Slavery in Evermarch

See Covenant Code
‘Turns out God is quite a fan of slavery.’ (Chapter 11)
Chapter 8
‘Of course, it is. You three don’t know what it was like here a year ago. The last time I was here, in these rooms, there were a lot of slaves. I was here a month and slaves came and went by the dozen. They could tell you where they had come from, but not where they were going. Last year Angster Stadium was used for executions, and they killed heretics, curfew-breakers, runaway slaves, Sunday-workers. All the time. I learned to keep my head down, just do my work and say nothing. The Stadium is closed now – God’s mercy – I think they either ran out of people to kill, or everyone has learned how to survive in this world like I have.’
~
TTs plan to distribute the slaves
‘You’ve brough my papers?’
‘Yeah, yeah. For all four of you. They’ve finally decided what to do with everyone that came in from Goldengreens. It made a back log. That’s why you three have had to wait. Well, it’s time to go now. Get yourselves ready and I’ll be back in an hour to collect you.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Helen.
‘You are all going to farms. Holly goes to The Mains of Dunlechie, you three to The Shielings north of Glenmaisey.’
Chapter 7:
‘He’d sell them,’ sighed the bishop. ‘To whoever. The archbishop wants money for his new Temple. Those slaves wouldn’t be in the Stadium a day before he’s set up an auction at the turnstiles. Can you imagine the turmoil? The upset? Evermarch has been quiet for six months now. Can you begin to imagine how the city will react to a slave market at Angster Stadium? The scars of last year are still raw. And then think of the slaves. More dislocation, and all to be moved from one farm to another.  At least they are warm in the jungle. Perhaps they are better off where they are.’
Chapter 8:
The guard handed over a folder. ‘Here are their papers. As a Temple farm you can claim for their upkeep for the first three months. Phone the number at the top of page six to arrange payment.’
Chapter 11:
‘Look, I got you out of Goldengreens, and I can maybe get you freed. But not right now. Thorman is the only person who can sign that sort of paperwork and well… he’s a bit preoccupied. And I’m sorry about this, but also, he doesn’t like freeing slaves, he thinks leftovers and post-reditus DPs are safer being church property. Otherwise, they get scooped up by the muta or criminal gangs.’
Action's experience:
When he had first moved into this house the church had issued him a slave from the Delta. In Acton’s opinion these people made better slaves, but the one that he had received had done nothing but weep all the time. She’d hardly done any housework and would rarely answer any question put to her, even when reinforced with a lash of the cane. In the end he had grown frustrated with her and had literally thrown her in the bin. In a fit of rage, he’d picked her up and chucked her in the wheelie bin in the street outside. Later as he’d sat fuming, he had expected her to come scratching at the door, but she hadn’t, and a few days later she was found dead, having either been run over or, perhaps more likely, thrown herself under a truck.
~
Acolytes get rubbish slaves. priests get first pick - Acton thinks this.
And he’d have the pick of the slaves then, he would make sure of that.
Chapter 11 Increase in slave population
The days after Thorman had returned from the Botanicals, trouble had started brewing at Angster Stadium again and he had had to go there to take charge. The trouble had started with the army throwing out “non-economic” slaves, just dumping them out onto the streets and a sort of unofficial support network had grown up in the Delta that was sending them north where they knew the church would take them in.
Then more came from the north. Refugees and stray slaves, moved on by the valley villages who were already overwhelmed, arrived in the city every day. They then trickled through the streets, moved on by the locals. ‘Go to Angster, you will find food and shelter there,’ they were told. It seemed that the more he did to help them, the more that came. Once again, the stadium was a beacon for everyone that had nowhere else to go. No one had organised it, it was like the flow of water downhill, they just knew, or were told when they arrived, that the only place for them was Angster.
It meant that he now had nearly a thousand children too young to work, eight hundred old people too frail to do much of anything and twelve hundred invalids to take care of. The nay-sayers in the Evermarch Council could call it a breeding ground for Splinter viruses if they liked, but Thorman was sure these human castoffs were better off at Angster, where they could be fed and kept warm - up to a point. The breaking point would be when the money and goodwill of the people of Evermarch ran out and starvation hit the camp.
Where else could they go? This was history repeating itself, was the worry that ate away at him, and this had been why he had closed the stadium in the first place. Not only did it have a lot of bad memories from when public executions had been more common – it was also a magnet for suffering. 
Emancipation
‘I can’t,’ he replied, holding out his hands. ‘I’ve looked into it. According to the rules you have to serve a minimum of six years then you can ask to be freed. Or you can ask to stay a slave, but that involves having your ear nailed to a door, then you are a slave for ever.’
‘Why on Earth would I want to do that?’
‘Hey, stop get angry at me all the time, I’m just telling you what the church told me.’
~
‘It not great news. From what I’ve learned, your two friends here, and many like them, were sold to the church in Goldengreens with very dubious paperwork. There may be some grounds for emancipation on that, but right now the church in Evermarch is not doing anything about it. For you though, Ray sold you perfectly legally. The church paperwork is all in order. I suppose I could try and buy you, but the Temple very rarely sell slaves. I could maybe get you transferred back and then put in a request for a slave and have you assigned to me.’ (Chapter 11)
‘You don’t need emancipation papers to be free up here. Just pack your bags and walk out the door,’ gestured Ray. ‘All three of you. Make a fresh start in Galloway.’ (Chapter 11)
Category:Paradise
Category:Paradise Notes
Category:Temple at Merric College
Category:Slaves