Return to the Whorl

13. THE YAWL

A tent is not the most comfortable of accommodations in winter..I have tried a cave-and various other locations-and they are all of them better; yet we are in a tent, and it is my doing. By "we" I mean Jahlee, Oreb, and myself.

Yesterday morning we made port at New Viron, after having been detained within sight of the town by contrary winds for a full day. We were all exceedingly glad to get off the boat, as you may imagine. Even Wijzer was pleased to go ashore, or so it seemed to me.

Here I must interrupt the narrative I have not really begun to say that he offered to land us on Lizard, this despite the bad weather we were then experiencing and the poor anchorage offered by Tail Bay. I explained that although I was very eager indeed to get home again, my duty forbade it. I would have to report to the people of New Viron, whose emissary I had been, and take care of various other matters. It was a torture as bad as anything the Matachin Tower might impose to stand on deck and see, through pelting rain and driving spray, the tiny golden rectangle that was the window of our little house. You were sitting up late, Nettle, reading or writing or sewing, and wondering what had become of us. I wanted very much to see you, however briefly and at however great a distance. I was sorely tempted to send Oreb to you; but you, having ridden out that same gale at home, will understand when I say that I could not bring myself to risk his small life in such a fashion.

Another digression, but there is no help for it. I intend to send him to you as soon as he has recovered his strength; the sea was not kind to him, but he will be fit enough in a day or two, I believe. Meanwhile I hope to send you a little cheerful news by the Neighbors. It seems likely that they will be in touch with me here as they were in Dorp; if so, I will try to persuade them to carry another message.

The upshot was that we put in at New Viron. Oreb has a new phrase: "No boat!" It expresses my feelings as well as his, and better than I could myself. No more winter sailing, at any rate. The rest feel the same way, I would guess-particularly Jahlee, whose vomiting blood nearly killed her, and persuaded Wijzer's crew that she was gravely ill. (Hoof knows, I believe, although I have not told him. Hide says he has not, that he has told only Vadsig. I have not asked her; and it is at least equally likely that Hoof's suspicions were roused by something he saw or something Jahlee herself said to him.)

The inns here are dangerous, and after asking various people to recommend safe and decent ones, and being disappointed with those, we settled on the following arrangement: Hoof, Hide, and Vadsig- all that they can provide beds for-are staying with my brother Calf and his wife. Jahlee and I have bought a tent and pitched it in this sandy field belonging to the town, very near the sea. The town sent me out, and for the town I labored without payment for nearly two years; it owes me this and more, as I told the men sent to dislodge us. I hope to be summoned soon to make my report.

Gyrfalcon has declared himself calde, and seems to be making it stick. Hoof came, and we talked about it. He is a tyrant, or at least Hoof says that Calf says he is. Many think a tyrant preferable to the anarchy that prevailed earlier. That Hoof says also, and I could have guessed it for myself. For their sake, I hope they will not learn differently in a year or two.

We have been doing what we can to make the tent snug. Hide and I ditched it and cut brush that Jahlee arranged very cleverly against the sides to break the force of the wind. I should add that the weather is not as cold as it was, and that is worth any quantity of brush. We have a little copper stove, too, which keeps us warm and serves me to cook on. All in all, we are surprisingly comfortable. As soon as I have made my report and handed over my corn, I will buy a boat and go. After our storm-tossed voyage with Wijzer, I am in no hurry.

Sunshine and a mild wind; winter is about over. So I pray. When it began, I was in Gaon fighting the Man of Han; I would never have guessed that when it ended I would be nearly home. The Outsider has been very good to me. He reads this, I believe, even as I write it. The ink is not yet dry upon my thanks.

Hoof came again. We agreed that although I must remain here for the present, there is no need for him to remain as well. He will try to arrange for a boat to take him to Lizard. I gave him money for that purpose and this record, too, as far as the bandits. Without prompting, he asked if he might read it. I said he was welcome to, but asked him not to show it to you until I have a chance to speak to you. He said he would not. I begged him to keep it safe, explaining how important it is to me. He promised to make every effort. He is a good boy-too serious, if anything. He tried to tell me something but wept too much to get it out. We embraced and parted.

He has told me a little about his adventures before he found us in Dorp. I must get him to tell me more when next I see him, and set them down, with Hide's adventures in Gaon. I must not fail to do this.

When the apprentice visited me in my cell, I talked to him about writing, and the making of books. He brought a pen, ink, and paper such as they use in the Red Sun Whorl, and wrote out a few sentences for me: "You are the only client who could leave our oubliette, but chose to stay. You must have been in many terrible places if this one does not seem terrible to you." (I believe I am quoting him correctly except for his spellings; he used those of his city, which I cannot recall with any precision and which differ in many respects from ours.)

"I have been in places that were more dangerous than this, but in none more terrible," I told him.

"You must have been in Nessus. You said you walked a long way beside Gyoll."

"On another visit, yes. This time we went directly from our own whorl to the Broken Court."

"You can do that?" His eyes were wide.

"Go straight to the Broken Court? Clearly we can. We did."

He shook his head in disbelief. He does not have what is called an attractive face; although his piercing eyes smiled once or twice, I do not believe I ever saw a smile reach his lips.

"You could write a book yourself, if you chose. Nettle and I had a great many other things to do when we were writing what people call The Book of the Long Sun now; but every evening when the twins were asleep, one or the other of us would work on our book, and sometimes both of us worked together."

He picked up his pen and seemed about to speak.

"It's really only a matter of deciding what you would say if you were telling a friend. You have friends, I'm sure."

He nodded. "Drotte and Roche and Eata. Drotte's a little older than I am. So is Roche. Eata's a little younger."

"But you are friends, all four of you?"

He nodded again.

"Then pretend you are talking to Drotte and Roche. You must speak your best, and not show off as you might be inclined to do if you were talking with Eata."

"I see." He remained troubled.

"Unless we were writing some part of our book about which Nettle knew much more than I, I would write first."

"Like you were talking?"

"Exactly. When she had time, Nettle would read what I had written, correct my spelling and grammar-she is better at both-and add passages of her own. Still later, I would re-write, incorporating what she had written into our text and perhaps adding a few thoughts of my own. After that, she would make a fair copy and we would consider that section done."

"Look at that!" His pen jabbed at his capital Y "If Master Palaemon had written it, it would have been beautiful."

"Leave beauty to your words. If your letters can be read, for them that is beauty enough."

"You said your wife copied out everything you wrote."

"She did; but that was the least of the many things she did. At times we had to imagine actions and conversations. She is very good at that. In a hundred instances, she refreshed my memory on important points. While it's true that she writes a better hand than I, that was much less important."

"I never forget. I don't understand how anybody does."

"You're fortunate," I told him, "and will have a great advantage when you come to write a book of your own."

He shook his head. "I won't, until I have a scribe to make my writing look better."

"Will you have one?" When I looked only at his rags, I found it difficult to believe; but when I raised my eyes to his narrow, intense face I found it easy.

"When I'm a master. Master Gurloes has Master Palaemon write for him, mostly. But Master Malrubius used to make a scribe come and help him twice a week. They have to, if we tell them to. They're afraid of us."

"Understandably so." I looked around my little cell for the last time, conscious I would leave it soon and a trifle wistful already; it had been a haven of rest and prayer.

"You're not."

"Can you be sure? Perhaps I'm secretly terrified."

He shook his head with an obstinacy that recalled Sinew's. "I've seen a lot of that. You're not afraid at all."

"Because I'm not really here."

"That judge is afraid."

"He doesn't know, you see." I tried not to smile. "Or if he does by this time, he may be afraid that my daughter and I will leave him here. As we might."

"She's a witch, isn't she?"

To the best of my recollection I did not answer. "What do you say we pay a call on him? Will you show me where you've put him?"

For a moment or two he considered the matter, hand upon chin. "I shouldn't let you out…"

"I wouldn't ask you to. I'll let myself out."

"If one of the journeymen saw you, it would be bad." He was still considering. "Only in that black robe he might think you were one of us, if he didn't see your face."

"It would be better if I had a hood, wouldn't it?" I made one for myself in imitation of the journeymen I had seen, and added the decorations worn by Master Gurloes, thinking my white beard and hair deserved them. "Will this pass, do you think?"

"Blacker." (He was certainly a young man of courage.) "Ours are fuligin. Like soot."

I did what I could.

"I might be able to get you a sword. Want me to try?"

I shaped a sword such as I had seen in the hands of their journeymen, with a two-handed grip and a long straight blade.

"Can I hold it for a minute? Is it real?"

"Of course you can." I gave it to him. "No, it isn't."

"It feels heavy." Holding it clearly gave him pleasure.

"It's my old friend Pig's, as well as I remember it. Could you carry it for me? I'm no longer young, I'm afraid."

"We don't do that."

We went out, I through the door and he through the doorway.

To town this morning, determined to make my report, sat until midafternoon in Gyrfalcon's reception room, and returned here. Tomorrow I intend to go to Marrow's first-or at least, to the house that was his. I do not doubt that he is dead; Hoof would never lie to me about such a matter. But as I sat with little to do but think, it occurred to me that Marrow may have left a message for me. That is worth investigating, surely. It cannot be a waste of time worse than I endured today.

When the Prolocutor had me sacrifice in the Grand Manteion, I thought it no worse than a minor waste of time as well. Now I see clearly that it tipped the scales toward failure. Had I not acceded to his request, I might have found Silk, whom I heard was staying at our inn, although only when it was too late. Time wasted can never be recovered. I mean time that accomplishes nothing, and in which we have no enjoyment.

I have been playing with Oreb and scratching Babbie's ears. None of which I count as time wasted. I enjoy it, and so do they. Besides, I feel entitled to a little recreation after so much dreary sitting and staring. I find I cannot pray when others who are not praying are present.

No, I find nothing of the sort. I did not try. I will go again tomorrow, and if Gyrfalcon (who sent me out as much as Marrow and the others) keeps me cooling my heels again, I will pray. Perhaps others will join me. There's a cheering thought! I'm looking forward to trying already.

Silk prayed aboard the Ayuntamiento's boat with Doctor Crane looking on. If he could do that, I can do this.

Jahlee returned, cheerful and eager to talk. Our cool, damp, dark weather suits her. "It's much better than the snow, Rajan. Much! I have to keep moving to stay active, but I've slept so much already. I feel as if I'll never sleep again. And I'm getting hungry. It's wonderful!"

I made her promise that she would not attack children.

"Or the poor. You always say that."

"Very well. Or the poor. No one who doesn't have enough to eat. You'll agree to that, won't you?"

She smiled, briefly displaying her fangs. "I won't bite myself, if that's what you're worried about. Is it all right if I go back and bite the Man of Han?"

"He's dead, I believe."

"They'll have a new one by now. No, seriously, I want a goodlooking woman, someone like me. I won't kill her either."

"Or keep going back to her."

"Not more than once. You've got my word." She rose to go, the very picture of a good-looking young woman herself in her white furs. "Do you think I'd be better as a brunette?"

"Possibly." I considered her. "No, you couldn't be better. No conceivable change would be an improvement."

"Bigger breasts?" She tossed her hips, what Vadsig calls wiggling. "Smaller waist? I want your honest opinion."

"Bad thing!" This from Oreb.

"My honest opinion is that you shouldn't try it. You might break in two."

She laughed. She has a very pleasant laugh, but it seemed to me then that at her laugh our tent became a trifle darker. "I want to have sex with one of you. With one of your women, and feed afterward. Won't that be fun?"

She was baiting me; I waved it aside. "Jahlee, I've been wanting to talk to you about something serious. Perhaps this is the time."

"Do you want me to go? I can't blame you." Lifting her skirt, she danced toward the door of our tent.

"No," I said. "Not at all."

"That's good, because I can't keep it up long." She raised her skirt higher to display her legs. "Pretty, aren't they?"

"Very."

"But not strong. They're as strong as I can make them, though. I need to find another animal I can ride."

"You could have ridden your white mule from Dorp. It would have taken a great deal longer, of course."

She shrugged. "I might not have gotten here at all, and if I had, it would have been-you know."

"Flying."

"Don't say it. It's not wise. Anyway, I would have lost my mule even if I didn't lose my life, and I would have been separated from you. I don't want to be separated from you."

"Any other man or-"

"I don't think so. Anyway, I'm going into town to try to buy a new mule or something, if I can get a boat to pick me up."

I wished her luck.

"Merryn had trouble with animals, too," Jahlee said as she went out.

For some minutes I have been puzzling over that name. My first thought, naturally enough, was that "Merryn" was another inhuma we had known in Gaon; but there could be little point then in saying that Merryn, too, suffered difficulties with animals, since all inhumi do.

When the torturer's apprentice and I went to Jahlee's cell, there was an unhealthy-looking young woman with her, so pale and gaunt I feared that Jahlee had been feeding until I recalled that on the Red Sun Whorl Jahlee could eat (and could not eat) as I did-that the differences between our digestive systems had been erased, so to speak, since neither of us had any.

"This is my father," Jahlee explained to her, "but I don't know who the boy is."

The young woman had smiled, and seeing that smile I resolved not to trust her. "He's my brother," she said. "We're brothers and sisters, we witches and the torturers." Her voice was shrill and unpleasant.

"I brought her," the apprentice told me. "She's a witch," he indicated Jahlee with a nod, "and I thought another one might be able to help her."

Here I want to write that the young witch smiled again; but it was the same smile, which had remained upon her face as if forgotten. "She has no powers."

"You don't know her," the apprentice said.

"I sense none in her, and she says she has none." The witch rose, moving like a woman stiff with age.

"I don't," Jahlee told the apprentice. "I am a perfectly ordinary human woman." The happiness she had in saying it warmed my heart.

"I will go now," the witch announced; he opened the door for her and went out with her, locking it behind him. Through its barred window I heard him say that he wished to show us his dog. Possibly the witch made a reply that I did not hear.

Stepping through the door Jahlee said, "I'd like to see it. I love dogs." I followed her in time to see the witch's gaping mouth and the utter blankness of her large, dark eyes.

(I must remember to ask Jahlee about the secret. I cannot reveal it to Nettle, no matter how much I want her to know and understand. Jahlee could. She seemed in a good mood, and I should have detained her.)

We have a boat! The Outsider, seeing we required one, has arranged that we be given one at no expense and with very little trouble. But I am ahead of my story. This morning I located the house that had been Marrow's. It had been sold, but the new owner kindly referred me to a good woman named Capsicum who is disposing of Marrow's possessions.

"Here is his letter," she said, and showed it to me. I cannot reproduce it here, because I cannot recall the precise phrasing. Suffice it to say that he addressed her as "my darling," with other endearments, and that he asked her to distribute the gifts he listed, and authorized her to retain what remained for herself.

"We were friends for years, and after his wife died there was nobody but me. If it hadn't been for me, he would never have got to be what he did." She sighed; she has eyes the color of a blue china plate in a large, round face, and at the moment it held no more expression than the plate. "He'd still be with us." I asked her to explain, but she would not. "There's no mending it. You were a friend of his?"

"He was the chief of the committee of five who sent me for Patera Silk, and he certainly befriended me afterward."

"The one who was calde when we left?"

"Yes, exactly."

"Did you bring him?"

I shook my head. "I tried, and failed. Please understand meI'm not looking for a reward. I'm entitled to none. But I have the seed corn we needed and would like to turn it over to someone who will make good use of it. I had supposed that when I returned I would make my report to Marrow. Learning that he had passed away, I tried to report to Gyrfalcon. I was unable to see him, and it occurred to me that Marrow might have left instructions for me, some message."

"Do you need money? I might let you have a little." She rose with the help of a thick black stick and went to a cabinet.

"No. I've more than enough for my needs, and my family's."

I had risen because she had; she motioned for me to resume my seat. "What was your name again?"

"Horn."

"I see."

"We live on Lizard-Marrow and the others came there the first time we talked."

She said nothing. She is a large woman, quite stout, with a small mouth and a great deal of white hair.

"I should not have gone. I know that now. At the time I thought it my duty."

"What were you going to make from it?"

"Money?" I shook my head. "I didn't expect any, though I would have taken it if it had been offered, I suppose. But you're right, there was something I wanted-I wanted to see Silk again, and speak with him."

"Do you need a handkerchief?"

She produced one, small and trimmed with lace, and I was reminded poignantly of the big, masculine-looking handkerchiefs Maytera Marble used to carry in her sleeves. I shook my head again and wiped my eyes. "It's the wind, I suppose, or too much writing. I've been writing a lot, mostly by lamplight."

"That's where I write letters." She pointed to a little damaskwood desk. "See how the light from the window falls?"

I acknowledge that it seemed a good arrangement.

"Only I don't write a lot of them. You could come here and use it sometime if you wanted to."

I thanked her, and asked again whether she had found any mention of me in Marrow's papers.

"There's a lot of stuff." Her eyes were vague. "I haven't gone through everything yet. I'll look. Maybe you could come back tomorrow?"

"Yes, I'd be happy to."

"You're sure you wouldn't like something to eat?"

"No, but it's very kind of you."

"I would." She rang a bell. "If there's something for you, I'll have to make sure you're really Horn."

I nodded and assured that I understood her caution and applauded it.

"You must have been just a sprat on the lander."

I admitted it, adding that I had thought myself a man.

"Seems like a real long time ago to you. It don't to me. I must be, oh, a couple years older. I'd like to give you some money, too. But I have to know."

"I don't need it, as I told you; but as for identification, my brother Calf lives here. He'll vouch for me, I'm sure."

A slave girl entered, bowing. Capsicum told her to serve tea and to send in "the boy."

When the slave girl had gone, Capsicum unlocked her cabinet and got out two cards. "Real ones, like we used to have back home. The Chapter will give you four gold ones for each of these."

She seemed to expect me to challenge her assertion, so I said, "Patera Remora, you mean? I feel sure he won't, since they're not mine."

A boy of about ten joined us, and she introduced him as her grandson. "You have to go to the shop of a man named Calf, Weasel. This gentleman will tell you how to get there. Ask Calf to come here, please, and identify the gentleman for me. The gentleman says Calf is his brother."

My knowledge of these streets is somewhat limited, but I directed Weasel to the best of my ability and he nodded as though he understood. "Do you have a magic bird?"

I laughed and tried to explain that I had a pet bird, not a magic one. To confess the truth, I had not the heart to tell the little fellow there were no magic birds.

"Where is it?"

"I sent him to my wife, to let her know that our son Hoof is returning to her, and that the rest of us-our son Hide and his betrothed, and our daughter and I-will return to her soon."

Capsicum smiled at the prospect of a wedding. "Marrow'd have married me after his wife died, but I wouldn't let him."

I said I was sorry to hear it.

"Get along, Weasel. You go and ask the gentleman to come like we told you to, this don't concern you. We would've fought like a old dog and a old cat, Patera. I've never been sorry I said no."

"I'm not an augur. I realized that this is an augur's robe, but I'm not."

"You've got a wife, you said."

"Yes, I do. Augurs have wives, occasionally, however."

"Patera Silk did. I heard that before we left."

The slave girl came in, staggering under the weight of a tray loaded with tea and wine, cups, saucers, and wineglasses, and enough little sandwiches and cakes to feed a palaestra. I drank tea (and to please Capsicum a glass of wine) and ate a sandwich, which was excellent.

We talked about Viron for a time. I told her about the devastation that was the Sun Street Quarter, which she had supposed would have been rebuilt long since. "I don't think I'd have come, Patera, if it hadn't been for that. I had a nice place, the whole top floor in a real nice house, and my rent paid for half a year. Only it burned, and I thought, he's going away and I've lost everything, and if I don't go with him I'll lose him too. So I went."

She toyed with the cards she had taken from her cabinet, then laid them down; clearly they recalled Viron, and the rooms there she had lost. "Why are people so mean?"

"Because they separate themselves from the Outsider." I had not thought about it in those terms before and said what I did without reflection; but as soon as I had spoken, I realized that what I had said was true.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"A god." I was suddenly afraid of saying too much, of pushing too hard or too far.

"Just a god?" She took another sandwich.

"Isn't that enough for you, Capsicum? Godhead?"

"Well, there's a lot of them, and sometimes it seems like they're as mean as we are."

"Because they, too, have separated themselves from him. Nor are there really many gods, or even two. Insofar as they're gods at allwhich isn't far, in most cases-they are him."

"I don't follow that." She seemed genuinely puzzled.

"You have a walking stick. Suppose it could walk by itself, and that it chose to walk away from you."

She laughed; and I understood what had drawn Marrow to her years ago; she did not laugh for effect, as women nearly always do, but as a child or a man might.

"You see," I said, "if the Outsider were to make a walking stick, it would be such a good walking stick that it could do that." I held up the staff Cugino had cut for me. "But if it chose to walk away from him, instead of coming to him when he called to it, it would no longer be a walking stick at all, only a stick that walked. And when someone tending a fire saw it go past, he would break it and toss it onto the coals."

She studied me as she chewed her sandwich, and I added, "I myself have walked away from him any number of times; he's always come after me, and I hope he always will."

"It's only a walking stick when I walk with it." She held up her own thick black stick. "That's what you mean, isn't it?"

"Exactly."

Dusting crumbs from her hands, she picked up the cards and tossed them into my lap. "These are for you."

"I don't need them, as I told you."

"Maybe you will." Her right hand scratched her left palm, a gesture I did not (and do not) comprehend.

"Wouldn't it be better to wait until I've established that I am who I say I am?"

"Horn, the man Marrow sent to bring back Silk."

"Yes. Precisely."

She shook her head. "That's for what Marrow left. This's mine, and I want you to have it. Did he say why he wanted Silk?"

"Certainly. There was a great deal of disorder here, a great deal of lawlessness. Marrow and some others had tried to set up a government; but they could not agree on a calde, and most felt that if they had, the townspeople would not accept him. They would accept Silk, however, and the five who met with me had agreed to accept him, too."

"We don't need one anymore." Capsicum's voice was bitter. "We've got Gyrfalcon."

"Since I failed to bring Silk, that's all to the good."

She said nothing, regarding me over the top of her glass.

"You think he killed Marrow, don't you?"

"I didn't say so, and I won't."

"But you think it." I hesitated, scrambling for words that would make my meaning tolerable, if not acceptable. "I don't know that. I returned here only a few days ago."

She nodded.

"Let us suppose, however, that I did-that I knew beyond question that Marrow, who fought beside me in the tunnels and did everything he could to assist me in the mission he gave me, had been murdered, and that the new calde here was his murderer." I laid the cards she had given me on the tray. "Even knowing that, I would have to consider what would happen to the town if he were stripped of power and tried. It would be difficult to overturn a mountain-I believe you will agree with that. But it would be easier to overturn a mountain than to replace it."

When she did not speak, I said, "I am giving you back your cards. It wouldn't be right for me to keep them."

The boy Weasel returned and reported that Calf would not come but had given him a note. Capsicum broke the seal, unfolded the note, and read it twice. I asked whether I might read it too, since it concerned me.

She shook her head, carried the note to her cabinet, and locked it in a drawer. "It says you're who I thought you were, Horn. Only there's some personal stuff in there I wouldn't want anybody else to see unless Calf said it was all right. You've been hoping Marrow left a letter for you or something?"

"Yes. Did he?"

"No. Or anyway I haven't found it. He did leave you something, though. A boat."

My face must have shown my surprise.

"He wanted to give you something, I guess. Probably he thought a boat wouldn't be any use to me, and I'd just sell it. I would have, too, if it hadn't been on the list to keep for you. I don't know much about them."

We went to the harbor to see her, walking slowly through cold sunshine, accompanied by her grandson and another boy of the same age. Wavelily is the name across her stern. It reminds me painfully that "Lily" was the name of Tongue's daughter, who was murdered during my absence; I will rename the boat Seanettle. She is a yawl (a rig I had not sailed before) with a tall mast forward and a small one aft.

"You think you can handle her alone?" Capsicum asked. "I won't be much help."

I was surprised she wanted to sail at all, and said so.

"I've been down to look at her a couple of times." Almost defensively she added, "It's what I'm supposed to do. Marrow wanted me to look after all this."

"Of course."

She turned study the yawl, her heavy black stick thumping the warped planks of the pier. "When I was younger… "

I pointed to Weasel and his friend, who were already on board. "Would you like to take her out?"

She is wider in beam than my old sloop, I would say, and perhaps a trifle shorter; but she handles every bit as well and rides the waves like a duck, and that is what matters. I had Capsicum take the tiller, cautioned her against putting it over too fast, and saw to the sails with the help of the boys, setting the big gaff mainsail, the little threecornered jigsail that was furled on the mizzen boom and is probably the only sail the mizzen has, and a jib. (There is a flying jib as well, a square sail that can be set on the topmast, and two as yet unexplored bags in the sail locker.) It was obvious she could have carried more, but on a strange boat I thought it wise to be cautious. With that sail, we churned right along; the boys were delighted, and so I believe was Capsicum.

"I swore when I came here that I would never sail again in winter if I could help it," I told her, "but I maintain that I have kept my oath. This is spring sailing, really."

She nodded, her cheeks red, her nose running, and her big, round face radiant. "There's floatflowers in this wind."

A small hand tugged at my coatsleeve. "Is he coming back?"

"Is who coming back?"

"Weasel says you told him to talk to somebody else."

"Oh. Oreb. Yes, I did. I sent him to talk to my wife." I was watching the draw of the mainsail, and not paying a great deal of attention to the small solemn face before me.

"Is he coming back?"

"I hope so. He always has, though he was gone for nearly a year once."

Capsicum patted the gunwale beside her and shooed the boys away. "You're in danger. Do you know that?"

I sat. "Not from those children. At sea, one is always in some danger; but at the moment, that's not at all severe. From Gyrfalcon, is that what you mean?"

She nodded.

"Then I know nothing of the kind. I know you thought I might be when we talked about his becoming calde-your tone and expression made that plain. But Gyrfalcon was a member of the committee that sent me after Silk. He can hardly object to my having tried to carry out his instructions, and if he punishes me for failing…" I shrugged.

"You said they thought that if one of them got to be calde the people wouldn't agree."

It was not precisely what I had said, but I nodded.

"But they'd be happy with you. I think you're right." She looked pensive.

"I said nothing of the kind. I said that it was thought they might accept Calde Silk."

She remained silent after that, I believe until I had put the yawl about and started back to New Viron. Then she began to talk about the possibility that Gyrfalcon might be overthrown. "He'll kill you, Patera, if you give him time."

"New Viron's sickness is not Gyrfalcon," I told her. "It was a cruel and lawless place without him, and it seems to me that it's better with him, if anything. A bad horse needs a big whip, as the saying goes. We overthrew the judges of Dorp. Possibly you've heard."

She was silent. The two boys drew nearer to listen.

"It was easy-so easy that a young friend and I ordered the judge presiding over my trial to convict me, because the uprising I planned might not have taken place if he had not. He wanted to dismiss the charges against me, you see, because he was afraid. Keep your heading, please. You're letting us drift downwind."

I took the tiller myself and corrected our course.

"I got to know the people of Dorp," I told her. "They're good people-brave, hardworking, and much cleaner than we. Shrewd traders, but kind and basically honest. The judges had taken advantage of their good qualities, and so the judges had to go; if I had not removed them, the people themselves would have within a few years. Gyrfalcon isn't taking advantage of the good qualities of the people, from what I've seen. He's taking advantage of their bad ones. If they are too quarrelsome to unite against him, and so violent that they'll willingly pay his taxes to be protected from one another, they have no reason to complain."

When she still appeared unconvinced, I told her, "Dorp was like Viron-it needed a better government. New Viron needs better people."

The harbor was in sight, and I instructed Weasel and his friend in lowering the mainsail, then had them stand by its halyards. A black speck in the distance caught my eye, and I waved to it before resuming my seat on the gunwale. "In its present state," I told Capsicum firmly, "New Viron couldn't be governed by a good person-by General Mint, for example."

"Or Silk."

"Or by Silk. You're quite correct. Either would have to grow worse, or give the tiller to someone else."

Oreb reached our boat (I should have mentioned this when I wrote yesterday evening) shortly after we dropped the mainsail, and was soon announcing, "Bird back!" and "Good Silk!" and pulling my hair as usual. All his nonsense.