Lessons are taken and given, and much is revealed and discussed

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Disclaimer:

The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended.
This story is copyright © 2022 Julia Phillips. All rights reserved.

It uses some of the associated characters and situations that arise from the world called ‘Anmar’ created by Penny Lane, whose stories
are also copyright © 2010 - 2022 Penny Lane. All rights reserved.

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“… and, if you turn it round, you have a question. ‘Are we happy?’ is the question; ‘We are happy’ is the statement. ‘Is it cold?’ is a question; ‘It is cold’ is a statement.”

Questions, statements. Sentences and phrases. Subjects, verbs, objects. Nouns, adjectives and adverbs. Persons, singular and plural. Tenses. Punctuation. Rules and exceptions. And a whole load of differently written letters and numbers. My mind was completely a’whirl with it all, and the others were having an even more difficult time of it, I knew.

I suspect that Sarjant Varran’s fondness for our food (and beer) was an important influence, but both he and Tenant Maralin had come and stayed for three nights with us in the Hotel to “make a start and get a good grounding in learning English”.

And so had started the four most intense days of instruction that I could ever recall. At the time, I thought that we were being pushed TOO hard, but a couple of days afterwards, as those early basics wormed their way into our heads, I appreciated how clever the Tenant had been throughout his lessons - and even from before!

But to return to that first night - his first words were uttered very seriously to us over the dinner table one evening: “I would remind you all that you have each individually sworn an oath to keep what we talk about here restricted only to those in the know. In other words: what happens in this room stays in this room.”

We all solemnly nodded our agreement.

“I shall combine some of the tales of the Visund with some of the lessons I am principally here to give, which I deem would be far more interesting than simply taking you all back to school.”

His first words I found to be encouraging: “Where I come from, which you will remember is also from where Her Highness does, there is a common expression that goes: ‘English is the easiest language to learn, but the most difficult to use properly!’ Actually, there is another lady here in Alaesia, called Ursula, who is also familiar with our language. This makes us a trio that speak English fluently.”

He chuckled then: “Although sometimes Ursula’s accent is difficult to grasp, I must confess. And, just occasionally, she gets her words wrong.”

“This is nominally very good for Alaesia, since the information we expect to get shall actually be in English. Which in turn is why King Robanar has determined that English shall be taught to all those that are likely to have access to that valuable information.

“However, Princess Garia has not yet returned from her mission.

“And Ursula is trapped by the rains in an unspecified haven somewhere upriver. It is doubtful that they would have made it back to Sheldane since we have not had some message to that effect; despite the rains, I am certain that being so close, some method would have been found.

“So, all of that means that you are stuck with just little me to help you and your education.”

We grinned at the thought that anyone could describe Tenant Maralin as ‘little’.

Commander Feteran politely asked: “Tenant, I would learn more of this Ursula.”

“Very well, Commander. Where shall I begin? When she was first found so to speak would probably be the best moment …

“You may remember that we Jothans were offered transport home aboard Her Other Highness’ ship, the Visund as there was to be a journey of discovery toiling against the currents of the Sirrel which would take the vessel much farther than just Joth.”

There were several nods around the table. And some very puzzled looks.

The Tenant continued: “They broke that said journey for nigh-on a month in Joth City whilst the vessel was stationed there for some repairs, having been damaged after an adventure or two.”

He held up a hand. “Now is NOT the time for descriptions of those adventures, but I doubt not other evenings I am here whilst the downpour continues can be passed filling out those details. Princess Garia is unavailable and Mistress Ursula, assuming she has stayed aboard the ship, is likewise indisposed.

“For the moment allow me to complete the overall picture once the ship had been repaired. Suffice it to say that I later rejoined the ship’s company for when they departed Joth City to continue upriver as I had been charged by my Duke to deliver several bundles of papers to the rulers between Joth and Yod. The ship of course continued upriver after I left them. Of that journey I regret I have no first hand knowledge.

“’Twas was on its way back down the river Sirrel, we assume, having visited many of the upriver lands, when the rains caught her. By the way, in English we always say that a ship is a female, so that last ‘her’ was a reference to the Visund, but would also be an accurate description of both Ursula and Her Other Highness.

“That is the overview of the ship’s journey and I must repeat, we are all assuming that the expedition was successful enough to have turned round and started home. We have no definitive knowledge that that was so.

“That cannot however be considered to be my main purpose. That is to bring Mistress Julina, and anyone else interested, up to a satisfactory level of knowledge of the English language.

“We shall come here to make a start on the English lessons in the morning after next.”

He paused to take a breath and a large sip of wine.

“Tenant, if it pleases? Visund? Another Her Highness? And you used another strange word to my ears – ‘trio’?”

Wyzen was sitting in with us at that dinner table of course, as were the others; I had long been trying to persuade them all that sooner or later they was going to have to learn English, even whilst acknowledging that the ‘later’ option could be a few years away yet. So they might as well just see if they wanted to get in as early as anyone else, always bearing in mind that this might distract them from their allocated duties.

Just as I was about to take it upon myself to answer Wyzen, Maralin spoke once more: “Indeed, Goodman. I will for now be brief since the fuller story, the MUCH fuller story, can be told at another time, I deem. And many of our company here know much on these subjects. So I shall continue with a quick description of my journey home to Joth aboard the Visund. I deem, ’twill explain much of the background to the tale and also explain why I have such a depth of knowledge.”

Feteran prompted: “Ursula?”

“Indeed so, Commander. I shall cover that as deeply as I may!” He shot the Commander a meaningful look which was received with a silent “Oh!” and a slow nod. I’m almost certain of that but it was done so subtly I doubt anyone else noticed. I was doubting of it myself and soon lost that track as the other subject grabbed my full attention.

“As for the word ‘trio’. This is an English word that means a group of three. Strangely, that word is of Roman – or, as you call them, Chivan - origin where they used the word ‘tres’ for three.”

Marilin looked round at the other guildsmen that Senidet and Milsy had recruited into our household. Both Morkem and Havelin were gazing at him with jaws dropped. Senidet, Milsy, Jenet too were all paying the closest of attentions and Commander Feteran showed himself to be avidly interested, as did the off-duty guards who were also seated with us.

Everyone waited for the Tenant to resume.

Which he did after swallowing another mouthful of wine.

“Some already know, but, to set the scene properly, I will assume that none do. I beg the indulgence of those already with the necessary knowledge.

“Princess Eriana arrived from Einnland nearly a year ago, with her ship the Visund, and her powerful crew. After a … colourful … few months, during which they became Palarandi citizens and fought hard in the war, they became a regular part of the military forces, not so much called upon once the war was over. Now, at that time, I myself had been here in Palarand for various reasons, including the marriage of the Prince and Princess, along with my Duke and some others from Joth. When we discovered that Her Highness intended to explore the upper levels of the river here in the Great Valley, we decided to return to Joth by travelling upriver aboard the Princess’ vessel.

“Amongst several adventures we had actually getting to Joth, one was the discovery of the woman we named Ursula who also came from ... let us say NEAR to where I originated. And near to where Princess Garia originated as well, of course.”

I felt rather than heard Feteran sigh at that, but did not concentrate on that distraction.

“If you ever meet Mistress Ursula, you will hear what I said earlier - she speaks English with a different accent from mine, and she employs some differences in the use of her words, but as I said, this language is supposedly the easiest to learn.” His voice changed to a slightly sterner tone at that point. “There is another side to it though. I mentioned that they also say that English is the HARDEST language to use properly. I doubt we shall need to get that advanced, though.”

His tone softened as directed his gaze and remarks more directly to me. “As I understand it, your job will be simply to bring people up to a standard that they can then understand the written and spo… er... printed information on the materials that Her Highness shall bring back with her.”

As he said that, I noticed a flicker in his eyes as he stumbled over that word in the middle. I was sure he was going to say ‘spoken’ but that would be crazy for Her Highness couldn’t possibly read aloud all that I had been told she would bring back. And not everybody would be able to remember it all after hearing it just the once.

Suddenly I realised that probably his stumble was because he used a word combination out of habit and then realised that it was inappropriate.

Everyone appreciated that the Tenant had left open many threads for later discovery and explanation, but were content, at that moment in time, to allow the basic statements to remain unexpanded.

Meanwhile, over the course of several evening meals, he and Gullbrand, with whom Princess Eriana was in irregular touch by letters, kept us amused and informed of several of Her Highness’ adventures as she travelled up the incredible Sirrel. But more of that journey later, I must first explain how MY education progressed.

/// /// /// /// /// ///

So it was that, two mornings later, it all began.

He started talking to us at first with simple sentences, to get us used to the sounds, rhythms and cadences of this new language. He would begin by saying something in our normal language, Valleyspeak as it was more widely known, and then saying the same thing in the English. Most of these new words he used were easy to pick up and our vocabulary expanded almost without us even realising it. Sentences were short. Not all were sensible; a fact that he acknowledged meant the words should be noted with what he called “a bit of give and take.”

Which required him to then explain what he meant by that.

Which got complicated - until, all of a sudden, it clicked somehow in my head.

I mentioned that, to my mind, he was very clever in his approach, in his strategy of talking to us first before we even considered writing and reading. But his cleverness wasn’t just confined to that. He usually picked up on our general conversations over the evening meals and he incorporated some of those into the next day’s lessons, so we got answers to many questions – twice! Or even thrice! (For some reason, that English word ‘thrice’ seemed to call to me somehow and for a long, long while, it became my favourite.)

Let me just try to illustrate that point about a plurality of answers. I shall choose one example: we had been talking about Blackstone one evening, in Valleyspeak at the time, a subject which fascinated Maralin as he had not yet been outside the Great Valley itself. He could not, or so it seemed to us, get enough and thus questioned us closely. I doubt I did the subject justice but did manage to get him to understand the length of the Bray/Palar river valley. And some of the diversity to be found along its length.

“… take us a minimum of a week to return to our head of the valley. I certainly would not like to repeat the haste with which we descended, that was uncomfortable in the extreme. I hope our poor frayen have recovered properly.” I gasped suddenly. I had given no thought to dear Trumpa for a long while but now his name had come up, I immediately found I was missing the dear old thing really quite fiercely.

But to get back to the Tenant and how he used such conversations. He realised that we were almost as thirsty for knowledge about the Great Valley as he was about the Palar and Bray, so the next day he started his lessons by first giving us a little lecture in the Palarandi – sorry, Valleyspeak – tongue. He illustrated this lecture on a chalkboard and just the knowledge he imparted then was so valuable to me, indeed to all of us.

“As you all know, the Great Valley is fifty or sixty marks wide between two mostly clearly defined edges, or walls really. We have all seen one or both of these walls on a clear day. All right, they aren’t straight and unbroken walls; side streams and rivers, some rock falls, years of harsh weathering have all made their effects obvious, and there are several major trade roads that work their way up from the Great Valley floor into the mountains that exist on either side.

“What is less well known is that the length of the Valley is quite a few hundreds of marks. Much more than ten times the distance between the walls.”

He paused there for the easily-forecast gasps from his audience, which duly arrived.

And he got even more after his next statement: “With a length that is at least ten times the width of the Great Valley then that all means that Yod is positioned closer to us right now than the half-way point. And Yod is close to two hundred marks distant! Which I am now given to understand approximates to the distance from here to Blackstone.”

He looked around at us as we all struggled suddenly with not just the calculations, but also the concept. Again, I was unaware of my surroundings until a sudden … light, I suppose, seemed to come on in my head. I found myself nodding. His chalk outlines on the slate board helped my brain immensely, so I assume it did the same for the others. (Older Julina: Not that I can actually ever remember us talking about that; that thought only just occurred as I wrote up these notes.)

“Way back in the Chivan times, I find it easier to imagine in my mind that there was a main trade route running down each edge of the Valley at the foot of the walls, and one down the middle. The middle one of course would have to cross and re-cross the Sirrel as that river weaved its own way, bouncing first off one wall before diving across the valley floor only to then bounce off the other wall. Now the river itself doesn’t go in a straight line as it dives across the Valley, so there are irregularly shaped countries and islands created on the way.”

He dashed a few more lines on his crude map – which he was at great pains to point out was not particularly accurate. But his simple description enabled most of us to grasp quite easily a mind-picture of the valley we lived in.

“Many of the countries in the Valley have capitals that are positioned historically from the days before the river changed its banks, which it has done time and time again. So the trade route used also tends to wander from a purely straight road along the Valley floor.

“And that forcibly reminds us that the river isn’t still either. It cuts and carves wider bends, some short cuts and so on. Any student of Palarandi history knows about the Great Flood and, much later, the absorption by Palarand of the old countries of Brikant and Kendeven. And of course that the Crescent Lake is itself the old river course.

“This constant alteration of course, along with weathering and rockfalls and so on has meant that the trade routes that used to run along the sides of the valley have now all but disappeared. But they still exist in Palarand as it happens, although at one point long ago the river cut into the wall itself …” he pointed to where his crudely drawn Crescent Lake actually touched the mark he had made representing the valley wall, “... so travellers on that side of the Valley now need to take a pair of Crescent Lake ferries to maintain their course.” He waved his hand at the appropriate places on his chalky chart. “Even so, that is still the better route for accessing Plif on the estuary mouth from countries further upstream.

“So Palarand is the stopper in the flask of the Valley and has lands on both sides of the river valley as well as in the middle of the Valley itself. No traffic that comes downvalley can avoid crossing into Palarand at some time if they wish to travel further to say Plif or Vardenale.

“The next country immediately upstream of Palarand is Brugan. And in many ways Brugan can be considered to be a key country for all the trade that comes downstream. Some might say it’s THE key country rather than just a key country.”

Using his finger as a pointer, he illustrated his talk as he went along, pointing out the relevant things on his crude map. “Once a traveller going downvalley has reached Brugan, then there is a decision to be made. The Plif-bound traffic tends to go off to the Valley Wall and cross into central Palarand at the ferry which plies between Fia’s Wood on the Brugan side and the village of Wallside on the Palarandi side. Wallside itself has gradually moved with the river bank and so isn’t actually at the foot of the wall any more. From Wallside the route follows the foot of the wall all along the Valley up to the Crescent Lake ferries. As it does so it passes through the Moxgo Cross, where the cross-mountain route goes up to the right, up to The Lookout and on all the way to Moxgo. To the left at this crossing, the route goes across the floor to Moxgo Junction where a traveller would turn either right to go to Palarand City or left to Brikant.

“But back to Brugan. The more heavily used route heads from Brugan up to the village of Beress. This is a village in which there are several businesses associated with trade. At Beress the traveller has another decision to make. Go right, drop down the short, sharp hill to the river bank and the ferry across to Terban to get to Brikant and onto to Palarand City via the Moxgo Junction I mentioned earlier; or keep to the left of Beress and head off towards Dekarran and the Palar Valley.

“In fact, at certain times of year, when ’tis still too dangerous to use the ferry from South Slip direct to Dekarran, then a wagon from Palarand City would need to travel to Dekarran via Moxgo Junction, Brikant, Terban, cross the river and then reach the junction at Beress.

“I shall mention here in passing that many travellers mistakenly name the ferry from Terban as crossing to Beress, but in fact the Brugan side of the ferry is situated at an unnamed slip, separated from Beress itself by that slope and a thick stand of trees. ’Tis my guess that in a few years time, Beress will have expanded sufficiently to make that misnaming more accurate!

“On the road from Beress to Dekarran, the Therel River here tumbles down from the mountains above and cuts across to join the Sirrel. The steep and narrow valley down which it flows carries also a trade route that goes many, many marks across to Davenarga, via the Therel Vale to the Kingdom of Shald at first. This confluence of the two rivers is basically the border between Brugan and Palarand, although in all actuality the way the roads run means that the border posts are a little distance removed from the actual river.”

Thus can you, the reader of these scribbles of mine, see that his topic for the English lesson that day also satisfied parts of our great curiosity about the Great Valley.

He then wiped the blackboard slate completely clean and started again, drawing and saying exactly the same things once more but this time in English, and much slower.

A lot later, I asked him, on one day just before the rains stopped: “How can you get the words exactly the same each time you say something in different tongues? By which I mean, how can you remember what you said so accurately?”

“I wish I knew! Since my arrival here, I have discovered that my memory has somehow been enhanced. I can even remember lessons I had in school to which I paid no heed whatsoever. I can remember the technical names of sentence construction, grammar, punctuation, everything! The tenses of verbs. All that sort of stuff which I didn’t even know I knew until I came to think of it, came to need it.”

Now I have concentrated on this episode, this example, in order to give you a flavour as to how events transpired. And how intelligent the Tenant was. He parcelled out our language learning allowing our brains to work on it even while we did other things. We didn’t get tired of it all, as we would have done had we kept at it from dawn to dusk.

Some little things I picked up during those language lessons struck something in my head in such a way that I can still remember them. There were several reasons that these snippets stuck so vividly, so ’twould be impossible for me to mention them all, lest I go on and on for page after page. Perchance you would allow me to give a simple example of this point.

This one made me think about our own language and realise a point about it which I had never before considered. For we did the same thing!

His words were: “ … and also to get an appreciation of the importance of where the emphasis is placed.”

(Older Julina: For some other strange reason, I also really liked that English word ‘emphasis’ when he introduced it.)

“The SPOON was in the pot is totally different in meaning to the spoon was in the POT. Each sentence gives a different implication even though the same six words are employed in the same order. And then consider the following: The spoon WAS in the pot.”

All this description might seem a little confusing, but, as I trust you will appreciate, it would not be clearer if I were to keep to a strict timeline type of presentation.

The language lessons were not the only valuable things I learnt from the Tenant. I also learnt some considerations I should take into account for when the Consociation opened up. And also some things to help make our times in the kitchens more efficient.

And I was not the sole recipient of his breadth of knowledge, he gave a few valuable technical pointers to several of our Guildspeople.

But for me, for now, I shall concentrate just upon what I learnt from him.

For instance, we laughed at first as there was some confusion about the use of the word ‘course’.

One meaning was as a plate in a dinner, so we might serve a 4-course dinner, each course being served on a fresh plate. Whereas another meaning of ‘course’ was as a sequence of lessons, related in some way. And students would arrive to do a particular course, say on sauces or the like, where each lesson was on one particular sauce but the whole group of lessons – the entire course – was all about many sauces.

He made me think hard about what topics should be covered in what course and to realise that I couldn’t hope for success if I were to try to do everything at first.

And, he added at the end, there were yet other meanings of ‘course’, of course.

He also often lent a hand as we prepared the meals. And in fact he sneaked in some extra English lessons when we were there! By using my everyday utensils, I started out learning the new English names for things with which I was so very familiar.

We didn’t have English lessons every day, Tenant Maralin had other duties in the Palace apparently. As I mentioned before, he came roughly every three days after that initial burst. But that was implying too much regularity. Sometimes he came two days consecutively, sometimes there was a gap of nearly a week. But by the time the sun came out again, we were all quite proficient, helped along by being able to chatter amongst ourselves.

At much irritation to others close by us, we went through an extended phase of speaking in sentences containing two languages. When we first started to talk amongst ourselves in English, then we were all giggling with embarrassment, but that phase didn’t last long.

/// /// /// /// /// ///

The Tenant had replied to my request to expand his audience with an expression which took me a long, long while to appreciate: “The more the merrier” he had said, and had repeated it slowly and concisely several times. It stuck firmly in my head then. But as this had been in English, I couldn’t even begin to understand it at that time. But I knew enough to be aware that this was some form of approval of the idea.

As a result, this soon meant that we had a short period (which gradually grew longer) each night over the dinner table when English was to be the ‘main’ language. The three young Guildsmen were busy during the day and had soon become very enthusiastic about our ‘English Moments’, for they were keen to advance their knowledge in any way they could.

I do not wish to be selfish and report on only my own, or my Blackstone colleagues’, activities – there were several others in our Hotel and in Blackstone House and I naturally received several reports of their activities, either directly from them, or from others who had some knowledge. After having considered everything, we were all mostly cooped up while the skies above emptied themselves in great gouts, so ’twas scarce surprising that we chatted and talked of other matters.

Wyzen and Morkem, of course, were mostly involved with furthering the developments, and increasing the production, of the Walking Canopies. A third young man had been given lodging with us to aid these two. I have mentioned him before – his name was Havelin. Quite often, of an evening, these three … lads, I suppose I could call them … would gather with Milsy, Tarvan and/or Senidet and they would jabber away on various technical topics as well as talk about several colleagues.

But that Havelin was very swiftly obsessed. Consumed it could be said.

Not even Tenant Maralin could dissuade him from his avowed intent.

Havelin was convinced that he could make a wagon that was pulled along the roads by a steam engine mounted on its own back! I suspect that I was at least partly to blame for this obsession since I had held forth over the dinner table, one evening early on in Havelin’s stay with us, all about the railroad and the developments I had witnessed and learnt about before arriving here in Palarand City. I had also described seeing that funny boat thing buzzing about on one of the ponds or lakes as we came down the Palar valley.

So Havelin spent as many minutes as he could over in the big barn trying to develop his idea in his time away from the Walking Canopy production. But he was also torn between that and learning English and talking technical stuff with Senidet, Milsy, Tarvan, Wyzen and Morkem. Maralin often contributed to these discussions and I had the feeling that his knowledge was greater than he showed, that he was sort of nudging the others into this or that course of action – but I could never really point to some specific instance of that happening.

Havelin would not be deflected from his self-imposed task though, even while acknowledging the Tenant’s point that such a wagon would of necessity also require a huge water tank and a store of coal to keep the fires burning. He seized upon the Tenant’s confirmation that such a wagon would be possible. And was glad when Maralin confirmed that such a vehicle would be immensely valuable as an extremely strong puller or pusher.

We all enjoyed his reports of his ‘progress’ and the difficulties he had encountered and in one way or another overcome or by-passed. I silently remarked that I was glad Pyor was not about, as Havelin managed to destroy several wagons in his experiments.

I remember one night, when we hadn’t a particularly full house to dinner, that started as an evening of hilarity. It began with Gullbrand describing the journey of a letter sent by Princess Eriana downvalley from wherever she had reached containing instructions for Djerk of all people, and his colleague Maarku. The way Gullbrand related the story had everyone in tears of laughter and I shall attempt to reproduce his tale shortly, but for the moment I am describing young Havelin.

Havelin was probably infected by the roars of laughter that Gullbrand’s story had elicited, so he made his ‘progress report’ that night in a similar fashion. Before that, none of us had had any idea that the young man had a lighter side to his nature.

He started it off by complementing the kitchen team that had produced such a fine evening meal and continued surprisingly, indeed shockingly, with a joke (of sorts). “I don’t know how you all manage to cook such tasty and satisfying food every e’en. I personally only manage to burn everything whenever I have attempted such a task. I even manage to burn water!

“I am aware that I normally go back across to the ‘workshop’ each evening to toil upon my tasks, which I confess has been accurately described by some around this table as an obsession, but am unable to do so upon this occasion for I have very little upon which to work, not having had time to prepare the latest arrival.”

One of the guards by the door started to cough and I was getting quite worried before I realised he was trying to suppress laughter. And soon, after a little thought, we were all grinning at Havelin’s monumental understatement.

We actually had a new guest at dinner that night, a wagoneer, barely an adult, named Nim and who had been sent by the Palace to bring yet another wagon for Havelin to destroy. The poor lad had twisted his ankle after dropping off the wagon and Dilvia the healer had told him to keep off the ankle for a good two days. Despite the rains, we had sent a messenger to his home and his employers and Havelin had been allocated to be his companion and to support him when he needed to move around here in our home. We had placed one of the smaller rooms on the ground floor at his disposal and equipped it with a comfortable chair, a small table and a bed which could be pushed out of sight during the day. It was obvious that this was for him complete luxury which made us all think there was something far deeper in his background.

As we got to know him during the first full day, all of us, Havelin included, started to get irate at the tales Nim told of his home life, where he had been dismissed as a simpleton and had never been fed a decent meal. His father had died and his elder brother had assumed the headship of the house. Both the brother and his only other relative, his mother, had deemed him to be an idiot and thus not worthy of any consideration. When he wasn’t busy having been ordered to do simple tasks, he was generally ignored. We discovered that actually he had a very receptive mind and was simply in need of some education, however simple.

When we rose from table though, one night after his arrival, everything of this nature changed. Most of us had left the dining room when there came a thunderous knocking at the door. I was nearest to it and was reaching to open it when Gullbrand shouted “No!” I stayed my hand immediately, turning to him with a question written loudly in my face.

Then, with Gullbrand’s permission, Tenant Maralin took charge with a forceful and decisive display at odds with his normal gentle nature. The two leaders were extremely doubtful that the claim from without as being from the City Watch was actually genuine. When they mentioned it, I too began to see why they hesitated. They tried to usher all the women into the kitchens, but I refused to go, explaining that my, albeit little, skill at unarmed combat might prove helpful as it would be a great surprise should I need it. Maralin decided to let me stay, probably because time was slipping away rapidly and a response was already overdue should all this be genuine. Later he scolded me, explaining that I was too valuable an asset to Palarand to be placed in any potentially dangerous situation, a viewpoint forcefully endorsed by Feteran once he had been given the details.

When I was finally allowed to open the door, I was almost knocked to the floor as the leader of a band of three men barged forcefully into our spacious entrance hallway, announcing himself as Captain Maximus of the City Watch.

And he also said that he was there to arrest Nim, who had supposedly murdered his mother earlier in the day. At that point, we all knew he was lying because Nim had been with us for the entirety of the day. And we thus all knew immediately that this was not a proper visit from the Watch.

The next half an hour was hectic in the extreme, ending with the lying leader being knocked out and confessions from the other two that made us understand that the unconscious leader was in fact Nim’s brother. And that the horrible man had murdered his own mother and was trying to get Nim arrested for the crime.

Insufficient research on his part had now enabled him to be captured; if he had done some more research and planned better, then maybe he would have got away with it, but his arrogance and misplaced sense of superiority led to his downfall. Later, when the rains had ceased, the King took a very dim view of his behaviour and his execution was the first one ordered when life had returned to more normality. His two accomplices had been marked and sentenced to a year’s hard labour; however their families were looked after for them.

After the tumultuous incursion, the least we could do was to offer Nim some education and subsequently both accommodation and employment. He and Havelin struck up a mutual friendship, enjoying as they did each other’s company, and the two men were soon sharing accommodation closer to the Palace. Gullbrand and Waxerwet acted for Nim in the sale of the family’s plot of land and invested the coin so raised in Nim’s name.

There were several other ramifications from this unfortunate and unwarranted intrusion which I shall mention some other time, if I remember, but this subject is now dragging me ever farther from the theme of this tale I had envisaged when I commenced.

/// /// /// /// /// ///

As you will have remarked, we usually had a quite large group of us every evening around the dining table and naturally over the days and weeks we talked about a myriad of subjects.

Things ranging everywhere it seemed from the difficulties of obtaining fresh supplies and the problems that caused, to the plans already set in motion to develop a home base that shall be the hub of what they shall call the Navy at the old ferryport and under-utilised riverport at Sheldane; the place where the Yodan invasion had landed. Talking of these things made us feel far more important to Palarand than we were in all actuality.

Let me now concentrate more upon just one of those topics, one which was quite fascinating to us all.

With the frequent (and yet still occasional as opposed to regular) presence of Tenant Maralin and Sarjant Varran and the almost regular presence of Gullbrand, this topic was really quite well covered – the upriver voyage of the Visund undertaken under the ‘command’ (for want of any better word) of Princess Eriana.

Yes, the information we received was all about events that had happened some weeks beforehand and aside from not being fresh, we were made aware that a lot of it might not be fully detailed, maybe even just a little inaccurate, being as how we were receiving reports of reports and sometimes even reports of reports of other reports.

Maralin had been aboard the vessel all the way up to Forguland and so could relate first hand some of the details that Gullbrand could generally confirm, the latter having received a few notes from the Princess when she found time to send him an occasional progress report.

Maralin explained that he himself learnt bare information about some later events from a variety of sources up to and including the King himself, who was being informed on a regular basis by Lord Kalmenar, as could only be expected. Maralin also received some limited news via Duke Wallesan back in Joth who was also being kept in intermittent touch. We were not quite sure why the King himself would discuss such matters with a mere foreign Tenant, but we knew the Tenant’s origins gave him some exalted access rights.

Currently, no-one knew where exactly the Visund and her company were all sheltering from the rains. As Gullbrand once said: “They could be all the way up in, say, Faralmark which was their original minimal target or anywhere between there and Sheldane down here in Palarand, which is where the new base is to be completed.

“The rains reportedly came a little early this year, not that I would be able to tell, so communications from upriver, which were taking more than a week, sometimes two or even three, were cut off abruptly. I must doubt that they reached Palarand though for if they had indeed just managed to squeeze in the time to reach Sheldane, then, although the rains would by then have cut off the semaphore, I would still have expected an urgent message to have been despatched via some poor Valley Messenger, if only to set the King’s mind to rest. I have no doubt we shall all be inundated with messages once the rains ease and the Valley Messenger Service can properly recommence their excellent activities.”

I must say at this point that such were the skills of the narrators of each of the incidents, we felt we were almost with them whilst afloat.

We were amazed at the discovery of that Ursula - that filled us with amazement and a host of questions. When Feteran remained mostly silent, I realised that the two men must have discussed this matter more privately somewhere and somewhen.

Then we were incensed at the treatment by that awful Duke Jarwin. There were some very tight lips around the table when that unsavoury adventure was related. If Commander Feteran ever gets near the man, I am sure blood will be spilt.

Later we were also shocked by the attack of the river monster. Not a few of us were imbued with a scare of the river after that. I still have qualms to this day of using a ferry.

We were pleased, however, to hear that a relatively safe haven was found in Joth for repairs to the ship and the crew and we all approved of Eriana’s subsequent stopping to honour her fallen just across the water. We all found ourselves thanking Maralin and Varran as representatives of the welcoming Joth, so closely were we by now associating with the voyage of the Visund.

Around that time, it transpired, the Princess also met the men she had been forced to leave behind due to injuries. Some of them had married local girls in the meantime and there were a few to-be-expected pregnancies as a result.

And that gave rise to the most amusing tale Gullbrand had recounted of the letter the Princess had sent, a subject I referred to earlier.

As most of us knew well, a Royal Party had been up to Blackstone to visit and two of Princess Eriana’s men had accompanied that … expedition, let’s call it. There were also two of Prince Torulf’s men-at-arms along, but we are concerned only with the Princess’ men at this juncture. The two men sworn to the Princess were Djerk and Maarku.

So the Princess decided that her two men should head upriver, but on frayen of course, as soon as they reached Dekarran in order to escort the wounded men and their families back to Palarand, she correctly judging that the open-decked Visund would be no place for pregnant women and/or babies.

( Older Julina:Now I have to point out here that at the time of this event, she had merely the one vessel with her so maybe her decision might have been changed had she then known of any additions she was soon to get – well soonish anyway.)

So she penned a letter with her instructions to Djerk and Maarku and gave it to Tenant Maralin to forward to Dekarran once he returned to Joth. He duly sent it to Countess Merizel to hand to the men when they arrived (which they had done the day we set up the Brewery Company when I was still up there in Blackstone!) Of course that meant that Princess Eriana needed to explain it all to the Countess as well.

Let me interject here by saying that as Gullbrand related the tale, his timing, phrasing and twinkling in his eyes as well as the … contortions ... he made of his face gave rise to much merriment and we were all enthralled by his … performance! Yes, that’s the right word – performance. But let me continue ...

The letter was sent from Joth (or nearby) to Dekarran, a long journey of many days. However, in her haste, Princess Eriana had written the letter in Norse - which the Countess was unable to read.

Now, as we all are aware, Dekarran is a lot nearer to Palarand City than it is to Joth, so the Countess decided to send the letter to Gullbrand to translate, knowing that she would therefore receive a reply as soon as would be humanly possible and certainly a lot more swiftly than returning it to the Princess who may even have travelled on by then.

Gullbrand received the latter and its accompanying explanation requesting a rapid reply. Which reply he duly formulated and he sent the needed translation back to Dekarran within a week of it being originally received there.

He told us all this in such a way that all our faces were wreathed in smiles as the story progressed.

But the original had been sent in Norse you shall remember. Which is a language that the Countess was insufficiently practised with to be able to copy. So she had sent the original to Gullbrand.

Who had thought it to be a mere copy.

“So, by that point in time, we had a situation that everyone concerned understood what was required by Her Highness,” explained a mostly serious Gullbrand before sipping a little wine.

His face changed quite suddenly. “Well, nearly everyone!” said Gullbrand as he grinned engagingly. “All except the two absent Norsemen to whom the letter was actually addressed!”

We all laughed at that moment.

He continued: “They were still upvalley from Dekarran, by quite a long way.”

Again a pause and an engaging grin: “Which was fortunate, as it happened, because the Countess realised that they would need the instructions in their own language when they arrived. So she had to send a further message to me to return the Norse version as soon as I could.”

And yet again he grinned, but this time in a slightly embarrassed way, as he said: “Now this is where my small error came to light.” We all could do nothing other than laugh at him as he pulled a wry face.

As he subsequently smilingly explained: “I had by then thrown the original away, believing it to be a copy and that the Countess still retained the original. So I had to ask her to send me a copy of my translation so I could take that and translate it back into Norse!”

We all laughed out loud at that point.

And so the translated letter was sent back once more to Palarand for Gullbrand to repeat the instructions in the Norse script. Which he duly did and sent the entire packet back to Dekarran, finally washing his hands of the whole matter.

“Or so I thought!” he continued after a pause left long enough for us all to believe the tale had come to its conclusion.

“That was my undoing, I suppose. Thinking that is!”

We all gawped at him, this quiet, gentle, benign but firm man who was in command of us all, well in command in a civilian sort of way. Waxerwet smiled indulgently at him and we all noticed her take his hand – a hand that was not immediately withdrawn.

“For a thought crossed my mind about a week later.” Again he paused, his audience all waiting for his explanation. He waited long enough for some eager anticipation to build.

“Can Djerk and/or Maarku actually read and write?”

Oh how we laughed!

/// /// /// /// /// ///

I hope I have managed to convey to you how we passed the time whilst the heavens emptied themselves outside. Yes, we were cooped up most of the time. Yes, occasionally tempers flared. But now I look back upon that period, it really wasn’t that bad.

I had plenty of time to experiment with new recipes, and made what preparations I could for my uncertain future, aspects of which were still worrying me. I tried out some teaching techniques on some of the girls ‘locked up’ with us and confirmed my suspicions that young Heliga had good talent, showing great promise in her grasp of some basic things like methods of cooking and cutting. It was difficult to evaluate her on the choosing of foodstuffs, since we so rarely ventured out, and even more rarely did we do so together.

She however taught ME something, something to which I rapidly became addicted – yes, I DO mean addicted.

We were fooling around in the kitchens, trying out some things in a very experimental way; me and four or so others.

“Obviously, we should only cook food that is beneficial to the health of the person eating; there should be a mixture of things, vegetables, meats, sauces and so on lest the fare becomes boring. Also obviously, the main thing that makes a meal a good meal is the taste of it. Secondly comes the smell of it. If it smells bad or tastes bad, then the eater will be put off. I have also noticed that some diners are sometimes put off by the FEEL of their food. Now I don’t necessarily mean that they should investigate it with their fingers, or spread it over their skin or anything, I mean whether it is too hard, too dry, too soft, too crunchy and so on. You could almost say that a good meal appeals to all the senses!”

We passed onto another topic as I showed them how to prepare something else and almost forgot about that little episode. I remember we got a good amount of praise later, once the meal had been consumed.

However, the next day, when I announced the menu plan for the day, Heliga diffidently asked: “Mistress Julina?”

Now that put me on alert, for normally she called me simply ’Lina. “Yes Heliga?”

“You know I have cooked all these proposed dishes several times before and you have even been kind enough to praise me on occasion.”

“That is so.”

“Well would you allow me to go and work on one of the dishes in a remote corner with no peeping from anyone? I have had an idea I would like to test before announcing it.”

Intrigued, I of course allowed her her privacy and worked on with the others after watching Heliga select small quantities of each of the foodstuffs we would later serve up. I could not help myself during the next few bells as I kept glancing over at her turned back. When she left her station she hung up some kitchen cloths to hide her endeavours so we all kept our promises. She occasionally came over to ‘steal’ a spoon of this vegetable or that sauce.

I was at the point of checking the numbers of plates required (for the third time), just before putting the meal together for serving, when Heliga called me over.

“Would you please try this main course I have prepared, ’Lin… er… Mistress?” she said as she held out a plate that did indeed resemble those we were about to put together for our several hands of diners. The meat was on it, the vegetables and the sauce, all piled in the centre of the plate to make it easier for the servants to refrain from dropping anything off. I scanned it hard, looking for some difference but nothing sprang out at me.

I shot a glance at her, not only wondering at her insistence at the stiff formality but also at her endeavours in her private corner. “Certainly, Mistress Heliga,” I replied, emphasising the formality; which I noticed elicited a small but fleeting grin.

I took out my fork and unwrapped the cloth from around it. Using a knife, I cut off a bite-sized piece and leant forward to let my mouth receive the offering. As entirely expected, it tasted fine, just as we had always done it. “This is very good, Heliga. But what do you imagine is any different?”

She held up a finger and turned round, taking my fork with her. “Please don’t peek yet.”

After doing something hidden with my fork and a knife (her actions were plain to see even with her turned back blocking my full view), she turned once more and proffered me the now reloaded fork.

Obviously she wanted me to try this new morsel, so I did. I frowned. “This tastes just the same, just as good. What have you been doing all this time?”

By now, all the others had gathered together just behind me.

She pointed to the plate of food she had first offered me, then turned and tore down her makeshift curtaining, revealing a second plate which she picked up and placed next to the first.

We all gasped.

“Now which plate would you prefer to eat?”

I swallowed to help me close my mouth which had dropped open with wonder.

“Definitely the second!” A thought struck me suddenly: “The two plates DO contain the same food?”

“Oh yes! Exactly the same. And exactly the same amounts, take and give.”

I had to say it: “This, Heliga, is BRILLIANT. Well done! How on Anmar did you manage to think of this?”

“Well, you said the other day that someone could almost say a good meal appeals to all the senses! I wasted some time trying to include hearing but my feeble brain failed to find anyway to do that. But now we have taste, smell, touch and sight. Four out of five isn’t bad, I deem!”

“Oh yes! The LOOK of the food, arranged as you have so cleverly done, and topped with tiny sprinkles of leaves and so on makes it all so much more attractive. Congratulations!”

I turned to the others and said: “Right then, we have a new way of setting out the plates so that will take a little longer now to get them ready. Let me go and announce to the diners that they should attend now at table, and I will come back and help. One of you start chopping up some of those leaves into small bits. Let Heliga show you how.”

This meal we served up proved to be a huge success and Heliga almost burst into flames as she blushed with all the complements she was given.

And so was born what is now the thing most people assign to me and the Consociation! I weary from the need to correct people and mention Heliga.

/// /// /// /// /// ///

I have mentioned that episode in some detail as it leads onto, once again, the English lessons.

Heliga had misused one of the Tenant’s expressions and that version we had all unthinkingly adopted. I learnt how difficult it was to rid one’s brain of things that were mistaken and yet had become lodged there.

The correct expression was supposed to be ‘give or take’ or ‘an amount of give and take’ but Heliga had said ‘take and give.’ Oh how difficult it was to get the correct version to settle into my brain. There were other such little errors that crept into our speech but I deem that one was the one most difficult to unlearn.

To finish this narrative, I must mention that I was very slow on the uptake about one thing.

As the availability of Walking Canopies increased, and I suppose the knowledge of them, we received an increasing number of exalted men visiting us to learn some English – to get an early start on things, if you like.

Naturally, Tenant Maralin dealt with most of them whenever he was here, and I must say that he was of great assistance. Some of these men, nearly all Questors as they used to be called, were enthusiastic but the odd one was extremely reluctant. We had all shades in between.

It wasn’t until the Tenant told me one day that I was being “a little thick!” when I queried this.

I stared at him, half annoyed and half intrigued.

He laughed. “They come for your food as much as for the language. You really do not understand how talented you are in the kitchen, do you?”

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