Orrec asked, and I told him what I knew, mostly as I had heard it from the Waylord, of the four great households of the city of Ansuclass="underline" Cam, Gelb, Galva, Actamo. From earliest times they were the wealthiest families, with the most power in the Council. They built the finest houses and temples, paid for public rites and festivals, and gathered artists and makers, scholars and philosophers, architects and musicians to live and work in their houses. That was when people began to call the city Ansul the Wise and Beautiful.
The Galvas had always lived here on the first rise of the hill above the river and the harbor, in the Oracle House.
“There was an oracle here?” Orrec asked.
I hesitated. I had given little thought to what the word meant until yesterday, the morning of the day Gry and Orrec came, as I stood by the dry basin of the fountain—the Oracle Fountain.
“I don’t know,” I said. I started to say more, and did not. It was strange. Why had I never wondered why Galvamand was called the Oracle House? I did not even know what the oracle was, yet knew I must not speak of it—the way I knew, had always known, that I must not speak of the secret room. It was as if a hand was laid across my lips.
I thought then of what the Waylord had said last night, “The hands of all the givers of dreams were on my mouth.” That frightened me.
They saw that I was confused and tongue-tied. Orrec changed the subject, asking about the house, and soon got me to telling its story again.
In those old days, the Galvas prospered, and both the house and the household grew; drawing to it people of art and learning and craft, and especially scholars and makers of poetry and tales. People came from all Ansul and even from other lands to hear them, learn from them, work with them. So over the years the university grew up here at Galvarnand. All this back part of the house, both the upper and lower floors, had been apartments and classrooms and workrooms and libraries; there had been other buildings off the outer courts; and houses farther back on the hilltop had been hostels and domiciles for students and masters, workshops for artists and builders.
The poet Denios came here from Urdile when he was a young man. Maybe he had studied in the gallery where we sat last night, for that had been part of the Library of Galvamand.
In the course of time, Luck, the god we call the Deaf One, turned away from the households of Cam, Gelb, and Actamo. As their wealth and well-being declined, their rivalry with Galva became rancorous. Partly in spite and envy, though they called it public spirit, they persuaded the Council to claim the university and its library for the city, taking it away from Galvamand. The Galvas accepted the ruling of the Council, though they warned that the old site was a sacred one and the new site might not be so blessed. The city built new buildings for the university down nearer the harbor. Almost all the great library that had been gathered here over the centuries was moved there. And I told Gry and Orrec what the Waylord had told me: “When they began to take the books out of Galvamand, the Oracle Fountain in the forecourt began to fail. Little by little, as the books were taken out of the house, the water ceased to run. When they were done, it dried up entirely. It hasn’t run for two hundred years… ”
They opened the new university with ceremonies and festivals, and students and scholars came; but it was never so famous, so much visited, as the old Library of Galvamand. And then after two centuries the desert people came and tore down the stones, dumped the books into the canals and the sea, buried them in the mud.
Orrec listened to my story with his head in his hands.
“Nothing was left here at Galvamandt Gry asked.
“Some books,” I said uncomfortably. “But when the siege was broken the Ald soldiers came here right away, even before they went to the university. Looking for that… that place they believe in. They tore out the wooden parts of the house, and took the books, the furnishings—Whatever they found they took.” I was telling the truth, but I had a strong sense that Gry was aware that it wasn’t the whole truth.
“This is terrible—terrible,” Orrec said, standing up. “I know the Alds think writing is an evil thing—but to destroy—to waste—” He was grieved and upset beyond words. He strode off down the room and stood at the western windows, where over the roofs of Galvamand and the lower city white Sul floated on the mist above the straits.
Gry went to Shetar and clipped the leash to her collar. “Come on,” she said softly to me. “She needs a walk.”
“I’m sorry;” I said, following her, despairing again at having so distressed Orrec, Everything I said was wrong. It was a day without Ennu, without any blessing.
“Was it you that destroyed the books?”
“No. But I wish—”
“If wishes were horses!” said Gry. “Tell me, is there anywhere I could let Shetar off the leash to run? She won’t attack if I’m anywhere near her, but it’s less worrisome to let her go where there aren’t people around.”
“The old park,” I said, and we went there. It is just above and east of the house, a broad gully in the hillside over the river where the Embankments divide it into the four canals. Trees grow thick on the slopes of the old park. The Alds never go there; they don’t like trees. Nobody much goes there except children hunting rabbits or quail to get a bit of meat for their family.
I showed Gry what they call Denies’ Fountain, near the entrance, and Shetar had a long drink from the basin.
There was not a soul about, and Gry let the lion off the leash. She bounded off but not far, and kept corming back to us. Evidently she didn’t much like the trees either, and didn’t want to go far into the thick, neglected undergrowth. She spent a long time sharpening her claws on one tree, then another, and sniffed exhaustively on the tracks of some creature all round a great thicket of brambles. The farthest she got from us was in pursuit of a butterfly, which led her leaping and batting at it down a steep dark path. After she’d been out of sight around a bend for a while, Gry gave a little purring call. In a moment the lion reappeared, loping up at us through the shadows. Gry touched Shetar’s head, and she followed us as we started wandering slowly back up through the woods.
“What a wonderful gift,” I said, “to be able to call animals to you.”
“Depends on what you use it for,” Gry said. “It certainly came in handy when we came down out of the Uplands and had to make a living. I trained horses while Orrec got his learning. I like that work… I admire the way the Alds train their horses. For them, beating your horse is worse than beating your wife.” She gave a little snort.
“How could you stand living in Asudar so long? Weren’t you—didn’t you get angry at them?”
“I didn’t have the cause for anger you have,” she said. “It was a little like living with wild animals—predators. They’re dangerous, and not reasonable, by our standards. They make life hard. I felt sorry for the Ald men.”
I said nothing.
“They’re like stallions or buck rabbits,” she went on, reflectively. “Never a moment they’re not anxious about a rival male, or a female getting loose. They’re never free. They fill their world with enemies… But they’re brave, and keep their word, and honor the guest. Like my people of the Uplands. I liked them well enough. I couldn’t get to know any women, though, because I was pretending to be a man and had to keep away from them. That was tiresome.”
“I hate everything about them,” I said. “I can’t help it.”
“Of course you can’t help it. What you’ve told us—how could you see them except as hateful?”
“I don’t want to see them any other way,” I said.
I don’t believe Gry ever didn’t hear what people said, but sometimes she ignored it. She walked on a little and then turned to me on the path with a sudden grin. “Listen, Memer! Why don’t you come with us to the Palace? Second groom. You make a fine boy. Fooled me completely. Would you like to? It’s interesting. The Gand’s a kind of king, how many chances do you get to meet a king? And you can hear Orrec—he’s going to tell them the Cosmogonies. That could be risky, they’re so stuck on Atth being the one and only god. But the Gand was asking him for it yesterday.”