Sataal was a solidly built man, pale of face, small of ear, heavy of hand. His head was shaven, his beard plaited, in the manner of many priests of his order. There were twists of white in the plaits. He wore a knee-length smock of black and white. His face was deeply pocked. It took Yuli some while to realise that, despite the white hairs, Sataal was not past middle age, being only in his late teens. Yet he walked in a round-shouldered way suggesting both age and piety.
When he addressed Yuli, Sataal spoke always kindly but remotely, keeping a gulf between them. Yuli was reassured by the man’s attitude, which seemed to say, This is your job and mine, but I shall not complicate it by probing into what your inner feelings are. So Yuli kept quiet, applying himself to the task of learning all the necessary fustian verses.
“But what do they mean?” he asked at one point, in bewilderment.
Sataal rose slowly in the small room, and turned about, so that his shoulders loomed black in a distant source of light, and all the rest of him flowed into encompassing shadow. A dull highlight gleamed on his pate as he inclined his head towards Yuli, saying, admonishingly, “Learning first, young fellow, then interpretation. After learning, then less difficulty in interpretation. Get everything by heart, you hardly need it by head. Akha never enforces understanding from his people, only obedience.”
“You said that Akha cares nothing for anyone in Pannoval.”
“The important point, Yuli, is that Pannoval cares for Akha. Now then, once again:
“Whoso laps Freyr’s bane
Like a fish swallows ill bait:
When it groweth late
Our feeble frames he will burn.”
“But what does it mean?” Yuli asked again. “How can I learn it if I don’t understand it?’
“Repeat it, son,” said Sataal sternly. ” Whoso laps …”
Yuli was submerged in the dark city. Its networks of shadows snatched at his spirit, as he had seen men in the outer world catch fish with nets under the ice. In dreams, his mother came to him, blood flying from her mouth. Then he would wake, to lie in his narrow cot staring up, far up, far beyond the confines of his flower-shaped room, to the roof of Vakk. Sometimes, when the atmosphere was fairly clear, he could see distant detail, with bats hanging up there, and stalactites, and the rock gleaming with liquid that had ceased to be liquid; and he wished he could fly away from the traps he found himself in. But there was nowhere else to go.
Once, in midnight desperation, he crawled through to Kyales home for comfort. Kyale was annoyed at being woken, and told him to go away, but Tusca spoke to him gently, as if he were her son. She patted his arm and clutched his hand.
After a while, she wept softly, and told him that indeed she had a son, a good kind lad of about Yuli’s age, Usilk by name. But Usilk had been taken from her by the police for a crime she knew he had never committed. Every night, she lay awake and thought of him, concealed in one of those terrifying places in the Holies, guarded by phagors, and wondered if she would ever see him again.
“The militia and the priests are so unjust here,” Yuli whispered to her. “My people have little to live on in the wilds, but all are equal, one with another, in the face of the cold.”
After a pause, Tusca said, ‘There are people in Pannoval, women as well as men, who do not learn the scriptures and think to overthrow those who rule. Yet without our rulers, we should be destroyed by Akha.”
Yuli peered at the outline of her face through the dark. “And do you think that Usilk was taken … because he wanted to overthrow the rulers?”
In a low voice she replied, holding tightly to his hand, “You must not ask such questions or you’ll meet trouble. Usilk was always rebellious—yes, perhaps he got among the wrong people… .”
“Stop your chatter,” Kyale called. “Get back to your bed, woman—and you to yours, Yuli.”