“Yes, domine,” said Esca, in the mock submissive voice he knew Marcus loathed. But he was angry, and he wanted Marcus to be angry: it was only fury that gave Esca the dignity to sit still, gripping the edge of the chill stone bench with sweaty hands, and not bate like a frightened hawk at the sound of the shears singing on the whetstone.
But Marcus only set aside the whetstone. “Truly,” he said. “If I hurt you, squawk.”
“I’m not a bird,” Esca snapped.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Marcus replied, and if his words were not an apology, his tone was.
The general Roman opinion is that the wingfolk aren’t quite human, and Marcus tends to echo that when he’s not thinking. But he knows Esca well enough – and perhaps also knew his uncle’s slave well enough – to know this isn’t true, so he’s embarrassed about it when Esca points out that he’s doing it.
His leg dragged on the early fallen leaves as he came to stand behind Esca, tugging Esca’s left wing – his good wing – to see that it was fully open. Esca wished he would start with the right, because then at least the dreading would be over. But he forced himself to stretch his wings wide, so Marcus would not pull on them.
It doesn’t occur to him to ask Marcus to start with the right wing – I suspect his earlier masters were the kind of people who would purposefully flout any requests from a slave, just to underscore his inferiority – but even if it did I don’t think he would. He doesn’t want to make it easier for himself; he doesn’t want to forget how violating this is.
He hated this: sitting still, spreading his wings till the bad wing ached, and letting his masters cripple him. The good little slave. So obedient. Where now the chieftain’s son?
Esca is not as openly defiant in this story as he is in the movie, because he knows he still does have something to lose.
He had fought, the first time, until the soldiers threatened to pinion him. They held him down: they broke his right wing.
In the early days of the conquest of Britain, the Romans pinioned winged slaves as a matter of course. They discontinued the practice because they realized how droll winged people could be in gladiatorial combat – with their wings properly clipped, of course.
That badly healed wing grounded Esca as thoroughly as clipping could, but masters always insisted on clipping anyway. And Esca held still for it, though it was a degradation, because he was so afraid of pinioning. Coward.
He has good reason to fear it, though. Though they no longer pinion as a matter of course, the Romans are still more likely to pinion their slaves than they would be to maim them in other ways. Having no wings themselves, they tend to see the wings as a deformation, and therefore don’t see cutting them off as a violation in the way that cutting off other appendages would be.
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Date: 2013-06-15 04:40 pm (UTC)“Yes, domine,” said Esca, in the mock submissive voice he knew Marcus loathed. But he was angry, and he wanted Marcus to be angry: it was only fury that gave Esca the dignity to sit still, gripping the edge of the chill stone bench with sweaty hands, and not bate like a frightened hawk at the sound of the shears singing on the whetstone.
But Marcus only set aside the whetstone. “Truly,” he said. “If I hurt you, squawk.”
“I’m not a bird,” Esca snapped.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Marcus replied, and if his words were not an apology, his tone was.
The general Roman opinion is that the wingfolk aren’t quite human, and Marcus tends to echo that when he’s not thinking. But he knows Esca well enough – and perhaps also knew his uncle’s slave well enough – to know this isn’t true, so he’s embarrassed about it when Esca points out that he’s doing it.
His leg dragged on the early fallen leaves as he came to stand behind Esca, tugging Esca’s left wing – his good wing – to see that it was fully open. Esca wished he would start with the right, because then at least the dreading would be over. But he forced himself to stretch his wings wide, so Marcus would not pull on them.
It doesn’t occur to him to ask Marcus to start with the right wing – I suspect his earlier masters were the kind of people who would purposefully flout any requests from a slave, just to underscore his inferiority – but even if it did I don’t think he would. He doesn’t want to make it easier for himself; he doesn’t want to forget how violating this is.
He hated this: sitting still, spreading his wings till the bad wing ached, and letting his masters cripple him. The good little slave. So obedient. Where now the chieftain’s son?
Esca is not as openly defiant in this story as he is in the movie, because he knows he still does have something to lose.
He had fought, the first time, until the soldiers threatened to pinion him. They held him down: they broke his right wing.
In the early days of the conquest of Britain, the Romans pinioned winged slaves as a matter of course. They discontinued the practice because they realized how droll winged people could be in gladiatorial combat – with their wings properly clipped, of course.
That badly healed wing grounded Esca as thoroughly as clipping could, but masters always insisted on clipping anyway. And Esca held still for it, though it was a degradation, because he was so afraid of pinioning. Coward.
He has good reason to fear it, though. Though they no longer pinion as a matter of course, the Romans are still more likely to pinion their slaves than they would be to maim them in other ways. Having no wings themselves, they tend to see the wings as a deformation, and therefore don’t see cutting them off as a violation in the way that cutting off other appendages would be.