Three Votes of Seven

The Fremennik of Rellekka keep a council of twelve. An outerlander needs seven of their votes to be counted as a person. The Chronicler declared he would win seven and wear the helm, and allowed ten hours. He left with three votes and no helm. He took one hour and six minutes to do it.

The first hour went well, and I want that on the record before the rest. He walked Swensen's maze from end to end. He hunted the Draugen, drew its essence into Sigli's talisman and handed it over. He bought the poison salesman's low-alcohol beer in Seers' pub, then bought a second beer for a thirsty bridge workman, who paid him with a strange object that bangs when lit. He put the object, lit, in the longhall's drain pipe. When the noise came he could not swap the kegs. He tried again later and drank Manni under the table on the weak beer. That was the Navigator, the Hunter and the Reveller. The Fremennik respect a man who can hold his drink. They have not asked what was in it.

Then came the Bard's trial, which is about music and so involved mostly soup. A troll named Lalli was hungry. The Chronicler made him a stone soup from a pet rock, a cabbage, a potato and an onion, and got a golden fleece for it. He spun the fleece on the Seers' wheel after first failing to climb to it. He cut the branch from the musical tree and carved a lyre. Then he cut the branch and carved the lyre a second time, for reasons the record does not give. To string it he needed twenty-five logs fletched. Three times he asked the knife for an Oak Short Bow, and three times the knife offered him a Short Bow, a Long Bow and fifteen arrow shafts. Each time he stood there for seventy-four seconds holding a dialog open, as if the oak might change its mind. On the fourth attempt it did. The lyre was strung.

The lake spirit Fossegrimen wants a raw shark before he will hear a song. Nobody in the household had a raw one to spare. The cook who was once my scout keeps sharks only in the cooked state.

So he took up Sigmund's trading chain instead, which is thirteen steps long. He did six of them in three minutes: the sailor, Olaf, Yrsa, Brundt, Sigli and Skulgrimen's shop. He went round them so fast that the Realm took it for a loop and stopped him. The Labour was abandoned at the dock with nothing gained. Down the coast, the fishermen of Catherby spent the whole hour demanding the right to fish without a committee. I note that they had a council to complain about. He did not get that far.