Tuesday 7th July – Year 6

Warm up:

 

Reading:

First, have a look at the vocabulary for today:

■Notions – an impulse of desire to do something

■Nobility – a person from a higher class of people

■Vouch – confirm someone is who they say they are

■Inevitable – certain to happen

■Malice – wrong intentions

■Decrees – an official order

■Canny – showing good judgement

■Indentured – bid as an apprentice

Now read the text:

It was a popular night for getting arrested, as it happened. When Hark was hauled back into town, it turned out that the governor’s dungeon was already full. Instead, Hark was dropped into one of the ‘overflow’ cells, a square-edged pit with heavy wooden bars criss-crossing above. Half of it was covered by a canvas, which kept out some of the rain, but the earth floor had already dissolved into slick mud.

Hark spent a cold and miserable night in this hole, wondering whether Jelt had been caught or killed. An hour after dawn, the bars were lifted away, and he was hauled out of the hole. A lot of the governor’s men were around, looking armed and bored, so Hark didn’t develop any fanciful notions about running for it and trying to scale the courtyard wall.

Instead, he tried to put a brave face on it as he was washed down with bucketfuls of cold water, and handed some drab, dry clothes to put on.

‘Why the luxury treatment?’ he asked through chattering teeth. ‘Am I getting adopted by nobility?’

‘Better than that,’ said a guard wryly. ‘You got your big moment at the Appraisal this morning.’

Hark felt his heart flip over. Of course there would be an Appraisal this morning. Rigg had guessed as much. The remains of the Lady would be auctioned off quickly, before there were more attempts to steal them. But godware was not the only thing sold at the Appraisal. Things were moving much faster than Hark had expected, and he was not ready for it.

He had known that he wouldn’t have a trial, of course. On Lady’s Crave, a criminal case was handed to one of the governor’s Justices, who listened to the guards and decided on the spot whether they’d been right to arrest you. You only got a trial if the Justice thought the guards had messed up, or if a powerful person was willing to vouch for you.

However, he had thought that he might be interrogated. When you were face to face with your questioner, you could get a sense of what made them tick, tell them the story they wanted to hear, maybe cut some sort of deal . . .

. . . but apparently that wasn’t going to happen. The cells were full, so the governor had decided to clear them out and earn what he could from them. The prisoners would be Appraised and sold.

Hark was hurried through the marketplace and up the hill with a dozen other prisoners. At least none of them were Jelt, and he didn’t recognise any of Rigg’s people either, so they had probably all escaped. He wasn’t dead yet either. He had to keep his brain sharp. Despair was a numbing poison. The moment you decided the worst was inevitable, it was.

A casually thrown stone hit him in the ear. He flinched but didn’t look round – no point in letting the next hit him straight in the eye socket. He swore, but didn’t take it personally. He had thrown stones at captured criminals now and then, not through malice, but just because he could. It had never really occurred to him not to just because some day the person in chains might be him. In fact, he had always known deep down that some day it would be him, and that stones would be thrown at him, so it had seemed natural to make the most of it while he could be the thrower instead of the thrown-at.

It hurt, though. He was glad he didn’t know who had thrown it. If it had been someone he knew, that would have hurt more.

Hark’s mouth grew dry as the parade of prisoners drew nearer to the Auction House at the top of the hill. It had loomed on the skyline over Hark’s entire life, but he had only been inside a few times.

The large, old building was deliberately misshapen, its roofline bulging and deformed, its windows ragged crevices like rips in the stonework. This was as it should be, because it had been sacred in its time. In its great hall, the island’s priests had lived, passed their decrees and chosen their sacrifices. How else should it look? Even so long after the death of the gods, everyone still knew that the sacred was twisted. There was a beauty that belonged only to the gods, and it was a knot in your eye, your gut, your mind . . .

When the governor had taken over the island, by the simple, honest method of having lots of armed men and declaring that he’d done so, he’d been too canny to take the great building at the top of the steps for his residence. Instead, he’d had a clean, white house of brick built not far from the docks, with a protective surrounding wall. He’d understood that the old priests’ hall was a link to a sick past. It was beneath him.

Therefore, he’d had it converted into an auction house. There were petty auctions every week, selling off salvage, ordinary cargoes and confiscated goods. An Appraisal day was a grand auction, a chance to buy ships and submarines, the finest luxuries, prime godware  .  .  . and criminals. Lady’s Cravers were fiercely adaptable. Nowadays, the only thing they could boast more of than other islands was crime, but they had found a way to make money out of even that.

Today Hark would be put up for sale. That was bad enough. But if there were no decent bidders, he was doomed.

In theory, slavery was forbidden within the Myriad. However, if you were judged guilty of a crime, as Hark had been judged, you could be sold as an ‘indentured servant’. All the islands of the Myriad respected the indentures. If they did not, how could they buy criminals for the jobs nobody wanted? The worse your crime, the longer the time you had to serve. If you tried to run away, you could be caught and dragged back to your ‘owner’, who might punish you or sell you to someone worse.

There was always someone worse.

 

 

Now complete this book review about Deeplight

book review template

 

Maths:

Complete this lesson to remind yourself about negative numbers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zjbk8xs

 

Anywhere Island Project:

Complete task 4 today which looks at the rules and laws of your island.

Anywhere island task 4

 

Spanish:

Today, we are going to learn how to introduce our family members.

Work through the PowerPoint and complete the task at the end.

Spanish PowerPoint – family members

 

Quiz:

Complete this week’s quiz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVb1sga1BpE&list=PLvKtHtvrS4LO3a0igHMPnD9W2u9bo8Lxd&index=7

 

Extra tasks:

– continue with your ‘My time at Lings’ booklet

– continue with your transition booklet

– write a letter to one of your classmates or teachers.

 

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