“Sometimes it is so with us,” she agreed, “but not with people like myself and Persilope. When it was brought to our notice how all the Outliers would be benefited by our uniting his practical sense with my far-seeing, we held our hearts out like a torch and lighted each from each.” They could do that it seemed, these Outliers, apt full natures, they could rise in the full chord of being and love without other inducement than the acknowledgment of worth. That was why the Outliers took no notice of what I was secretly ashamed of having noticed, that she was years older than her husband.
Leaving the habits of the House-Folk, Trastevera went on with her narrative.
“We have a custom when we are married,” she said, “of choosing where it shall be. We set forth, each from his own home, all our friends being apprised of what we are about to do and wishing us well. Then we come to the place, each by his own trail, meeting there under no eyes. When a month is done we go home to our friends, who make a great to-do for us. There is a hill I know, looking seaward, a full day from here. There are pines at the top and oaks about the foot, but the whole of it is treeless, grassy, with flowers that sleep by day among the grasses. It is neither windy nor quiet, but small waves of air run this way and that along the grass, and make a changing pattern. Here I chose to meet Persilope. All day I went down by Deer Leap and River Ward to meet my man, and he came up by Toyon and the hiving rocks to meet me. All day I felt him come, and the earth felt him: news of him came up through the grasses and touched my finger-tips.” She flushed a little, and finished simply: “When we came back,” she said, “I had reason to believe I had lost the gift of Far-Seeing. It was while we were away that the Far-Folk had opened the matter of the hostage, and the Council waited for Persilope to come back from his wedding to decide what was best to be done. The people were for the most part glad to put an end to quarreling.”
This was the first time that I realized that there was another sort of woodlanders beside the Outliers. Up till this time, when I had heard mention of Far-Folk, I thought it perhaps another sort of name for us, House Livers, as they called us indifferently, or Diggers, or They of the Ploughed Lands, as people will speak of a wild species, very common but of too little interest to be named or known.
“So soon as I had heard of the Far-Folk’s plan to send us their smith as a perpetual hostage,” she went on, “I was chilled with prescience of disaster, and said so freely. But when Ravenutzi came to council, and I had looked him through, I was warm again. You heard how I said last night that I could not tell if it was the blood of the Far-Folk playing traitor in me, or if there was, in fact, no shadow coming. So I was obliged to say to the Council, and they on their own motion, without any help from me, accepted him. No one has blamed me”—she mused a little, with her chin upon her hand—“but ever since I have been afraid. There might really have been some intimation of coming evil which my happiness, going from me to everything I looked upon, dispelled as a bubbling spring breaks up a shadow.”
She rose and walked from me a little space, returned, and stood before me so intent upon getting some answer more than my words, that I thought it best to let no words trouble her. Presently she went on:
“Since then I have had no serious forecasting that concerned the Outliers at large. But some days before Prassade first found you, I had a vision of Broken Tree and a bird rising from it crying trouble. There was shadow lying on my world, and dread of loss and change. But this is the strangest thing of all. When I had seen you I saw more than that. Between you and Ravenutzi there was some bond and understanding.”
“No, no!” I protested; “on his part, yes, some intention toward me, some power to draw me unaware to meet some end of his. And yet....”
“And yet you like him?”
I admitted it. Though I had no special confidence in his purpose, I felt my soul invite his use.