“Ah, a good many …”
“Tell us how you know this.”
He wiped his hands on his trousers.
“We have a record. Each master keeps a record.”
“In writing?”
“That’s correct. Writing in a book. The art is passed on. But the records are not to be disclosed to others.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“They don’t want the women taking over their jobs and doing it better,” someone called, and again there was laughter. Datnil Skar smiled with embarrassment, and said no more.
“I believe that secrecy served a protective purpose at one time,” Shay Tal said. “Certain arts, like metal forging and tannery, had to be kept alive in bad times, despite starvation or phagor raids. Probably there were very bad times in the past, and some arts were lost. We cannot make paper any longer. Perhaps there was once a paper-makers corps. Glass. We cannot make glass. Yet there are pieces of glass about—you all know what glass is. How is it that we are more stupid than our ancestors? Are we living, working, under some disadvantage we don’t fully understand? That’s one of the big questions we must keep in mind.”
She paused. No one said anything, which always vexed her. She longed for any comment that would push the argument forward.
Datnil Skar said, “Mother Shay, you speak true, to the best of my belief. You understand that as master I am under oath to disclose secrets of my art to nobody; it’s an oath I take to Wutra and to Embruddock. But I know that there were once bad times, of which I am not supposed to speak… .”
When he fell silent, she helped him with a smile. “Do you believe that Oldorando was once bigger than it is now?”
He looked at her with his head on one side. “I know you call this town a farmyard. But it survives… . It’s the centre of the cosmos. Well that’s not answering your question. My friends, you found rye and oats growing north of here, so let’s speak of them. To the best of my belief, that place was once carefully tended fields, enclosed against wild beasts. The fields belonged to Embruddock. Many other cereals grew there and were cultivated. Now you cultivate them again, which is wise.
“You know we need bark for our tanning. We have a job to get hold of it. I do believe—well, I know …” He fell silent, then he said quietly, “Great forests of tall trees, which yield bark and wood, grew to the west and north. The region was called Kace. It was hot then, and there was no cold.”
Someone said, “The time of heat—that’s a legend left over from the priesthood. The sort of tale we’re supposed to get out of our minds in the academy. We do know that it was once colder than it is now. Ask my grandma.”
“What I’m saying is that, to the best of my belief, it was hot before it was cold,” Datnil Skar said, slowly scratching the back of his grey head. “You should try to understand these things. Many lives go by, many years. There’s a lot of history vanished. I know you women think that men are against you learning, and it may be so; but I speak sincerely when I say that you should support Shay Tal, despite various difficulties. As a master, I know how precious knowledge is. It seems to run out of the bottom of a community like water out of a sock.”
They stood and clapped him politely when he left.
At Freyr-set, two days later, Shay Tal was pacing restlessly in her room in the isolated tower. A shout came from below. Immediately she thought of Aoz Roon, though the voice was not his.
She wondered who would venture beyond the barricades when light was growing dim. Putting her head out of the window, she saw Datnil Skar, his figure insubstantial in the dusk.
“Oh, come up, my friend,” she cried. She went down to meet him. He appeared clutching a box, smiling nervously. They sat down facing each other on her stone floor, and she poured him a measure of rathel.