Plumbess Seg by Jude Fawley

Author:Jude Fawley [Fawley, Jude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-29T22:00:00+00:00

Viscosity of a Child

Baron Seth did not allow himself to be simply stricken down by the Law—appeals were made and unmade, affidavits were written and unwritten, witnesses were called and uncalled. Several weeks went by, and nothing really changed.

The Law got close—a particularly damning piece of evidence came to light, namely that Baron Seth had in fact pledged his river to the city some forty years earlier in no uncertain terms. In response, however, Baron Seth made an elaborate case for the unsoundness of his mind at the time of the contract, implicating both his naïve youth and the treacherous course of time itself. He then nearly lost his river again when his unsoundness was not only accepted but applied to his current state, Gregor making the argument that a river owned by an unsound mind could destroy, possibly, the very fabric of existence. But then Baron Seth countered with a brutal tirade about how he’d never seen anything clearer, the men around him unfit of rank or title, the carrion eaters, the way a Law-abiding gentleman might be ripped limb from limb. After that, the trial was roughly where it started.

During every recess the Pipe Lord’s Hose was brought out and the peasantry watered, usually by Seg herself. That was the largest part of her contribution to the trial—only three times was she called on to testify, once on a matter of Plumbing, which she deftly answered, and twice to support moral accusations against Baron Seth, which she handled with considerable ambivalence. She didn’t approve of the way Baron Seth deprived the city of such an important resource, but she also didn’t approve of the way Gregor and the other barons made fatuous arguments, gainsaid anything, and bullied everyone. Because she didn’t simply go along with it, they probably wouldn’t ask her to testify again.

And yet she watched the trial anyway, from the peasant seats, because what Gregor had told her when she first arrived was true: a Plumbess without water didn’t have much to do. At first she didn’t believe that the river and the abysmal Well were the only water in a city so large. So many nearby villages had said the same, and with a strike of her plunger she had proven them wrong, finding water where it was never expected. But Hope Springs truly was as barren as it looked. So, she watched a pointless trial drag on into infinity.

Until, one day, something finally happened. She was sitting in a closet with Carral—he often took her there when he wanted a task done, but he always forgot what the task was, so she would just sit in silence for a while as the old man breathed heavily—when someone flung the closet door open.

It was Samuel, the one and only engineer of Hope Springs. He said, “Pipe Lord, I’m glad I found you. I’ve got two rather important messages for you.”

“Well, boy,” Carral said, “get on with it. Can’t you see we’re busy?”

“Of course, my lord.

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