King Dog

A Movie for the Mind’s Eye

Ursula K. Le Guin

Part Three: Jogen

The Approach to Jogen.

It is a winter day in the mountains. The peaks are hidden by freezing mist, which crawls down every slope and canyon. Through ice-coated branches of underbrush the rocks of a steep streambed appear fantastically covered with ice, the falls like curtains of stalactites. At some distance down the stream-gorge, indistinct in the mist, a small troop of men is slogging along, going uphill. One of them is being helped to walk by another. They look animal-like, crouching, insignificant in this vast landscape. They disappear in the trees and rocks and snow and mist.

Above the gorge the eye looks up to the rocky edges of the gorge, and up farther, higher slopes, snowy and forested, arriving at last at a stone fort high in the mountains: Jogen. The walls are squat and dark above alpine meadows and chasms. It is not a mediaeval castle, but a bronze-age fort. The outer portal is big enough to let a loaded wagon through, closed with massive crosslaid gates, in one of which a narrow door is cut just high enough for one horse or man at a time. This small gate is open to let in a party of four hunters carrying a dead stag. It is closed behind them, and three great log-bars running in hasps are rammed across it.

The Courtyard of Jogen.

After the huge, intimidating winter landscape the courtyard, formed by the outer defense walls and the front wall of the fort, seems all on a small and lively, human scale. A kicking horse is being curried in front of the stables; a group of women talk and work around steaming kettles hung over big open hearths; a boy works at the windlass bringing water up from the well; the hunters carry their stag across the cobbles to an arcade where butchering is done, and hang it up to gut beside a clean pig carcass already hanging there. The live pigs crowd in a big sty in a corner. A dozen or fifteen dogs are terrifically excited by the deer carcass, and have to be whipped off, with a lot of shouting. Dirty snow, urine-stained, lies shoved up against the walls. Prince Hantammad, now nine, rushes up the stone steps that lead into the fortress keep, yelling at the top of his voice.

HANTAMMAD: They got a stag! A ten-pointer!

The Hall of Jogen.

Hantammad erupts into the big, long, low, dark stone hall, with its enormous fireplace in which a fire is banked to burn steadily. At the farther end of the hail long trestle-tables are set, and the lords of the castle are just sitting down to dinner — thirty people or so, a fairly rough looking lot, the men mostly in dirty sheepskins and the women bundled up with shawls for warmth. Tassalil and Shiros maintain some distinction and cleanliness in their dress, but no elegance. Batash, Kida, and Romond are there, none of them looking as sleek as when we last saw them. Hantammad slips into a seat between his mother and her father, the old Lord of Jogen, a dark, crouched, crippled man who never speaks. The chair at the head of the table, at the queen’s left, is empty.

TASSALIL: There you are. Sit down and be still.

She looks down the long table, very much the chatelaine and chief housekeeper, alert, calm, maternal.

TASSALIL: May the food be blessed. Share this with us.

She pours out a little beer from the pitcher onto the floor, and drops a bit of food from her plate, ceremonially: this is a ritual act. As soon as she has done this, everybody at table falls to eating with tremendous energy and no forks or spoons — some of them have pocket knives. A yellow dog under the table, cautious but determined, has already lapped up the beer and got the bit of meat dropped for the gods.

Later in the evening, the tables have been cleared and stacked, and most people are sitting around the center of the Hall of Jogen, near the long, deep fireplace. Romond, with the two children, sits on the sheepskins that serve as hearthrugs; old Batash is fast asleep in a chimney seat, his feet in the ashes. Tassalil sits in a wooden chair nearby, spinning with a drop spindle. Other women in a halfcircle near her also spin; the only light comes from the fire and from a couple of oil lamps set up to help a woman working at a big vertical loom against the wall. Down at the other end of the hearth place some of the men of the fort are talking softly and drinking, in the shadows. There are a lot of shadows.

On the hearthstones, Romond has set up a simple scientific demonstration or two: a Leyden jar, with its crackling spark; the demonstration of the field of a magnet with iron-filings on a bit of parchment — things he can do with materials at hand, as a showpiece to entertain the children. Hantammad wriggles restlessly; Shiros watches intently. She is now a pretty girl of eleven. Her manner is mature. She is fond of Romond and at ease with him, a little flirtatious. As the spark leaps she laughs with delight.

SHIROS: Oh, magic! Make it do it again!

Romond obliges. Batash jumps in his sleep and mutters.

BATASH: Unnatural.

HANTAMMAD: That’s just sparks. That see-through thing you made was better, that thing that made the mountains all come up close. This is stupid.

SHIROS: All right, if it’s so stupid, you do it.

HANTAMMAD: I don’t want to. I only like what men do.

Hantammad gets up and strides off to the beer-drinkers.

SHIROS: Hunting deer and hunting bear and hunting robbers, and then boasting about it. Boring! — Romond, tell a story. The one about the cities that float in the sky. No — the one about the country where there aren’t any men. That one’s funny. No, but wait a minute, I wanted to ask: What was the boat you came in, when you came here? My father said the fishermen said it was silver and had no sails and no oars.

ROMOND: That’s right, princess.

He has lost almost all trace of foreign accent by now.

SHIROS: How did it go — what made it move?

ROMOND: The same magic as you see here.

SHIROS: (looks dubiously at the crude glass jar) Where is your boat now?

ROMOND: Hidden until I need it.

SHIROS: Did you make it get tiny, and hide it in your pocket, like the story about the Red Prince and his magic horse?

ROMOND: (only grins).

SHIROS: Oh, I used to want a little tiny live horse to keep in my pocket — I used to dream about it! Kitten, come here, kitten. Are you going to grow up into a horse?

She scoops up a young kitten wandering past and flattens it by petting it. The mother cat is nursing a couple of other kittens in a warm corner of the hearth.

SHIROS: What country did you come from, when you came over the sea, Romond?

But Romond does not reply, noticing that Tassalil has risen from her chair and is standing listening, intent. The dogs down in the courtyards are barking, deep baying barks, remote through the slit windows and stone walls. Everyone (except Batash) is now alert, listening. Tassalil has gone to one of the deep slit windows and pulled aside the oiled cloth hung across it to keep the wind out.

TASSALIL: The dogs. — There’s torchlight. — Go to the women’s side, Shiros. You, with her. You, with me.

Shiros, carrying the kitten, at once obeys, going out with the women. Tassalil goes towards the front door, the men following. Batash is waking up.

BATASH: What’s up? What’s up? Where’s everybody going?

ROMOND: (is on his feet) Would it be an attack?

KIDA: Not in the dark —

A MAN OF THE FORT: If Soya has fallen, it might be a retreat —

They are all hurrying towards the door to the courtyard

In the Courtyard of Jogen.

Tassalil comes down the stone steps into the courtyard, followed by the men. Torches are being lighted, and horn lanterns, which hiss and smoke in the wind and snow, casting more shadows than light. The hounds clamor and men shout, horses in the stables whinny and stamp, but sounds are muffled by the snow, and as Tassalil reaches the barred front gates everything is silent.

TASSALIL: Open the gates! The king is come.

A WATCHMAN: (calling from the watchroom over the high gates) Armed men! A troop on foot! Armed men at the gate!

The queen stands facing the gate, silent. The watchman returns to the ladder-head leading down into the courtyard.

WATCHMAN: They ask to enter. Ten men — maybe twenty — There’s the prince! Prince Harish Ashed at the gate!

TASSALIL: Help me, you men there.

She already has her hands on the wooden lockbars of the small gate. The bolts are shot, the clumsy gate swings open. Torches are gathered thick in the entranceway inside, men crowding, some with swords drawn, some holding the collars of the dogs to hold them down. Outside the opened gate is snow blowing in the darkness.

Out of that come men, one or two at a time. The third to come in is Harish Ashed, in breastplate, and bearskin cloak, lumbering, haggard, lame.

TASSALIL: Welcome, my brother Harish. Where is the king?

Harish Ashed stops and stares at her unrecognizing. Then be puts out both hands to her. There are tears frozen on his face.

HARISH: Oh, Tassalil! Defeat! All lost.

Other men come in past Harish Ashed and the queen, some cloaked like him, some in ragged inadequate clothing; they all look gaunt, exhausted, bewildered, cold.

TASSALIL: Harish, is the king with you?

Two last men come in the gate, one dragging a bandaged leg, teeth set, eyes shut, supported by the other man. Tassalil drops her brother’s hands and goes forward to these two, moving abruptly, speaking roughly.

TASSALIL: Here, see to this man. Take his arm, you. — Welcome, my lord Ashthera.

The second man is Ashthera, thin and frostburned. Seeing the wounded man taken over by others, he turns to Tassalil and takes her hands, smiles, but does not speak. The torches flare about them. A dog has broken free and is leaping at Ashthera, probably in wild welcome but seeming to threaten; somebody hauls it off, swearing. The courtyard is full of all the people of the fort by now.

TASSALIL: Has Soya fallen?

ASHTHERA: Three days ago. We sent you word.

TASSALIL: No word came. Where’s the enemy? How close behind you?

ASHTHERA: In Soya. They didn’t follow us.

TASSALIL: Where is our army?

ASHTHERA: (makes a slight gesture: anywhere, nowhere...) How is it with you here, Tassalil?

TASSALIL: All well. Come in, you’re cold.

She takes his arm. He goes with her, walking stiff-legged and slowly, turning his head away from the dazzle of the torches. They go through the crowded courtyard and up the snowflecked stone steps.

The Hall of Jogen.

Harish Ashed is following close behind them, and when they all come inside in the firelight he begins to cry, putting his big, gloved hands up to his face. The king and his men go straight to the fireplace, crowding in close to it for warmth; some drop to their knees, stretching their hands almost into the flames. Tables are dragged out, lamps lit, logs fetched, servants run at the queen’s bidding; the women give the orders. There are a couple of reunions between soldiers and wives, hugging and tears. Food is set out, wineskins are passed. The soldiers begin to unbuckle their sword belts and take off their cloaks. Big basins of hot water have been brought in, and some of them take off their shirts and begin to wash. The huge room is full of voices and bustle in the firelight and lamplight.

TASSALIL: Take these clothes out into the snow, freeze the lice out of them. — You, there, more water for the baths. — Where’s the man whose leg was hurt?

ROMOND: I’ve had a look at him. He’s doing pretty well.

TASSALIL: Who was he? I didn’t see his face.

ASHTHERA: Kartari, he’s called. He’s not from Jogen. — Harish, old friend, come on, drink this. Hot wine. It’ll melt the ice out of your belly.

BOLHAN: Give it to me if he won’t drink it. He doesn’t need thawing. Melted to tears, our General is.

Bolhan has lost a lot of weight and looks ill and frost bitten, with a badly-healed scar at the hairline. He already has a drinking-horn in hand. Tassalil looks at him and then at Ashthera unable to ask the question in her eyes.

BOLHAN: Fezat is dead.

He drinks, and will say no more.

ASHTHERA: He was killed in the battle near... (he forces his memory for the name)... Ajjen, on the Ram. The great battle on the river. Harish, come on, you’re worn out. (To Tassalil) He’s carrying a lance wound from Ajjen. It won’t heal.

HARISH: There’s nothing left. He’s dead. Driven — Everything lost — nothing left —

TASSALIL: Come, brother. Come with me. You know the way to your room. This is Jogen Fort. We were children here.

HARISH: Where’s Father?

TASSALIL: Here, right here. Father, it’s Harish.

With the assistance of one of the men of the fort, she is helping Harish Ashed out of the hail. They pass the old Lord of Jogen, who sits crouched in an armchair, wrapped in a bearskin rug. Harish stumbles to a stop before him.

HARISH: Father —

The old man continues to stare. Presently, with effort, he mouths a couple of meaningless sounds. One side of his face contracts irritably. Tassalil coaxes Harish to go on towards the inner door.

Ashthera has washed; the floor is sloppy with water, and a boy is strewing sawdust or straw to sop up the puddles. A woman brings Ashthera a white woollen shirt, which he pulls on.

ASHTHERA: Batash! I didn’t see you! My good old friend, what a joy to see you! When did you leave Aremgar? — Who else is here? Romond! Lord Traveller! I thought you’d have travelled to a healthier climate by now. What keeps you here in this bad time?

ROMOND: The awful greed to find out what happens next, my lord.

BATASH: We left the city as Kammin’s advance guard entered it. It was all a rush — I couldn’t even bring the records of the Treasury —

ASHTHERA: Well, since there’s no longer a Treasury...

BATASH: The retreat was called much too suddenly. There was no proper warning. Nothing was done that should have been done. It was very badly managed —

ASHTHERA: Well, you see, Kammin outflanked us, on Bennan Plain. I’m sorry your notice was so short. But I’m glad you got out — If I had to wonder whether you all were alive or not, in Kammin’s jails — (Tassalil comes back, and he asks her:) Tassalil, is it too late to see the children?

TASSALIL: I’ve sent for them.

ASHTHERA: Is it late? I lost all count of time coming uphill in the snow. There’s so little daylight here in winter in the North. But it was the darkness and the snow that let us get away. The cloak of the mountain goddess.

TASSALIL: Sit down, Ashthera.

ASHTHERA: If I sit down I won’t be able to get up. Here they are!

Shiros and Hantammad come in. When he holds out his arms both hesitate, then Shiros flings herself on him, crying. He kneels to equalize their heights.

SHIROS: I thought it was the enemy attacking the fort. I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. I put on my best dress so they wouldn’t despise me.

ASHTHERA: Daughter, little daughter, don’t be afraid.

SHIROS: I try not to be afraid.

ASHTHERA: (kneeling, speaks tenderly yet with formality) How beautiful you are, how beautiful, child who will be queen!

HANTAMMAD: I wasn’t afraid. I never am afraid.

The boy stands in front of his mother, rather sullen, sturdy. Ashthera smiles, goes to him, and kisses his forehead. There is none of the intensity of the relationship with Shiros.

HANTAMMAD: Father, I have a sword, the Castellan gave it to me. If the war goes on I can fight along with you and Uncle Harish and Uncle Fezat. The war isn’t over, is it?

ASHTHERA: It’ll last a while yet, prince.

SHIROS: Then — we haven’t — lost — ?

Her self-control is very precarious; she has been in mortal terror and is still very frightened. Ashthera turns back to her and speaks gently.

ASHTHERA: We’ve lost more than I knew we had, my dear. But here we are, in no present danger. Listen, I’ll tell you when to put your best dress on — when there’s real danger. All right? Now I think you need to quiet down. Bedtime.

HANTAMMAD: I want to show you my sword —

TASSALIL: Bed.

She rounds up the children and sends them off with the old women who look after them in Jogen.

TASSALIL: Will many more of our men be coming here?

ASHTHERA: No. I sent them scattering out west and south. Those who can will go home. Some will stay in Ravashan, some in the forest villages. Have you the means of keeping the eighteen of us who came tonight?

TASSALIL: We make out all right so long as we can hunt.

ASHTHERA: I’ll stay till spring, then. We can’t do much till good weather comes.

BOLHAN: We can’t do anything whether it comes or not.

TASSALIL: They won’t take this fort. Twenty men could hold Jogen against a thousand.

ASHTHERA: Good! But I don’t plan to stay holed up here. There’s still a war to win.

There is an uncomfortable silence. Finally Batash, after some hemming, has the courage to speak.

BATASH: My lord, if the enemy holds the capital — and has conquered as far north as Soya —

ASHTHERA: If he’s come as far as Soya he’s come too far. King Kammin’s men are in our cities, inside the borders, inside the walls. Inside us, like grass in the stomach of a cow. And like a cow we’ll chew our cud, we’ll grind up King Kammin and his army, one by one and blade by blade, and then we’ll shit them out.

KIDA: But, my lord, we have — we lost —

ASHTHERA: The battles. Yes. We lost the battles. Harish and his battles and his victories! There will be no more battles.

BATASH: But, majesty, our army —

ASHTHERA: We have no army. I don’t want an army. I want a rabble — thieves, cowards, robbers, cut-throats. Raids, forays, horse-stealing, harassment. Empty towns. Empty barns. Empty granaries. Unplowed fields. Kammin will march his armies west and south, come spring, looking for battles and victories. He’ll find nothing. No subjects, no cattle, no grain, no rest. Dogs in the barren fields, dogs in the forest, dogs yapping at his heels. But no more victories. There are eight thousand dead beside the Ram at Kammery and Ajjen. Those were victories. The river stank. Plague in the villages. People ate rats, and then the rats ate them. Well, the Dancer has had her dance on the battlefields. And now the dog will have his day. — I’m very tired. My lady, will you have the barber come to me tomorrow morning? Good night, my lords!

He and Tassalil leave by the inner door; the others bow. A silence while they regroup about the fire.

KIDA: That is the man who, on a jewelled throne, in a golden city, a powerful, rich, beloved king, tried to get rid of his kingship — give it away, gamble it away, anything, so that he could go hunting in the woods. And now having lost it all, he stands here, a fugitive with lice in his shirt, and says he’ll win his kingdom back! He’s beyond me.

BATASH: He is beyond us all.

ROMOND: At the top, you have to look down. At the bottom, you have to look up.

KIDA: He looks neither up nor down, I think. He stands aside.

BATASH: He is my king. He has come back. He is beyond our questioning. Lice in his shirt or not, he is the king!

Very angry, the old man moves away.

KIDA: Is he mad or sane?

ROMOND: Sane, I think, but a gambler. For the highest stakes. — Why did he kneel down to Shiros?

KIDA: Why, she’s the heir, she’ll be queen after him.

ROMOND: Queen of what? The kingdom he lost? What did he kneel to in her?

KIDA: He’s been driven into hope. As Harish into despair.

Batash comes back to them, his indignation having found words.

BATASH: We are the lice in his shirt. And I am glad, I’m honored to be the king’s louse! You’ve never understood him, Kida, you never will. He’s a man who does his duty. It’s as plain as that. Good night, my lords.

Batash goes stiffly out.

KIDA: Good night, my lord Batash. (To Romond) If only that were plain!

ROMOND: To the clear heart all things are clear.

KIDA: And all things simple to the simple mind.

In the Anteroom of the Queen’s Rooms in Jogen Fort. It is morning, bright on the snowy steeps out the deep narrow window. A barber, using a formidable straight razor of iron, is shaving Ashthera’s head to the scalp. The queen, Romond, Bolhan, and a couple of others are there: this is a ceremony, albeit a private one. As Ashthera comes up dripping and shaven from the rinse, Bolhan stares savagely, with misery.

BOLHAN: Dutiful Ashthera! Like a plucked chicken. What good does that do Fezat?

ASHTHERA: None.

TASSALIL: How did he die, Ashthera?

ASHTHERA: (indicates his lower belly) A lance here, they said. I never saw him. We were retreating. We couldn’t bury him, or any of them. Where is the altar-place of Jogen?

TASSALIL: Under the round-tower. There’s only the Old Goddess here.

ASHTHERA: Any stone dropped in any pool makes the same circle.

TASSALIL: I’ll bring the oil and grain.

She goes out. Ashthera puts on a clean shirt: white, and not unlike the priests’ clothing in the Temple in Aremgar.

ASHTHERA: Will you sacrifice with me, Bolhan?

BOLHAN: I’ve given the Goddess enough. My health, two years of my life, my money, my brother. Oil and grain aren’t what she eats! Nor barber’s sweepings either.

The barber and his little son are sweeping up the haircuttings with care and reverence, and putting them in a carved box, in what is clearly a ceremonial act. Ashthera nods to Bolhan without reproof, and goes out, followed by Romond.

The Altar-Place of Jogen.

The basement of a tower: a circular, vaulted room without windows. A bowl of fire on the altar is the only light. The altar stone is massive and phallic; behind it stands a carved wooden figure two or three feet high, very old, cracked, blackened. It is in the same dancing posture as the tapestry figure in the Inner Room of the Palace in Aremgar, and holds the Sun and the Moon; but this figure is female, not androgynous. It is crude, sinister, and powerful. Between the incurving wall and the altar stand Romond, Batash, Kida, fifteen or twenty women and men of Jogen, and Tassalil. Ashthera, officiating as priest, offers ceremonial wooden vessels of grain and oil. His face in the flickering light of the fire is grave, calm, and wet with tears.

ASHTHERA: My brother! Fezat my brother! Go now. Go free!

He pours out the oil on the fire, which flares and steadies. He speaks the ritual words with solemnity and intensity:

Let the boat go from shore.
Let the ship go from shore.
Let the soul go from shore.
Let the river of one shore carry him to you.

Romond watches, interested, intent, detached as always. Tassalil watches, her face full of hate and anger as she stares at the figure of the Goddess. Ashthera at last turns to them, his expression tranquil. Tassalil turns and hurries out of the room without waiting for him.

Images of Winter in Jogen.

A hunt on the snow-covered high hills: the hunters knee-deep in snow — the bear glimpsed running.

A group of women are working and singing a monotonous spinning-song in the great hall of the fort. Ashthera and Shiros laugh at a kitten who is facing up, puffing and spitting, to an inquisitive hound-puppy.

A bright, icy day in the courtyard of the fort; various occupations and activities are in full swing. In a relatively clear corner, Ashthera is giving Hantammad a lesson in swordsmanship. Chickens run squawking, pigs grunt, one of the guard dogs barks incessantly. Kartari, the man who came in wounded with Ashthera, stands on a crutch beside Romond watching the demonstration of parry and lunge.

KARTARI: I never saw anybody use a sword like that. As if he shut his eyes and let the sword do the seeing. Nobody’s ever touched him.

ROMOND: (watching fascinated) I believe it.

In the hail of Jogen, on a winter night, snow thuds at the shutters of the slit-windows. At the fireside, Romond is telling a story to a large circle of listeners, men, women, children.

ROMOND: So he’s sailing along through the air like a bird, pleased with himself as he can be, when all of a sudden something makes him turn around and look over his shoulder —

In the shadows, Bolhan and Harish Ashed are drinking. Bolhan whistles a dreary little tune between his teeth; Harish sits sodden, staring, in despair. Snow at the windows. Snow blowing on the wind in the darkness outside the walls.

The Hall of Jogen.

Later on in the same evening, the circle at the fire has been reduced to the king and queen, Romond, Batash, Kartari, and a few women, who are spinning, as is the queen.

BATASH: Where did you learn those tales of yours, Traveller? Where’s the land you lived in, before you set out on your travels? West of here?

ROMOND: Not west. Not east. Too far to say, too far to remember.

ASHTHERA: Across the river no one can cross.

He smiles, watching Romond. One of Shiros’s kittens is sleeping on his knee.

ONE OF THE WOMEN: Is it a country of magicians?

ROMOND: Magic’s in the eye that sees. The mind’s art is knowledge. But they’d seem magicians here: people who live two hundred years, who have no illnesses, who never go hungry, who never have wars.

KARTARI: Do such gods praise any gods?

ROMOND: Not with altars or sacrifice.

TASSALIL: How, then?

ROMOND: Perhaps with — by upholding the idea of truth, the idea of justice —

TASSALIL: That old story. By righteous action God is praised. So much the worse for your people, who have so much happiness and waste it! What’s cold and hunger and sickness and fear of death, what’s war, even, if one could be free of soul? But to endure all that and to give praise for it — that’s slavery. That’s the betrayal.

Ashthera is watching her gravely. His hair has grown out about two months’ worth, a crewcut effect. She speaks to all of them, but always to him.

TASSALIL: I want to say this, once, before spring comes, and I see my husband go, and my home destroyed, and my children the servants of foreigners. I’ll be silent then, but I’ll speak now. No god deserves one grain of sacrifice, one word of praise. Let the Dancer dance, and make and unmake the worlds, what’s that to me? What do I see of the dance but lies defeating truth, and injustice given power, and cruelty triumphing over courage? What god worth worship would let a child die frightened and in pain? What god would let Kammin defeat Ashthera? I will not dance that dance. I will not ask for mercy or for justice. I will praise the one thing worth praising: our love, our fidelity, ours, not the gods. We don’t live forever, not even two hundred years, forty or fifty years and we die — and that’s what I praise, our mortal love. We love because we die. In our death is our freedom.

After a long pause Ashthera answers.

ASHTHERA: I can’t answer you with comfort. I lost that along with truth.

TASSALIL: That lie you suffered for, that lie that brought the war, that wasn’t your lie. You spoke as duty bade you. It was the god’s lie, not yours!

Ashthera sets the little sleepy cat carefully down on the hearth and strokes it, then stands up. He speaks softly, gazing into the fire; he and Tassalil are utterly concentrated upon each other now.

ASHTHERA: Peace gets lost when truth does; and happiness I suppose goes with them. But there is joy, Tassalil. I know joy. I learned it first in the forest, alone; and then with you. And sometimes winning at dice, and sometimes this past year, in the war, in defeat. You can’t earn it, you can’t keep it, you fall into it. Joy is the abyss between myself and God. It is the river.

TASSALIL: In which you drown.

ASHTHERA: Alone, maybe. But there is... fidelity, you called it. Mortal love. Trust between us. A boat on the river.

TASSALIL: Yes. You I will trust. Not the god, but you.

ASHTHERA: Do you trust me, Tassalil? You foresee me dead, everything lost, come spring, when I promised life and hope. If I win my kingdom back, and if I come again to Aremgar, will you come with me then?

TASSALIL: (bitterly) To the Palace gardens.

ASHTHERA: They’ll be destroyed. All to do over. You are winter, you are the north, you are the dark. You only know me, you among them all. I am your truth, you said. You are my freedom, Tassalil.

She does not answer. They stand apart from the others, intensely together but not touching, before the deep, hot light of the fire. A faint clamor of the dogs baying down in the courtyard, and then far off the howling of wolves on the mountainsides. Ashthera lifts his head listening.

ASHTHERA: The wolves. Her dogs.

At the Outer Gate of Jogen.

It is morning in early spring, a bright, windy day of thaw — snow still lying in shadowed places, water running, puddles flashing sunlight, leafbuds on branches. The double outer gate of the fort is standing wide open. Ashthera and a troop of about twenty-five men are outside the gates, ready to go, and the people of the fort are gathered in the courtyard and gateway to see them leave. Ashthera is talking to his brother Bolhan.

ASHTHERA: If I’m killed, you’ll be regent until Shiros is crowned. I leave you a short, encumbered lease on a roofless house. Live there as kings live, brother!

Bolhan, hung-over and hangdog, nods; and they embrace. The king turns to Harish Ashed.

ASHTHERA: Till your wound’s healed, Harish, guard my treasure here.

They both look up at the window of the gate tower, from which Tassalil, Shiros, and Hantammad watch them.

ASHTHERA: I don’t think it likely, but if they do mount an attack from Soya —

HARISH: I can hold the fort.

Ashthera smiles, embracing Harish. Romond has come forward from the gateway. Ashthera turns cheerfully to him.

ASHTHERA: Well, goodbye, Traveller!

ROMOND: I’m coming with you, if I may. My skills in medicine might come in handy.

Ashthera considers him a little quizzically: not at all mistrustful, but curious as to his motives. When he speaks it is — as always when he speaks to Romond — with a certain caution and respect, yet easily.

ASHTHERA: This isn’t your war, Romond.

ROMOND: No, it’s not. But I’ve been in your service over a year now —

ASHTHERA: Friend, but not servant. Nor subject. I am not your king.

Romond replies after a slight pause, with a slight smile.

ROMOND: That’s true.

ASHTHERA: Come on, then.

The small troop of armed men set off on foot. Ashthera turns once and unsheathes his sword, holds it up with a flourish and a broad smile, looking up at the gate tower. He sheathes it and goes on. A couple of the dogs of Jogen have broken loose and race excitedly along with the troop as they go down the mountainside. One of the soldiers is whistling ‘What did your Grandmother say,” in the minor.