it easy to make a thousand copies of a book. I read the title:
I sat down, facing the dark end of the room, for if I couldn’t look at it neither could I turn myback on it. I drew the lamp closer to the book and began to read.
I woke there in the grey of early morning, the lamp dead, myhead on the open book. I was chilled to the bone. My hands were so stiff I could barely write the letters on the air to leave the room.
I ran to the kitchen and all but crawled into the fireplace trying to get warm. Ista scolded and Sosta chattered but I didn’t listen. The great words of the poem were running in my head like waves, like flights of pelicans over the waves. I couldn’t hear or see or feel anything but them.
Ista was really worried about me. She gave me a cup of hot milk and said, “Drink this, you fool girl, what are you taking sick for now? With guests in the house? Drink it up!” I drank it and thanked her and went to my room, where I fell on the bed and slept like a stone till late in the morning.
I found Gryand her husband in the stableyard, with the lion and the horses and Gudit and Sosta. Sosta was neglecting her sewing to swoon around Caspro, Gudit was saddling the tall red horse, and Gryand Caspro were arguing. They weren’t angry with each other, but they weren’t in agreement. Lero was not in their hearts, as we say. “You can’t possibly go there byyourself,” Grywas saying, and he was saying, “You can’t possibly go there with me,” and it was not the first time either had said it.
He turned to me. For a moment I felt almost as swoony as Sosta, thinking that this was the man who had made the poem that I had read all night and that had remade my soul. That confusion went away at once. This was Orrec Caspro all right, only not the poet Caspro but the man Orrec, a worried man arguing with his wife, a man who took everything terribly seriously, our guest, whom I liked. “You can tell us, Memer,” he said. “People saw Gry in the marketplace yesterday, saw her with Shetar—hundreds of people—isn’t that true?”
“Of course it is,” Gry said before I could speak. “But nobody saw inside the wagon! Did they, Memer?”
“Yes,” I said to him, and “I don’t think so,” to her.
“So,” she said, “your wife hid in the wagon in the marketplace, and now stays indoors in the house, like a virtuous woman. And your servant the lion trainer emerges from the wagon and comes with you to the Palace.”
He was obstinately shaking his head.
“Orrec, I travelled as a man with you for two months all over Asudar! What on earth makes it impossible now?”
“You’ll be recognised. They saw you, Gry, They saw you as a woman.”
“All unbelievers look alike. And the Alds don’t see women, anyhow.
“They see women with lions who frighten their horses!”
“Orrec, I am coming with you.”
He was so distressed that she went to him and held him, pleading and reassuring. “You know nobody in Asudar ever saw I was a woman except that old witch at the oasis, and she laughed about it. Remember? They won’t know, they won’t see, they can’t see. I will not let you go alone. I can’t. You can’t. You need Shetar, And Shetar needs me. Let me go dress now—there’s plenty of time. I won’t ride, you ride and we’ll walk with you, there’ll be plenty of time. Won’t there, Memer? How far is it to the Palace?”
“Four street crossings and three bridges.”
“See? I’ll be back in no time. Don’t let him go without me!” she said to me and Gudit and Sosta and perhaps to the horse, and she ran off to the back of the house, Shetar loping along with her.
Orrec walked to the gateway of the court and stood there straight and stiff, his back turned to us all. I felt sorry for him.
“Stands to reason,” Gudit said. “Murderous snakes they are in that Palace what they call it. Our Council House it was. Get over there, you!” The tall red horse looked at him with mild reproach and moved politely to the left.
“What a beauty you are,” I said to the horse, for he was. I patted his neck. “Brandy?”
“Branty,” Orrec said, coming back to us with an air of dignified defeat that you could see went right to Sosta’s heart.
“Ohhh,” she said to Orrec, and then trying to cover it up, “oh, can I, can I get you a…” but she couldn’t think of anything to get him.
“He’s a good old fellow,” Orrec said, taking up Branty’s reins. He made as if to mount, but Gudit said, “Hold on, wait a minute, have to look to the cinch here,” getting between him and the horse and throwing the stirrup up over the saddle.
Orrec gave up, and stood as patiently as the horse. “Have you had him a long time?” I asked, trying to make conversation and feeling as foolish as Sosta.
“He’s well over twenty. Time he had a rest from travelling. And Star as well,” He smiled a little sadly. “We left the Uplands together—Branty and me, Star and Gry, And Coaly. Our dog. A good dog. Gry trained her.”
That got Gudit started off on the followhounds that used to live at Galvamand and he was still talking about them when Gry reappeared. She wore breeches and a rough tunic. Men in Ansul wear their hair long, tied back, so she had merely combed out her braid and put on a worn black velvet cap. She had somehow darkened or roughened her chin. She had become a fellow of twenty-five or so, quick-eyed, shy, and sullen. “So, are we ready?” she said, and her soft, burry voice had changed, too, becoming hoarse.
Sosta was staring at her, rapt. “Who are your” she asked.
Gry rolled her eyes and said, “Chy the lion tamer. So, Orrec?”
He gazed at her, shrugged, laughed a little, and swung up onto the horse. “Come on, then!” he said and set right off not looking back. She and the lion followed behind him. She looked back at me as they passed through the gate, and winked.
“But where did he come from?” Sosta asked.
“Merciful Ennu go with them, that nest of murderous rats and snakes they’re going to,” Gudit said hollowly, shuffling into the stable.
I went in to look after the gods and the ancestors and find out what Ista needed from the market.
¦ 6 ¦
Gudit told me that a messenger had come that morning from the Council House, which the Alds called the Palace of the Gand, to say Orrec Caspro was to wait upon the Gand before midday. Not saying please or why or anything, of course. So they went, and so we waited. It was late enough when they came back that I’d had plenty of time to worry
Gudit was at the stableyard gate to take Branty—having horses in the stable was such joyto him he wouldn’t let anybody else look after them for a moment—and Chysaid to me, “Come up with us.” In the Master’s room, though she hadn’t yetchanged her clothes or washed her face, she became Gryagain. I asked if they were hungry, but they said no, the Gand had given them food and drink. “Did they let youunder the roof?” I asked. “Did they let Shetar in?” I didn’t want to be curious about anything the Alds did, but I was. Nobody I knew had ever been inside the Council House or the barracks or seen how the Gand and the Alds lived there, for all of Council Hill was always guarded and swarming with soldiers.
“Tell Memer about it while I get out of these clothes,” Grysaid, and Orrec told me, making a tale of it; he couldn’t help it.
The Alds had set up tents as well as barracks, tents of the fashion they use travelling in their deserts. The tent in Council Square was high and very large, as large as a big house, all of red cloth with golden trimming and banners. It appeared, said Orrec, that the Gand actually governed from this tent rather than from the Council
