When Raymond entered his Speaker's office on the twenty-seventh of February, he was not in the best of moods. He was a young man – it was only a few years since his period of training had officially ended – and hadn't yet applied for a spouse; nonetheless, when he had become a full Speaker, he had chosen to leave his parents' dwelling and take up residence near the river, where there were a number of small dwellings set aside for unmarried adults. At the time, he hadn't really considered what that would be like; he just knew that it didn't feel right to him to remain in his childhood family unit any longer.
Which was all very well, but there were days – and that day was certainly one of them – when the lack of familiar voices and comfortable footsteps in his dwelling made him feel curiously aggrieved, as though some possession had been taken from him and nothing given in its place. It was an absurd feeling, he knew; if he really objected to lacking a family unit, why not simply apply for a spouse and have done with it? (Indeed, he had actually written such an application – but then, for whatever reason, he had failed to turn it in. It was still sitting there, in the drawer of his desk in his riverside dwelling, and had been for nearly a month. He hadn't forgotten it, nor had he changed his mind about wanting it – but he had never used it.)
But, whatever the reason for his dissatisfaction, the fact remained that he felt it – and it only deepened when he entered his office and saw the Elder Tomas sitting on a small stool in the corner, smiling paternally at him. He had never liked being watched; indeed, that was one of the things that had made the Speakers attractive to him as a child, the notion of being merely a voice and never being seen. And the Elders knew that perfectly well, and had shown their approval of it through their assignment of him – and yet here they were sending one of their own members in to intrude upon his professional privacy every day for over a month, all because he had said something over the comm that he hadn't been able to explain afterwards.
But, even as he puckered his lips in resentment, the memory came to him of that afternoon, and the wondrous strangeness of the mood that had seized him – as though he had been some useful instrument, such as a chisel or a lathe, and some mysterious craftsman had suddenly taken him up and used him to give new form to a piece of wood or stone. And, remembering this, he conceded to himself that the Elders had good reason to wish to study him – for a worker may well be known by his tools, and who would not wish to know the worker of the reminder?
Reflecting thus, he was able, with great effort, to return Elder Tomas's greeting politely. He then asked whether there were any special announcements regarding the day in general, and Tomas said no. "Confidentially," he said, with the knowing geniality that made it impossible to resent him for long, "the Committee never does seem to declare special occasions at this time of year."
"Why not?" said Raymond, curious.
"That I don't know," said Tomas. "It could just be coincidence, I suppose – or maybe there's some sort of seasonal influence that makes people feel solemn and austere. But, anyway, there it is: in all my years on the Committee, I've never seen a single unscheduled holiday proposed for the end of February – and only a very few for any time in March."
Raymond cast his mind back, and found that he couldn't remember any such holidays, either. "Well, then," he said, "just the daily grind of purloined snacks and untied hair ribbons, eh?"
"So it would seem," said Tomas with a chuckle.
But, as it turned out, it didn't seem so for much longer – for no sooner were the words out of Tomas's mouth when the comm startled both men by suddenly crackling to life, and the voice of one of Raymond's fellow Speakers filled the room: ATTENTION. THIS IS A REMINDER.
It was on the tip of Raymond's tongue to make some joke about Tomas having evidently been away from the Committee too long, and not being as informed as he used to be about the temper of his colleagues. But the words never left his mouth, because he knew, instinctively and without question, that this was no announcement of an unscheduled holiday, or anything else that emanated from the Committee of Elders. The timbre of the unseen voice was that not that of a Speaker doing her daily work, but of a messenger with some great secret to share – in fact, of a chisel about to give form to a stone. And he scolded himself, in that instant, for being arrogant and short-sighted, grumbling about Tomas's presence in his office when it was only his self-flattery that kept the Elder there – for it seemed to him, now, that he ought to have realized, and, realizing, to have told the Elders, that a wise craftsman employs all of his tools, not just one.
So he said nothing, and Tomas said nothing either; they both sat, silent and motionless, with their eyes turned toward the comm, and waited for the unimaginable thing that they knew was about to happen.
I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee,
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
It was Charlotte's voice, Raymond realized – the junior Speaker, a few years younger than he, with whom he had had an unspoken rivalry ever since her period of training had ended in November. The Elders regarded her as particularly gifted, with a pleasant timbre to her voice and a knack for elocution; as a result, they had given her a disproportionate number of announcements that, in Raymond's view, ought rightfully to have gone to him. Resenting this, he had on several occasions found ways to make her feel uncomfortable about her relative youth and rawness without actually breaking the rules pertaining to rudeness; she, in turn, had taken to conspicuously avoiding him whenever she could, even turning down other paths when she saw him coming.
It was strange, he thought, that he hadn't recognized her voice immediately. He had thought that he knew it so well; why had it seemed to him, at first, that there was a vivid, mysterious stranger speaking over the comm? Partly, no doubt, because of the different quality that proclamation gave to a person's voice – but he couldn't help thinking that perhaps he had never properly listened to her before.
A weariness comes from those dreamers dew-dappled, the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew,
For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam – I and you!
Tomas's lips worked spasmodically as he heard the rattling chains of unmeaning pour forth from the speaker. He recognized Charlotte's voice quite readily; it had been he who had first noted her potential as a Speaker, and had urged his fellows on the Committee to give her that assignment. That his success should have caused her to become the helpless vehicle of an incomprehensibly disruptive force – that distressed him greatly.
Something had to be done, he decided. He had known that before, of course, from his general sense of the fitness of things, but now he not only knew, but resolved. He would not permit this to continue; he would not allow the men and women whose flourishing lay in his care to remain at the mercy of something that cared nothing for the Community, or for order, or for sense. What he could do about it, he didn't know, but he knew that, whatever it was, he would do it.
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more.
Soon far from the rose and the lily and the fret of the flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!
The comm turned off with a pop, and both men let out breaths that they hadn't been conscious of holding. Raymond started, and glanced at Tomas with a little, awkward laugh; the Elder, however, didn't seem to have even noticed the synchrony. His usually genial face wore a sad, solemn expression, and the thought passed through Raymond's mind that he looked genuinely elderly for the first time in their acquaintance.
He rose slowly from his seat, approached to where Raymond was sitting, and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Raymond," he whispered.
"Yes?" said the young Speaker.
"Raymond," Tomas repeated, a shade more loudly. "Raymond. Raymond. Raymond…" He had said it about half a dozen times more, and had almost reached normal speaking volume, before the man whose name he was murmuring realized what he was doing.
The impromptu ceremony continued for some minutes, at the end of which Tomas abruptly broke off, with the air of one who had done all he could for the present, and turned and went out the door without another word. His footsteps could be heard echoing down the corridor for a minute or two; then they faded away, and, for the first time in nearly half a month, Raymond found himself alone in his office.
Only a few minutes before, such a development would have filled the young man with an almost insolent exultation – but now his soul was altogether too full for such petty triumphs. Instead of rising to his feet and striding about the room with the buoyant gait of the newly liberated, he remained where he was, contemplating the new order that had arisen in his world. He thought of white birds (whatever those were); he thought of daffodils (whatever that meant); he thought of himself, and what he had become not quite two weeks before; and he thought, most of all, of the other who had now become that with him, and who, now that the proclamation of beauty bound them together, could never again be to him the mere obstacle and object of envy that he had hitherto sought to make her.
His lips parted, and, as Tomas had just murmured his name to give him life and strength, so he murmured another name – not to give its possessor life (for that had already been done by one far more qualified than he), but to reach out to the life that had been thus bestowed, and to unite, or accept the unity of, his own life therewith.
"Charlotte," he murmured. "Charlotte. Charlotte. Charlotte…"