“To the southwest edge,” Tofi said. “On the flat. There’s no other out there. Some have let their beasts go forage. I haven’t. I waited.”

“Good. We’ll use our tent, the same we have used. It was a good size. Give the best one to the Ila and the aui’it. Her men will camp with us, with their households, I take it, in tents they will provide.” Memnanan, standing close by, failed to contradict him, so he supposed the instruction stood. The Ila would move from this white grandeur into ordinary brown tents two men could have up and down again in haste, and her men would have the tents the Ila’s men used in the desert. “Go see to it.”

Tofi bowed, and bowed again. “Omi,” he said. “Captain,” he said to Memnanan, and ran to scramble up to the saddle of the waiting besha, making him extend a leg.

In an instant more Tofi was off down the street, vigorously plying the quirt.

Chapter Sixteen

« ^ »

The book of an au’it may not be opened except by an au’it and it may not be read to the people except an au’it read it. If a village wishes to know what is in an au’it’s book, let them ask the au’it.
—The Book of Priests

The priests came to the ila’s tent with their besha-drawn carts, and the chief priest, a haughty old man, strode angrily past Memnanan, went into the Ila’s tent and came out again with his hauteur aimed solely at the junior priests and with a very chastened demeanor toward Memnanan.

“We are,” the chief priest said, every word labored, “to take the library in our charge. Where shall we dispose it?”

“Men of mine will guide you down,” Memnanan told him, and with a nod of his head toward Marak: “He has the Ila’s authority in this matter.”

The priest looked at Marak in dismay, and turned to the junior priests to give orders. Aui’it came out, bearing books; and so priests went in, and servants, so that it became a hand-to-hand stream, loading the leather-bound books into their arms, one to the next past the veils and curtains of the interior, and servants passed books on to priests and soldiers outside, and they laid them carefully onto carts which would have fared very well on the pavings of the city. Now, with the increasing loads, they bogged in the wet sand around the Ila’s Mercy, and required the beshti to labor to move them. “Not so many in a load,” Memnanan said, and added under his breath, “fools.”