Read The Claw Of The Conciliator for Free Online Page B

after all three were attended to. I would never have agreed to that, and liked it less than ever in the light of the green man’s warning (which out of loyalty to Vodalus I had kept to myself). But after I had threatened not to appear on the following afternoon I was paid, and everything peaceably resolved.
    Now Jonas and I were settled over a smoking platter and a bottle of wine, the door was shut and bolted, and the innkeeper had been instructed to deny that I was in his establishment. I would have been completely at ease if the wine in my cup had not recalled to me so vividly the much better wine Jonas had discovered in our ewer the night before, after I had examined the Claw in secret.
    Jonas, observing me, I think, as I stared at the pale red fluid, poured a cup of his own and said, “You must remember that you are not responsible for the sentences. If you had not come here, they would have been punished eventually anyway, and probably would have suffered worse in less skilled hands.”
    I asked him what he thought he was talking about.
    “I can see it troubles you … what happened today.”
    “I thought it went well,” I said.
    “You know what the octopus remarked when he got out of the mermaid’s kelp bed: ‘I’m not impugning your skill—quite the opposite. But you look as if you could use a little cheering up.’”
    “We’re always a little despondent afterward. That’s what Master Palaemon always said, and I’ve found it true in my own case. He called it a purely mechanical psychological function, and at the time that seemed to me an oxymoron, but now I’m not sure he wasn’t right. Could you see what happened, or did they keep you too busy?”
    “I was standing on the steps behind you most of the time.”
    “You had a good view then, so you must have seen how it was—everything proceeded smoothly after we decided not to wait for the chair. I exercised my skills to applause, and I was the focus of admiration. There’s a feeling of lassitude afterward. Master Palaemon used to talk of crowd melancholy and court melancholy, and said that some of us have both, some have neither, and some have one but not the other. Well, I have crowd melancholy; I don’t suppose I’ll ever have the chance, in Thrax, of discovering whether I also have court melancholy or not.”
    “And what is that?” Jonas was looking down into his wine cup.
    “A torturer, let’s say a master at the Citadel, is occasionally brought into contact with exultants of the highest degree. Suppose there’s some exceedingly sensitive prisoner who’s thought to possess important information. An official of lofty standing is likely to be delegated to attend such a prisoner’s examination. Very often he will have had little experience with the more delicate operations, so he will ask the master questions and perhaps confide in him certain fears he has concerning the subject’s temperament or health. A torturer under those circumstances feels himself to be at the center of things—”
    “Then feels let down when it’s over with. Yes, I suppose I can see that.”
    “Have you ever seen one of these affairs when it was badly botched?”
    “No. Aren’t you going to eat any of this meat?”
    “Neither have I, but I’ve heard about them, and that’s why I was tense. Times when the client has broken away and fled into the crowd. Times when several strokes were needed to part the neck. Times when a torturer lost all confidence and was unable to proceed. When I vaulted onto that scaffold, I had no way of knowing that none of those things was going to happen to me. If they had, I might have been finished for life.”
    “‘Still, it’s a terrible way to earn a living.’ That’s what the thorn-bush said to the shrike, you know.”
    “I really don’t—” I broke off because I had seen something move on the farther side of the room. At first I thought it was a rat, and I have a pronounced dislike of them; I have seen too many