Or so he thought. Then, when he walked on pavement between walls, he began to feel stifled. How seldom these folk really laughed aloud! How drably they dressed! And where were the male swagger, the female ardor? He wondered how these sitters had gotten any wish to beget the children he saw. Why, they needed to pour their merriment out of a tankard.
Not that the beer wasn’t good. He gulped it down. Erannath sipped.
They sat in a waterfront tavern, wood-paneled, rough-raftered, dark and smoky. Windows opened on a view of the dock. A ship, which had unloaded cargo here and taken on consignments for farther downstream, was girding to depart.
“Don’t yonder crew want to stay for our carnival?” Ivar asked.
A burly, bearded man, among the several whom Erannath’s exotic presence had attracted to this table, puffed his pipe before answering slow: “No, I don’t recall as how Riverfolk ever go to those things. Seems like they, m-m-m, shun tinerans. Maybe not bad idea.”
“Why?” Ivar challenged. Are they nonhuman, not to care for Fraina’s dancin’ or Mikkal’s blade arts or—
“Always trouble. I notice, son, you said, ‘Our carnival.’ Have care. It brings grief, tryin’ to be what you’re not born to be.”
“I’ll guide my private life, if you please.”
The villager shrugged. “Sorry.”
“If the nomads are a disturbing force,” Erannath inquired, “why do you allow them in your territory?”
“They’ve always been passin’ through,” said the oldest man present. “Tradition gives rights. Includin’ right to pick up part of their livin’—by entertainments, cheap merchandise, odd jobs, and, yes, teachin’ prudence by fleecin’ the foolish.”
“Besides,” added a young fellow, “they do bring color, excitement, touch of danger now and then. We might not live this quietly if Waybreak didn’t overnight twice in year.”
The jaws of the bearded man clamped hard on his pipestem before he growled, “We’re soon apt to get over-supplied with danger, Jim.”
Ivar stiffened. A tingle went through him. “What do you mean … may I ask?”
A folk saying answered him: “Either much or little.”
But another customer, a trifle drunk, spoke forth. “Rumors only. And yet, somethin’s astir up and down river, talk of one far south who’s promised Elders will return and deliver us from Empire. Could be wishful thinkin’, of course. But damn, it feels right somehow. Aeneas is special. I never paid lot of attention to Dido before; however, lately I’ve begun givin’ more and more thought to everything our filosofs have learned there. I’ve gone out under Mornin’ Star and tried to think myself toward Oneness, and you know, it’s helped me. Should we let Impies crush us back into subjects, when we may be right at next stage of evolution?”
The bearded man frowned. “That’s heathenish talk, Bob. Me, I’ll hold my trust in God.” To Ivar: “God’s will be done. I never thought Empire was too bad, nor do I now. But it has gone morally rotten, and maybe we are God’s chosen instruments to give it cleansin’ shock.” After a pause: “If’s true, we’ll need powerful outside help. Maybe He’s preparin’ that for us too.” All their looks bent on Erannath. “I’m plain valley dweller and don’t know anything,” the speaker finished, “except that unrest is waxin’, and hope of deliverance.”
Hastily, the oldster changed the subject.
Night had toppled upon them when Firstling and Ythrian returned to camp. After they left town, stars gave winter-keen guidance to their feet. Otherwise the air was soft, moist, full of growth odors. Gravel scrunched beneath the tread of those bound the same way. Voices tended to break off when a talker noticed the nonhuman, but manners did not allow butting into a serious conversation. Ahead, lamps on poles glowed above wagons widespread among tents. The skirl of music loudened.
“What I seek to understand,” Erannath said, “is this Aenean resentment of the Imperium. My race would resist such overlordship bitterly. But in human terms, it has on the whole been light, little more than a minor addition to taxes and the surrender of sovereignty over outside, not domestic, affairs. In exchange, you get protection, trade, abundant offplanet contacts. Correct?”
“Perhaps once,” Ivar answered. The beer buzzed in his head. “But then they set that Snelund creature over us. And since, too many of us are dead in war, while Impies tell us to change ways of our forefathers.”