The Left Hand Of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4) - Ursula K. Le Guin Page 0,114

discomposed, led me on and brought me into the Inner Hearth to the Lord of Estre.

Esvans Harth rem ir Estraven was an old man, past seventy, crippled by an arthritic disease of the hips. He sat erect in a rolling-chair by the fire. His face was broad, much blunted and worn down by time, like a rock in a torrent: a calm face, terribly calm.

‘You are the Envoy, Genry Ai?’

‘I am.’

He looked at me, and I at him. Therem had been the son, child of the flesh, of this old lord. Therem the younger son; Arek, the elder, that brother whose voice he had heard in mine bespeaking him; both dead now. I could not see anything of my friend in that worn, calm, hard old face that met my gaze. I found nothing there but the certainty, the sure fact of Therem’s death.

I had come on a fool’s errand to Estre, hoping for solace. There was no solace; and why should a pilgrimage to the place of my friend’s childhood make any difference, fill any absence, soothe any remorse? Nothing could be changed now. My coming to Estre had, however, another purpose, and this I could accomplish.

‘I was with your son in the months before his death. I was with him when he died. I’ve brought you the journals he kept. And if there’s anything I can tell you of those days—’

No particular expression showed on the old man’s face. That calmness was not to be altered. But the young one with a sudden movement came out of the shadows into the light between the window and the fire, a bleak uneasy light, and he spoke harshly: ‘In Erhenrang they still call him Estraven the Traitor.’

The old lord looked at the boy, then at me.

‘This is Sorve Harth,’ he said, ‘heir of Estre, my sons’ son.’

There is no ban on incest there, I knew it well enough. Only the strangeness of it, to me a Terran, and the strangeness of seeing the flash of my friend’s spirit in this grim, fierce, provincial boy, made me dumb for a while. When I spoke my voice was unsteady, ‘The king will recant. Therem was no traitor. What does it matter what fools call him?’ The old lord nodded slowly, smoothly. ‘It matters,’ he said.

‘You crossed the Gobrin Ice together,’ Sorve demanded, ‘you and he?’

‘We did.’

‘I should like to hear that tale, my Lord Envoy,’ said old Esvans, very calm. But the boy, Therem’s son, said stammering, ‘Will you tell us how he died? – Will you tell us about the other worlds out among the stars – the other kinds of men, the other lives?’

THE GETHENIAN CALENDAR

AND CLOCK

The Year.

Gethen’s period of revolution is 8401 Terran Standard Hours, or .96 of the Terran Standard Year.

The period of rotation is 23.08 Terran Standard Hours: the Gethenian year contains 364 days.

In Karhide/Orgoreyn years are not numbered consecutively from a base year forward to the present; the base year is the current year. Every New Years Day (Getheny Thern) the year just past becomes the year ‘one-ago’, and every past date is increased by one. The future is similarly counted, next year being the year ‘one-to-come,’ until it in turn becomes the Year One.

The inconvenience of this system in record-keeping is palliated by various devices, for instance reference to well-known events, reigns of kings, dynasties, local lords, etc. The Yomeshta count in 144-year cycles from the Birth of Meshe (2202 years-ago, in Ekumenical Year 1492), and keep ritual celebrations every twelfth year; but this system is strictly cultic and is not officially employed even by the government of Orgoreyn, which sponsors the Yomesh religion.

The Month.

The period of revolution of Gethen’s moon is 26 Gethenian days; the rotation is captured, so that the moon presents the same face to the planet always. There are 14 months in the year, and as solar and lunar calendars concur so closely that adjustment is required only about once in 200 years, the days of the month are invariable, as are the dates of the phases of the moon. The Karhidish names of the months:

Winter:

1. Thern

2. Thanern

3. Nimmer

4. Anner

Spring:

5. Irrem

6. Moth

7. Tuwa

Summer:

8. Osme

9. Ockre

10. Kus

11. Hakanna

Autumn:

12. Gor

13. Susmy

14. Grende

The 26-day month is divided into two halfmonths of 13 days.

The Day.

The day (23.08 T.S.H.) is divided into 10 hours (see below); being invariable, the days of the month are generally referred to by name like our days of the week, not by number. (Many of the names refer to the phase