Standing on that hill, Medra had said, “There is a vein of water, just under where I stand, that will not go dry.” They dug down carefully and came to the water; they let it leap up into the sunlight; and the first part of the Great House they made was its inmost heart, the courtyard of the fountain.
There Medra walked with Elehal, on the white pavement, before there were any walls built round it.
She had planted a young rowan from the Grove beside the fountain. They came to be sure it was thriving. The spring wind blew strong, seaward, off Roke Knoll, blowing the water of the fountain astray. Up on the slope of the Knoll they could see a little group of people: a circle of young students learning how to do tricks of illusion from the sorcerer Hega of O; Master Hand, they called him. The sparkweed, past flowering, cast its ashes on the wind. There were streaks of grey in Ember’s hair.
“Off you go, then,” she said, “and leave us to settle this matter of the Rule.” Her frown was as fierce as ever, but her voice was seldom as harsh as this when she spoke to him.
“I’ll stay if you want, Elehal.”
“I do want you to stay. But don’t stay! You’re a finder, you have to go find. It’s only that agreeing on the Way-or the Rule, Waris wants us to call it-is twice the work of building the House. And causes ten times the quarrels. I wish I could get away from it! I wish I could just walk with you, like this… And I wish you wouldn’t go north.”
“Why do we quarrel?” he said rather despondently.
“Because there are more of us! Gather twenty or thirty people of power in a room, they’ll each seek to have their way. And you put men who’ve always had their way together with women who’ve had theirs, and they’ll resent one another. And then, too, there are some true and real divisions among us, Medra. They must be settled, and they can’t be settled easily. Though a little goodwill would go a long way.”
“Is it Waris?”
“Waris and several other men. And they are men, and they make that important beyond anything else. To them, the Old Powers are abominable. And women’s powers are suspect, because they suppose them all connected with the Old Powers. As if those Powers were to be controlled or used by any mortal soul! But they put men where we put the world. And so they hold that a true wizard must be a man. And celibate.”
“Ah, that,” Medra said, rueful.
“That indeed. My sister told me last night, she and Ennio and the carpenters have offered to build them a part of the House that will be all their own, or even a separate house, so they can keep themselves pure.”
“Pure?”
“It’s not my word, it’s Waris’s. But they’ve refused. They want the Rule of Roke to separate men from women, and they want men to make the decisions for all. Now what compromise can we make with them? Why did they come here, if they won’t work with us?”
“We should send away the men who won’t.”
“Away? In anger? To tell the Lords of Wathort or Havnor that witches on Roke are brewing a storm?”
“I forget-I always forget,” he said, downcast again. “I forget the walls of the prison. I’m not such a fool when I’m outside them… When I’m here I can’t believe it is a prison. But outside, without you, I remember… I don’t want to go, but I have to go. I don’t want to admit that anything here can be wrong or go wrong, but I have to… I’ll go this time, and I will go north, Elehal. But when I come back I’ll stay. What I need to find I’ll find here. Haven’t I found it already?”
“No,” she said, “only me… But there’s a great deal of seeking and finding to be done in the Grove. Enough to keep even you from being restless. Why north?”
“To reach out the Hand to Enlad and Ea. I’ve never gone there. We know nothing about their wizardries. Enlad of the Kings, and bright Ea, eldest of isles! Surely we’ll find allies there”