Word Count: 60,007
Summary of Events:
Part 4: Night
Chapter 19:
Magnus was sold to Herr Starr of Sommerstädt to work in his orchards, and got in trouble for climbing into the apple tree to get apples he couldn't reach. Emma and her family mourned the loss of a baby boy who'd died too young to be named. Magnus then got in trouble for stepping on Herr Starr's grass and sold to another master.
Part 5: Midnight
Chapter 20:
Magnus was taken to Finsternesstädt* to work for Herr Zänkisches in logging and witnessed a slave having a finger forcefully removed because he made a mistake. Emma helped prepare for a Weinachten banquet Herr Reiter was holding and received more compliments about her culinary talent. Magnus continued to help with the logging on Herr Zänkisches land.
Excerpt of the Day:
"A grotesque image flashed into Magnus' head combining the chicken butchering experiences of his childhood and the finger severing of the winter before. Magnus froze for a moment.
Sharp and biting the whip bit into Magnus' skin and he instantly launched into action chopping the branch off the tree he'd been in the process of chopping before he'd heard the cry.
Magnus tried to shake the image from his mind, but as much as he could shake the image, he couldn't shake the thought, the realization: the overseers had killed the slave. He was sure that was what had happened.
But were they going to get punished? No. Magnus was quite certain of that. There was no way whatsoever that anyone would find out — mainly because slaves weren't allowed to testify in court, as they were classified with animals.
This place was horrible. Herr Jagd had never deliberately killed anyone — although when the shed had collapsed it almost sounded like Herr Jagd had been inclined to slaughter them all — even if he had treated them wretchedly.
Slavery was atrocious. Magnus could see why the Rohrbauer family had chosen not to buy a bidding number and become a slaveholding farm. The men who had slaves treated them worse than animals. Magnus almost felt like it would be better if the king were to create prisons instead of letting freemen do whatever they so pleased to criminals that they could buy, sell, and even maim and kill it seemed.
But Magnus said nothing and continued to remove branches from the trees. As unjust as slavery was, there was nothing Magnus could do about it. He had no voice, no rights, no choice. He was bound to be abused and bought and sold according to the whims of his masters.
There were no laws that kept masters from doing what they so pleased to slaves. Any injustice punishable against a freeman was permissible against a slave. It was wrong, Magnus thought.
As much as these men had done wrong — or all of the except himself, he was sure — they were being punished for it in their own minds, and maybe they did deserve some harshness, but they didn't deserve to be killed. They didn't deserve to suffer this kind of brutality.
They were men just as much as the freemen were men, they were just men who'd done wrong and been rightfully punished. There was nothing that made them inhuman. Any man in Zeig could do whatever crimes these men had done, these men who were now slaves weren't demented by anything.
But yet they were still abused. Magnus sighed and continued to chop the branches off the trees. If he ever got free he might have to see what he could do to get slaves treated somewhat better than this, because this was utterly inhuman."
Finsternessädt: finstirne'stahd
Zänkisches: zahnkihsh-es
*I couldn't read my own writing when I was writing up the Essential Information and i became u, so it's supposed to be i.
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