That night they slept before her fire; and in the morning, as they walked over the land eating its grapes and strawberries, they saw that everything needed to build a great city was there, where stone could be floated down from the mountains upon rafts of logs, where there was good water in abundance and the rich soil engendered a green birth from every seed.
Then they held a council. Some urged that they should kill the old woman. Others, more merciful, that they should only drive her away. Still others proposed that they should trick her by this means or that.
But their leader was a pious man who said, “If we do any of these evil things, you may be sure the Increate will not permit it to pass without notice, for she has welcomed us and given us of all she possesses except her land. Let us offer our money for that. It may be she will accept it, not knowing the value of what she has.”
So they polished each brass or copper bit, put them into a bag, and offered it to the old woman. But she refused, for she loved her home.
“Let her be tied, and laid into one of her own tubs,” some said. “Then we will only have to push the tub into the current, and we will be rid of her; and which of us will have her blood upon his hands?”
Their leader shook his head. “Surely her ghost would haunt our new town,” he told them. And so they added their silver to the money in the sack and offered it again; but the old woman refused as before.
“She is old,” one said, “and in the course of nature she must die soon. I will remain here to care for her while you return to your families. When she is dead I will return also, bearing the news.”
At this the leader shook his head, for he saw murder in the speaker’s eyes; and at last they added their gold (which was not much) to the money already in the bag and offered that to the old woman as well. But she, who loved her home, refused just as before.
Then their leader said, “Tell us what you will take for this place. For I warn you we will have it by one means or another, and I cannot much longer restrain the rest.” At that the old woman thought long and hard; and at last she said, “When you build your town, you must put a garden in the midst of it, with trees that blossom and fruit, and humble plants likewise. And in the center of this garden you must erect a statue of me made of precious stuffs.”
To this they readily agreed, and when they returned to the place with their wives and children, the old woman was no more to be seen. Her hut, her dovecotes, and her rabbit hutches they used for firewood, and they feasted on her produce while they built their town. But in the center of it, as they had sworn, they made a garden; and though it was not a large garden, they promised to make it bigger by and by. In the middle of this garden, they erected a statue of painted wood.
Years passed; the paint peeled away, and the wood cracked. Weeds sprang up in the flower beds, though there were always a few old women who pulled them out and planted marigolds and hollyhocks, and scattered crumbs for the doves that perched on the shoulders of the wooden figure.
The town gave itself a grand name and grew walls and towers, though its walls were but little walls to keep out beggars, and owls nested in the empty guardrooms of its towers. Its grand name was not used by travelers or farmers, the former calling the place Pestis and the latter Urbis. Yet many merchants and many outlanders settled there, and it grew until it reached the heels of the mountains, and the farmers sold their fields and meadows and were rich.
At last a certain merchant purchased the weedy little garden in the center of the Old Quarter and built godowns and shops upon its flower beds. He burned the gnarled old apples and mulberries in his own fireplaces, for wood was dear; and when he burned the wooden woman, ants fled from her to explode among the coals.
When the harvest was poor, the town fathers took what corn there was and shared it out at the price paid the year before; but a year came when the harvest failed. The merchants demanded to know by what right the fathers of the town did this, for they desired to sell what corn there was for the price it would bring.
Prompted by the merchants, the town’s many poor asked too, demanding bread at public cost. Then the town fathers recalled that their own fathers had taught them the name by which they governed the town, but none could lay tongue to it. There was fighting and many fires — but no bread — and before the last fire had smoldered out, many had left the town to search for berries and hunt rabbits.
That town lies in ruins now, all its towers cast down; yet it is said that one old woman remains, who has made a garden at its center among the tumbled walls.
When I murmured the words I have just written here, Os had nearly vanished; but I remained where I was, leaning on the rail of the little quarterdeck near the stempost, looking back along the upper river that lay gleaming to the north and east.
This part of Gyoll, below Thrax but above Nessus, is as different from that below Nessus as can be imagined. Though it carries already its burden of silt from the mountains, it flows too swiftly to foul its channel; and because it does not, and is hemmed by rocky hills on either side, it runs as straight as a spar for a hundred leagues.
Our sails had brought us to the center of the flood, where the current will bear a vessel three leagues in a watch; close-hauled, they gave us just enough way for the rudder to bite the swirling water. The upper world was fair and smiling and full of sunshine, though in the farthest east there was a patch of black no bigger than my thumb. From time to time the breeze that filled our sails died away, and the strange, stiff flags ceased their uneasy stirring and fell lifelessly to the masts.
I had been aware of two sailors crouched nearby but had assumed they were on watch, waiting to trim the mizzen (our mizzenmast extended through the sun deck) if the need arose. When I turned at last, thinking to go to the bow, they were looking up at me; and I recognized both.
“We’ve disobeyed you, sieur,” Declan muttered. “But we did it because we love you for our lives. We beg you to forgive us.” He could not meet my eyes.
Herena nodded. “My arm ached to follow you, sieur. It will cook and wash and sweep for you — do whatever you order it to do.”
When I said nothing, she added, “It’s only my feet that rebel. They won’t stand idle when you go away.”
Declan said, “We heard the doom you laid on Os. I can’t write, sieur, but I remember it all, and I’ll find someone who can. Your curse upon that evil city won’t be forgotten.”
I sat on the deck before them. “It isn’t always good to leave your native place.”
Herena held out her cupped hand — the hand I had shaped for her — then turned it upside down. “How can it be good to find the master of Urth and lose him again? Besides, I’d have been taken if I’d stayed with Mother. But I’d follow you anywhere, though an optimate waited to wed me.”
“Did your father follow me too? Or any others? You can’t remain with me unless you’ll tell me the truth.”
“I’d never lie to you, sieur. No, no others. I would have known them.”
“Did you really follow me, Herena? Or did you and Declan run ahead of us, just as you ran ahead of us after you’d seen us land from the flying ship?”
Declan said, “She didn’t mean to lie, sieur. She’s a good girl. It was just a manner of speaking.”
“I know that. But did you go ahead of me?”
Declan nodded. “Yes, sieur, we did. She told me the woman had been talking about going to Os the day before. So when you wouldn’t let any of us go with you yesterday…” He paused, rubbing his grizzled chin and ruminating on the decision that had caused him to leave his native village.