Onaru, and king of Oredan." He smiled wanly.

"The agreement was not made public, of course. And the queen no longer
lives. But signatures and agreement are recorded at Oreladar. And they
appear in the Book of the Waernu, against my name. References in the
Book of the Waernu are so arranged that I may be quickly removed, to be
placed in an already prepared place in the Book of the Onaru, if the
time should come. This and the fact that my mother was the daughter of
a brother of the king, places me in the line of kings of Oredan." He
shrugged.

"Especially since the king did, in fact, die childless.

"And this, in my father's eyes, meant that I should know of the plains,
of the cities, and of the galactics, since there, he said, lies the
power and wealth of the present day Oredan."

Don shrugged. "Wealth, maybe," he said quietly. "I'm not so sure about
the power. The pressure of History is a very real thing, and I seem to
remember noticing that every time some king has gotten into a jam with
one of the other kingdoms or with his own nobles, he's had to raise the
clans. And there have been times when that wasn't easy."

Pete nodded. "I know. The Onaru took the throne two hundred years ago,
simply because the clans withheld support from the Chalenu--the Old
Line."

"Yeah." Don picked idly at the bark of a tree. "And Stern's been trying
to get the clans into hot water ever since he took over."

Pete looked at him for a moment, then looked about the village.

There was no orderly arrangement of houses, as could be found in town.
Wherever someone had found a suitable spot, there he had embedded his
poles. And there, he had erected walls, daubed them with clay from the
nearby stream, and formed long, limber wands from the thickets into
arched roofs, to be covered with long grass from the valley. There
were isolated houses, and there were tight little groups of houses.
Possibly, Pete thought, family groups.

No streets existed here, though generations of sandaled feet had beaten
the ground into winding paths which led from houses to wells, and from
wells to fields, and to the surrounding forest.

And there was no litter, as could be found in any city. No fallen twig
or leaf was allowed to remain on the ground of the village. Grass and
moss grew on unused ground and on hillsides, but before each hut, the
growth gave way to the forecourt and the small garden.

Here and there, a bank by a path had been reinforced with c