going to war about: protecting their profit.”
“Well, I’m surprised no one’s invaded this place.” The princess wasn’t sure why the heedlessness of Ansis Pelippé’s citizens should nettle her so, but she was nevertheless feeling exceedingly nettlesome.
“Invade? And muddy the waterhole from which all drink?” Cadrach seemed astonished. “My dear Miriamele ... your pardon, my dear Malachias— I must remember, since we will soon be moving in circles where your true name is not unfamiliar—my dear Malachias, you have much to learn about the world.” He paused for a moment as another gang of costumed folk swirled by, engaged in a loud, drunken argument about the words to some song. “There,” the monk said, gesturing after them, “there is an example of why that which you say will never come to pass. Were you hearing that little debate?”
Miriamele pulled her hood lower against the slanting rain. “Some of it,” she replied. “What does it matter?”
“It is not the subject of the argument that matters, but the method. They were all Perdruinese, unless my ear for accents has gone wrong from all that ocean roar—yet they were arguing in the Westerling tongue.”
“So?”
“Ah,” Cadrach squinted his eyes as if looking for something down the crowded, lantern-lit street, but continued speaking all the while. “You and I are speaking Westerling, but except for your Erkynlandish fellowcountrymen—and not even all of them—no one else speaks it among their own people. Rimmersmen in Elvritshalla use Rimmerspakk; we Hernystiri speak our own tongue when in Crannhyr or Hernysadharc. Only the Perdruinese have adopted your grandfather King John’s universal language, and to them it is now truly their first language.”
Miriamele stopped in the middle of the slickened roadway, letting the press of celebrants eddy around her. A thousand oil lamps raised a false dawn above the housetops. “I’m tired and hungry, Brother Cadrach, and I don’t understand what you are getting at.”
“Simply this. The Perdruinese are what they are because they strive to please—or, put more clearly, they know which way the wind is blowing and they run that direction, so the wind is always at their backs. If we Hernystir-folk were a conquering people, the merchants and sailors of Perdruin would be practicing their Hernystiri. ‘If a king wants apples,’ as the Nabbanai say, ‘Perdruin plants orchards.’ Any other nation would be foolish to attack such a compliant friend and helpful ally.”
“Then you are saying that the souls of these Perdruin-folk are for sale?” Miriamele demanded. “That they have no loyalty to any but the strong?”
Cadrach smiled. “That has the ring of disdain, my lady, but it seems an accurate summing up, yes.”
“Then they’re no better than—” she looked around carefully, fighting down anger, “—no better than whores!”
The monk’s weathered face took on a cool, distant cast; his smile was now a mere formality. “Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess,” he said quietly. “Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.”
Miriamele thought about the obvious truth of what Cadrach had said as they walked on, but could not understand why it made her so unutterably sad.
The cobbled paths of Ansis Pelippé not only wound tortuously, in many places they climbed in gouged stone steps up the very face of the hill, then spiraled back down, doubling and redoubling, crossing each other at odd angles like a basket of serpents. On either side the houses stood shoulder to shoulder, most with windows shadowed like the closed eyes of sleepers, some ablaze with light and music. The foundations of the houses tilted upward from the streets, each structure clinging precariously to the hillside so that their upper stories seemed to lean over the constricted roads. As her hunger and fatigue began to make her giddy,
“Well, I’m surprised no one’s invaded this place.” The princess wasn’t sure why the heedlessness of Ansis Pelippé’s citizens should nettle her so, but she was nevertheless feeling exceedingly nettlesome.
“Invade? And muddy the waterhole from which all drink?” Cadrach seemed astonished. “My dear Miriamele ... your pardon, my dear Malachias— I must remember, since we will soon be moving in circles where your true name is not unfamiliar—my dear Malachias, you have much to learn about the world.” He paused for a moment as another gang of costumed folk swirled by, engaged in a loud, drunken argument about the words to some song. “There,” the monk said, gesturing after them, “there is an example of why that which you say will never come to pass. Were you hearing that little debate?”
Miriamele pulled her hood lower against the slanting rain. “Some of it,” she replied. “What does it matter?”
“It is not the subject of the argument that matters, but the method. They were all Perdruinese, unless my ear for accents has gone wrong from all that ocean roar—yet they were arguing in the Westerling tongue.”
“So?”
“Ah,” Cadrach squinted his eyes as if looking for something down the crowded, lantern-lit street, but continued speaking all the while. “You and I are speaking Westerling, but except for your Erkynlandish fellowcountrymen—and not even all of them—no one else speaks it among their own people. Rimmersmen in Elvritshalla use Rimmerspakk; we Hernystiri speak our own tongue when in Crannhyr or Hernysadharc. Only the Perdruinese have adopted your grandfather King John’s universal language, and to them it is now truly their first language.”
Miriamele stopped in the middle of the slickened roadway, letting the press of celebrants eddy around her. A thousand oil lamps raised a false dawn above the housetops. “I’m tired and hungry, Brother Cadrach, and I don’t understand what you are getting at.”
“Simply this. The Perdruinese are what they are because they strive to please—or, put more clearly, they know which way the wind is blowing and they run that direction, so the wind is always at their backs. If we Hernystir-folk were a conquering people, the merchants and sailors of Perdruin would be practicing their Hernystiri. ‘If a king wants apples,’ as the Nabbanai say, ‘Perdruin plants orchards.’ Any other nation would be foolish to attack such a compliant friend and helpful ally.”
“Then you are saying that the souls of these Perdruin-folk are for sale?” Miriamele demanded. “That they have no loyalty to any but the strong?”
Cadrach smiled. “That has the ring of disdain, my lady, but it seems an accurate summing up, yes.”
“Then they’re no better than—” she looked around carefully, fighting down anger, “—no better than whores!”
The monk’s weathered face took on a cool, distant cast; his smile was now a mere formality. “Not everyone can stand up and be a hero, Princess,” he said quietly. “Some prefer to surrender to the inevitable and salve their consciences with the gift of survival.”
Miriamele thought about the obvious truth of what Cadrach had said as they walked on, but could not understand why it made her so unutterably sad.
The cobbled paths of Ansis Pelippé not only wound tortuously, in many places they climbed in gouged stone steps up the very face of the hill, then spiraled back down, doubling and redoubling, crossing each other at odd angles like a basket of serpents. On either side the houses stood shoulder to shoulder, most with windows shadowed like the closed eyes of sleepers, some ablaze with light and music. The foundations of the houses tilted upward from the streets, each structure clinging precariously to the hillside so that their upper stories seemed to lean over the constricted roads. As her hunger and fatigue began to make her giddy,
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