I should go to Orgoreyn, Karhide’s neighbor and rival. But once I went there I might find it hard to return to Karhide, and I had unfinished business here. I had to keep in mind that my entire life could be, and might well be, used in achieving my mission for the Ekumen. No hurry. No need to rush off to Orgoreyn before I had learned more about Karhide, particularly about the Fastnesses. For two years I had been answering questions, now I would ask some. But not in Erhenrang. I had finally understood that Estraven had been warning me, and though I might distrust his warning I could not disregard it. He had been saying, however indirectly, that I should get away from the city and the court. For some reason I thought of Lord Tibe’s teeth… The king had given me the freedom of the country; I would avail myself of it. As they say in Ekumenical School, when action grows unprofitable, gather information; when information grows unprofitable, sleep. I was not sleepy, yet. I would go east to the Fastnesses, and gather information from the Foretellers, perhaps.
4. The Nineteenth Day
An East Karhidish story, as told in Gorinhering Hearth by Tobord Chorhawa, and recorded by G. A., 93/1492.
Lord Berosty rem ir Ipe came to Thangering Fastness and offered forty beryls and half the year’s yield from his orchards as the price of a Foretelling, and the price was acceptable. He set his question to the Weaver Odren, and the question was, On what day shall I die?
The Foretellers gathered and went together into the darkness. At the end of darkness Odren spoke the answer: You will die on Odstreth (the 19th day of any month).
“In what month? in how many years?” cried Berosty, but the bond was broken, and there was no answer. He ran into the circle and took the Weaver Odren by the throat choking him and shouted that if he got no further answer he would break the Weaver’s neck. Others pulled him off and held him, though he was a strong man. He strained against their hands and cried out, “Give me the answer!”
Odren said, “It is given, and the price paid. Go.”
Raging then Berosty rem ir Ipe returned to Charuthe, the third Domain of his family, a poor place in northern Osnoriner, which he had made poorer in getting together the price of a Foretelling. He shut himself up in the strong-place, in the highest rooms of the Hearth-Tower, and would not come out for friend or foe, for seedtime or harvest, for kerrimer or foray, all that month and the next and the next, and six months went by and ten months went by, and he still kept like a prisoner to his room, waiting. On Onnetherhad and Odstreth (the 18th and 19th days of the month) he would not eat any food, nor would he drink, nor would he sleep.
His kemmering by love and vow was Herbor of the Geganner clan. This Herbor came in the month of Grende to Thangering Fastness and said to the Weaver, “I seek a Foretelling.”
“What have you to pay?” Odren asked, for he saw that the man was poorly dressed and badly shod, and his sledge was old, and everything about him wanted mending.
“I will give my life,” said Herbor.
“Have you nothing else, my lord?” Odren asked him, speaking now as to a great nobleman, “nothing else to give?”
“I have nothing else,” said Herbor. “But I do not know if my life is of any value to you here.”
“No,” said Odren, “it is of no value to us.”
Then Herbor fell on his knees, struck down by shame and love, and cried to Odren, “I beg you to answer my question. It is not for myself!”
“For whom, then?”” asked the Weaver.
“For my lord and kemmering Ashe Berosty,” said the man, and he wept. “He has no love nor joy nor lordship since he came here and got that answer which was no answer. He will die of it.”
“That he will: what does a man die of but his death?” said the Weaver Odren. But Berber’s passion moved him, and at length he said, “I will seek the answer of the question you ask, Herbor, and I will ask no price. But bethink you, there is always a price. The asker pays what he has to pay.” ,