The plantation had been in the family of Aximaan Threysz since Lord Confalume's time. It covered an irregularly triangular area that stretched for five miles or so along the banks of Havilbove Fluence, jigged in a southeasterly way down to the outskirts of Mazadone Forest Preserve, and swung by roundabout curves back toward the river to the north. Within that zone, Aximaan Threysz ruled as lord absolute over her five sons and nine daughters, her uncountable grandchildren, and the twenty-odd Liimen and Vroons who were her farmhands. When Aximaan Threysz said it was seedtime, they went out and seeded. When Aximaan Threysz said it was harvest time, they went out and reaped. At the great house at the edge of the androdragma grove, dinner was served at the time Aximaan Threysz came to table, whenever that time happened to be. Even the family sleeping schedules were subject to Aximaan Threysz's decrees: for Ghayrogs are hibernators, but she could not have the whole family asleep at once. The eldest son knew he must always be awake during the first six weeks of his mother's annual winter rest; the eldest daughter took command for the remaining six weeks. Aximaan Threysz assigned sleep-times to the other family members according to her sense of what was appropriate to the plantation's needs. No one ever questioned her. Even when she was young—an impossibly long time ago, when Ossier was Pontifex and Lord Tyeveras had the Castle—she had been the one to whom all others turned, even her father, even her mate, in time of crisis. She had outlived both of those, and some of her offspring as well, and many a Coronal had come and gone on Castle Mount, and still Aximaan Threysz went on and on. Her thick scaly hide had lost its high gloss and was purplish with age now, the writhing fleshy serpents of her hair had faded from jet black to pale gray, her chilly unblinking green eyes were clouded and milky, but yet she moved unceasingly through the routines of the farm.

Nothing of any value could be raised on her land except rice and lusavender, and even those were not easy. The rainstorms of the far north found easy access to Dulorn Province down the great funnel of the Rift, and, though the city of Dulorn itself lay in a dry zone, the territory to its west, amply watered and well drained, was fertile and rich. But the district around Prestimion Vale on the eastern side of the Rift was another sort of place entirely, dank and swampy, its soil a heavy bluish muck. With careful timing, though, it was possible to plant rice at the end of winter just ahead of the spring floods, and to put in lusavender in late spring and again at the end of autumn. No one in the region knew the rhythm of the seasons better than Aximaan Threysz, and only the most rash of farmers would set his seedlings out before word had come that she had begun her planting.