The cook mentioned this to the doorkeeper when she led the old man to the kitchen one day, and the doorkeeper shrugged. Why not? Let him feel that he's earning his keep. The cook still believed that someone higher than the doorkeeper had authorized the old man to stay.
It was when the old man carelessly touched a pot that had stayed in the fireplace instead of being put on the table that the cook realized something was wrong. The old man was obviously severely burned. But he made absolutely no sound, showed absolutely no pain. He merely went on about his work after supper, washing dishes, though the pain must have been very annoying. The cook got worried. Because he could think of only two reasons the old man might have touched the pot without even wincing.
Either he's a leper and doesn't feel it, which I doubt, since he has no trouble handling pots and pans, or he's got Control.
Control? asked the head cook. Who is he, anyway?
Someone the doorkeeper brings up. As a kindness, I suppose.
It should have been cleared with me. An extra mouth eating the food, and I'm not told so I can allow for it in my budget?
The Rainbow cook shrugged. We've never run out.
It's the principle of the thing. Either we're organized or we aren't.
So the head cook mentioned it to the purchaser, and the purchaser mentioned it to security, and security asked the doorkeeper what the hell was going on.
He's hungry and obviously very poor.
How long has this been going on?
Three months, more or less. More.
We don't run a hotel. The man should be asked, kindly, to leave. Why did he come?
To see the Songmaster in the High Room.
Get rid of him. No more meals. Be kind, but firm. That's what a doorkeeper's for.
So the doorkeeper very kindly told the old man that he would not be able to eat in the Songhouse anymore.
He said nothing. Just sat in the door-room.
Five days later, the doorkeeper came to the head of security. He plans to starve to death in the door-room.
The head of security came down to meet the old man.
What do you want, old man?
I've come to see the Songmaster in the High Room.
Who are you?
No answer.
We don't let just anybody go see her. She's busy.
She'd be glad if she saw me.
I doubt it. You have no idea of what goes on here.
Again no answer. Did he smile? The head of security was too irritated to know or care.
If the old man had been violent or obtrusive, they might have expelled him forcibly. But force was avoided if it was at all possible, arid finally, because he intended to stay until he died of starvation, the head of security went to the High Room and talked to Rruk.
If he's that determined to see me, and he looks harmless, then certainly he should see me.
And so Rruk went down the stairs and through the labyrinth and came to the door-room, where the old man waited.
To her eyes, the old man was beautiful. Wrinkled, of course, but his eyes were innocent and yet wise, as if he had seen everything and forgiven it all. His lips, which opened in a smile the moment he saw her, were childlike. And his skin, translucent with age and yet harsh by comparison with his white, white hair, was unblemished. The wrinkles had been made more by pain than by joy, but the old man's expression transcended all the history of his face, and he reached out his arms to Rruk.
Rruk, he said, and embraced her.
And in the embrace she startled the doorkeeper and the head of security by saying, Ansset. You've come home.
There was only one Ansset who could come home to the Songhouse. To the doorkeeper, Ansset was the child who had sung so beautifully at his leavetaking. To the head of security, who had never known him, Ansset was the emperor of the universe.
To Rruk, Ansset was a well-beloved friend that she had sorely missed and grieved for when he did not come home more than sixty years ago.
4
You've changed, Rruk said.
So have you.
Rruk compared herself now to the awkward child she had been. Not so much as you might think. Ansset, why didn't you tell them who you were?
Ansset leaned against a shuttered window in the High Room. I tell the doorkeeper who I am, and in ten minutes the entire Songhouse knows I'm here. You might let me visit, and then after a few days you would take me aside and say, 'You can't stay here.'
You can't.
But I have, Ansset said. For months. I'm not that old yet, but I feel like I'm living in my own childhood again. The children are beautiful. When I was their age and size, I didn't know it.
Neither did I.
And neither do they. They throw bread at each other when the cook isn't looking, you know. Terrible breach of Control.
Control can't be absolute in children. Or most children, anyway.
Rruk, I've been away so long. Let me stay.
She shook her head. I can't.
Why not? I can do what I've been doing. Have I caused any harm? Just think of me as another Blind. It's what I am, you know. A Songbird who came back and can't be used as a teacher.
Rruk listened to him and her outward calm masked more and more turbulence inside. He had done no harm in the months he had been in the Songhouse, and yet it was against custom,
I don't care much about custom, Ansset said, Nothing in my life has been particularly customary.
Esste decided--
Esste is dead, he said, and while his words were harsh, she wondered if she could not detect a note of tenderness In his voice. You're in the High Room now. Esste loved me, but compassion was not her style,
Esste heard you try to sing.
I can't sing. I don't sing.
But you do. Unwittingly, perhaps, but you do. Just speaking, the melodies of your voice are more eloquent than many of us can manage when we're trying to perform.
Ansset looked away.
You haven't heard your own songs, Ansset. You've been through too much in the last years. In your first years, for that matter. Your voice is full of the worlds outside. Full of too much remembered pain and heavy responsibility. Who could hear you and not be affected?
You're afraid I'd pollute the children?
And the teachers. And me.
Ansset thought for a moment, I've been silent so far. I can keep being silent. I'll be mute here in the Songhouse.
How long could you keep that up?
Aren't there retreats? Let me come and go as I like, let me wander around Tew when I feel the need to speak, and then come back home.
This isn't your home anymore.
And then Control slipped away from Ansset and his face and his voice pled with her. Rruk, this is my home. For sixty-five years this has been my home, though I was barred from ever returning. I tried to stay away. I ruled in that palace for too many years, I lived among people I loved, but Rruk, how long could you survive being cut off from this stone?
And Rruk remembered her own time as a singer, the years on Umusuwee where they loved her and treated her well, and she called her patrons Father and Mother; and yet when she turned fifteen she fairly flew all the way home because the jangle could be beautiful and sweet, but cold stone had formed everything inside her and she could not bear to be away from it longer than she must.
What do they put in these walls, Ansset, that makes them have such a hold on us?
Ansset looked at her questioningly.
Ansset, I can't decide fairly. I understand what you feel, I think I understand, but the Songmaster in the High Room can't act for pity.
Pity, he said, his Control again in force.
I have to act for the good of the Songhouse. And your presence here would introduce too many things that we couldn't control. The consequences might be felt for centuries.