Prudêncio is the household servant boy whom the young Brás Cubas turns into a horse, and who reappears, already freed, beating an enslaved man of his own in the Valongo. The book shows him only a few times and hardly ever gives him the floor.
In childhood, Brás describes him as "my horse of every day": the boy rides him, puts a bridle in his mouth and whips him, and Prudêncio's only "Ouch, nhonhô!" is answered with "Shut your mouth, you beast!". Prudêncio accompanies Brás to Tijuca after his mother's death. In the division of the inheritance he appears free for two years: Brás's father had freed him without informing anyone, and Cotrim asks whether the father might not also have freed the silver.
In the Valongo, Brás comes across a crowd: Prudêncio is whipping a Black man in the square. On seeing Brás, he asks for his blessing, explains that he beats his slave for being lazy and drunk, and obeys when Brás orders him to forgive: "Nhonhô commands, he doesn't ask." Brás then gives his reading of the scene: it was "a way Prudêncio had of getting rid of the beatings he had received", passing them on to another. He recounts the episode with wit, and the wit is what shows of him, for, as a child, he rode Prudêncio and thrashed him without compassion.
Prudêncio is thus a link in the chain of beatings that the book describes, and Brás is the first ring. The scene admits two readings that the text sustains: the irony against Brás's delight, who laughs at what he should not, and the clear analysis of a violence received that repeats itself in whoever has someone beneath him.