there are certainly some fine scholars, and fine poets too. But one thinks of soldiers more than scholars there."
"All the books Everra had were old," I said. "He wouldn't let us read the moderns—what he called the moderns—"
"Like me," Caspro said with his brief, broad smile. "I know, I know. Nema, and the Epics, and Trudec's Moralities ... That's what they started me on in Derris Water! So, you were educated so that you could teach the children of the household. Well, that much is good. Though to keep a teacher as a slave..."
"It wasn't an evil slavery," I said. "Until—" I stopped.
Memer said, "Can slavery not be evil?"
"If your masters aren't cruel people—and if you don't know there's anything else," I said. "If everybody believes it's the way things are and must be, then you can not know that ... that it's wrong."
"Can you not know?" she said, not accusing or arguing, simply asking, and thinking as she asked. She looked at me directly and said, "I was a slave in Ansul. All my people were. But by recent conquest, not by caste. We didn't have to believe we were slaves by the order of nature. That must be very different."
I wanted to talk to her but I couldn't. "It was a slave," I said to Caspro, "who taught me your hymn to Liberty."
Memer's smile brightened her grave, quiet face for a moment. Though her complexion was so light, she had dark eyes that flashed like the fire in opal. "We sang that song in Ansul when we drove the Alds out," she said.
"It's the tune," Caspro said. "Good tune. Catchy." He stretched, enjoying the warmth of the sun, and said, "I want to hear more about Barna and his city. It sounds as if there was a bitter tragedy there. Whatever you can tell me. But you said you became his bard, as it were, his reciter. So then, you have a good memory?"
"Very good," I said. "That's my power."
"Ah!" I had spoken with confidence, and he responded to it. "You memorise without difficulty?"
"Without trying," I said. "It's part of the reason I came here. What's the good of having a head full of everything you ever read? People liked hearing the stories, there in the forest. But what could I do with them in the Marshes? Or anywhere else? I thought maybe at the University..."
"Yes, yes, absolutely," Caspro said. "Or perhaps ... Well, we'll see. Here come mederende fereho en refema— is that right, Memer?—In Aritan it means 'beautiful women bringing food.' You'll want to learn Aritan, Gavir. Think of it, another language—a language different from ours!—not entirely of course, it's the ancestor of ours, but quite different—and a whole new poetry!" As he spoke, with the unguarded passion that I already saw characterised him, he was careful not to look at Melle, only at his wife, and not to come near Melle as he helped set out the food on an unoccupied bench. They had brought bread and cheese, olives, fruit, and a thin, light cider to drink.
"Where are you staying?" Gry asked, and when I said, "The Quail," she said, "How are the fleas?"
"Not too bad. Are they, Melle?"
She had come to stand close to me again. She shook her head, and scratched her shoulder.
"Shetar has her own private fleas," Gry told her. "Lion fleas. She won't share them with us. And the Quail fleas won't bite her." Shetar had opened an eye, found the food uninteresting, and gone back to sleep.
Having eaten a little, Melle sat down on the paving stones in front of me but close to the lion, within petting distance. She and Gry kept up a murmured conversation, while Caspro talked with me and Memer put in a word now and then. What he was doing, in a mild and roundabout fashion, was finding out how much of a scholar I was, what I knew and didn't know. From the little Memer said, I thought she must know everything there was to know in the way of poetry and tales. But when we came to history she declared ignorance, saying she knew only that of Ansul, and not much of that, because all the books in Ansul had been destroyed by the conquerors of the city. I wanted to hear that hideous story, but Caspro, mildly perseverant, kept on the course of his questions until he'd learned what he wanted to know, and even won from me a confession of my