Old Marof returned early the next morning. No one had interfered with him when he approached Midlow Court from the south. He had seen the land warden at once and described the lasher raid to him, and that worthy official promised to tell the peer about it the next time he was able to talk with her.
The lashers at the watchposts had paid no attention to Marof when he returned to Midd Village, but for two days no one was permitted to leave—not even Arne, who protested that the peer’s first server had orders from the peer herself to carry out. The village was so completely cut off from Midlow Court that Arne’s daily instructions from the wardens failed to arrive. He was left wondering whether none had been sent or whether the lashers had dared to interfere with an official messenger. Finally he told Hutter, his student surveyor, to walk to the court, avoiding roads and keeping to the forest as much as possible, and see what was going on there. Hutter reported no sign of activity at all. Meadow and forest near the court, where the peeragers rode and played, were empty. If the one-namers were confined to their village, every peerager in Midlow seemed to be confined to the court, and the court itself was wrapped in an ominous silence. Everyone knew the peer was in the final throes of a fatal illness. Perhaps the prince already had seized power.
Or perhaps the peer was dead. One or the other must have happened. Hutter’s description was of a court gripped by fear or already in mourning.
Then the peer’s heavy four-wheeled coach rolled into the village, drawn by her favorite team of white horses. This time Arne’s watch system worked perfectly. Everyone was alert, and the coach’s approach was reported when it was still a kilometer away. The warning set the entire village aflutter and emptied mills and factories. By the time the coach climbed the steep slope to High Street and halted before Arne’s dwelling, the street there was crowded with suspensefully-waiting villagers. They knelt around the carriage in a circle as soon as it came to a stop.
The oddity was that it had no escort. There was no mistaking the peer’s ornately carved, fully enclosed coach, but the peer never traveled without her own mounted guard of lashers. On this day she seemed to be accompanied only by her coachman. No one knew what to make of that.
Arne had been at work in the sawmill, in a pit beneath the machinery where a shaft had broken, and he was one of the last to hear of the coach’s arrival. With sawyers and prentices trailing after him, he hurried up the slope to High Street, picked his way through the kneeling villagers, and, brushing sawdust from his clothing, sank to his knees before the coach’s door.
Everyone watched breathlessly as the door slowly opened— but it was only the peer’s elder brother, the old land warden, who clambered out. He was a small, elderly man, comfortably rotund but surprisingly energetic and one of the few peeragers who did any work. His office was responsible for roads, forests, pastures, and agriculture. He had run it competently when he was younger, but as he advanced in years and afflictions, Arne assumed many of his duties, for which the old peerager expressed his gratitude with surprising friendliness. Their relationship was more like that between a fussy but affectionate uncle and favorite nephew than peerager and commoner.
They met often to discuss the peerdom’s problems, but always at court at the land warden’s garden lodge where he preferred to work. A visit to the village by a peerager was an extraordinary occasion—as unusual as the prince’s raid—and Arne knew the land warden would not make the journey merely because he had a message to deliver. In that case, a one-name server would have brought a message board or recited something carefully memorized. But perhaps the old warden had come to announce the peer’s death.
Creakily he signaled Arne to rise.
“Your service, Master,” Arne said.
“The peer regrets her illness has long kept her from visiting her subjects,” the land warden announced in his thin, high-pitched voice. “She has appointed me her deputy and asked me to hold open audience today. Anyone in the village who has information that should be brought to the peer’s attention is invited to impart it to me. I also will hear complaints of injustice, and I will see that everything told to me has her full consideration.”
So he had come as the peer’s emissary. Even in her desperate illness, she was capable of acting with wisdom and firmness, and this was the most effective way she could learn about the raid without turning the prince’s ire against the one-namers.
Arne told Ravla to prepare a room for the audience, and he appointed three men and three women to act as the land warden’s servers. Margaya presented the written discriptions of the raid that Arne had asked her to collect, and other villagers waited patiently in line while one after another described the conduct of the prince’s lashers and answered questions.
It was dark when the land warden finally left. Arne escorted him to the coach and opened its door for him. As the old man started to mount, he placed his hand gently on Arne’s back and asked in a whisper, “Were you injured badly?”
“A few cuts, Master. They will heal.”
The land warden shook his head. “I fear the prince has inflicted wounds on herself that are beyond heeling. I have never seen the peer so angry. She has enormous power when she chooses to wield it. Midlow’s peeragers have forgotten that because she has used it so rarely. They are about to be reminded.”
He gripped Arne’s arm in friendly fashion and boarded the carriage. It made a rapid descent to Midd Street, turned, and left the village at a sharp clip. Behind it, villagers were describing their interviews to each other, and rumors were already circulating.
Two more days passed. Then Arne received a terse order. He, the Three, and six other villagers chosen by him were to be present at court at middae on the morrow for a happening. Every one-name village in the peerdom was being ordered to send representatives. They were to observe the happening carefully so they could describe it to other villagers when they returned.
Arne gave the messenger his acknowledgement and immediately went to see Wiltzon.
“What is a happening?” he asked.
The old schooler was perplexed. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“I want you to be one of the six,” Arne said. “I will order a horse and wagon for those who have difficulty walking.”
Wiltzon grinned. “That is against the rules.”
“Not when we are using it to carry out the peer’s orders.”
Arne called on Katin, the oldest one-namer in the peerdom. She was blind, but she was still a skilled seamster. She worked all of her waking hours, and her old fingers moved as nimbly as those of seamsters half her age.
She welcomed Arne warmly. She had made swaddling clothes for Arjov’s father as well as for Arjov and Arne.
“Katin, what is a happening?” Arne asked.
“Happening?” Katin frowned. “It is just a word, isn’t it? It means when something happens.”
“The peer’s servers use it as a word for a special event. I need to know what it is.”
Katin thought long with her head tilted back and her sightless eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Happening,” she muttered. “Now I remember. It is some kind of court fuss. I haven’t heard of one since I was young. It has nothing to do with us.”
“It does now,” Arne said. He told her about the message. His concern was that he, as the peer’s first server, might be expected to perform some role in it.
Katin shook her head. “No. It is something for peeragers. One-namers weren’t allowed at those I remember. It has nothing to do with us.”
With that Arne had to be content.
He left for Midlow Court early the next morning, walking slowly and allowing himself plenty of time. This was his practice whenever he traveled. Along the way, he checked the condition of the roads, noted which drainage ditches needed clearing, inspected bridges, and turned aside to see whether buildings at the no-name compounds he passed needed repairs.