Chapter VI:
The Blest of Anatheda
Reunion
As might have been anticipated, the teachings of Abbon had begun to spread in north Alwan, finding ears among both elves and men in many of the villages that lay near to the Thedul River. By asking around along the river Nihls was able to discern that Abbon had gone south along the course of the water, making his way at long last to the southern lake country, where the Thedul became a raging flood, pouring into the Great Lake over an immense waterfall. In that region, not a day's walk from the fall itself, stood a tomb, the inscription of which read, 'The Teacher of Truth.' Among the people of that region many already knew the name Theodysus, and had learned the Hidden Wisdom Abbon had taught.
Nihls wept long outside of the tomb, while Meidi and the other Enthedu who had accompanied him watched in silence. Some were uneasy at his sorrow over the passing of a man who had been driven out from them. But others seemed to see their own parting from Noro's party as a parting of the very same nature. Some said, 'We are no longer Enthedu,' to which others asked, 'Then what are we?'
For a time it seemed as though they had escaped the war, and found something of a new life as wanderers. Nihls would have had the people settle somewhere and farm the land as they had before, but the others wished to find the rest of the Enthedu to see if some agreement could be found between them. 'The Doctrai will not tolerate us,' he was counseled. 'They scarcely tolerated us when we lived beyond the borders of their power. Now that we dwell within we will be compelled to acknowledge Pelas as a god, or we will be slain and exiled.'
'That would be a bitter exile,' Nihls laughed. But in the end he gave in to their reasoning, and they made a living trading between the villages along the Thedul, and along some of its tributaries.
As winter approached the following year, however, the people found themselves eager to meet with the other survivors of Thedval. After a long and unprofitable journey (Meidi rightly accused Nihls of being a dreadful man of business) the followers of Nihls came at last to the foothills of Mount Vitiai, where, they had learned, the rest of the Enthedu had come to reside.
The wind was blowing strongly as they rode into what they were told was the new village of Anatheda. The hills were dotted with log cabins, each with a steady stream of smoke rising into the wind. Lights warmed the windows and looked welcoming to the people as they approached. Their actual greeting, however, came from a party of horsemen, each armed with spears, who rode out to meet them.
Nihls recognized none of them. His own number had grown somewhat, especially in the south where he had encountered those who had been taught, he believed, by Abbon himself. Noro's group, however, had nearly tripled, and there were swords on every hip and grim looking men in armor bearing banners. While many among Nihls' followers were openly hostile toward what they called his 'weakness,' these men seemed to be filled with loyalty for their master.
'Do you curse the Doctrai?' a black bearded man said with as little patience in his voice as there was kindness.
'No,' Nihls said with alarm. 'I curse no one.'
'I will ask but once more,' the man said coldly, hefting his spear as if he were preparing to attack.
'Listen to me!' Meidi said, pushing her way forward with a frustrated hiss. ‘Without hesitation I can tell you that we curse the Doctrai, and I can tell you that we have no quarrel with the Enthedu.' She shook her head with frustration at the fact that, though it was Nihls' own trick, he utterly refused to make use of it. He could not even make a bargain without informing the buyer what flaws the merchandise had, or how many barrels of apples were bruised or battered. As it was they had come to this place on the very last of their provisions, and were it not for the kindness they anticipated they would have perished in the wilderness, or been forced to seek aid among the people of Alwan.
'The Enthedu?' the bearded man spat. 'That name has been left behind.'
'Not by us,' Nihls said, turning the horse Urian to face the man
'Then you would do well to abandon it,' the man answered. 'I am Athar; captain of the guard of the Blest.'
For a moment Nihls doubted they had even come to the right place. But riding swiftly along the road he recognized the face of Amarin. His friend bore a sword across his shoulders and a bow was strapped unstrung to the side of his horse's saddle.
'Easy Athar!' Amarin said as he reigned his horse to a halt. 'These are friends.'
'Do you think me so rash, Master Amarin, that I would strike those who come to the Blest in peace?'
'I do not think so now, Athar,' Amarin laughed. 'These are dangerous times, and you are a dangerous man for them. Were they any others I would expect nothing less from you - and Noro would require it.'
Nihls felt uneasy at the mention of Noro. The people here had experience in battle, and he wondered how much fighting the gentle Enthedu had seen - and taken part in - since he had departed.
'It is good to see you, brother,' Nihls said with a bow to Amarin.
'And it is good to see you as well, Nihls,' Amarin said, with just the slightest hint of hesitation. 'You will find that many things have changed, Nihls. Many things.'
With that he turned and galloped back up the hill along a rough dirt road. Athar and the guards followed him, but not until the man turned and said, 'Do not expect too much in the way of welcome. The Blest remember the ways of Theodysus; but we will not make the same mistakes and excesses that were made by the Enthedu and the Dull-blades.'
What that meant Nihls was afraid to hear. He thought it would not be difficult to guess the meaning of that latter term.
Say The Word
There was a feast prepared for the followers of Nihls, and every effort was made to make them feel not only welcome in Anatheda, but also to make known the precise cost of entertaining them. When they were given provisions they were told, not how many pounds or barrels of food they would receive, but the worth of it all in gold pieces. Noro held a great feast to greet them, and he called it an 'Arilna,' which was a word that had originally been used in reference to the portions the Enthedu set aside to satiate the hunger of the goblins in the north.
On the last day of Florhus, Nihls and Meidi, along with several others among the 'Dull-blades' were invited to dine at the house of Noro. A great boar was roasted, and every finery the Blest could manage was provided, and set before their eyes as a taunt. As much as Nihls would have expected a woman like Meidi to receive such treatment with anger, she looked at everything sadly and longingly.
She would probably be more content in Anatheda, Nihls thought as he watched her dining quietly at the feast.
Noro and Giretta were both seated at the head of the table, and Nihls and Meidi beside them, in the place reserved for an honored guest and his wife. This also was a taunt; for Noro seemed to take great pleasure in reminding Nihls that he was, 'as yet,' unmarried. He said, 'as yet,' in such a way that all who heard him could tell that he meant, 'will never be.'
Meidi did not seem at all pleased at being part of this taunt, having been seated in the place reserved for Nihls' wife. But she lay the blame for this cruelty entirely on Giretta, who in her mind had stolen away all her hope of happiness.
Giretta looked absolutely radiant, however, which made Meidi all the more bitter. Her hair was longer and more beautiful than ever - and the women of Anatheda did not seem to keep their hair up in braids. She seemed to have gained beauty with the birth of their son Ilnoron - her skin was nearly perfect and her eyes seemed to shine with health. Her clothing was fine; clearly the work of a city-seamstress and not of any craftswoman among the Enthedu. The Blest did a great deal of trading in Alwan, though they had to conceal their identities to avoid the attention of the Doctrai. This, Noro laughed, they managed by adopting Nihls' trick of premising every lie with the words, 'I am telling you,' or some variation thereof.
When the feast was finished the people left the table and spoke freely to whomever they wished. Meidi and
Ebbe spoke for a long time in a quiet corner of the hall, Ebbe with a radiant grin and Meidi with a false one. Noro and Amarin made a few jokes about Nihls, recalling with fondness how they had let him take the blame for what happened at the bathing pools. Nihls looked about the room, wishing the girls were close enough to hear their confessions. 'Did you ever get that sword sharpened, brother?' Noro asked.
'I am still working on it,' Nihls said with as genuine a smile as he could manage. He had given up on getting Noro to understand him many years ago.
After a time Amarin and Noro fell into talking about matters that concerned only the Blest, and Nihls was surprised to discover that he was no longer a part of the conversation. He wandered from the table and sought a place to sit where he would not be trampled or troubled.
There was a great deal of ale and wine being poured, and no small amount of pipe smoke in the air; the smell of it bothered his nose. He stepped out through the door and threw his cloak over his shoulders, walking out under the light of a nearly full moon. A small lamp burned outside the hall, casting a small patch of light upon the path to the main road of Anatheda. He stood there for only a moment before he heard the door open, releasing the noise from within for just a moment before shutting once again. He heard a rustle and then felt the warmth of someone standing very near to him.
'Nihls,' he heard Giretta's voice begin. 'I cannot tell you how much I have missed you.'
His heart sank; he could think of little else he would have wanted more to hear from her. But as sweet as it sounded, it left a sourness within him.
'I have missed you as well, Giretta,' he said. After a moment he added, 'Who could have known that this is how things would turn out?'
He turned to look at her, and saw that there was a tear on her cheek. He immediately regretted his words. 'What is it, Giretta?' he asked compassionately. 'Have I troubled you?'
'No, Nihls,' she said, more tears dripping from her eyes. 'You have done nothing to offend me.'
There was something in her voice that almost seemed to indicate that she meant, not that she was not offended, but that it was another who had done it.
'You look well, Giretta,' he said. 'Is Garam in good health?'
'He has taken to babbling of the old days, and he drinks more ale than a man ought,' she answered with a slight grin, 'but he is still in good health.'
'I am glad for that at least,’ Nihls said.
There was silence for a while, then Giretta said, 'Nihls, you must despise me.'
Nihls turned to her with confusion on his face, 'No, Giretta. Never. I-' she cut him off.
'I was mistaken, Nihls, I should not have married him,' she said, shaking her head.
'Is everything alright, Giretta?' he asked her.
'Nothing, Nihls, not since the day we wed,' she felt sick with regret when she thought back to how foolish she had been that night when Noro came to her in a drunken stupor - that was as much of a marriage as a fool like she deserved. 'Can you... forgive me,' she pleaded, her voice sounded as though she meant to ask for something else; something more.
'There is nothing to forgive, Giretta,' he said, putting his hand upon her cheek and lifting her head gently till they looked in one another's eyes.
'I would go with you,' she said, almost as if she meant that very moment.
'You are safer here,' Nihls said. 'And your family is here also.'
There was but a moment of silence before Nihls added, 'I have not seen your son, Giretta! How happy he must be to have a mother such as you!'
Giretta sniffed as though he was jesting, but her eyes softened as she considered who it was who spoke. 'He is very much half his father,' she said as if in complaint - as if it would make Nihls hate the child.
'A child is made of his parents like a house is made of trees and earth - a new form that ought not be judged by its old nature.'
That was similar to something Teacher Abbon had said, Giretta recalled, but she could tell that Nihls had given it as much thought on his own. 'If anything... happens to me,' she said quietly - it did not sound as though she meant it when she said 'if' - 'will you look after Ilnoron? Will you make sure that he is safe and well, and that he is raised in our ways?'
It was a strange request, he thought, since his father ought to be the one caring for the child in such a circumstance. But he nodded and said in a comforting tone, 'Of course.'
'You do not hate me, then?' Giretta said, almost sounding as if she were pleading.
'I could not hate you, Giretta,' he answered.
'You used to love me, Nihls,' she said. 'I know that now. I did not understand it when we were younger.'
His chest lowered as his breath slipped out through his nostrils. His next breath came only with a tremendous effort. He had longed for such words for years, but they made him feel as uneasy as he felt glad to hear them.
'And I loved you too, Nihls,' she said with no truth in the tense of her expression.
The door opened again, and the noise from within startled them both. Nihls quickly moved away from her as a few drunk Blest stumbled out of the house and onto the road, too filled with ale to notice anyone else. Nihls looked longingly at the door as if he desperately wanted to return to the smoke and stupidity within. In truth, he very much wanted to be right in the place where he now stood, hearing kind words from the woman he loved. Abbon had said that a man can wish two opposite things because he is one man in name only - in fact a man is and wants many things, for there are many motives hidden within his breast, each vying for the ascendancy.
Giretta swallowed and said in a heartbroken voice, 'You are too good for even the Enthedu, Nihls,' she said.
'If there is aught that is troubling you, Giretta,' Nihls said, noticing her deep sadness, 'just tell me. Say the word and I will help you in whatever way that I can.'
'Can you love me,' she said, her words escaping before her thoughts could prevent them. 'Can you love me again?' she put her hands on his cheeks and pushed his hair away from his face.
He started back as though she were a bear rather than a woman, and took her hands gently into his own. His eyes darted around, hoping that none had seen them.
Giretta noticed the movement of his gaze and turned - just in time to see Meidi come to stand near the large window in the front of the hall. Jealousy filled her to the brim like rain in a barrel when the spring storms strike the cold north. She turned back toward him angrily, but before she could say anything he said, 'If someone has harmed you, Giretta,' he meant Noro of course, 'then but say the word and I will rescue you.' He hoped with all his heart that he would not have to answer her question.
With a quivering lip she remembered her old bitterness and said, the untruth apparent in her voice, 'No, Nihls. No one has wronged me,' she answered, calmly, but as her bitterness and sadness rose she heard more words coming from her mouth, unbidden. 'And I have, perhaps, better protections here among those who use stones to sharpen their swords rather than to beat them into rusted sticks.'
He smiled, but she could tell that he had been hurt by her words. How could she say that she loved him, she thought, when all she ever spoke to him were hurtful words?
'I am glad that you are well, Nihls,' she said as she turned back toward the hall. That much was the truth at least.
She walked back into the smoke filled room and said her goodbyes and vanished from the gathering with the excuse that her son was calling for her. Meidi was gone - she thanked the God for that - and she could not find her husband. This was probably for the best, she thought, since she was in no mood to treat kindly with him.
Nihls walked silently back to the encampment of those who had followed him - the last of the Enthedu, he realized as he thought about all that had changed among the Blest. Tears fell down his cheeks in a steady stream until he forget his sorrows in sleep.
Happiness
'Look at the beauty of the sunrise if you doubt,' Teacher Sazo had said to his pupils. 'Look to the beauty
of the raylilia and the rose if you doubt. Look to the cold beauty of the moon in winter and the warm breeze of a summer evening if you have any doubts, my children, that the Eternal King loves you. You know what you want; but the Eternal King knows you more than even you know yourself - how much more does he, then, know what you want? Trust in him, and your desires will never fail. Did Theodysus come to us to make us prisoners? Did he come to make us wretched? Did he come to make us beggars or sickly? Nay - he was a healer; he is a healer, and there is no darkness of heart that he does not long to remove from you.
'A good man seeks the good of his fellows,' Sazo had continued. 'What then shall the Eternal King seek, if not that which is best for men? Do not fear to be happy, then! What is life if it is not lived in the abundance of the Eternal King? We are not given the name of Theodysus as a plague or a curse - it is a blessing. And he does not bless a man who wishes him ill, and who wishes him misery. The God wishes for nothing more than that men be happy!'
This speech ran through Noro's mind as he held Meidi in his arms in one of the guest chambers of his house. They had spoken in the hall for a while and her unhappiness seemed to mirror his own. 'You do not belong to Nihls, then?' Noro laughed, thinking how strange it was the she had not married the man who had saved her life.
'Do not mock me, Noro,' she said, her voice cold despite the warmth of her embrace. 'I do not love Nihls,' she said with no hesitation.
'Then why did you leave?' he could not quite say, 'Why did you leave me?' but the longing look in his eyes said what his lips dared not utter.
'You left me first, Noro,' she said, pushing him away from her. 'I humiliated myself to regain your betrothal. I made a fool of poor Furinn also,' she said with a shudder. Furinn had not escaped Thedval's destruction. 'And having made such a spectacle of him I could hardly go back to him. What does that leave me with?'
Noro did not have time to answer before she said, 'Nihls! Nihls, the peeping pupil of mad Abbon. That is what I am left with because you had to fill yourself with wine and lay with that pig of a girl rather than try to think of a way to win me back. That is what a real man would do,' she said angrily.
Something about what she had just said seemed to strike Noro like a sword blow. He staggered back and put his hand on his head. As soon as he recovered he took her arms in each of his hands and said, 'Do you think that it has been easy for me? Every time I kiss her - and she allows precious little of that! - I am pained. I could have held you for all this time, but I am bound, hand and foot because her father took advantage of my sorrow.' His eyes seemed to plead with her. 'Meidi, I cannot believe that this is how it was supposed to be! I cannot believe it! You are right Meidi, she is a pig! And she will punish me every day until I die - until I cut my own throat to be free of her!'
'Say not such things,' Meidi said, putting her hands up toward his mouth.
'What I truly want and desire, Meidi, is to be with you and you alone. I can take you away from here; away from the Blest and the dull-swords, away from Giretta and Nihls - away from it all. I do not love her, Meidi - I never did and I never will. Am I to be left in this state forever? Is my life to be a curse, for one moment of folly? Yes, Meidi, I name it folly! I lost faith in you; and I lost you. I lost you, but you are as air to my lungs! What am I to do? Am I to perish in this state? Is this what I must endure? I won't have it, Meidi!'
She was shaking now from hearing of his deep hurt and sorrow. She pushed her head onto his chest and held onto his shoulders with his hands. She did not expect him to feel as passionately for her as he once had, but his words made it plain. It seemed that his passion had only multiplied in the time they had been separated. A part of her recoiled at his touch and at his words, but there seemed to be a warmth swelling up within her that pushed all other considerations away. They stood for a long time like this before he finally took her cheek in his hand and said to her, 'I love you, and I will love you always.'
He kissed her deeply with both of his hands caressing her cheeks. In one quick motion she loosed the ribbon in her hair and her dark locks fell over his hungry hands like a sudden eclipse of the sun.
The King's Manor
The next morning the village of Anatheda was thrown into chaos. The sun rose to wake Noro and Meidi in the guest room, Nihls and all his people in their tents, the guards of the village in their cabins, but not Giretta. She was found in her bed with an empty glass vial clutched in her hand, her son weeping in his own bed beside her.
Her skin was as cold and pale as Death, and she roused to no man's voice. Yet she suffered no more jealousy, no more rage and no more sorrow or bitterness. Hearing the agonized sounds of her discovery, Noro woke and dressed, commanding Meidi to remain until he had called for her.
The rest of that day seemed to have a soul of its own, and no man could do more than follow where custom led. Giretta was robed in white and her hair was brushed and laid upon her shoulders. Flowers surrounded her, and she was lain upon a bed in the main hall of Noro's house. The whole people, both the Blest and the Enthedu came and mourned her, though hardly a soul of them had more than known her name and the fame of her husband beforehand.
Meidi had, as far as any one could say, vanished during the feast the night before. When the evening was come and the crowds had mostly dispersed, she appeared. She was dressed in a plain grey dress, her hair neatly braided atop her head with a grey shawl covering most of her face. She passed by Nihls, Amarin and Noro as if they were ghosts, patted Ebbe on the arm and then put a gentle hand upon Giretta's cheek. Her eyes shut and she leaned over and kissed Giretta on the forehead before walking out of the house as quickly and quietly as she had appeared.
Noro's face was filled with angst at her coming, and he stared after her for a long while.
The others said their goodbyes and then left Noro alone with his wife.
Ebbe and Amarin took Ilnoron to their own home to care for him while Noro grieved.
Nihls left last of all, his face stained with tears and his eyes red with weeping. He looked at Noro carefully before he left, and in his eyes he thought he saw nothing like what one might expect in a man who had just lost his beloved. Noro had lost his wife indeed, but she was not his beloved. The only words that Nihls could think of to describe the feeling shown on Noro's face was 'bitterness.'
Nihls put his thumb upon Giretta's lips before he left and whispered tearfully as he shook his head, 'Just say the word, Giretta; say the word.'
His heart sank and he left her, never again to see her in the world of the living.
On the morrow the preparations for Giretta's burial were begun at dawn. Nihls sought out Garam and found him sober for the first time since he had arrived at Anatheda. The old man was distraught, however, and Nihls pressed him for an explanation. 'There is nothing that can be done, boy,' he huffed. 'You know that passages: "Murderers and liars shall not enter the King's Manor any more than shall kinslayers and those who lay out their babes to die in the wild." Shall those who will not live in the abode of the King in the life to come lay with the dead in this present life?'
Nihls knew the reasoning of the Enthedu on such matters well enough, but the memory of Teacher Abbon stirred within him at the sorrowful father's words. 'She will lie with her people,' Nihls said firmly, and the old man laughed.
'You are young enough to still think that things can be changed,' he muttered. 'I thank you for your hopefulness, Nihls. I wish-' he could not say anything more, and his breathing became labored.
'Wishing is for children,' Nihls said with a smile. 'The Eternal King is truth - that is what we are about, Teacher Garam. Do not mourn for that which could not be - there is enough sorrow in what is. But if I must die to see it done, Teacher, I will see Giretta buried with the Enthedu.' He had not decided it beforehand, but as he spoke that last word he realized that he would never call the others 'Blest'. They were either of Theodysus or they were not - and it didn't matter what they were called or what they called thems
elves.
He went to those who were accounted Wisemen among the Blest and asked that Giretta's body be deposited among the others who had perished among the Blest, and not in an unmarked pit dug hastily on Noro's property.
Urlon, who was considered the leader of the Wisemen in Anatheda, opposed him with as much venom in his voice as he could force into a whisper. 'Do not bring further shame upon the good name of Noro and has fallen bride, Nihls, son of a stranger. Is it not enough that this has happened that you want to bring contention into the affair? You know the passages, and you know their meaning: He who murders shall not live in the King's Manor - and he who murders himself is no different. Do not put the people through another controversy!' The former controversy that he referred to was no doubt that which ended with the exile of Teacher Abbon.'
'Teacher Abbon sought no controversy,' Nihls said, speaking boldly despite his ordinary demeanor. If ever there was a time for harsh words, it was now, when these dull-minded followers of Sazo sought to shame Giretta even in the grave. 'He was a man of quiet and peaceful thought. He loved all things and in loving them he loved the King; and in loving the King he loved all things. You drove him away only because you were, to a man, too stupid to understand the truth in what he spoke. And not understanding the truth you make it clear that it is you and your ilk that will not dwell in the King's Manor - who DO not dwell therein!' he added this in the end to show that he referred to Abbon's doctrine that men do not enter the King's Manor at death, but rather, live there even as they walk in this world.
There was a gasp and the chortling old man attempted to shout at Nihls, but Nihls raised his voice again, and said, 'Will you make the Eternal King into a moody child, whose whims fly this way and that at every turn? Shall he love Giretta for all the years she loved him and then deny her when, in the sorrows of life, she forgets him for but a moment? Tell me, old man,' Nihls said, forgetting all titles of honor and respect, 'does the King, who cannot change, change when we learn of him? Does his wrath depart from him, or does it depart from us when we place ourselves in his hand? In turning from the darkness to the light does he become light, or do we alter, seeing at last that which he always was, is now and ever shall be? If Giretta ever knew the King - and I dare you to contradict me in this before the whole assembly - then he has her in his hand, even if she, with respect to her final sorrows, did not see him. What man among us does not in his last hours forget their own wives, the faces of their own children, their own doctrines and their own names? I do not go against the Scriptures, Urlon, but you twist them to say what Theodysus would never have countenanced.
'You cannot deny her a right burial with her own people, old man. Not without making yourself a liar and a devil. You say she cannot enter into the King's Manor in that far off day and hour - but she is there already, and has ever been there, and cannot ever leave it.'
When the old man just stood there spluttering as he sought the words to respond, Nihls pushed him aside and took a shovel from the wall, making his way to the burial grounds of the Blest. Amarin joined him, and Garam also, and soon they had dug a new grave and prepared the ground for her burial.
That night she was laid to rest attended by every man among the Enthedu and by many others from among the Blest. The Wisemen of the Blest refused to approach, and counseled how they might send Nihls from their presence, as though he was not already longing to be sundered from them. 'He has become too much like his troublesome teacher,' they said to one another.
Another Parting
Nihls kept his eyes open and his ears perked for the next several days. There was some discussion about whether or not the Enthedu should return to the south, or whether they should winter among the Blest - or merge their destinies entirely.
Meidi made many sound arguments in favor of remaining, but insisted at the last that she herself had no intention of staying in Anatheda. Noro sought her company often in those days, which raised many eyebrows among the Enthedu. But Meidi retreated to her own apartments, and accepted visits only from Ebbe and a few other women from Thedval.
This Nihls saw as unseemly for Noro, but he could not voice a rebuke for mere visits - especially when the visits were attempts only. Whatever obligation Meidi had acquired in having been rescued by Nihls was treated by her like the symptoms of a disease, and she utterly refused any help from him. He had grown accustomed to this, and only offered his aid indirectly, and for the most part without her ever realizing it had been him who was her benefactor. He had insisted that she owed him nothing, and that it was his own obligations as a bearer of the teachings of Theodysus to aid her as though she were a member of his own person, but this did very little to assuage her shame at being dependent upon him.
He kept a close watch, therefore, upon Noro's attentions, but he could not do anything directly without risking her wrath as well as Noro's. It was unseemly in appearance that Noro should seek her company so soon after his wife's passing. But so long as it was appearance only that was unseemly, Nihls could do nothing.
Noro saw very little of Ilnoron in those days, and he seemed to occupy himself chiefly with hunting during the day and drinking himself into a stupor during the night. This also Nihls noted, and took to visiting Amarin and Ebbe to see to the child's welfare.
When Noro was pressed about this he just said, 'I cannot look at the child,' which many took to mean that his sorrow for his wife was too great. But he did not sound sorrowful to Nihls' ears. He sounded wrathful and angry, as if the child were the last link in the chain the drunk Garam had bound him with. He indicated at least as much in the worst of his throes of drunkenness that followed Giretta's death. Most of those who thought something of Noro believed that it was the wine that spoke at those times, but Nihls felt that, at least to some degree, wine only removed that which otherwise hindered a man's tongue from speaking his true sentiments.
It had been three weeks since the death of Giretta when at last Nihls decided that he at least could no longer stay in Anatheda. Many Enthedu decided to remain, and to take up life among the Blest. Some among the Blest, however, decided to cast their lot with Nihls, and so his company was changed, but neither diminished nor increased. Amarin said that he would have left, but Ebbe was now caring for Ilnoron, and they could neither leave him nor carry him away from his father.
With great reluctance Nihls parted from the boy and from his old friend. The promise he had made to Giretta, however, burned deep within his heart.