“I’m not sure where the harm might come from,” Raamo said. “But I think it would be best if the children were not taken out on the public branchways.”
As he spoke, Raamo had been edging back towards the rampway, his manner hurried and distracted, and now he turned suddenly, and lifted his face upward and towards the east—towards the Temple Grove. “I must go now,” he said, and without even the palm-touch of the shortened form of the ceremony of parting, he hurried away.
Neric shook his head. “I’m worried about him, Genaa. He seems to be greatly changed. I can no longer pense what he is thinking.”
Genaa looked at him sharply. “We have all changed,” she said. “But I, too, have worried about Raamo. All this—this tension and mind-pain is harder for him than for most of us. He is too much wounded by the pain of others.”
As Raamo started up the Stargrund rampway, the twilight deepened into darkness and the first drops of the night rain began to fall. The rampway was deserted, and Raamo’s pace quickened. Surely the children would have been taken home to the Vine Palace by now. He had hoped to be there when they returned. He had hoped to be there, in case ...
For a moment the shadows that hovered at the edge of every thought concerning Pomma and Teera seemed to be parting, and Raamo stopped. Standing very still just where the rampway met the large central platform of the Grove, he lifted his face to the warm patter of the first rain and sent his thoughts out to search the shadows—to try to see what threat was hidden there. But as always when he faced it, the shadow faded back into the darkness, leaving only a pale flicker of warning. Raamo hurried on.
When he reached the Vine Palace, the tendril gate had already been set in place, and Raamo had to blow on the entry flute and then wait for someone to arrive to release the gates. He had not waited long before Eudic appeared, an old man who had been in the service of D’ol Falla for many years.
“Have the children returned from Orchardgrund?” Raamo asked the serving man.
“Yes, D’ol Raamo,” the old man replied. “They returned some time ago. I think they are now in the hall of food-taking.”
“Thank you, Eudic,” Raamo said. “And Eudic—you should remember to call me Raamo—only Raamo. The Council has decreed that the title D’ol is to be given only by the Council as a special honor. No one is entitled to its use now, except D’ol Falla.”
The old man nodded, making a gesture of contrition. “I know. I know, D—Raamo,” he said. “But I am an old man, and habits as old as mine are hard to break.”
Raamo held out his hands for the old man’s palm-touch, and then hurried on. The serving man stood looking after him until he disappeared in the dimness of the long hallway.
“Too bad, too bad,” the serving man muttered, his misty hair quivering around his shaking head. “It is clear that he is true Ol-zhaan—a Spirit-guided, such as were known in the early days—meant to seek the Spirit in the Peace of the Temple.”
In the hall of food-taking Raamo found Pomma and Teera seated at the table-board, just as the serving man had said. With them were their parents, Herd and Kanna Eld, and Valdo and Hearba D’ok. At the head of the table the high-backed tendril chair of D’ol Falla was empty.
“Where is D’ol Falla?” Raamo asked.
“She was very tired,” Hearba said. “She has already eaten and has retired to her nid-chamber. Will you share our food-taking tonight? We did not know if you planned to eat with us or at the youth hall.”
“I will share your food-taking,” Raamo said.
As soon as he was seated at the table-board, Raamo gave his attention to the children. They had been chattering gaily as he entered the room, but now they were silent. His sister’s blue-green eyes regarded him gravely; but when he tried to meet her gaze, she looked down quickly. Her lashes curtained her eyes and, pensing, he could feel that there were other curtains between them as well. Teera, too, would not meet his eyes, but like most Erdlings, she had not learned completely to mind-block her emotions. However, Raamo could pense no more than a vague and furtive fearfulness.
“Raamo.” His father, Valdo, was speaking. “I wish you could have gone with us to the meeting of the Ny-zhaan. It went very well. There was no trouble of any kind.” Valdo paused, waiting for Raamo’s response. It was clear that he wanted Raamo to acknowledge that he had been right, that there had been no harm in his arranging to take the children to the meeting. “There was great happiness and excitement,” he went on. “Many spoke to me of how their dedication was strengthened and heartened by the presence of the children.”
Raamo smiled. He knew his father well. Valdo had been a harvester for many years, and the high regard of the fellow guild members was of great importance to him.
Hearba had been watching Raamo closely, and now she asked, “The meeting of the Council. What matters were brought before it today?”
Raamo shook his head. “I will speak of it later,” he said. Turning to his sister he asked, “Pomma, did you enjoy the meeting of the Ny-zhaan?”
“Yes, Raamo,” Pomma answered quickly, but her eyes were still lowered, and she spoke shyly as if to a stranger. “The people were very happy that we were there. They called out my name—and Teera’s—and they threw flower petals in front of us.”
Suddenly Pomma was herself again, her eyes dancing and her lips twitching into a giggle. “Look,” she said, “Teera still has petals in her hair.”
Raamo sighed and turned his attention to mushrooms and pan in egg sauce, which had been placed before him. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps the children were not in such great danger after all.
Chapter Seven
RAAMO?” WASSOU SAID INCREDULOUSLY. “She is bringing Raamo? I don’t think ... Do you think I am recovered enough to ...
The healer, a large cheerful woman with a gift for brisk and sensible compassion, interrupted. “Of course,” she said. “You are nearly well. In a few days you will be allowed to return to your own nid-place.” Approaching the chair in which Wassou was sitting, she stared down at his upturned face with frank appraisal. “You are quite all right. Quite all right,” she said.
When she had gone, Wassou sat for a minute longer as if immobilized by surprise. It was true, he knew—the time was coming soon when he would have to face the outside world again. All of it, without exceptions. But it seemed, somehow, too soon.
It was not yet a full month since he had been carried, more dead than alive, into this chamber at the hall of healing. He could vaguely remember his arrival, but then nothing for many days, during which time he had been kept under constant hypnosis as a shield against the pain of his injuries. It had not been until a week ago that he had been allowed his first visitor, and it had been, of course, D’ol Falla. Since then she had returned almost daily and had sat beside him for many hours, in quiet companionship, or they spoke together of the far distant past. They had spoken of the days of their youth when, as young Ol-zhaan, they had for many years shared a close communion of deep intensity. But they had said little concerning the present and almost nothing of his wounding or of his current condition.
Almost involuntarily Wassou’s hand lifted, and the tips of his fingers moved very slowly across his face. The healers had told him that he had been kept in isolation for so long in order to protect him—that he was not yet strong enough to bear the strain of social contact. But he had guessed that there was greater need to protect those who might otherwise have visited him. He had not seen his face. His request for an Erdling mirror, or even a gazing bowl, had not been granted. But he could see what the Erdling knives had done to his arms and shoulders, and the tips of his fingers had told him much, more than he wished to know. And now D’ol Falla was bringing Raamo to see him.
He loved D’ol Falla. He had always loved her. But there were times when he thought that her great wisdom was like an ancient tapestry—a thing of beauty but full of unexpected holes. Was it possible that she had not foreseen the effect of this meeting on the sensitive, Spirit-haunted
boy.
Rousing himself, Wassou limped hastily to the windows and drew shut the hangings, closing out the soft green glow. Then he took a long hooded cloak from the wardrobe. Placing his chair in the darkest corner of the room, he seated himself carefully, pulling the hood forward as far as it would go around his face. He had barely finished his careful arrangements when the door hangings were thrust aside and healer entered, closely followed by D’ol Falla and behind her, the boy, Raamo.
Wassou waited while his visitors spoke at some length with the healing woman. It was obvious that she was overjoyed at the opportunity to speak with Raamo who, since the Rejoyning, had become the object of almost as much reverent adoration as the holy children. At her urgent request, Raamo sang the greeting with her, and then the parting, and both in the old unshortened version, while Wassou waited in a torment of anxious anticipation. When at last the healer departed, and the boy and D’ol Falla turned to cross the darkened chamber, pity and apprehension lay like a great weight at the pit of Wassou’s stomach. Then, to his horror, as D’ol Falla finished the greeting, she bent and pressed her cheek to his, dislodging his hood so that it fell back and revealed his face to Raamo’s gaze. As Raamo extended his hands for the greeting, his eyes rested on Wassou’s face, and the old man waited for them to widen in horror.
“It gives me great Joy to see you again after so long a time,” the boy said, and his eyes spoke of Joy and of concern, but not of distress and repulsion, as Wassou had feared they would.
“And I you,” Wassou said, pressing Raamo’s hands between his own and struggling to keep his voice from quavering with relief and gratitude. “Please be seated, both of you. And please, draw your chairs closer so we can talk more easily. There is fresh fruit on the table by the window. Won’t you have a paam or a small pan-fruit, D’ol Falla? The paams are the kind you like, the small green ones.”
The paams reminded D’ol Falla of how the small juicy fruit had first been developed by a gifted grunspreker when she was still a very young woman, and of how Wassou had brought her a basketful as a present on the first anniversary of their meeting. And so they spoke for some time of the past, as they had done so often in the last week. But finally the talk turned to the present, and Wassou asked for news concerning events that had taken place since he had been confined to the chambers of healing. He found that, suddenly, he was eager to hear what progress had been made while he had been recovering. He asked first about the new Garden being prepared for Erdling children.
“I have not been there myself,” D’ol Falla said. “But I have received reports concerning the Garden. Classes are scheduled to begin on the first day of the fifth moon. The building is almost completed, but there have been new delays in the training of teachers and in the planning of the classes. There have been many meetings between the educators, both Erdling and Kindar, and the Erdling parents, but little has been decided. The Erdling parents do not agree among themselves on how many of the traditional Kindar classes they wish to have included in their new curriculum. Most of them want their children to receive instruction in the Spirit-skills, but not all. And many are opposed to the classes in Love and Joy. There is, I’m afraid, only one area of complete agreement, and that concerns the classes in gliding and use of the shuba. The necessity for that has been demonstrated too many times to leave room for argument.”
“I know,” Wassou said, “only too well. There is an Erdling child in the next nid-chamber. He had only begun to take instruction and was not yet certified, but his parents allowed him to climb to the farheights with a group of his companions. He was just below the fronds of the roof trees when he fell. There is some doubt if he will ever walk again.”
“It is unfortunate that some of the Erdlings have moved into the heights before there was time to prepare for their arrival. Though their impatience is understandable, of course.”
“Are the immigrants to the heights still mostly young families?” Wassou asked.
“Yes.” It was Raamo who answered. “Many of the older people have found that they cannot overcome their fear of heights. So they prefer the surface cities. And there are some who prefer to go on living in Erda, just as they have always done. But wherever they go, all the immigrants want private nid-places—they do not like our youth halls and guild homes.”
“Yes, there are still many problems,” D’ol Falla said. “And not only concerning the Gardens and nid-places. Of late, since your illness, there has been a great deal of dissatisfaction among the distributors at the public pantries and warehouses, particularly in the hall of shubas.”
“The hall of shubas?” Wassou asked. “Are there then too few shubas for the immigrants. If that is true they must, indeed, be arriving in Orbora in great numbers. There has always been a great surplus of shubas in the warehouses.”
Raamo smiled. “The Erdlings have become very fond of shubas. Even those who live in Erda or in surface cities and do not glide or plan to learn have discarded their tunics for shubas. Everyone in Erda has a shuba now, or two or three. That is, everyone who has a friend or relative who has immigrated and is entitled to be served at the Orbora warehouses.”
“But there is more to the problem than the Erdlings’ interest in shubas,” D’ol Falla said. “The trouble arises from the difference in our systems of distribution. While we have always distributed necessities according to need, and all else by honor ranking, the Erdlings are used to an exchange based on small disks of metal, which are known as tokens.”
“Ah yes,” Wassou said, “I have heard the term. But I never realized its significance.”
“The tokens are earned by service, and they can then be exchanged for anything in any amount, as long as they last. Except for food, of course, which was carefully rationed, the Erdlings are not used to any other limits on their acquisitions. So the immigrants come to our warehouses and ask for many things; and because their needs and ranking have not been established, the distributors have been reluctant to refuse them. Even the goods that have been, by long tradition, reserved for Kindar of high honor, such as pan-wood furniture and the most richly embroidered shubas, have been asked for and given to the Erdling immigrants.”
“The silkhouses have been working extra hours and on free days, but still there are not enough shubas,” Raamo said. “And Kindar who must glide in ragged shubas are made unjoyful to know that fine new shubas are being worn now in the mines of Erda.”
“A new calling should be made for apprentices to the silkworkers’ and embroiderers’ guilds,” Wassou suggested.
“It has already been done, and several times. But the skills are not quickly learned,” D’ol Falla said. “And the time cycle from moth to worm to woven silk cannot be hastened. It will be some time before the number of shubas produced can be greatly increased.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Wassou shook his head. “Well, well. We foresaw that there would be many problems, but I think no one guessed that a shortage of shubas would be among them. But then, we predicted some that have not come to pass. One in particular. Regle has not returned to Orbora. We have been very fortunate in that respect. I would never have guessed that Regle would let seven months go by without returning to Orbora to try to vindicate himself—and to sow dissension between Erdling and Kindar. He still has not been seen?”
“No, he has not been seen, but—”
“But what?”
“Last week it was reported to the Council that a harvester who had arrived early in the orchard saw three men carrying heavy bags leaving the pan-grove. The harvester did not recognize them, but from his description it seems likely that two of the men were Tarn and Pino, two Kindar serving men who disappeared with Regle on the day of the Rejoyning.”
“And the third?”
“The harvester did not see his face, but he was wearing a white shuba.”
“A white shuba. An Ol-zhaan then. D’ol Regle himself?”
“No. The man was short and slighter in build. It could not have been Regle. But th
ere are others who disappeared—other Ol-zhaan. D’ol Salaat, of course, and then soon afterwards, Ruuro and Povaal. And recently there have been a few others.”
“What can it mean?”
“I don’t know,” D’ol Falla said. “But it is possible that Regle has established a settlement somewhere in the open forest and is gathering around him all those whose opposition to the Rejoyning has caused them to flee Orbora. It is a troublesome thought.”
“And Axon Befal? Has he remained in exile?”
“Yes. He and the three others who helped in the attack are still living in Farbelo, being watched by Erdling guards. They seem to be living quietly. There have been no recent reports of meetings or speeches.”
As D’ol Falla spoke, she glanced anxiously at Raamo and, following her gaze, Wassou saw that Raamo had risen to his feet. His face was very pale, and his eyes were shadowed. He began to move slowly towards the doorway with a stiff, shuffling gait.
“What is it, Raamo?” D’ol Falla said sharply.
The boy started, and then smiled distractedly. “I think, perhaps I had better go now,” he said. “There is to be a ceremony at the Temple—the Hymns to Nesh-om—I promised that I would take part in the singing.”
“Yes,” D’ol Falla said. “I, too, am going to the ceremony. But I will stay a little longer with Wassou. Go on ahead, Raamo, and I will meet you there soon.”
Raamo sang the parting and was almost to the doorway when he turned back to Wassou. “I have been asked to be present at the first day of classes at the new Garden,” he said. “When it is over, I will come again to tell you about it.”
“I thank you, Raamo,” the old man said. “I will be most anxious to hear. The Garden has been much in my thoughts these last few days.”
When the boy was gone, Wassou turned to D’ol Falla, frowning. “What was it? Is the boy ill, or was it caused by something that we said? I had expected—feared—that when he saw me, he might be ... The old man’s scarred face twisted into a rueful smile. “But there was nothing—he seemed hardly to have noticed, but now this ...
Until the Celebration Page 6
