“Oca,” said the young man, not the least troubled by this curtness nor
put out by it, “you have done us as much harm as you could, which is not
so much as you wished. I leave you to count the good you have got by it.
It was an old quarrel, but it occurs to me that since the chief cause of
it has ceased to exist, there is little use in our quarreling. But there
is no reason why we should be friends. Do you follow me?”
“You are plain enough.”
“I will be plainer. Not only do we Outliers wish no quarrel with you but
we wish never to set eyes on you again, nor so much as to happen on the
places where you have been. Therefore if you will choose you out a
quarter of this land, which, as you say, is large enough, you and your
people will have leave to go seven days in that direction, after which
you shall see no more of us. But all this part where we have been, from
the Ledge to Broken Tree, is forbidden ground. Neither you nor any
generation of yours to set foot in it. We will see to that.”
He spoke with a controlled and quiet energy that fell on the old man’s
fury of defeat like steady rain.
“As for us, we shall go south from here a great distance. So,” said
Persilope, “if you choose, to-morrow my men will set you on your way,
and you shall have no more to do with us except of your own seeking.”
Oca looked back over his people standing sullen and attentive, and read
but one thought in them.
“We would go now,” he said.
“As you will. Only choose.”
It was a generous offer, but perhaps Persilope knew his man. Oca looked
north and south: he must have had by his wild instinct the better
knowledge of the country. He might have seen in that unstinted gaze some
trace—pale smoke ascending or pointed roof—that advised him of the
neighborhood of men, men to be plotted against, evaded, pilfered from,
to give to his life the zest of cunning that it craved. He stretched his
hand northward.
“I will go there,” he said.
“From those three far peaks, then, to this broken headland, and from
thence as the crow flies to the sea. Do you accept the conditions?”
“O Persilope, what else is there to do?”
“Go, then.”
On the motion of Persilope stepping back all the Outliers fell back a
little also to give them room. We saw the Far-Folk set in motion. Oca
himself went a few paces, but he was, after all, a king; words of thanks
stuck in his throat no doubt. He dragged them out, perhaps by the
process of tugging at the locks of his beard.
“Your offer is just. We will keep faith with you. My thanks to you,” he
said, and when Persilope had dismissed the subject with a gesture, he
turned his back in departing and did not look our way again.
We saw them go down the hill and drown in the lake of mist, and after an
interval come out on the other side rounding a hill front, after which
we saw them no more. It was a visible relief to the Outliers to be rid
of them. We moved a space down the headland, made cover from the rain
and slept quietly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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