Chapter 99 The Water Reads

The water reads its own sentence in the fourth century the way a river reads its own bed, by running, and the four coasts, which had spent three centuries learning to read the sentence aloud and then to hear it spoken back, learned in the fourth century to let it run unread, the water carrying it, the coasts hearing it in every tide without ceremony, the way a people hears its own language without needing to translate it, and the unreading was the fourth century's whole character, the settling so complete that the covenant stopped being a thing that had to be said and became a thing that simply was, like the water, like the road, like the gate, like the four coasts, like the free, and the was was the keeping, and the keeping was the being, and the being was the whole of the law. The registers, the first and the second and the third and the whole long shelf of them, lay in the hall at Pemberton through the fourth century and were read, no longer by the keepers at the gate on the yearly morning, but by the scholars and the children and the travelers who came to the hall to see the sentence that had ended a war, and the reading of the registers became a history, and the history became a story, and the story became a legend, and the legend, told to the children of the fourth coast and the fifth and the sixth and the whole sea, was the plainest legend any people ever told itself, that once there was a gate, and the gate was kept, and the keeping made the water free, and the free water made the four coasts one, and the one coast was the whole sea, and the whole sea was the legend, and the legend was the keeping, told and retold, in the hall and at the gate and on the round and in the water, forever. The three stones at the seaward field stood through the fourth century without a reading and without a keeper, and the valley walked past them daily on the way to the water and the mill and the sea, and the stones were read by no one and were read by everyone, the way a post in a hedge is read by the hedge, and the sentence on them, cut by the first hand and the fourth coast and the water's own, was the whole of the valley's alphabet, the first sentence every child learned and the last sentence every elder forgot, and the forgetting was the final keeping, the point at which the sentence had been kept so long and so well that it no longer needed to be remembered, because it had become the water, and the water does not need to remember to be free, it is free, the way the four coasts do not need to remember to keep, they keep, the way the gate does not need to remember to stand open, it stands open, and the open is the whole of the law, and the law is the water, and the water is the sentence, and the sentence is the keeping, and the keeping is the being, and the being is the fourth century, and the fourth century is the whole sea, free, settled, ordinary, and the water reads, and the water reads, and the water reads, forever. The legend reached the far shore of the far shore in the fourth century, and the far shore of the far shore sent its own keeper to see the three stones and the gate and the hall, and the keeper came and read the sentence and went home and built, on the far shore of the far shore, a gate of its own, and the gate was open and the water was free and the sentence was kept, and the keeping of it, the valley understood, hearing the news across the sea, was the whole of the fourth century's work and the whole of the first century's meaning and the whole of the war's purpose and the whole of the book's price and the whole of the water's own authorship, that a sentence kept long enough becomes a people, and a people kept free enough becomes a sea, and a sea kept open enough becomes the world, and the world was the gate, and the gate was open, and the water was free, and the free was the legend, and the legend was the keeping, and the keeping went on, to the far shore of the far shore and beyond, in the water's own time, forever. The legend of the gate traveled the whole sea in the fourth century the way the sentence had traveled the sea in the third, by water, and the water carried the legend to every shore that had ever sent a keeper to the round, and the legend, arriving on a shore that had never had a gate, was built into a gate, and the gate was open, and the water was free, and the sentence was kept, and the keeping of it was the whole of the fourth century's gift to the fifth, the gift of a sentence that had been so fully kept it had become the water's own, and the water's own had become the world's, and the world, keeping the water's own sentence on every shore it touched, was the whole of the gate, and the gate was open, and the open was the whole of the law, and the law was free, and the free was the water, and the water was the world, and the world was the keeping, and the keeping went on. The fifth century's morning at the seaward field, the longest day of the year of the ending and the beginning, was the plainest morning the valley had ever had, and the plainest morning was the whole of the keeping's proof, that a morning that needs no ceremony is a morning that has been kept, and a morning that has been kept is a morning that is free, and a morning that is free is a morning that is the whole of the law, and the law is the water, and the water is the gate, and the gate is open, and the open is the morning, and the morning is the whole of it, plain, ordinary, unhurried, free.