Voices aotws-2

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  Late in the afternoon one of the leaders of these troops, a young man, hawk-faced and handsome, Retter Gelb of Gelbmand, urged his plan for the expulsion of the Alds from the city. Meeting some opposition among others there, he turned to the Waylord. “Galva! Did you not hold the book of the oracle in your hand, did we not hear its voice, Set free? How can we set our people free so long as the Alds’ very presence here enslaves us? Can the meaning of the words be clearer?”

  “It might,” said the Waylord.

  “If it’s not clear, then consult the oracle again, Reader! Ask it if this isn’t the moment to seize our liberty!”

  “You may read for yourself’ the Waylord said mildly, and taking a book from his pocket, he held it out to Retter Gelb. The gesture was not threatening, but the young man started back and stood staring at the book.

  He was young enough that, like many people of Ansul under the Alds, he had perhaps never touched a book, never seen a book except torn to fragments, thrown into a canal. Or it may have been fear of the uncanny, of the oracle, that came over him. He said at last, hoarsely, “I can’t read it.” And then, ashamed and trying to regain his challenging tone, he said, with a quick glance at me, “You Galvas are the Readers.”

  “Reading was a gift we all shared once,” the Waylord said, his voice no longer mild. “Time, maybe, that we all relearn it. In any case, until we understand the answer we got, there’s no use asking a new question.”

  “What good is an answer we don’t understand?”

  “Isn’t the water of the fountain clear enough for you?”

  I had never seen him so angry, a cold, knife-edge anger. The young man drew back again; after a pause he bowed his head a little and said, “Waylord, I beg your pardon.”

  “Retter Gelb, I beg your patience,” he responded, still very coldly. “Let the fountain run water a while before it runs blood.”

  He set the book down on the table and stood up. It was a small book bound in dun-colored cloth. I didn’t know if it was the book that had given us the oracle or some other.

  Ista and Sosta were coming in with lamps.

  “A good evening to youall, and a peaceful night,” the Waylord said, and taking up the book again, limped away from the crowd of people, back towards the shadowycorridors.

  People left the house, then, bidding me a subdued good night. But many of them stayed to stand about on the maze in the courtyard, talking. There was a sense of unrest, unease, all through the city, a stir in the warm, windy, darkening air.

  Gry came out of the house with Shetar on the leash and said to me, “Let’s walk over to Council Hill and see what’s doing,” and I gladly joined her. Orrec, she said, was in the house, writing; he had mostly kept to their apartments that day. He didn’t want to be part of the discussions and debates, she said, not being a citizen of Ansul, yet knowing whatever he said would be grasped at eagerly and given undue weight. “It worries him,” she said. “And this feeling that something is about to happen, some violence, something fatal that can never be undone…”

  As we walked, people constantly greeted us, and saluted Gry and her lion, the first to face down Iddor and the redhats. She smiled and returned the greetings, but in a quick, shy way that did not lead to further talk. I said, “Does it scare you–being a hero?”

  “Yes,” she said. She laughed a little and shot me a glance. “You too,” she said.

  I nodded. I led us off Galva Street to a byway where we would meet nobody and could talk quietly as we walked.

  “At least you’re used to all these people. Oh, Memer, if youknew where I came from! One street of Ansul has more houses in it than there are in all the Uplands. I used to go months, years, never seeing a new face. I used to go all day never speaking a word. I didn’t live with human beings. I lived with dogs, and horses, and wild creatures, and the hills. And Orrec… None of us knew how to live with other people. Except his mother. Melle. She came from the lowlands, from Derris Water. She was so lovely… I think his gift is from her. She used to tell us stories… But it’s his father he’s most like.”

  “How is that?” I asked.

  She pondered and spoke. “Canoe was a beautiful, brave man. But he feared his gift, and so he hid his heart. Sometimes I see Orrec do that. Even now. It’s hard to take responsibility.”

  “It’s hard to have it taken from you,too,” I said, thinking of the Waylord’s life all the years I had known him.

  We came back to the street at Goldsmiths’ Bridge and went on up to the Council Square. There were a lot of people there, drifting and swirling about, mostly men, and many of them carrying weapons. Someone was haranguing the crowd from the terrace of the Council House, not too successfully, for people kept coming to listen and drifting away again. Over on the east side of the square was a solid line of both men and women, some afoot and some sitting down, keeping their place side by side and very much on the alert. I spoke to one of the women, a neighbor of ours, Marid; she told us they were there “to keep the kids from get~ ting into trouble.” Beyond them, down the hill, torches gave enough light that we could just make out the cordon of Ald soldiers guarding the barracks. These citizens had made themselves a barrier between the crowd and the soldiers, preventing random insults and forays against the Alds byyoung men looking for a fight or byidle stone-throwers. Anybody trying to provoke the soldiers into violence would have to break through that line of fellow citizens. It continued on across the square, in front of the stables, where I had sat and talked with Simme.

  “You are a remarkable people,” Grysaid to me as we went back across the square. “I think youhave peace in yourbones.”

  “I hope so,” I said. We were in the center of the square, where the great tent had been. The wreckage was gone now; there was no trace of it except the blackening of the pavement stones, a slight crunch of ash and cinders under the feet. We were walking where Desac had died, burnt alive in the fire he had set. I shuddered all over, and Shetar, at the same moment, set up a long, strange wail, stretching her head up. I remembered how she had taken against Desac, glared at him. I saw him alive, straight-backed and soldierly, arrogant, passionate, talking with the Waylord– “We’ll meet again, free men in a free city!” he had said. His shadow was all round us.

  Returning, we crossed the bridge and paused at the railing from which we had seen a man thrown to his death. We looked down at the dark canal that reflected a glimmer or two of light from the houses on the bridge. Shetar growled a little, informing us that she did not want to go back down there and go swimming again. A band of boys ran past us, shouting a chant I had heard several times in the street that day, “Alds out! Alds out! Alds out!”

  “Let’s go down to the Lero Stone,” I said, and we did; neither of us wanted to go inside on this strange night, with the city all awake and restless about us, and it was good to walk, too, after sitting still listening to people talk all day. We cut down by the Slant Bridge on Gelb Street to West Street and to the Stone. A good many people were there, quietly waiting and doing as I came to do: to touch the Stone and say the blessing of Lero, who holds the balance.

  We started back up West Street. I said, not knowing that I was going to say it, “Did you and Orrec never have children, Gry?”

  “Yes. We had a daughter,” she answered in her quiet voice. “She died of the fever in Mesun. She lived a half year.”

  I could say nothing.

  “She’d be seventeen now. How old are you, Memer?”

  “Seventeen,” I said, finding it very hard to say.

  “I thought so,” Gry said. She smiled at me. I saw her smile in the faint lamplight of the High Bridge. “Her name was Melle,” she said.

  I said the name and felt the touch of the little shadow.

  Gry reached out her free hand to me, and we walked hand in hand.

  “This is Ennu’s day,” I said, as we came to the turning of Galva Street. “Tomorrow will be a day of Lero. The balance will turn.”

  * * *


  IN THE MORNING it seemed that the balance might have turned already: we heard early that there was a great crowd gathering in the Council Square, not yet offering violence but noisy and determined, demanding that the Alds leave the city this same day. The Waylord conferred briefly with Orrec, and they came into the gallery together. Orrec looked tense and strained. He spoke to Gry for a moment, and she went to shut Shetar into the Master’s room, while Gudit brought out both horses. Orrec mounted Branty. Gry mounted Star, and I ran with her, following Orrec through the crowds in Galva Street. They willingly parted for us, calling out Orrec’s name.

  He rode to the line of citizens still holding firm in the square in front of the line of soldiers. There he asked both the citizens and the soldiers if he might speak with the Gand Ioratth. They let him through at once. He dismounted and ran down the steps towards the Ald barracks.

  I held Branty’s bridle now, there in the crowd, like a real groom. He didn’t need much holding. He stood solidly, alert but not troubled by the hubbub all round, and I tried to imitate him. Star shook her head often, whuffing and shuffling when people pressed up too close, and I tried not to imitate her. I was glad, though, that the horses kept a little space around us, for the presence of so many people was overwhelming. I could not think clearly, and emotions ran through me–elation, dread, excitement–they ran through us all, like the wind through leaves on a tree before a storm. I held Branty’s bridle and watched Gry’s face, which was still and calm.

  There was a deep roaring in the crowd nearer the steps of the Council House; everybody turned that way, but I could see nothing over the heads and shoulders. Gry touched my arm and indicated that I should mount Branty. “I can’t!” I said, but I couldn’t hear myself, and she was making a hand stirrup for me, and a man near us said, “Up you go, girl!”—and I was abruptly sitting in the saddle on Branty’s back, bewildered. Gry swung up onto Star, right beside me. “Look!” she said, and I looked.

  People stood on the speakers’ terrace: a woman in a dun-and-white striped gown, and Orrec in his black coat and kilt. They looked very small and bright to me, like images. The crowd was shouting and chanting. Some people were calling out, “Tirio! Tirio!” A man near us shouted ragefully, “Ald’s whore! Gand’s whore!” and immediately people turned on him, shouting at him with equal rage, while others tried to hush and separate them. I could not reach the stirrups with my feet and felt most insecure perched way up there on the saddle, but Branty stood like a rock, and I was at least safe from the pushing and trampling of the crowd. Gradually the noise died away; Orrec had raised his right hand. “Let the maker speak,” people cried, and silence spread out slowly across the crowd, as the water of the fountain had spread out across the wide basin. When he spoke at last his voice rang out, distant but clear and resonant.

  “This is Lero’s day,” he said. And said nothing further for a long time, for the whole crowd took up the deep, slow chant of “Lero, Lero, Lero!”—and my breath caught and tears filled my eyes and I was chanting with them, “Lero, Lero, Lero… ” At last he raised his hand again, and the chant died away down the streets leading to the square.

  “I who am not of Ansul and not of Asudar–will you let me speak again to you?”

  “Yes!” the crowd roared, and, “Speak! Let the maker speak!”

  “Tirio Actamo, daughter of Ansul and wife of the Gand of the Alds, stands here with me. She and her husband ask me to say this to you: The soldiers of Asudar will not attack you, they will not interfere with you, they will not leave their barracks–such are the Gand Ioratth’s orders, and his soldiers will obey. But he cannot order the soldiers to leave Ansul without the consent of his king in Medron. So he waits to hear from Medron. And he, and Tirio Actamo, and I beg you to be patient, and to take your city back and claim your freedom in peace, not in blood. I who saw the ruler, betrayed and imprisoned, set free–I who with you saw water leap from the fountain that was dry two hundred years, and heard with you the voice that cried aloud from silence–I your guest–while we wait together for Lero to show us how the balance falls, and whether we are to destroy or to rebuild, to fall to war or walk in peace–while we wait, may I offer in return for your hospitality and the grace of the gods of Ansul a story, a story of war and peace, of slavery and freedom? Will you hear the Chamhan? Will you hear the tale of Hamneda when he was made a slave in Ambion?”

  “Yes,” the crowd said, and now the sound was like a great, soft wind in grass. We could all feel the tension in us lessening, and we were grateful for it, grateful to the voice that freed us from dread and passion and unreason, if only for a little while, for the time it takes to tell a story.

  Anywhere else in all the Western Shore, people would have known that story; even here, where the books had been destroyed, many in the crowd knew it, or at least knew the hero’s name. But many had never read the story nor heard it told. And to hear it told aloud, among a great throng, openly, asserting our inheritance as our right and our heroes as our own―that was a great thing to us, a great gift Orrec gave us. He told it as if he himself had never known it before and discovered it as he spoke it, as if the betrayal of Hamneda by Eloc appalled him, as if he were chained and beaten with Hamneda, and wept with him at the torture and death of old Afer, and feared for the slaves who risked their lives to help him escape. He was no longer telling the Chamhan I had read, but his own tale in his own words, when he came to the confrontation in the palace of Ambion, when Hamneda released the tyrant Ura from his chains, bidding him be gone from Ambion, and said to the rebels of the city, “Freedom is a lion let loose, the sun rising: you cannot stop it here or there. Give liberty to have liberty! Set free to be free!”

  Since then I have heard people maintain that that is what the voice of the oracle said on the steps of Galvamand: Setfree to be free. Maybe it was so.

  In any case, when they heard those words, the crowd in the Council Square made the sound a great crowd makes when it hears said what it wants to hear. When Orrec finished the tale they were not silent, but roared praise, and their mood was jubilant, as if they themselves had been freed from constraint or dread. They flooded up around Orrec on the terrace of the Council House, and Gry and I had no chance at all of getting to him.

  We could, however, from our horseback height, see him and Tirio; and we saw the crowd begin to swirl around them and carry them slowly towards Galva Street. Gry hopped off Star and shortened my stirrups, then swung up again into her saddle. “Hold with your knees and never mind the reins,” she called, and we set off, surrounded by our own swirl of praise and jokes and shouting, on my first horseback ride―out of the square, across the three bridges of Galva Street, to Galvamand.

  The people parted and made way for us, so that we soon caught up to Orrec and Tirio. Dismounting at our stable gate, I ran back to the house in time to see Tirio’s meeting with the Waylord in the gallery. He stood up, seeing her, and she ran forward with her hands held out, saying his name, “Sulter!” They embraced and held each other, both in tears. They had been friends when they were young, maybe lovers, I don’t know; they had known each other in youth and wealth and happiness and then been separated for years of shame and pain. He was crippled. She had been beaten, her hair torn out. I remembered how he had said to me, long ago, tenderly. “There’s a good deal to weep about, Memer,” I cried then too, for them, for the grief of the world.

  Orrec came beside me, as I stood there inside the doorway trying to hide my tears. His face still had the bewildered brightness of one who has been acclaimed, taken out of himself by the power of the crowd; but he put his arm round my shoulders and said softly. “Hello, horse thief.”

  * * *

  IT SEEMED AS IF Orrec and Lero had tipped the balance. That day and the days following, there was still tremendous unrest in the city, but it was less rageful, less threatening. There was a lot of angry talk, but fewer weapons were brandished. The Council House was opened for debate on the planning of an election.

  Peopl
e kept coming to Galvamand to talk in the gallery and to dance the maze―I saw it at last, I saw women dance the maze. After a day or two, Ista went out among them, scowling, with a dishcloth in her hand, and said, “You’ve got it all wrong. You turn here, when you sing ‘Eho!’ and then you turn there.” And she showed them how to dance the blessing properly. After that she went back to the kitchen.

  She was working very hard, and so were Bomi and I and even Sosta. People kept bringing gifts to the house, gifts of food, knowing how strained our hospitality must be with the endless flow of guests. Ista had brought herself to accept them, not as gifts exactly, or honor, or tribute, but as what was due the Waylord and his house―as debts owing and repaid. So her mind worked, like many minds in Ansul. If we have peace in our bones, we have commerce in them too.

  Ialba went back with Tirio to help her care for Ioratth, whose burns were severe and slow to heal. The next day Tirio sent three women from the barracks to help us keep the house. They were city women who had been taken and kept as slaves for the use of the soldiers, like Tirio. As she won the Gand’s favor, she had been able to bring them out of utter subjugation to a more decent servitude. One of them, who had been taken and used by the soldiers as a girl of ten or eleven, was crippled and a little mad, but if we set her at any task of cleaning where she could work alone, she worked hard and contentedly. The others had both been of respectable households, knew how to keep a house, and were of great assistance to us.

  Ista was inclined at first to treat them coldly and tried to keep them from talking to Sosta and me―look at what they’d been, after all, no doubt it wasn’t their fault, but they were no fit company for young girls of a good house, and so on. They and I paid no attention to that. One of them had a man friend she’d known as a slave; he moved right in and took a hand with the heavy work. Gudit got on pretty well with him, because he had been a cartwright, and could plan how to build a carriage out of the broken-down bits of carts and wagons Gudit had been hoarding for years.