His late father used his own fingers instead: you don't need to heat anything, it's not hot, and you can feel where's the truth and where's mere convulsion... Dad worked with his fingers and he taught me, and I'll teach the lad in my turn, never mind he's not my kin. But who other needs our skill? The red-faced judge? The scribble? The man under tortures? Oh, this one needs it in the last place. Well, they won't finish the case today, we'll have time to talk in the evening...
And the Master anticipated this meeting with strange pleasure.
The door squeaked unpleasantly and a long-armed squab of a man, with roving eyes and a deep chink between shaggy brows pushed himself sideways through the door.
The judge fell silent and inspected the new-comer.
"Well, – the judge said slowly, – so, you've come... Look, tormenter, here's your colleague from the Green Citadel. We called him to come here. He'll work along with you. For they say that you're getting old..."
The Master straightened his back. The squab looked at him aslant but didn't approach to greet. Breathing heavily through his nose he looked around him. Then he stepped up to the man hanging on the rack. The Master waylaid him. The whip unrolled amidst the stuffy air of the hall, but at the last moment the Master turned his wrist in an imperceptible movement, and the tip of the whip wound around the pincers lying in the fire, and they flew over other instruments laid out in a row, just into the long-armed man's face. The latter caught the pincers at the cooler end, put them on the table and looked again at the Master. The Master nodded and came closer to the guest. The long-armed man blinked and all of a sudden gripped the Master's shoulder with all his five fingers. The challenge was taken, and both men stood motionless for a while, their hands whitening with the effort. Sweat covered their faces but they didn't care to whipe it.
