IIIIT was not until nearly high sun on the third day that the message bird came back from Pelbarigan. Udge had been waiting impatiently all that time, calling her guardsmen several times each day quadrant to inquire.
Win, the new guardchief, spread the message before the Protector:
Yr. mess, received. Cannot return boy Gamwyn now. Too hurt. Think he may live with care. Will send when all well. Yr. Grdsmn. gone to Northw. on grnds of persecute. We wil wk tht out with you & Northw. in time. Gd. wheat harv. at Northw. Our apples prime. If you take radio, we can conver. abt such matt, as ths. No delay. Do you need help? Bless of Aven. Sagan, Prot.
Udge snatched the message and read it through again. She flashed a look at the waiting guardsman and said, “Call the four quadrant counsels.” Waiting, she tapped her fingers, crumpled the small sheet, then had to smooth it out again.
When they arrived, she handed the message to Bival and asked her to read it aloud. Afterward, she said, “See? She mocks me. Your mess received. Bless of Aven. Again she advises we take that contraption, that radio from those Avenless wretches from the dome. To talk about wheat and apples.”
“Perhaps it would have helped, Protector,” said Cilia, the Westcounsel.
“No. It would effectively bring us under their control. Craydor built this city because she had a superior way, both architecturally and socially. It is our duty to maintain that.”
“What about the guardsmen, Protector?”
“They are lost. It would be of no use for us to attempt legal action, despite their disobedience.”
“Perhaps not. We should try, Protector.”
“No. It would bring further embarrassment. Look at the tone of the letter. Sagan sees only an injured child, ferociously hurt by an irresponsible official, all because of a frippery. She could have prevented the guardsmen from going to Northwall. We will never get their return, or any discipline, now, from that pack of mongrels and Shumai lovers at Pelbarigan. Our silence on the matter may act as a reproach. We will have to control our own society and seek to maintain order that way. The whole Pelbar way is threatened. Well, they promise to return the child—if he lives. Of course he will live. We will see then what will happen.”
“What of the guardsmen’s families, Protector? Will they not urge them to return?”
“No. All six are young and unmarried. All come from impeccable families. But none of those families is really for me.”
“Well, then…”
“Don’t you see? Is it so difficult. They could not have planned it so fast. They had been thinking about defecting beforehand. They weren’t only saving the boy. They were escaping Threerivers and their responsibilities.”
“We’ll have to select guardsmen with more care, especially the males.”
“I’ve looked into that, Lamber. Two are from your quadrant All have exemplary credentials. We could not have known. They kept their traitorous thoughts to themselves.”
“Perhaps we will have to set up a system of informers, Protector.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps.”
The guardchief rang the small bell at the entrance. When she was admitted, she stood at attention and announced, “Protector, the boy Brudoer refuses to eat.”
“No matter,” said the Protector. “He’ll grow hungry. He is doing our work for us.”
“Our work, Protector?” the Eastcounsel asked. “Punishment, Suwor. Punishment. He needs discipline. His stomach will betray him sooner or later. Be sure the food is savory.”
“He throws it at the wall, Protector.”
Udge stood and clenched her hands. “Then make him clean it.”
“We have, Protector. He simply cleans it without protest, and without a word.”
“Then he must be manacled.”
“Protector. It is against the law of Craydor.”
“Ah. For punishment, yes. But he is clearly mentally unbalanced. It is for his own protection.”
Wim stood silently for a long moment. “This is very hard, Protector,” she said at last. “I believe that to be a lie.”
“Do you like your new position? I will not force you, Wim. I will give you a day to think it over.”
“There is one thing, Protector. The water-lifters know that Brudoer is not eating. They are restive.”
Udge paused, then said, “That is your concern, Wim. Control them. Now go.”
The guardchief bowed and left.
“Protector, perhaps we need to make concessions sometimes,” Cilia said.
“Concessions? Once you show weakness, it is exploited. Is this not the most ordered Pelbar city? Look at Northwall now—an anarchy. We will keep ourselves the way we are, Westcounsel. Now, leave me please. I must think this out.”
Afterward, in the growing dark, Udge, sipping tea, gazed out the west windows at the thin clipping of the new moon. By shifting her head she saw that the curve of the window fit the curve of the moon if one sat in the exact center of the room. No doubt Craydor planned that, too. Udge was getting a little sick of Craydor, meeting her at every turn. She could scarcely afford to offend Wim much. She could not easily find a more faithful guardchief. But perhaps she would have to. Who could have known Wim would have such scruples? Clearly, it would all take time.
She saw Brudoer’s weakness—anger—and would exploit it. No one could attack a counsel, no matter what the provocation. From somewhere outside, Udge heard a Pelbar hymn being played on a flute. She heard another one take up the harmony from far away. Males again. She felt a small burst of anger. They were telling her that she could end their singing of hymns, but they would make their music anyhow. Yes. She would indeed have to build a system of informers. Again she saw devotion to Craydor standing in her way. Damn Craydor. How could she keep the city to its founder’s ideals when the founder’s own ideas blocked her?
* * *
Bival returned to her room, but without Warret she could hardly make herself stay there. She felt his reproach keenly. She could not be angry with him forever. After all, he had worked hard for those chits, and she had simply taken them. But the shell was so valuable…. She knew that there were more secrets to Craydor’s designs than ever Were evident. She kept making new discoveries. Even the device, now not used, to employ falling water from the spring in the underbasement of Threerivers to raise water the first ten arms of its upward journey to the spiral tower was the work of a genius. Bival would work to restore the system, saving the water-lifters that much.
The Ursana had quoted Craydor in a new way for Bival. Though she felt anger at the time, she had begun to think. The old physician saw design largely in human terms, not as architecture or legal code. Bival began to forgive her treachery. Obviously the Ursana had seen Gamwyn’s face as a design, now horribly violated. Bival shuddered. Then she felt the loss of her shell again, and anger once more flashed through her. What would she do? She too looked out the window at the setting new moon, an eyelash of beauty in a quiet fall sky—two curves meeting, like the successive arcs of the terraces. Why had Craydor made them that way instead of rounding the terraces as bands—arcs of different radius from the same center? She tried to think that out, but her troubles bubbled up into her musings like swamp gas. Finally she lay down and stared at the dark curve of the ceiling. There was the moon again, in shadow. Bival closed her eyes.
Far below her, Brudoer lay in hunger, hating himself for bumping Gamwyn, hating Bival and the Protector, crying again and again, yearning to lick some of the stew off the wall where he had thrown it again. No, he would not.
From outside the prison row, back toward the ice caves, he heard a single flute playing, gently, he thought. It was the hymn of reconciliation:
Like two birds circling high in air,
each free, each tied to forces there,
so let us—
Brudoer clamped his hands over his ears, pressing his bruised palms against them.
Several levels above him, in their small family rooms, Brudoer’s parents sat in the darkness. They talked quietly, worriedly.
“What did the men say at work?” Rotag asked.
“Nothing. They studiously avoid it.”
“Are you being frank with me? I know they are concerned. I know they have been singing at night so Brudoer can hear. Pion, I’m not a spy for the inner council.”
“I feel their worry and anger. They don’t blame Brud. These tensions have been around for a long time.”
“You always increased them with your tales of Jestak and the Shumai heroes.”
“Oh, bird sweat. What am I supposed to do, discuss the writings of Craydor?”
“It might have been better, judging from the results. But I’m really worried. Brud isn’t eating. There is talk now of invoking physical punishment.”
“Isn’t it that already? And what about Gamwyn? Hasn’t he been physically punished?”
“They mean a public beating, Pion. There hasn’t been one for years.”
“To beat a boy? Even Udge has more sense than that.”
“I fear not. She seems more determined all the time, if I can judge by what I hear. You have to get Brud to submit and apologize.”
Pion let out a low growl, startling his wife. “Submit,” he said. “Submit.”
“We must. It’s the way things are. You aren’t a Shumai primitive, to go wandering around in the wilds. This is our only home.”
“The guardsmen got to Northwall.”
“By a ruse. That’s no way.” Rotag began to sob softly in the darkness. Pion sat by her and embraced her. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said.
That evening, Sagan, the Protector of Pelbarigan, stopped in to see Gamwyn. Royal, the dome physician, had knitted the boy’s face together and stopped the swelling. The Haframa, Pelbarigan’s native physician, sat with him. She was reading from the scriptures of Aven, even though she saw Gamwyn wasn’t listening. When the Protector arrived, the Haframa moved and set the chair for her.
“He can’t talk well yet, Protector,” she said.
“Thank you. I will not stay long. So you are Gamwyn the Terrible, destroyer of the snail shell. Are you feeling better?”
Gamwyn blinked and swallowed. “A little,” he said. “May I stay?”
“Until you are well, small one. Then you must return. That is Pelbar law.” Gamwyn shuddered, and the Protector put her hands on his arm. “Do you trust me?” she asked.
“Trust?”
“I see no very easy way for you, but perhaps a hard one. Can you do hard things if they are good ones?”
Gamwyn considered. “I don’t know.”
“Well, you decide. I will come back and ask you again in a few days. Meanwhile, be quiet and get better.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead. The amazed boy smelled roses faintly.
In the doorway, Sagan turned. “Have you met my grandson? Garet?”
“No,” said the Haframa. “He hasn’t been here.”
“He isn’t much older than Gamwyn. I’ll see that he comes. Good night.” She left, her guardsmen following. The Haframa gave the boy a slight, mysterious smile.
A half-month passed. At Pelbarigan, Gamwyn mended slowly. At Threerivers, Brudoer grew weaker, until finally someone pitched through the door grating a large pebble with a note attached. The guardsman at the end of the prison row lounged, studiously inattentive. Brudoer smoothed out the paper and read in the dim light:
Eat. You will need to be strong. Gam is getting better, we hear. He will return in ten or fifteen days. Whatever they do, you will need to be strong. I know little. Mother is very worried. Try not to hate so much. Leave that to me. All the city is upset. I will stand by you—if I can. I think that pigeon dropping Udge is intent on a public lashing. You will need to be strong. I can sense that. Pray. The man are praying for you. Get rid of this note. Father.
High in the Broad Tower, the Protector asked again to have Craydor’s law of imprisonment read to her. Bival read:
A prisoner is to be put in the first of the cells if it is open. In each case that shall be! called his cell upon incarceration. In thirty days, the situation should be resolved and the prisoner should be again united with the community or excluded from it. In no case may the prisoner be returned to his cell at the end of thirty days. In serious cases, he may be returned to his cell, that is, the first cell, after 120 days out of it.
“Now, do you hear what Craydor has said?” Udge asked. “Just what we always knew. In a matter of perhaps eight days now, Brudoer will have to be let go—at least for 120 days—or else excluded. It is all so strange. We have never used the six cells in my lifetime that I can recall. No one even goes there. The guardsmen found them thick with the dust of years. Wim told me. They didn’t even know what they looked like.”
“Stick to the point. Look at the wording. Craydor said the prisoner may not be returned to his cell, that is, the first cell. Look at it. She left a way out. He can be put into the next cell for thirty days. We can entice him to anger if he won’t submit. She must have foreseen a time like this, when the cells would come into general use.”
“But why keep him in the cells? Why not put it all behind us?” Cilia asked. “Look at the trouble it has caused, Protector. Why keep it up?”
Udge glared at her. “I am amazed that you don’t see what is happening. He has become a symbol of the weakening of authority. Our whole government is at stake. You can feel the stirring. We have to win this one, even if he is only a wretched boy. We have to stifle this general sedition, and it is here we will do it” She slammed her right fist into her open palm.
Bival felt herself very uneasy. The Protector’s plan seemed untrue to the spirit of Craydor somehow. Yet she had caused the incident, and Udge was protecting her. She could scarcely object.
The new guardchief rang the bell. “What is it, Rawl?” Udge asked.
“The boy is eating again, Protector.”
“Aaaaaggggh,” Udge said. “Too bad. Well, we have won that much over his willfulness. What have you been feeding him?”
“Rich stew as you suggested, Protector.”
“Change it. Give him plain food. Potatoes. Give the order.”
The guardchief paused a moment, then bowed and left.
Late that evening, Bival descended to the damp underbasement of the city. Warret had been living in the outer room at the entrance to the ice caves. She had finally recovered enough from her anger at him to seek a reconciliation. Balancing a lamp, she pulled the door by its curved iron latch. Warret was asleep on a stone bench, on which he had spread old fiber bags. He had covered himself with a woven rag spread. The room dripped with damp chill, but he had arranged a small vase of dried weeds on a shelf, and stacked his clothing neatly beside it. Two books of Aven and one mathematics text newly printed at Pelbarigan lay by them, creating a slight sense of domesticity.
Bival sank into the one wooden chair and regarded him. He seemed deep in slumber. She reached out a hand to him and shook him gently. He stirred and turned, then blinked his eyes open. “It’s too early,” he said, then, seeing Bival, shrank back, murmuring, “Oh, you.”
“Come upstairs with me.”
“I have seen that the room has been kept clean. You cannot fault me on that.”
“I haven’t come to fault you. Come up with me. Somehow I will make good your chits. This is embarrassing and demeaning. Look at you in this filth. I am now commanding you.”
Warret sat up and glared at her. She could see he was thinner and worn from the water-lifting. “Never. I can’t. You’re oppressing those poor boys. How could I look at any of the men? With him over there in prison because of you, you rancid wretch?”
In spite of her intentions, Bival felt the instant flash of an interior explosion. She threw the lamp at her husband. He ducked. It smashed on the wall, showering oil that burst into flame on the rag spread. Warret rolled upright and blotted it out, singeing his hands, wincing, grunting in pain, but persisting until all the flames winked out. Darkness flowed up, drowning the room. Bival stood in its center, fists clenched, trembling, feeling an egg of fear crack open in her. She could see nothing. Warret kept perfectly still. It had all gone wrong. What would he do? Bival turned and groped for the door. Pushing it open, she saw the guard’s light, and reoriented herself. She turned and paused, mouth tight, then fled upstairs once again.
* * *
At Pelbarigan, Gamwyn grew stronger. He was often visited by Garet, the Protector’s grandson, and eventually ushered around the bustling city, even to the academy with its mixture of peoples. He was dizzy with new impressions, but they meant little to him. One warm afternoon, the boys sat among fallen leaves on the bluff top.
“Garet”
“Yes.”
“It was all my fault, you know. I want to get another shell for Bival. Then it would all be right.”
“Another shell? You can’t. They come from the sea all the way down the Heart, I hear.”
“I’ve thought about it I can’t return to Threerivers. I will go. All the way. I can do it.”
“You’re only a boy. And untraveled. There are the Tusco and Alats, not to mention all the dangers of the wild country. You’ve never been anywhere.”
“Maybe. But I am going to go. You have to promise not to tell.”
“I’ll keep the secret. But you will be taken to Threerivers under guard.”
“There has to be a way. Do you think it can be done?” Garet mused. “I doubt it And it would be an embarrassment to our guardsmen if you escaped.”
“What would Ahroe say?”
“Mother would be bound to prevent you. My father would laugh. She might, too, privately. But escape’s out of the question. It’s too wild an idea.”
“But you won’t tell.”
“I won’t.” Garet eyed the younger boy. What a crazy notion. Him? Alone on a trip like that? “There may be Peshtak, too. I hear they are raiding westward again. They’ve killed some of the Tall Grass Sentani again. Look. The idea’s too crazy. It’s only a shell. A little piece of crumbly white stuff. Here, though. Do you know the way to the Koorb Sentani country? If you do run off, you could say you were going to get a shell and go to Koorb. They would take care of you.”
“Who wants to be taken care of? I want to make this right.”
Garet looked closely at him again. Now that his face was emerging from its wound, which slanted red down across his cheek, Garet saw a short nose, crested with freckles, and frank brown eyes, an intent mouth, a shock of brown hair. Garet shook his head.
“I’ll go, Garet. I will. I’ll find some way.”
Garet broke a stick into eight pieces. Then he said, “I know what my father would say. He’d say, ‘Try, Gamwyn, try.’”
“I will. It’s all I can do. You’ll see. It will work out.”