"And how is this? How does the Keeper love?"
"The love of the Keeper," said Edhadeya, obviously searching, obviously thinking of ideas that she had never considered all that seriously before. "The love of the Keeper is the love of the mother who punishes her child for naughtiness, but then embraces the same child to comfort her tears."
Edhadeya waited for the onslaught of contrary opinions that had greeted earlier suggestions, but she was met only by silence. "Please," she said, "just because I'm the daughter of the king doesn't mean you can't disagree with me the way you disagreed with each other a moment ago."
Still, not a word, though there was no shuffling or embarrassed looking away, either.
"Perhaps they do not disagree," said Voozhum. "Perhaps they hope you will teach them more of this-idea."
Edhadeya immediately rose to the challenge. "I think the Keeper wants us to see the world as she sees it. To pretend that we are the Keeper, and then to try to create wherever we can a small island where all the other virtues can be shared among good people."
There was a murmur among the girls. "Words of a true dreamer," one of them whispered.
"And I think," said Edhadeya, "that if that really is the virtue most favored by the Keeper, then you have created a virtuous classroom here, Voozhum."
"Long ago," said Voozhum, "when I lived in chains, sometimes chains of iron, but always chains of stone on my heart, there was a room where I could go and someone knew my virtues and listened to my thoughts as if I were truly alive and a creature of light instead of a worm of mud and darkness."
Edhadeya burst into tears. "I was never that good to you, Uss-Uss."
"You always were. Does my little girl still remember how I held her when she cried?"
Edhadeya ran to her and embraced her. The girls watched in awe as both Edhadeya and Voozhum wept, each in her fashion.
Chebeya leaned across Edhadeya's empty stool to whisper to Shedemei, "This is what you hoped for, isn't it?"
Shedemei whispered back, "I think it's a good lesson, don't you?"
And indeed it was, to see the daughter of the king embracing an old digger woman, both of them crying for joy, crying for remembrance of lost times, of ancient love.
"And what did Oykib say?" whispered Chebeya to Shedemei.
"He didn't really answer," said Shedemei. "He said, ‘To answer that, I would have to be the Keeper.' "
Chebeya thought for a few moments. Then she said, "But that is an answer. The same answer Edhadeya gave."
Shedemei smiled. "Oykib always was a trickster. He had a way with words."
It was disturbing, this tendency of Shedemei's to speak of the Heroes as if she knew all their secrets.
They spent the rest of the day in the school and sat at Shedemei's table at supper. The food was plain-many a rich woman would have turned up her nose at it, and Luet could see that Edhadeya didn't even know what some of it was. But in Akmaro's house, Luet and her mother had eaten the simple fare of the common people all their lives, and they ate with relish. It was plain to Luet that everything that happened in Shedemei's school-no, ‘Rasaro's House'-was a lesson. The food, the mealtime conversation, the way the cooking and cleaning up were done, the way people walked quietly but briskly in the halls-everything had a point to it, everything expressed a way of life, a way of thought, a way of treating people.
At supper, Edhadeya seemed giddy, which Luet understood, though it worried her a little. It was as if Edhadeya had lost her sense of decorum, her gentle carefulness. She kept goading Shedemei into saying something, but Luet had no way of guessing what the older girl had in mind.
"We heard that you were dangerous, teaching the diggers to rebel," said Edhadeya.
"What an interesting thought," said Shedemei. "After years of slavery, the thought of rebelling doesn't occur to the diggers until a middle-aged human suggests it? Rebellion against what, now that they're free? I think your friends are consumed with guilt, to fear rebellion now that the reason for it has finally been removed."
"That's what I thought, too," said Edhadeya.
"Tell the truth now. No one actually said these things to you."
Edhadeya glanced at Chebeya. "To Luet's mother, of course."
"And why not to you? Is it because you're the king's daughter, and your father was the one who freed the slaves? Do you think they'll ever forgive your father for that blunder?"
Edhadeya suppressed her laughter. "You really mustn't talk that way to the daughter of the king. I'm not supposed to listen when people say my father blundered."
"But in the king's council, isn't he criticized freely? That's what I heard."
"Well, yes, but those are his men."
"And what are you, his pet fish?"
"A woman doesn't pass judgment on the actions of a king!" Again Edhadeya suppressed laughter, as if this were hysterically funny.
Shedemei answered dryly, "Around here, I gather that a woman doesn't squat to pee unless some man tells her that her bladder's full."
This was too much for Edhadeya. She burst into loud laughter and fell off her stool.
Luet helped her up. "What's got into you?" Luet demanded.
"I don't know," said Edhadeya. "I just feel so... ."
"So free," said Shedemei helpfully.
"At home," said Edhadeya at almost the same time.
"But you don't act like that at home!" protested Luet.
"No, I don't," said Edhadeya, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She turned to Shedemei. "Was it really like this in Rasa's house?"
"There were no earth people or sky people there," said Shedemei. "It was another planet, and the only sentient species was human."
"I want to stay here," said Edhadeya.
"You're too young to teach," said Shedemei.
"I've had a very good education."
"You mean that you have excelled at your schooling," said Shedemei. "But you haven't yet lived a life. Therefore you're of no use to me."
"Then let me stay as a student," said Edhadeya.
"Haven't you listened to me? You've already completed your schooling."
"Then let me stay as a servant in this place," said Edhadeya. "You can't make me go back."
At this, Chebeya had to interrupt. "You make it sound as though you were monstrously mistreated in your father's house."
"I'm ignored there, don't you see? I really am Father's pet fish. His pet something. Better to be a cook in this place... ."
"But you see that we all take our turn at the cooking," said Shedemei. "There's no place for you here, not yet, Edhadeya. Or perhaps I should say, there is a place for you, but you're not yet ready to fill it."
"How long must I wait?"
"If you wait," said Shedemei, "you'll never be ready."
Edhadeya fell silent then, and ate thoughtfully, wiping sauce from her bowl with the last of her bread.
It was Luet's turn, finally, to say the thing that had been bothering her most of the afternoon. "You refused Mother's invitation because you were too busy," said Luet. "But this school fairly runs itself. You could have come."
Mother was annoyed with her. "Luet, haven't I taught you better manners than to-"
"That's all right, Chebeya," said Shedemei. "I refused your invitation because I've seen the houses of rich men and kings. Whereas you have never seen such a school as this."
Mother stiffened. "We're not rich."
"Yet you have the leisure to come calling during working hours? You may live modestly, Chebeya, but I see no streaks of dirt and sweat on your face."
Luet could see that Mother was hurt by this, and so she plunged in to turn the conversation back to something less difficult. "I've never heard of a woman schoolmaster," she said.