Not me—him!…
The father was clearly expressing his opinion that whatever punishment was merited, although it had been charged directly to him as penalty for his own boy's misbehavior, he clearly preferred the boy to suffer for his own wrongdoing.
The boy's voice rose to a hopeless wail as Rababull himself stepped forward without a word and seized the youth, and made a brief motion over the youngster's face with his hands. The boy let out a series of guttural screams, and then, his work done as a Judge, Master Rababull turned and walked back to his unloading without another glance, but he left behind a screaming boy who had been a bully once too often, with his crime to be paid for this time in blood. Both boys now had but one eye.
An eye for an eye.
The suddenly animated crowd turned away with a shared look of satisfaction at the outcome. Did not every free man do that which was right in his own eyes, and his neighbor also, whether it be good or whether it be evil, and the slaves too when they could get away with it?
Even the fathers, both of them, approved. Better a disciplined boy with one good eye remaining, than a criminal offspring with two evil ones. Perhaps the little rascal would not be so much trouble to them in future. If not, there were cases where the other eye had eventually been put out also, rendering the blinded evildoer a more or less harmless beggar for the rest of his miserable life.
Si'Wren thought on this with all of her might. The ignominy of it. The injustice. But what was justice? What, but that which Master Rababull saw fit to declare so?
She had not been alive too long, especially compared to the hundreds of years of her Master, but the boy who had been in the wrong was obviously too young by far to merit such grievous punishment. For one of so tender years, there were always other ways. The good boy could have been set free for the sake of his lost eye, for instance, and the bad boy who had put his eye out could have been taken to the front gate, the better to watch with his two good eyes, the other go free. To Si'Wren's mind, that would have been a perfectly fair and reasonable punishment.
Except that Master Rababull would have lost a valuable slave in the process. The old idol gods whom Si'Wren had known all her life would no doubt have strongly approved of Master Rababull's harsh decision. Would the Invisible God have approved also?
What a question. Si'Wren thought on this, but in the end, she could only reflect that she could not bring herself to agree with Master Rababull's harsh decision. Perhaps in time, she might gain a better idea. It was certainly a question to nag at one's conscience.