"The quarreling among us can be bitter at times," said Didul.
"And you always take the other side against us!" cried out one young angel.
"I take the Keeper's side!" Didul insisted.
Akmaro rose to his feet. "What I wish you would all think about, my friends, is that there is a great deal more to what the Keeper asks of us than simply to associate with each other as equals."
"So let's concentrate on those things and forget the mixing up of species!" cried a woman angel.
"But if we who are priests and teachers can't be one people," said Akmaro, "how can we possibly expect them to believe anything we say? Look at you-how you have sorted yourselves out, dividing all the female humans from the female angels, and over there, the male humans, and here, the male angels, and where are the diggers? Are you still sitting in the back? In the farthest place?"
A digger man stood up, looking nervous. "We don't like to push ourselves forward, Akmaro."
"You shouldn't have to push," said Akmaro. "How many of you here even know this man's name?" Didul started to answer, but Akmaro held up his hand. "Of course you know, Didul. But is there anyone else?"
"How would we?" replied an angel. "He spends all his time holding little meetings out in the caves and tunnels of the diggers."
"Is he the only one? Don't humans and angels also teach diggers?"
Didul spoke up. "That is hard, Father Akmaro. There's a lot of resentment of humans and angels among the former slaves. They don't feel safe. The Kept among the earth people wouldn't hurt a fly, but there are others."
"And do the diggers here feel safe among the humans and angels?" asked Akmaro.
The diggers looked back and forth with embarrassment. "Here we do, sir," said one of them, finally.
Akmaro laughed bitterly. "No wonder those who lie about what the Keeper wants have such an easy time converting people to their way of thought. What kind of example do they see among the Kept?"
They went on to other business then, bringing many matters of judgment before Akmaro, but the undertone of unease lasted through the whole meeting, and while some made an effort to cross the boundaries between the groups as the day wore on, others withdrew even further into knots of their own kind.
Finally it was evening, and as the evening song of angels and humans filled the air of the city of Bodika, Akmaro went to the home where Didul lived.
"Still not married?" Akmaro said. "And after all my advice."
"Twenty is still young," said Didul.
Akmaro looked him in the eye. "There's something you're not saying."
Didul smiled sadly. "There are many things that men and women do not say, because to say them would only bring unhappiness."
Akmaro patted his shoulder. "That's true enough. But sometimes people torment themselves needlessly, fearing that if they speak the truth other people would suffer, when in fact the truth would set them free."
"I might tell you," said Didul. "I dream of telling you."
"Well, then."
"Not true dreams, Father Akmaro. Just. ...dreams." He looked very uncomfortable.
"What's for supper?" said Akmaro. "I'm famished. Talking wears me out and leaves me empty."
"I have flatcakes. Or rather we can fry some up. Let me get the fire going by the cookstone."
"Didul, the rule is for priests to work for their living, not for them to live in dire poverty. A cookstone!"
"It's all I need," said Didul. "And besides, I do my labor... well, I don't own land. I gave it to the diggers who had once been slaves on it. I didn't want to live from rents."
"Gave it to them! Couldn't you at least have sold it to them, letting them pay a little each year and-"
"It was a gift to me," said Didul. "I didn't earn it, and they were the ones who had labored on it for all their lives, some of them."
"Well, how do you earn your miserable little flatcakes?" asked Akmaro.
"I have beans, too, and good spices, and fresh vegetables and fruit all year."
"And how does this happen? Please don't tell me that you're accepting gifts from the people you teach. That's forbidden, no matter how sincerely willing the people are to give them."
"No, no!" Didul protested. "I would never-no! I hire myself out. I do day labor for the people who would have been my tenants. And others, now. My reach is longer than any digger or angel. I'm good with a scythe, and I plow a straight furrow, and no one chops down a tree and dresses the wood more skillfully than I do. Even the ones who refuse to accept my teachings hire me when they need a tree felled."
"A day laborer," said Akmaro. "Day laborers are the poorest of the poor."
"Is there anything wrong with that?" said Didul.
"Not at all," said Akmaro. "You make me ashamed of my rents."
"What I choose for myself isn't a law for anyone else," said Didul. He got out the fine-ground maizemeal and began to mix it with water and a pinch of salt.
"But when you speak, diggers and angels listen to you, I'll wager," said Akma. He helped Didul form the balls of dough and flatten them.
Didul shrugged. "Some do. Most do."
"Is it as bad as the meeting today made it look?" asked Akmaro.
"Worse."
"I don't want to use the force of law to compel compliance," said Akmaro.
"It wouldn't work anyway," said Didul. "Law can change how people behave when others are watching-that's all. As you taught me back in the land of Chelem, the power of the whip is worthless against the stubborn heart."
"Yes well, there you are," said Akmaro. "But what can I tell Mo-tiak? We have to go back to the old ways, because the people won't respect a priesthood that isn't headed by the king?"
"No, not that," said Didul.
"Or worse, tell him that we should give up trying to teach the Keeper's way! But I reread those old dreams of the Heroes as Nafai and Oykib wrote them in the ancient books, and the only meaning I can take from them is that the Keeper wants us to be one people, the three species of us, the two sexes of us, the rich and poor of us. How can I back away from that?"
"You can't," said Didul, slapping a flattened disc of dough on the sizzling cookstone.
"But if we force everyone to live together-"
"It would be absurd. Angels can't live in digger holes, and diggers can't sleep upside down on perches."
"And humans are terrified of closed-in spaces and heights, both," said Akmaro.
"So we just keep on trying to persuade them," said Didul.
"Then there's no hope," said Akmaro. He flipped over another flatcake. "I can't even persuade you to take a wife, or to tell me why you won't."
"Can't you see why I won't?" asked Didul. "See the poverty I live in."
"Then marry a woman who is willing to work hard and cares as little for wealth as you do."
"How many women are like that?" asked Didul.
"I know lots of them. My wife is like that. My daughter is like that."
Didul blushed, and suddenly Akmaro understood.
"My daughter," he said. "That's what this is about, isn't it! You come four times a year to Darakemba to meet with me-and you've fallen in love with Luet!"
Didul shook his head, trying to deny.
"Well, you foolish boy, haven't you spoken to her about it? She's not a fool, she must have noticed that you're clever and kind and, or so I'm told by the women around me, probably the most handsome young man in Darakemba."
"How can I speak to her?" said Didul.
"I would suggest using a column of air arising from your lungs, shaped by the lips and tongue and teeth into vowels and consonants," said Akmaro.
"When we were young, I tormented her," said Didul. "I humiliated her and Akma in front of everyone."