第98章 The Settling

The settling came the way all true settlings come, when the fighting is done and the keeping has been so long and so whole that the people who have been keeping it stop being able to remember a time when the gate was shut, and the gate being always open becomes the gate being simply the way the water runs, and the way the water runs is the whole of the shore's ordinary life, and the ordinary life is the settling, and the settling is the end of the keeping and the beginning of the living, and the living is the same as the keeping, only unremarked. The valley, the island, the far shore, the coast beyond it, all the shores that had sent keepers to the round, settled into the free water the way a family settles into a house it has lived in long enough to stop noticing the walls, and the gate at the seaward field became the post in the hedge and the hedge became the field and the field became the valley and the valley became the shore and the shore became the water and the water was free, and the free was ordinary, and the ordinary was the settling, and the settling was the third century's whole character, the long unremarkable season of a people that has won its long war with the deed and the book and the company and the court and the correction and the hidden ledger, and has won it so thoroughly that the winning has become the living, and the living is the sentence, read no longer aloud by the keepers on the round but silently by the water on the stones, and the water reads the sentence to itself, and the sentence is the water's own, and the water's own is the free, and the free is the whole of it, and the whole of it is settled. Arthur's great-granddaughter, who was the valley's keeper in the year of the settling, said at the gate on the morning of the last round that the sentence did not need to be read aloud anymore, that the water had taken it into itself the way the water takes everything it is given, and the keeping of it was no longer the walkers' work but the water's own, and the walkers' round could end, because the road had been walked into the water, and the water was the road, and the road was the sentence, and the sentence was the free, and the free did not need to be carried by hands, only by tides, and the tides carried it, and the carrying was the keeping, and the keeping was the settling, and the settling was the living, and the living was the whole of the free water, and the free water was the whole of the four coasts, and the four coasts were the whole of the road, and the road was under the sea, and the sea was the whole of it, and the whole of it was free, and the free was enough, and the enough was the settling, and the settling went on, in the water's own time, ordinary, unhurried, forever. The third century's water's own discovery, that the sentence had been written by the water and the four houses had been the amanuenses, changed the whole character of the keeping, and the change was the settling, the point at which the keepers understood they had been keeping the water's own words and the water had been keeping them, and the two, the keepers and the water, were the same thing seen from different ends of the same road, and the road was under the sea, and the sea was the whole of it, and the whole of it was free, and the free was the settling, and the settling was the ordinary, and the ordinary was the living, and the living was the whole of the law, kept by the water, read by the coast, walked by the road, ordinary, unhurried, forever. The round ended in the year of the settling, and the ending was not a loss, only a completion, because a road that has been walked into the water needs no walkers, the water carries it, and the sentence that has been carried by the water needs no readers, the water speaks it in every tide, and the four coasts, whose centuries of walking and reading and keeping had ended with the sentence fully handed to the water, stood at their gates on the morning the round ended and heard the water speak the sentence back to them in every wave, and the hearing was the whole of the settling, the four coasts receiving back from the water the very sentence they had been carrying for it, and the two, the sentence and the water, the keepers and the kept, were one at last, settled, free, ordinary, and the water spoke, and the coast heard, and the hearing was the keeping, and the keeping was the settling, and the settling went on, in the water's own time, forever. The third century's discovery that the water had been writing the sentence all along changed the keeping from a duty into a recognition, and a recognition is lighter than a duty the way a tide is lighter than a dam, and the four coasts, recognizing the water's own authorship, laid down the weight of the keeping and picked up the lightness of the recognition, and the lightness was the settling, and the settling was the third century's whole gift to the fourth, the gift of a people that has stopped carrying a sentence and has started hearing it spoken back to them by the water that wrote it, and the hearing was the whole of the living, and the living was the whole of the keeping, and the keeping was the whole of the free water, and the free water was the whole of the law, and the law was ordinary, and the ordinary was the settling, and the settling was the gift, given and received and passed on, in the water's own time, forever.