Silver. North and south, however, boundaries depend more on the strength of the nearest houses. As you can imagine, the Caineron tend to push.”
“I think you could match any of your forebearers if you put it to the test. Anyway, how could a song stop anyone, much less a Caineron?”
“That,” said Torisen, “is part of the Kencyrath’s tangled legacy. I’ve told you how much knowledge we lost when we fled to this world. What we had left was largely oral, preserved by singers, with a few rare exceptions such as Anthrobar’s Scroll and Priam’s Codex, both since lost. Some of that has since been written down from memory, but much still exists only in songs and stories. You see the possibility for confusion. Once, we knew what was law and what was merely custom. Now that’s become muddled.”
“So the Jaran used a song as a legal precedent, and made the Caineron sit through the singing of it.”
“Exactly. They properly rubbed Caldane’s nose in his ignorance. Things get even more confusing when you consider the singer’s prerogative of the Lawful Lie. Take Ashe for example. I believe that she is true to the truth as she sees it, but how much of it is to be taken literally?”
“I see what you mean. We wolvers are singers too, and true to our songs, but one betrayed lover can speak for many, or many for one.”
“Just as Ashe makes one corpse speak for a company of the slain.”
“Aye, that’s certain,” said Marc. “That song of hers about the battle at the Cataracts . . . I never liked killing. Now I like it considerably less. Then too, she’s a haunt, neither quite alive nor quite dead. Her point of view is probably unique in our entire history. What are the odds, though, that several generations hence what she says now will be believed implicitly, especially if someone writes it down?”
“For people compelled to tell the truth,” said the wolver, “you’re in a fair mess, aren’t you?”
Burr gave an unexpected bark of laughter. “Tell us about it. M’lord, I haven’t mentioned it yet, but you have a visitor waiting below.”
“Only now you tell me?”
The Kendar shrugged. “I hoped that the Jaran scroll would explain him, but maybe there’s no need. He’s your new scribe, fresh from Mount Alban.”
Torisen sighed. “Then I had better greet him.”
He went down the northwest spiral stair, past the low-ceilinged hall that Marc now used to store coal to feed the fires of his two tower kilns. His steps slowed as he approached the ground-level death banner hall. Beyond a doubt, he needed help with his correspondences. As commander of the Southern Host he had trusted Harn Grip-hard—no, face it: hardly anyone could make out Harn’s writing but him. But Harn was Harn. This would be a stranger. A possible spy. He could now see the legs of someone wearing a blue robe, narrow back turned. The scribe was examining the death banners, specifically that of Kinzi, the last Knorth matriarch. Another step down, and Torisen saw that his hair was a wild shock of white.
The voice of his father woke in his soul-image with an outraged snarl: Of all insults . . . that Jaran bitch has sent you a filthy Shanir! Retreat now. Tell Burr to send him away.
Too late. The other had heard his foot on the stair and turned around with a tentative smile.
It was his cousin Kindrie.
CHAPTER III
Summer Solstice
Summer 66
I
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE arrived eleven days later.
In the north among the Merikit, the Earth Wife’s chosen one, Hatch, would fight to keep her favor. Jame wondered, though, if he would try very hard, given how he had avoided the role during her year at the college when she herself had held that position. She also wondered about the Merikit girl Prid, Hatch’s beloved, and about the new crop of babies credited to her, Jame, from her stint as the Favorite. It was odd to think about her growing family in the hills when among the Knorth she only had her brother and cousin Kindrie as
“I think you could match any of your forebearers if you put it to the test. Anyway, how could a song stop anyone, much less a Caineron?”
“That,” said Torisen, “is part of the Kencyrath’s tangled legacy. I’ve told you how much knowledge we lost when we fled to this world. What we had left was largely oral, preserved by singers, with a few rare exceptions such as Anthrobar’s Scroll and Priam’s Codex, both since lost. Some of that has since been written down from memory, but much still exists only in songs and stories. You see the possibility for confusion. Once, we knew what was law and what was merely custom. Now that’s become muddled.”
“So the Jaran used a song as a legal precedent, and made the Caineron sit through the singing of it.”
“Exactly. They properly rubbed Caldane’s nose in his ignorance. Things get even more confusing when you consider the singer’s prerogative of the Lawful Lie. Take Ashe for example. I believe that she is true to the truth as she sees it, but how much of it is to be taken literally?”
“I see what you mean. We wolvers are singers too, and true to our songs, but one betrayed lover can speak for many, or many for one.”
“Just as Ashe makes one corpse speak for a company of the slain.”
“Aye, that’s certain,” said Marc. “That song of hers about the battle at the Cataracts . . . I never liked killing. Now I like it considerably less. Then too, she’s a haunt, neither quite alive nor quite dead. Her point of view is probably unique in our entire history. What are the odds, though, that several generations hence what she says now will be believed implicitly, especially if someone writes it down?”
“For people compelled to tell the truth,” said the wolver, “you’re in a fair mess, aren’t you?”
Burr gave an unexpected bark of laughter. “Tell us about it. M’lord, I haven’t mentioned it yet, but you have a visitor waiting below.”
“Only now you tell me?”
The Kendar shrugged. “I hoped that the Jaran scroll would explain him, but maybe there’s no need. He’s your new scribe, fresh from Mount Alban.”
Torisen sighed. “Then I had better greet him.”
He went down the northwest spiral stair, past the low-ceilinged hall that Marc now used to store coal to feed the fires of his two tower kilns. His steps slowed as he approached the ground-level death banner hall. Beyond a doubt, he needed help with his correspondences. As commander of the Southern Host he had trusted Harn Grip-hard—no, face it: hardly anyone could make out Harn’s writing but him. But Harn was Harn. This would be a stranger. A possible spy. He could now see the legs of someone wearing a blue robe, narrow back turned. The scribe was examining the death banners, specifically that of Kinzi, the last Knorth matriarch. Another step down, and Torisen saw that his hair was a wild shock of white.
The voice of his father woke in his soul-image with an outraged snarl: Of all insults . . . that Jaran bitch has sent you a filthy Shanir! Retreat now. Tell Burr to send him away.
Too late. The other had heard his foot on the stair and turned around with a tentative smile.
It was his cousin Kindrie.
CHAPTER III
Summer Solstice
Summer 66
I
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE arrived eleven days later.
In the north among the Merikit, the Earth Wife’s chosen one, Hatch, would fight to keep her favor. Jame wondered, though, if he would try very hard, given how he had avoided the role during her year at the college when she herself had held that position. She also wondered about the Merikit girl Prid, Hatch’s beloved, and about the new crop of babies credited to her, Jame, from her stint as the Favorite. It was odd to think about her growing family in the hills when among the Knorth she only had her brother and cousin Kindrie as
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