The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K Le Guin

Author:Ursula K Le Guin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-03-07T16:00:00+00:00

7

“We need more hostages—especially their leaders, their chiefs. We must anger them into defiance, but not frighten them so much that they’re afraid to act. Do you understand? Their defense is passivity and talk, talk, talk. We want them to strike back, while we have their leaders, so their defiance will be disorganized and easily broken. Then they’ll be demoralized, easy to work with. You must try to take the boy, what’s his name, Shults; the man Elia; anyone else who acts as spokesman. You must provoke them, but stop short of terrifying them. Can you count on your men to stop when you say stop?”

Luz could hear no reply from Herman Macmilan but a careless, grudging mumble. Clearly he did not like being told that he “must” do this and that, nor being asked if he understood.

“Be sure you get Lev Shults. His grandfather was one of their great leaders. We can threaten execution. And carry it out if need be. But it would be better not to. If we frighten them too much they’ll fall back on these ideas of theirs, and cling to them because they have nothing else. What we want to do, and it will take restraint on our part, is to force them to betray their Ideas—to lose faith in their leaders and their arguments and their talk about peace.”

Luz stood outside her father’s study, just beneath the window, which was wide open to the windless, rainy air. Herman Macmilan had come stomping into the house a few minutes ago with some news; she had heard his voice, loud in anger and accusation—“We should have used my men in the first place! I told you so!” She was curious to know what had happened, and curious to hear anybody speak in such a tone to her father. But Herman’s tirade did not last long. By the time she got outside and under the window where she could eavesdrop, Falco was in full control and Herman was grumbling, “Yes, yes.” So much for Bigmouth Macmilan. He had learned who gave the orders in Casa Falco, and in the City. But the orders…

She touched her cheeks, wet with fine rain, and then shook her hands quickly as if she had touched something slimy. Her silver bracelets clinked, and she froze like a coney, pressed up close to the house wall beneath the window so that if Herman or her father looked out they would not see her. Once while Falco was speaking he came and leaned his hands on the sill; his voice was directly above her, and she imagined she could feel the warmth of his body in the air. She felt a tremendous impulse to jump up and shout “Boo!” and at the same time was wildly planning excuses, explanations—“I was looking for a thimble I dropped—” She wanted to laugh aloud, and was listening, listening, with a sense of bewilderment that made tears rise in her throat. Was that her father, her father saying such hideous things? Vera had said that he had a great soul.

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