Though … why shouldn’t there be?
That night, when the Gharm, Nils, brought his food, he begged the little man to sit with him a while before the fire.
“I’m lonely,” he said, sounding as pathetic as possible. It wasn’t difficult. He was lonely, with a deep, aching sense of loss for all familiar and comforting things.
“If the men come …” the little man temporized.
“They don’t come. Not anymore. Sometimes in the day, but not at night.”
“It’s true,” Nils agreed. “They are living in a house down in Sarby, not far from here. It’s warmer there, in the valley.”
“All of them?”
“Mugal Pye and Epheron Floom, those two.”
“Not Preu Flandry?”
“No. He’s gone back, so they say, to Cloud.”
“What do those others do there in Sarby? They’re not keeping watch on me. This,” and he indicated the collar he wore, with its faceted, gemlike inserts, “this keeps me close. So, why do they stay?”
“Making things,” the Gharm said. “The Gharm there often see them making things, and they tell us. Jewelry, like. And little boxes. Things.”
“Devil things, no doubt,” brooded Jep. He had no illusions about the Voorstoders. He had not yet detected any goodness or kindness in any of them. It was almost as though they were a separate race, and Jep spent much time during the lonely days thinking how this might be. Speciation through isolation, possibly. He had learned about that in school. Men had developed a few species since the Dispersion. How long had the Voorstoders dwelt apart from other men, on that planet with the Gharm? How long to turn into devilish creatures, who made devilish things.
“Devil things, no doubt,” assented Nils.
The door opened a crack and Pirva slid through, eyes wide. “You didn’t come back,” she told her mate.
“I know.” He soothed her, inviting her to join him at the fireside. “The boy is lonesome.”
“Poor boy,” she said softly. “Taken from his mamagem.
“It is not my mother I miss so much,” he told her. “I was old enough to leave my mother’s house and go into the brotherhouse. It is that I am a One Who.”
“One Who what?” she wanted to know.
“One Who serves the God,” was his answer. “One Who serves the God Birribat Shum. And there is another One Who, closer to me than a sister. So it is the God I miss, and Saturday Wilm.”
“Is that a name?” they asked. “Saturday Wilm.”
He nodded, choking down a hot, bitter hard-edged chunk that had come into his throat. “That is her name,” he told them. “And she will come for me, somehow. We need each other.”
“But that is not the person they expect,” Nils said in a puzzled voice. “It is Maire Manone they expect to come, not Saturday Wilm.”
“I do not know what Maire Manone will do,” he said. “But Saturday Wilm will come. And she will bring …” His voice trailed away, for he had just thought of it. She would bring. Of course she would bring. “She will bring with her what we all need.”
The little woman laughed, a short chortling sound, without amusement in it. She drew down her collar and ran her fingers over the numbers burned into her shoulder. “What we all need? What other thing than freedom?”
She gave her mate or lover or husband or whatever he was a significant look. Nils rose. The two of them took up the dishes and cup and kettle, ready to leave and go back wherever they went at night.
“Perhaps she brings freedom,” Jep whispered. “If that was so, would your people help to put an end to all this? All this slavery?”
Both the Gharm stopped where they were, like statues.
“We cannot,” Nils said. “It has been decided. If all of us try to go, if we rebel, if we rise up, then the Voorstoders will slaughter us all.”
“Tell me,” begged Jep. “Tell me about it.”
Half-unwillingly, they sat down by the fire once more, not relinquishing their hold upon the kettle and the dirty dishes, ready to rise and flee at the first hint of sound.
“Tell me,” begged Jep again. “Make me understand!”
Nils reluctantly put down the kettle, took up a stick from beside the fire and scratched some ashes onto the hearth, spreading them into a thin film with the side of the stick. In the ashes he drew a shape, a fat vertical with an even fatter leftward turn at its upper end, the whole like a leg with a swollen foot at the top, a leg very thin at the knee where it joined something long and flat.
“Voorstod,” whispered Nils, indicating the whole outline. He ran a finger from the toes to the knee, dividing the fatness into two, a wide calf-of-the-leg and bottom-of-the-foot, a narrow top-of-the-foot and shin. “The line of the mountains,” he explained, “running all down Voorstod, like a backbone.” He indicated the wider part. “The Sea Counties.” The narrower part. “The Highland Counties.” He poked a finger onto the foot, just above where the toes might have been. “Sarby County, where we are.” Other finger marks went toward the heel. “Panchy County, Odil County.” He came to the heel. “Bight County, with the town of Scaery, where Maire Manone once lived.” He proceeded down the leg. “Cloud County, Leward County, and the town of Selmouth. Then the three apostate counties, so the evil men call them, Wander, Skelp—Skelp, thin as a child’s neck—then Green Hurrah spreading out, right and left, along the shore. Below that is broad Jeramish, a province of Ahabar, with the army all along the border.”
Jep stared at the picture, memorizing what the little man had said. “What are the Highland Counties?”
Nils stabbed a finger at the lower edge of the foot. “County Kate is just south of where we
