“I think the darkest place in the universe is inside human skulls.”
He was lost. She made a proper fool of him. Still, I must watch my tongue about the dead, mustn’t I? He was a bit soft, though… .
She used to bemuse him with romantic talk. You know what she used to say? “Have you ever thought how we know so much more than we can ever tell?” It’s true, isn’t it? “I long to have someone,” she’d say, “someone to whom I could tell everything, someone for whom talk is like a sea on which to float. Then I’d hoist my dark sail… .” I don’t know what she said to him.
And Yuli would lie awake, clutching his wound and who knows what else, thinking of this magical woman, thinking of her beauty, and her troubling words. “… Someone for whom talk is a sea on which to float …” Even the way she turned her sentence seemed to him to be Loil Bry’s way and no one else’s. He’d long to be on that sea, sailing with her, wherever it was.
‘That’s enough of your womanly nonsense,” cried Klils, struggling to his feet. “She put a spell about him, Father said so. Father also told us of the good things Uncle Yuli did at first, before she made him stupid.” He went on to tell them.
Little Yuli got to know every inch of Oldorando while he was recovering. He saw how it is laid out, with the big tower at one end of the main street and the old temple at the other. In between, the women’s house, the hunter’s homes on one side, the towers of the makers corps on the other. The ruins farther out. How all our towers have the heating system of stone pipes carrying hot water from springs through them. We couldn’t build anything half so marvellous today.
When he saw how the place was, he saw how it should be. With the aid of my father, Yuli planned proper fortifications, so that there would be no more attacks—especially no more phagor attacks. You’ve heard how everyone was set to digging a mound with a ditch on its outer side and a stout palisade on top. It was a good idea, though it cost a few blisters. Regular lookouts were drilled and posted at the four corners, as they still are. That was Yuli’s and my father’s doing. The lookouts were given horns to blow in case of a raid—the self-same horns we use today.
There were proper hunts as well as proper lookouts. People were almost starved before the merging of the tribes. Once the entire town was enclosed, Dresyl, my father, got the hunters breeding a proper hunting dog. Other scavengers could be kept out. Packs of hunting dogs could bring down game and run faster than we could. That was not much of a success, but we might try again some time.
What else? The guilds were able to make up their numbers. The colour-makers corps enlisted some children among the newcomers. New mugs and platters were made for everyone from a vein of clay they know about. More swords were hammered out. Everyone had to work for the common good. No one went hungry. My father nearly worked himself to death. You drunken lot ought to remember Dresyl while you’re remembering his brother. He was a lot better than that one. He was, he was.
Poor Klils broke into tears. Others also began to cry, or laugh, or fight. Aoz Roon, himself staggering slightly under the weight of rathel he had drunk, grabbed up Laintal Ay and Oyre, and hustled them off to bed and safety.
He looked blurrily down at their passive faces, trying to think. Somewhere in the course of the telling of the legend of the past that was like a dream, the future of the lordship of Oldorando had been decided.
III • A LEAP FROM THE TOWER
On the day after Little Yuli’s burial and the celebrations marking that occasion, everyone had to go back to work as usual. Past glories and discomforts were forgotten for the time being, except perhaps by Laintal Ay and Loilanun; they were continually reminded of the past by Loil Bry, who, when she was not weeping, liked to recall the happier days of her youth.