‘Don’t be afraid of us, Master Datnil,’ Shay Tal said.
He caught the note of impatience in her voice. ‘It’s only of your intolerance I’m afraid, ma’am,’ he replied, and some of the women squatting on the floor hid smiles behind their hands.
‘You know what we do in our corps, because some of you work for me,’ Datnil Skar said. ‘Membership in the corps is for men only, of course, for the secrets of our profession are handed down from generation to generation. In particular, a master teaches all he knows to his personal novice or chief boy. When a master dies or retires, then the chief boy becomes master in his turn, as Raynil Layan will soon take over my position…’
‘A woman could do that just as well as any man,’ said one of the women, Cheme Phar. ‘I’ve worked for you long enough, Datnil Skar. I know all the secrets of the brine pits. I could pickle myself, if need arose.’
‘Ah, but we have to have order and continuity, Cheme Phar,’ said the Master mildly.
‘I could give the orders all right,’ said Cheme Phar, and everyone laughed, then looked at Shay Tal.
‘Tell us about the continuity,’ the latter said. ‘We know, as Loilanun taught us, that some of us are descended from Yuli the Priest, who came from the north, from Pannoval and Lake Dorzin. That’s one continuity. What about continuity within the corps, Master Datnil?’
‘All members of our corps were born and bred in Embruddock, even before it was Oldorando. To many generations.’
‘How many generations?’
‘Ah, a good many…’
‘Tell us how you know this.’
He wiped his hands on his trousers.
‘We have a record. Each master keeps a record.’
‘In writing?’
‘That’s correct. Writing in a book. The art is passed on. But the records are not to be disclosed to others.’
‘Why do you think that is?’
‘They don’t want the women taking over their jobs and doing it better,’ someone called, and again there was laughter. Datnil Skar smiled with embarrassment, and said no more.
‘I believe that secrecy served a protective purpose at one time,’ Shay Tal said. ‘Certain arts, like metal forging and tannery, had to be kept alive in bad times, despite starvation or phagor raids. Probably there were very bad times in the past, and some arts were lost. We cannot make paper any longer. Perhaps there was once a paper-makers corps. Glass. We cannot make glass. Yet there are pieces of glass about — you all know what glass is. How is it that we are more stupid than our ancestors? Are we living, working, under some disadvantage we don’t fully understand? That’s one of the big questions we must keep in mind.’
She paused. No one said anything, which always vexed her. She longed for any comment that would push the argument forward.
Datnil Skar said, ‘Mother Shay, you speak true, to the best of my belief. You understand that as master I am under oath to disclose secrets of my art to nobody; it’s an oath I take to Wutra and to Embruddock. But I know that there were once bad times, of which I am not supposed to speak…’
When he fell silent, she helped him with a smile. ‘Do you believe that Oldorando was once bigger than it is now?’
He looked at her with his head on one side. ‘I know you call this town a farmyard. But it survives… It’s the centre of the cosmos. Well, that’s not answering your question. My friends, you found rye and oats growing north of here, so let’s speak of them. To the best of my belief, that place was once carefully tended fields, enclosed against wild beasts. The fields belonged to Embruddock. Many other cereals grew there and were cultivated. Now you cultivate them again, which is wise.
‘You know we need bark for our tanning. We have a job to get hold of it. I do believe — well, I know…’ He fell silent, then he said quietly, ‘Great forests of tall trees, which yield bark and wood, grew to the west and north. The region was called Kace. It was hot then, and there was no cold.’
Someone said, ‘The time of heat — that’s a legend left over from the priesthood. The sort of tale we’re supposed to get out of our minds in the academy. We do know that it was once colder than it is now. Ask my grandma.’
‘What I’m saying is that, to the best of my belief, it was hot before it was cold,’ Datnil Skar said, slowly scratching the back of his grey head. ‘You should try to understand these things. Many lives go by, many years. There’s a lot of history vanished. I know you women think that men are against you learning, and it may be so; but I speak sincerely when I say that you should support Shay Tal, despite various difficulties. As a master, I know how precious knowledge is. It seems to run out of the bottom of a community like water out of a sock.’
They stood and clapped him politely when he left.
At Freyr-set, two days later, Shay Tal was pacing restlessly in her room in the isolated tower. A shout came from below. Immediately she thought of Aoz Roon, though the voice was not his.
She wondered who would venture beyond the barricades when light was growing dim. Putting her head out of the window, she saw Datnil Skar, his figure insubstantial in the dusk.
‘Oh, come up, my friend,’ she cried. She went down to meet him. He appeared clutching a box, smiling nervously. They sat down facing each other on her stone floor, and she poured him a measure of rathel.
After some idle conversation, he said, ‘I think you know that I am due to retire soon as master of the tawyers and tanners corps? My chief boy will take my place. I’m getting old and he long ago knew all I have to teach.’
‘You come here because of that?’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘I come here, Mother Shay, because I — I experience an old man’s admiration for you, for your person and your worth… No, let me say it. I have always served and loved this community, and I believe you do the same, though you have the opposition of many men. So I wanted to do you a good turn while I was able to.’
‘You’re a good man, Datnil Skar. Oldorando knows it. The community needs good people.’
Sighing, he nodded. ‘I have served Embruddock — or Oldorando as we should call it — every day of my life, and have never left it. Yet scarcely a day’s gone by…’ He broke off in his shy way, smiled, and said, ‘I believe I am speaking to a kindred spirit when I say that scarcely a day has gone by since I was a lad when I haven’t wondered… wondered what was happening in other places, far away from here.’
He paused, cleared his throat, then said more briskly, ‘I’ll tell you a tale. It’s only brief. I remember one terrible winter when I was a lad when the phagors attacked, and disease and famine followed. Many people died. And the phagors were dying too, although we didn’t know it at the time. It was so dark, I swear days are brighter now… Anyhow, the phagors left behind a human boy during the slaughter. His name was — I’m ashamed to say I’ve forgotten it, but to the best of my belief it was something like Krindlesheddy. A long name. Once I knew it clearly. The years have made me forget.
‘Krindlesheddy had come from a country a long way to the north, Sibornal. He said that Sibornal was a land of perpetual glaciers. I was selected to be chief boy in my corps, and in Sibornal he was to be a priest, so we were both dedicated to our calling. He — Krindlesheddy or whatever his name was — thought our life was easy. The geysers kept Oldorando warm.
‘As a young member of the priesthood, my friend had belonged with some colonists who moved south to escape the cold. They came to a better land by a river. There they had to fight with the local inhabitants of a realm called — well, the name has gone after these many years. A great battle raged, in which Krindlesheddy — if that was his name — was injured. The survivors fled, only to be caught by raiding phagors. It was mere fortune that he escaped them here. Or perhaps they left him because he was wounded.