Emil had seen many a Paladin killed or maimed, but always had been able to explain the death as having served a cause. This death could only be explained as a betrayal. When he wept for Annis, he wept also for himself, for an entire adulthood spent serving under the command of a leader who would kill an innocent like Annis simply for being in the way.
Emil understood perhaps three dozen words of the Otter People’s language, which was not enough to ask the question he needed to ask. But the old water witch was dismayed by the terrible, sudden violence that had occurred on the shores of his lake, and told what had happened using story dolls, like the little reed poppets that had accompanied Annis on her last journey. The doll that had Zanja’s long hair was in a boat two day’s journey to the east of Otter Lake.
Emil and Norina left at dawn to journey to the Paladin garrison where all that remained of the old traditions of Shaftal were preserved, all except the traditions of honor and open‑handed generosity. These traditions were not even mentioned in the letter of the law, but without them the law was just a mindless formula. Emil had dared to read a little of the Mackapee manuscript before he carefully put it away in a mouse‑proof chest, in a dry attic, in a stone building unlikely to burn down. And what he’d read there was the spirit of a man who valued change. “The peaceful speech of strangers transforms the world,” Mackapee had written in his crabbed handwriting. If Emil had laid eyes on the manuscript fifteen years before, he’d have hurried past those words, looking for more subtle revelations, words to argue about in the university.
Zanja na’Tarwein had lived by and nearly died for that transformation. Mabin Paladin, the hero of the people, had chosen another way, the shortsighted way of the bitterly conquered, the vengeance by which the wronged becomes the wrongdoer and the whole world gives way to war. When Emil lay down in love with a son of the enemy, he had abandoned that vengeance, and he was only now beginning to realize what that meant for him. And Norina Truthken, whose devotion to the law had not been able to keep her from betraying her dearest friend, what was she going to do now?
Norina had scarcely spoken a word on this entire journey. She was far from recovered from childbirth, and her bandaged, milk‑swollen breasts must have hurt her greatly. She took the powders her husband had given her: reliably, publicly, as though she was doing a kind of penance. In fact she was doing the only thing a person of honor could do in her position: accepting disgrace, humbling her pride, making reparations. She would put her life at risk to do these things, and her life wouldn’t be worth much if she could not accomplish them.
When they stopped to rest the horses and eat their dinner of cold fish and flatbread, Emil said, “I’m curious how the law would resolve this paradox we’re in.”
Norina snorted in bitter amusement and passed him the jug of water. “Everyone who breaks the law does it for the same reason: because her own desire, she believes, should take precedence. The question is, which of us is in fact the lawbreaker, when our governor under the law falls into the error of thinking she rules the law rather than being ruled by it? Are we right, for serving Karis’s personal interests and thus opposing Mabin? Or are Mabin’s followers right for serving Mabin’s personal interests and thus injuring Karis? This situation is a judge’s worst nightmare.“
“But if Karis is G’deon …”
Norina lifted her head, as though genuinely surprised at the idea. “That has never even been a possibility. But now that she is no longer addicted to smoke, perhaps everything has changed. If Karis is G’deon, that certainly resolves the moral difficulty. The G’deon’s role is and always has been to protect the land, to remember the people, even if that means going beyond the law. And we are required by law to serve the G’deon first. However–”
“She’s not the G’deon.”
“It’s not as if we had the power to decide such a thing.”
“So we have a paradox, a puzzle that defies resolution. But not a dilemma, for we both know exactly what we must do, and we intend to do it. That is what intrigues me, you see. It’s a purely philosophical problem.”
Norina groaned, as people often do when they hear the word “philosophy,” for the Truthkens are always wanting their truths to be unarguable. So she seemed to be curing herself with self‑mockery, the only cure for the obsessiveness that is the bane of all Truthkens, and no doubt she was practicing it as deliberately as she was taking her husband’s powders. A woman of her age and experience could hardly expect to be re‑schooled by anyone except herself. But if she had a true community such schooling would be the service her people provided. And if Karis were to lack such a community as well, who would then school her in the right use of her power?
Oh, but if there was one thing Karis did not lack, surely it was wise and strong‑willed friends. And they all would be well advised to not get into the habit of servicing her whims, even now, when she was so desperately ill. To do her will without question was no service at all, but an abdication.
“What are you thinking that makes you so happy?” Norina asked.
“Just when I was thinking with despair of a dishonorable and unappealing retirement, I realize that I may yet have an interesting few years ahead of me. Madam Truthken–”
“Oh for pity’s sake, call me Norina.”
“Why don’t you lie down and rest for a while, and I’ll make a good report to your husband.”
She was not so humorless as she had seemed. She was still chuckling when she lay down on the blanket he brought her, and shut her eyes.
Before dawn the next day, the two of them stood on the canyon’s edge overlooking the Paladins’ Valley, and waited for sunrise. They actually had slept for most of the night, and awakened before first light to travel the last mile on foot, leaving their horses and gear hidden in a glade. If there was an additional watch being kept on the valley, somehow they’d managed to avoid the trap, and they sat peaceably upon stones overlooking the magnificent landscape of the canyon. As the sun lifted, pink and gentle light set the stones to glowing like coal. Norina took a spyglass out of her shirt–she was astonishingly well equipped–and scanned the valley below. Without a word she handed the spyglass to Emil.
The boat was anchored in a deep eddy near the walled village, which had been built on high ground to avoid being destroyed in the periodic flood times. The river still lay in shadow, and even at this distance Emil could see a spark of lantern light upon the deck. As he watched, the sunlight hit the river, turning it to glowing amethyst, and he saw the figure pacing on the boat deck, back and forth, like a lion in a cage.
He thought of Zanja, being hauled from a rowboat onto the deck of the riverboat. Considering her recently broken bones, it was an unpleasant thought. He gave Norina back her spyglass. “She’s on that boat,” he said, as certain as he’d ever been of anything.
Norina peered down at the river, muttering, “I all but gave Mabin the bait for this trap. What am I going to do about it now?”
“We,” Emil corrected. “It’s a boat because Karis can’t endure boats?”
“Over water she’s an ordinary mortal, and a seasick one at that. No doubt Mabin will demand that she come aboard, however. And she will comply, if that will save Zanja’s life. We’ll have a sorry time trying to stop her, for now that I’ve lost her regard she won’t listen to my advice.”