Bellamus had known as much as he possibly could about the Anakim before he had ever set foot in the Black Kingdom. He had known their laws, their customs, their economy, their technology, their leaders, their heroes, their language and their history. But now, looking back across the Abus at the dark wilderness, he realised what he ought to have known all along. The level of his ignorance. He had interviewed every Anakim that he could possibly find about their land, their laws and their mindset. He should have realised how much they had not told him; how much that it would not occur to an Anakim to tell him.
As he and Lord Northwic had pillaged the east of the country, he had expected the Anakim to swarm away from their force in the manner that his people would have done when facing invasion. It was true that some had fled to the Hindrunn, but most had simply stayed and died. They had no weapons, they had no defensive position and they knew they must face slaughter, but they had stayed nonetheless. Bellamus had been baffled. What was at the heart of this behaviour? Were they somehow incapable of seeing their doom in the armies that had crossed the Abus? Did they have a sense of imagination less acute than men of Bellamus’s own race, or perhaps an inability to comprehend death? It had taken many more interviews before one of them, the border-dwelling woman named Adras, had thought to tell him what none of the others had. The Anakim were connected to their land in a way the Sutherners were not. They did not feel the need to travel or explore. Their one desire was to stay and grow familiar, and with each passing season they loved their home more. They had known they would die in the Suthern invasion, but had preferred death to the alternative. Like a pack of wolves, they knew their territory and would do anything to protect it.
Those who had fled were the younger families, whose love for their land was not yet so complete that it was unthinkable to uproot. Not one of the scores that Bellamus had spoken to had thought to tell him that; it had not occurred to them that a Sutherner would feel any different. They did not realise that the Suthern army was not crippled by wretched heartsickness at the alien lands through which they marched. They did not realise that Sutherners, as a rule, do not love their homes as dearly as they love their families.
Through observation, trial, error and experimentation, Bellamus had come to know more. The Anakim did not seem to feel as acutely as the Sutherners. Cold was less bothersome, worry less sickening, pain less debilitating, fear less overwhelming and horror less shocking. Only love seemed to be felt quite as acutely, but still they rarely let it engulf them. Indeed, so different were they that cold was something they appeared to love. Bellamus had questioned this and found most unequal to an explanation. They just loved it. Could Bellamus explain why he was happier in the warmth? Why food was a pleasure when hungry? Why roses smelt sweet? A few had tried harder, stuttering something about cold making the feeling of maskunn (to be exposed) more intense. If you were cold, they explained, you felt more. There was less separation between them and their beloved land.
There must be so much more that he, Bellamus, did not know; that he might not find out for many years. It was what they lacked which was most obvious. They could conceive of no value to gold, so did not use money. They had to trade simply instead: one useful object for another. Perhaps this was because their understanding of art and symbolism was so crude. Everything that they painted or wove was in black and cream; they did not seem able to conceive the new dimensions that colour might add. Beyond a few specific symbols, they had no writing. Their language, Bellamus was finding, was frustratingly inexact where it ought to be precise, and pedantic where it ought to be obscure. It lacked equivalent words for the distinct colours of orange, red, blue and green, and concepts such as “civilised,” “optimistic” or “déjà vu.” To them, orange and red were simply considered two shades of the same colour, as were blue and green; civilisation was anathema; optimistic simply irrelevant, and déjà vu a phenomenon they appeared familiar with, but had no term to describe.
But they had words that the Sutherners had yet to imagine. They had a word for a stranger you feel you have met before; a word for a memory or thought that slips away as you grasp at it; a word for the feeling that something good is drawing to a close; a word for the sin of putting the short term above the long term; a word for wind strong enough to make branches in the forest rattle and smack together; a word for the sense of nostalgia initiated by a familiar smell; a word for feeling estranged from someone you were once close to. Their word for servant was unambiguously positive. Their word for “lord” was related to that of “father,” “lady” to that of “mother,” and both were more than anything else an expression of gratitude. It was not expressed with the deference that a Sutherner might associate with the words: rather, with appreciation. Bellamus
