When she had laid out the corpse as it should lie to be buried, on the left side with the knees bent, she had put in the upturned left hand a tiny charm-bundle, something wrapped in soft goatskin and tied with colored cord. The wizard of Re Albi flicked it away with the tip of his staff.
“Is the grave dug?” asked the wizard of Gont Port.
“Yes,” said the wizard of Re Albi. “It is dug in the graveyard of my lord’s house,” and he pointed towards the mansion house up on the mountain.
“I see,” said Gont Port. “I had thought our mage would be buried in all honor in the city he saved from earthquake.”
“My lord desires the honor,” said Re Albi. “But it would seem-” Gont Port began, and stopped, not liking to argue, but not ready to give in to the young man’s easy claim. He looked down at the dead man. “He must be buried nameless,” he said with regret and bitterness. ‘I walked all night, but came too late. A great loss made greater!”
The young wizard said nothing.
“His name was Aihal,” Tenar said. “His wish was to lie here, where he lies now.”
Both men looked at her. The young man, seeing a middle-aged village woman, simply turned away. The man from Gont Port stared a moment and said, “Who are you?”
“I’m called Flint’s widow, Goha,” she said. “Who I am is your business to know, I think. But not mine to say.
At this, the wizard of Re Albi found her worthy of a brief stare. “Take care, woman, how you speak to men of power!”
“Wait, wait,” said Gont Port, with a patting gesture, trying to calm Re Albi’s indignation, and still gazing at Tenar. “You were-You were his ward, once?”
“And friend,” Tenar said. Then she turned away her head and stood silent. She had heard the anger in her voice as she said that word, “friend.” She looked down at her friend, a corpse ready for the ground, lost and still. They stood over him, alive and full of power, offering no friendship, only contempt, rivalry, anger.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was a long night. I was with him when he died.”
“It is not-” the young wizard began, but unexpectedly old Aunty Moss interrupted him, saying loudly, “She was. Yes, she was. Nobody else but her. He sent for her. He sent young Townsend the sheep-dealer to tell her come, clear down round the mountain, and he waited his dying till she did come and was with him, and then he died, and he died where he would be buried, here.”
“And” said the older man, “-and he told you-?”
“His name.” Tenar looked at them, and do what she would, the incredulity on the older man’s face, the contempt on the other’s, brought out an answering disrespect in her. “I said that name,” she said. “Must I repeat it to you?”
To her consternation she saw from their expressions that in fact they had not heard the name, Ogion’s true name; they had not paid attention to her.
“Oh!” she said. “This is a bad time-a time when even such a name can go unheard, can fall like a stone! Is listening not power? Listen, then: his name was Aihal. His name in death is Aihal, In the songs he will be known as Aihal of Gont. If there are songs to be made any more. He was a silent man. Now he’s very silent. Maybe there will be no songs, only silence. I don’t know. I’m very tired. I’ve lost my father and dear friend.” Her voice failed; her throat closed on a sob. She turned to go. She saw on the forest path the little charm-bundle Aunty Moss had made. She picked it up, knelt down by the corpse, kissed the open palm of the left hand, and laid the bundle on it. There on her knees she looked up once more at the two men. She spoke quietly.
“Will you see to it,” she said, “that his grave is dug here, where he desired it?”
First the older man, then the younger, nodded. She got up, smoothing down her skirt, and started back across the meadow in the morning light.