“I’ve been meaning to ask you a question,” said Abasio. “Every time someone mentions Precious Wind or Great Bear, I wonder how they got those names. Can you tell me?”
“ ‘Great Bear’ is a title given to a warrior who has won the imperial battle games. When Tingawa is at peace, there may be several Great Bears. If Tingawa is at war, many may have perished in battle. This Bear was born on the island of Zol, so he is the Great Bear of Zol. As for Precious Wind, she says on the day she was born, a sea wind brought rain sweeping across her island to break a long and terrible drought. So she was named Xu-xin, ‘Precious Wind,’ as I am named Xulai, ‘Precious Hope.’ The princess was Xu-i-lok, ‘Precious’ or ‘Treasure of the Ancients,’ as her father is Lok-i-xan, ‘Ancient Word of the Family Do-Lok.’ ”
“But Precious Wind is not called Xu-xin . . .”
“Here in Norland, only members of royal clans use their Tingawan names. Precious Wind says all others’ names are translated into some near equivalent out of courtesy. I am related to the clan Do-Lok, and I am Xakixa, so I must use the name as I was given it.”
Abasio mused on this as they passed the wall of a deep cistern being built against the cliff-side on their left, a stone wall creating a deep, curved trough, the inside of it being plastered to hold water, the whole structure held against the cliff by a net of thick ropes attached to metal rods driven into the cliff face. Farther on they could see other, completed cisterns, most with tarred canvas pipes leading upward to smaller catchments higher along the cliff.
“I wondered where they managed to get water on this cliff,” said Abasio. “Now I wonder where they get that rope.” He nodded toward the massive ropes to which the nets that held the walls in place were fastened. “Rope like that is expensive stuff. Since seagoing ships don’t sail anymore, there can’t be many rope walks left to turn out such thick cable as that.”
Xulai, staring wonderingly at the huge ropes, asked, “What do ships do with those huge ones?”
“They use them for anchor cables, mostly. It takes a very large cable to hold big ships against the wind.”
“And you know this how?”
His face went blank. He knew this because he had lived a life aboard ship. It had not, however, been his own life. Having lived a number of other people’s lives was not something to discuss at this particular time. “I think I read about it,” he said.
Xulai merely nodded. Rope did not interest her as much as the strange headdresses worn by the crews of workers, some of whom were digging out sections of the road, others of whom were filling the sections with large stones or dumping sand and gravel on them to make a more or less level surface. When the wagons approached, the people laid planks across the less level areas and stood aside with their heads down while the wagons were driven slowly across.
Ahead of them, a massive wall along the road was capped by a mud and stone village plastered against the cliff-side like a cluster of cave swallow nests: earthen houses packed close beneath deep overhangs of thatch, each little cell joined to others by twisting flights of stone steps and small, walled landings. Here the foundation walls of the houses were also held in place by heavy nets and deeply driven anchors. As they approached, they passed people carrying water from the cistern. Probably women, Xulai thought, though the figures were indistinguishable behind their robes and strange headdresses: boxes of stiffened fabric jutting forward on either side and down in front of their eyes, cutting off all vision except for a narrow view below and before them.
“You there,” someone shouted. Bear pulled the horses to a halt and awaited the approach of the bulky man who had hailed them. That is, if it was a man, Xulai thought.
“You were lookin’ at them!” the man exploded when he arrived at the wagon side. “Lookin’!”
“At what?” asked Precious Wind.
“Them: our people. We don’t take kindly to people lookin’, and her there in the wagon, she was.”
“Me?” squeaked Xulai. “I was looking at . . . ah, the nets that hold your houses up. My friend was saying such rope is very hard to find. Also, your clothes are . . . we’ve never seen clothes like yours before.” The man wore the same jutting side pieces and frontispiece and could obviously not see them. Though he spoke to them angrily, his eyes were fixed upon his feet.
“We don’t take kindly to lookin’,” he repeated. “House nets is our business. Clothes is our business. Can’t make you wear blinders, since you’re not becoming cherished, but you keep your eyes on the road, straight ahead, and you go right on through. Anybody gets in front of you, you look down.”
Xulai said (without at all planning to do so), “Are you all so hideously ugly you prefer not to be seen?”
His eyes rolled wildly as he tried to find someplace to focus them without looking at any of them. “We must
