The development of Jail. (extract taken from Understanding the past, a school textbook by Prof. Mufudazi Flowers) "Chapter 6. Jail began as a tiny settlement built by the runaway inhabitants of several aristocratic states. Most had escaped from the North-Western state of Bewilderment overseen by the paranoid Archduke Gustav Bewilderment, a man who spent his days personally interviewing every one of his citizens and accusing them of talking about him behind his back. People who denied the accusation were faced with the spectacle of an Archduke screaming until he turned red, sobbing wildly and drumming his fists against the wall. Aquiescence calmed him down and made him sly. "Ah, good, of course, of course," he would mutter, writing notes in the air with an invisible pen. "Blond hair, brown eyes, of course they would." (In a peaceful moment he explained that he couldn't write on a visible book because "The others would see it.") Other escapees came from the estate of the brutal Lady Indira Shins, whose violence against her citizens has made her one of the legendary figures of the aristocratic age. The runaways expected their settlement to be a transient affair. They did not unpack their belongings but kept them in bags or buried them, ready to make a quick escape if their estwhile masters should learn of their location and storm the town, demanding that they return (and in this we see the old Gum Goolooian fear of They resurfacing in a different form.) The attack never came. An aristocratic war had distracted the Lords, Dukes and Baronesses in directions which seemed more important. The settlers' diffidence toward their new home was demonstrated when they titled it simply, "Word." Their houses were carelessly built and untidily kept. Neighbours, thrown together by nothing more than a common accident, did not feel that they would be with one another for long. Friendliness looked like a waste of time. Word's reputation for careless, unlovely behaviour attracted desperados from the outside world who felt that this was a place where they could blend in. In Word they did not have to worry about honest people stopping them in the street with, "Excuse me, but aren't you So-and-so who stole from my friend?" Life was bliss as long as you could evade attacks from your fellow thieves and murderers, most of whom would knock you on the head and walk away wearing your clothes if given half a chance. The wealthier thieves built themselves fortress houses at the northern end of the town and sallied forth only to do business while the poorer citizens developed the southern end of the town into a network of clumsily constructed houses made from whatever material was at hand. By The Year of Halting Warfare (1000) the settlement had grown so large and drawn so much attention to itself that it had aquired the status of a town. We will hear more about Word and its relationships to Ex and the Isle of Cumber Poidy in later chapters." Go ahead to the next chapter, The Founding of Ex or back to the Timeline.