“You’d better all go home,” she said, afraid to look directly at the women.
When they got back to the muddy main square, Aoz Roon ordered Laintal Ay to stay away from the academy.
Lainfal Ay flushed. “Isn’t it time that you and the council gave up your prejudice against the academy? I hoped you’d think better of it since the miracle of Fish Lake. Why upset the women? They’ll hate you for it. The worst the academy can do is keep the women content.”
“It makes the women idle. It causes division.”
Laintal Ay looked at Dathka for support, but Dathka was gazing at his boots. “It’s more likely to be your attitude that causes division, Aoz Roon. Knowledge never hurt anyone; we need knowledge.”
“Knowledge is slow poison—you’re too young to understand. We need discipline. That’s how we survive and how we always have survived. You stay away from Shay Tal—she exerts an unnatural power over people. Those who don’t work in Oldorando get no food. That’s always been the rule. Shay Tal and Vry have ceased working the boilery, so in future they will have nothing to eat. We’ll see how they like that.”
“They’ll starve.”
Aoz Roon drew his brows together and glared at Laintal Ay, “We will all starve if we do not cooperate. Those women have to be brought to heel, and I will not tolerate you siding with them. Argue with me any more and I’ll knock you down.”
When Aoz Roon had gone, Laintal Ay gripped Dathka’s shoulder. “He is getting worse. It’s his personal battle with Shay Tal. What do you think?”
Dathka shook his head. “I don’t think. I do what I’m told.”
Laintal Ay regarded his friend sarcastically. “And what are you told to do now?”
“I’m going up by the brassimips patch. We’ve killed a stungebag.” He exhibited a bleeding hand.
“I’ll be there in a while.”
He walked by the Voral, idly watching the geese swimming and parading, before following his friend. He thought to himself that he understood both Aoz Roon’s and Shay Tal’s points of view. To live, all had to cooperate, yet was it worth living if they merely cooperated? The conflict oppressed him and made him long to leave the hamlet—as he would do if only Oyre were to agree to come with him. He felt that he was too young to understand how the argument, the growing division, would resolve itself. Slyly, seeing nobody was looking, he brought out from his pocket a carved dog given him long ago by the old priest from Borlien. He held it forward and worked its tail. The dog began to bark furiously at nearby geese.
Someone else was wending her way towards the brassimips and heard the imitation dog bark. Vry saw Laintal Ay’s back between two towers. She did not intrude on him, for that was not her way.
She skirted the hot springs and the Hour-Whistler. An easterly breeze took the steam from the waters as it emerged from the ground, to blow it hissing across wet rock. Vry’s furs were pearled with a bead of moisture at every hair end.
The waters ran gargling, yellow and chalky in their crevices, full of an infectious fury to be somewhere. She squatted down on a rock and absentmindedly dipped her hand in a spring. Hot water ran up her fingers and explored her palm.
Vry licked the liquid off her fingers. She knew the sulphurous flavour from childhood. Children were playing here now, calling to each other, running across slippery rock without falling, agile as arangs.
The more adventurous children ran naked, despite the stiff breeze, inserting their androgynous bodies into clefts between rocks. Spurning waters cascaded up their stomachs and over their shoulders.
“Here comes the Whistler,” they called to Vry. “Look out, missus, or you’ll get a soaking.” They laughed heartily at the thought.
Taking the warning, Vry moved away. She thought that a stranger here would credit the children with a sixth sense, able to predict exactly when the Hour-Whistler blew.
Up it went, a solid column of water, muddy for a moment then brilliant pure. Ascending, it whistled on an ascending note—its unvarying note, sustained for an unvarying duration. The water sailed upwards to about three times the height of a man before falling back. The wind curved the jet towards the west, hammering the rocks where Vry had squatted a moment earlier.