Sunday, October 04, 2026

Juan José Urráburu on Vestment

Last year I did a few posts on the tenth predicament (ninth accident), habitus, i.e., habit in the sense of vestment, which is roughly the category in which one substance is predicated as an accident for another. I looked at a number of different people and what they said about this -- Jeremy Bentham, Robert Sanderson, James Beattie, Thomas Aquinas, John of St. Thomas. I was recently playing around with various automatic translation programs, and decided to test them with a passage from Juan José Urráburu's Institutiones Philosophicae on the same category. Urráburu (1844-1904) is a case of an extremely important figure in the history of philosophy whose name is rarely known. He was a Spanish Jesuit whose eight-volume Institutiones Philosophicae, begun about 1890 and finished in 1900, and five-volume Compendium version of the same work, was of overwhelming significance and importance for the early twentieth-century Neo-Scholastic movement; in effect, it became the primary reference for most of it, and shaped its structure and approach. Unlike in the previous posts, where I translated, the following translation is basically that of Google Translate (which has become quite good at translating Latin, even though it is still very occasionally odd in particular translation preferences and occasionally gets phrases the wrong way around), although I have checked it briefly for any very obvious errors and have also regularized its clothing terms to use 'vestment' and 'vested' for the similar vest- terms in the original. It is from volume 2 of the Institutiones, Ontologia, disputation 6, chapter 4, article 3 (section 378).

This category (*habitus*) expresses the meaning according to which something is said to be clothed or adorned by something adjacent to the body—such as vestments or protective armor (e.g., a breastplate, helmet, etc.); it is thus defined by Gilbert in terms of bodies and the things adjacent to them. Consequently, the primary subject of the determinations belonging to this category is man alone, since he is the only animal that uses vestment out of necessity and natural instinct. Nevertheless, animals can secondarily be the subjects of such denominations insofar as they are clothed or armored through human ingenuity—for example, a horse or a monkey—as can statues vested in human fashion, and temples or houses adorned with tapestries and hangings. Also included here are terms like "gilded," "whitewashed," "red-hot," and similar ones, which arise from one substance being accidentally superimposed upon another in the manner of an ornament. 
This follows St. Thomas, but in a very specific later reading that (as I have said elsewhere) St. Thomas may not have actually meant. I am a bit baffled by the last sentence, which at first seems to contradict everything else in this paragraph; but I suppose Urráburu probably means that these are figurative cases.

Now, the denomination belonging to this category can be stated in two ways: first, as "having vestment," and second, as "being vested." In the first sense, the denominating form is the act of having or wearing the vestment—or the actual state of wearing it and the union, as it were, of the vestment with the body; it is in this sense that Aristotle could write that *habitus* is an intermediary between the one who has the vestment and the vestment that is possessed. In the second sense, the form is the vestment itself, which—acting like an extrinsic form and through its adjacency to the body (a kind of union)—denominates the body as "vested." Similarly, when a body is denominated as "having a soul," the denominating form is the state of possession or union; but when it is called "animated," the form is the soul itself. Furthermore, the very habition, or adjacency of vestment is nothing other than a twofold contiguous ubication—one of the vestment, the other of the body; while this falls under the category of *Ubi* insofar as it involves the office of locating, it belongs to the category of *Habitus* insofar as it involves the office of clothing or uniting the vestment to the body. The Eximious Doctor explains all this at length and excellently, and one may also consult him regarding the species of *Habitus*. 

The second-to-last sentence I had to restructure, because Google's translation was very loose (one of its weaknesses is that it tends at times to translate technical terms colloquially, which is sometimes nicely clear but sometimes makes a complete hash of things). The 'Eximious Doctor' is Suarez. While it is true that the category of vestment presupposes the category of 'where' (or 'place', as it is often called), this is, I think, because it presupposes all of the categories. As usually conceived by the scholastics, there is basically an ordering in the categories; we have the fundamental first four (substance, quantity, quality, relation), and then the next six, sometimes called the sex principia, which all presuppose the fundamental four: action, passion, when, where, posture (situs), vestment (habitus). But even within the sex principia, it is very obvious that when and where presuppose action and passion, and that situs presupposes all four of those, and then habitus presupposes all of them. Thus I think it is very misleading to say that habition, i.e., the act pertaining to habitus, is 'nothing other' than being reciprocally in the category of 'where'; for one thing, habitus presupposes situs almost as much as it does ubi, and second, reciprocal contiguous placement would not usually be habition at all. (Indeed, on Urráburu's own acceptance of the traditional idea that the category of vestment only applies to human beings, it could not possibly be so.) Thus there must be something distinctive about vestment. The obvious thing, of course, is that in reciprocal contiguous placement, the reciprocity is precisely not enough to get you vestment; vestment involves something like a dependence, and thus involves an asymmetry. You literally wear your clothes; your clothes do not literally wear you. Indeed, even figuratively saying that your clothes wear you indicates that something has gone very wrong.

 As for the properties of this category, it possesses almost none that are peculiar to it. However, certain accidents seem to pertain to it in a special way—specifically color and shape; for just as these two contribute greatly to beauty, so too do they contribute to the nature of ornamentation. Gilbert and the author of the *Summa of Aristotle's Entire Logic* also assign a twofold property to this category: that it has no contrary and that it admits of degrees (more and less). Yet this latter property is not to be understood as the admission of degrees through intrinsic intensification. "For since *Habitus* is a kind of substance, it cannot admit of more and less any more than substance itself can; just as, for the same reason, it lacks a contrary. Rather, it is said to admit of more and less through a certain kind of addition—not merely an extensive addition regarding the subject (which is common to other accidents), but through the multiplication of vestments around the same part of the body; in the same way that a person wearing two tunics is said to be 'more clothed' than one wearing only a single tunic. Hence, it is also a distinctive feature of this category that one of its forms can be placed over another—either quasi-accidentally through human choice (as when garments are of the same type) or essentially through the very nature of the attire (as when a toga is placed over other vestments)—even though the denomination always refers immediately to the person himself; for it is the man who is denominated 'wearing a toga.' And even if it happened that he lacked inner vestments and wore only the toga, he would still be denominated in that way. It is also, in a sense, proper to this category that its forms are distinguished according to the organic parts of the human body, yet they denominate the man absolutely; for although shoes or a hat are located only on the feet or the head, the man is said absolutely to be 'hatted' or 'shod.' And one point rightly follows from the other; for when a form is not naturally suited to apply to the whole except by reason of a specific part, then—existing in that part alone—it denominates the whole, just as a man is called 'curly-haired' solely because of his hair. Thus, since a shoe is an extrinsic form belonging only to the foot, it denominates the whole while existing in that part; and the same applies to other instances. Conversely, when a denomination naturally pertains to the whole, it is not derived simply from forms of this kind; and therefore, a man is not said absolutely [to be defined by them], even if he is wearing shoes or a hat, etc." 

The long quotation starting with "For since Habitus" is from Suarez (from Metaphysics, disputation 53). I find myself of two minds with regard to Suarez's rejection of the idea that vestment admits of more and less in a proper sense (which, as he says here, would involve intensity). It is true that we usually say someone is 'more clothed' when they have (quantatively) more clothes on them. Nonetheless, I wonder if there's a sense, not often discussed but nonetheless real, in which vestments admit of degrees in how much they clothe you. That is to say, not as a matter of having more clothes, but of having clothes that clothe you more. In particular, vestment involves a relation between two substances, usually called adjunction or adjacency, that seems like it might admit of degrees, or something very like it. We perhaps talk about this very indirectly when we talk about 'fit'. But I don't know; it's something I hadn't really thought about before. Suarez (and with him Urráburu) rejects the idea that vestment admits of degrees because vestments are substances, which does not admit of degrees; but vestments are substances adjoined to substances in the manner of accidents, and the adjunction itself is not something he is taking into account.

However, I very much like two points in the Suarez quotation. The first is the recognition that vestments can 'nest', and that this is related to the fact that they function as extrinsic forms, in particular, as extrinsic forms for parts, although the vestment is attributed absolutely to the whole person. These are, I think, more important than has usually been recognized. Nonethless, Urráburu does not do anything with them, although I find it interesting that he thought it important enough to quote the whole thing.

In any case, another entry in my quixotic quest to become the World's Foremost Expert on the category of habitus, if only because no one else can be bothered.

Saturday, October 03, 2026

Important in Themselves

 Only he who understands that there exist things "important in themselves," that there are things which are beautiful and good in themselves, only the man who grasps the sublime demand of values, their call, and the duty to turn toward them and to let oneself be formed by their law, is capable of personally realizing moral values. Only the man who can see beyond his subjective horizon and who, free from pride and concupiscence, does not always ask, "what is satisfying for me?", but who leaving behind him all narrowness, abandons himself to that which is important in itself---the beautiful, the good---and subordinates himself to it, only he can become the bearer of moral values.

[Dietrich von Hildebrand, Fundamental Moral Attitudes, Part 1: Reverence]

Friday, October 02, 2026

Read the Last Word, My Cultured Kid

 Ballade of Moderns
by G. K. Chesterton 

On deserts red and deserts grey
The temples into sand have slid;
Go search that splendour of decay
To find the final secret hid
In mummies' painted coffin-lid
In hieroglyphs of hunt and play.
Read the last word, my cultured kid,
They all were moderns in their day. 

Yes, it was just as bold and gay
To do what Astoreth forbad.
Yes, it was smart to carve in clay
And chic to build a pyramid.
Yes, Babylonian boys were chid
For reading hieroglyphs risqué.
We do but as our fathers did --
They all were moderns in their day. 

There are progressives who passed away
And prigs of whom the world is rid,
And there are men in hell today
As silly as old Ben Kidd;
And Webb (whose uncle calls him Sid),
God made him with the flowers of May,
And the blind stones he walked amid.
They all were moderns in their day. 

L'Envoi 

Prince, still the soul stands virgin;
"quid Times"; we tear some rags away
But shall we grasp her; God forbid.
They all were moderns in their day.

Dashed Off XXX

 Every society that takes its faults seriously enough to criticize and work on stamping them out eventually becomes identified with those faults. We know of Roman decadence because of Roman critique of decadence, of hypocrisy in various Christian societies because of Christian critique of hypocrisy, liberal bigotries because of liberal critique of bigotry.

The cosmos by nature is poetically suggestive of the divine.

Half of survival is reminding oneself of simple, needful things.

God is the cause of common being's being common.

The sign of Babylon is that it deserves its own destruction, its own sins leading to the destruction of its future (Ps 137).

The problem of moral evil is not why God would make evil; it is why God would make us.

God requires no trade-offs, but we do.

Whether or not something qualifies as overfitting depends entirely on what you are trying to do.

When we reason inductively, we do not presuppose that the future will resemble the past but that not everything in what we know is accidental.

"The Master said, Study as though you will not catch up to it, as though you fear even losing sight of it.' Analects 8.17

Analects 9.8 and Socratic ignorance

The effectiveness of punishments always depends on the broader culture.

Justice is impossible without inquiring into the point of things.

The value of life depends on what is valued more than life.

sins gravely opposed to sacraments, either literally or in spirit

Sir Gawain & the Green Knight as a reflection on penance
Pearl as a reflection on infant baptism

Our bodies are signs of ourselves to ourselves.

the Divine Courtesy, the Court of Saints, and the liturgical commonwealth

We learn how to will by following examples.

The domestic church must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. It must be so constitutively (by sacrament, union with the rest of the Church, etc.) but in a way to be symbolic of these notes in the whole Church.

'Hooray! stealing' is neither true or false as an interjection, but it is irrational as an expression of a serious practical attitude, because the articulation of the attitude is something like 'Stealing is a hooray-type object for practically reasonable attitudes' and this is false as a characterization. 'Stealing and hooray-attitudes are a mis-match' is generally true.

Propositions generally articulate things that are not necessarily propositions.

Compassion for the wicked involves wanting them to repent.

When society recognizes and rewards the virtue of penitence/repentance, hypocrisy will imitate and strive to outdo in appearance penitence. When it recognizes and rewards the virtue of compassion, hyporcisy will imtate and strive to outdo in appearance compassion. and so forth through all the virtues. We all know this, and we all forget this.

'Murder is wrong' cannot be merely an expression of a disapproval of murder, because murder itself is a moral term; but in any case, we can prove that something is not murder and therefore not wrong, but cannot prove in the same way that it is not disapproved.

Pleasures do not naturally aggregate; they need to be integrated meaningfully. They do not merely fall together; they have to be actively related to each other.

Arguments from evil are fundamentally arguments that evil is part of the fundamental nature of reality. They obviously presuppose that there is evil. (Attempting to run them ad hom runs into the problem that the people don't in fact usually think God and evil inconsistent or understand in ways that require them to be so. In any case, they are only very rarely run ad hom.) Suppose, then, that God does not exist. Then the occurrence of evil would just be a natural happening, a way the world works. Suppose God exists but could not create a world without evil; then the same thing: the world with evil is not created but fundamental. If, however, evil is not just a part or result of the way the world naturally is, so that evil is not part of fundamental reality, the argument dissipates: God can create the world, but evil occurs beyond that, as an intrusion or failure or distortion, not a natural part of fundamental reality, and the (philosophical) problem is resolved.

vague preference-satisfactions vs articulable preference-satisfactions

A difficulty all fictionalisms have to face is that the most obvious explanation for any fiction is artificial imitation of the natural.

(1) Philosophical inquiry tends to philosophical system.
(2) This tendency is not merely apparent.
(3) Real tendencies require final causes exercising causation by nature or by will.
(4) The final cause of the tendency to philosophical system is the infinite intelligible.
(5) Therefore there is an infinite intelligible as an end of philosophical inquiry.
(6) This all call God.

The sign of genuine development of doctrine is that it makes you more appreciative of the teaching of those who came before, not less.

The young tend toward kitschy ethics.

Politicians are more like scavengers than hunters, whatever their particular aim.

"Knowledge ought to raise itself up to fortitude, to be strengthened by it, lest it slip into foolishness." Hildegard von Bingen

Most of what is pleasant and painful is hidden to public view.

the principle of utility read distributively vs read collectively

prohairetic modalities

(quasi-)reactive attitudes to nature as personified

cognitive function, appeal function, expressive function

verismilitude values for propositions

"Reaching understanding is the inherent telos of human speech." Habermas

the lifeworld, the world made alive in the person, the always already familiar

individual situation, success-aimed action: instrumental
individual situation, consensus-aimed action: natural-resonant (acting in and with role)
social situation, success-aimed action: strategic
social situation, consensus-aimed action: communicative

No discourse is structured so that any and all assertions can be questioned, nor so that any and all assertions can be introduced, nor that every attitude, desire, or need can be expressed.

human beings as utility monsters relative to other animals

Privacy and publicity come in various orders that may be nested in various ways.

Every society protects rights with conventions and concessions that are not the rights themselves, although they may sometimes be confused with them due to the association.

the formal cause as the internal ritual or liturgy of the thing

The bishop ministers to the Person of Christ both sacramentally and socially.

the facets of prudence
(1) the humane
(2) the correct
(3) the courteous
(4) the discriminating
(5) the integral

upbuilding vs downpouring grace

resemblance qua subject vs resemblance qua object
contiguity qua subject vs contiguity qua object

formal resemblance vs instrumental resemblance
formal contiguity vs instrumental contiguity

wisdom that manifests, wisdom that reflects, wisdom that adequates, wisdom that observes, wisdom that acts

Hegemony is always a nested structure, or a system of overlaps.

The hegemon holds the greatest power-underlap of many overlapping power structures.

Marriage makes strange bedfellows.

Usury is wrong not because it is lending but because it is perversion of lending.

Most people have very few strong, stable preferences.

experience as given (evident) vs experience as evidence

contrast of retention and protention in experience (incipti and desinit)

the experience of the co-functioning of the body, of the functioning of one's body with the functioning of another
-- this being quite early, before birth and continues with mother and infant
-- as we grow, we develop a sense of functioning outside this co-functioning

intimation: something in experience as what can be possible, given what is directly perceivable, thought not itself directly perceived, or required by what is directly perceived, or required to be probable by what is directly perceived

"We could not be persons for others if a common surrounding world did not stand there for us in a community, in an intentional linkage of our lives." Husserl

Our direct experience of apparent intelligibility is what lets us identify things as evidence.

Evidence is always evidence for a possible inquiry.

Confidence is not required for bleife, but for acting on its resolutely.

Responsibility for oneself always involves some responsibility for others in some matters relating to oneself.

The difficulty with spiritual warfare is that you are always already betrayed; indeed, you may be your own betrayer.

Effectiveness of protest depends on clarity of signal.

"Culture is a system of communication." Scruton
"The truth is that repair, like every other serious social activity, has its ethos, and when that ethos is lost, no amount of slap-dash labour can make up for it. The person who repairs must love the broken object, and must love also the process of repair and all that pertains to it."
"Responsibility stems from the habit of viewing our own actions from a point of view outside ourselves. Such a habit is engendered by authoritative institutions, whose edicts and expectations we lear to internalise as we mature."
"Travel narrows the mind, providing a surfeit of impressions and a dearth of interpretations. Sometimes, however, a meaning emerges, and sometimes this meaning is the aim."
"Institutions are not things but persons: they have a life, a will and a responsibility of their own."

There are far more good things that can be done than are our duties.

iron laws of nature (no exceptions) vs oaken laws of nature (no exceptions as long as interfering factors are absent) -- this terminology is from Armstrong

Because logical positivists conflated logic and language, they are often remarkably cavalier about the notion of 'decisions' in logic.

the process of getting approximate answers by identifying paradigms and analogizing (this is common in ethics and politics)

The awareness of the aesthetic content of a work of art is not uniquely determined through what is perceived by the senses.

"Calculi without calculations seem to be gratuitous algebra." Ryle

Confirmation is not a series of repetitions, which as such may simply repeat errors. It requires error reduction by division and elimination.

'Analysis' in practice often just means 'whatever has to be done to let a method cross domains'.

Time is a formal condition of *coming to appear*, not of appearance as such.

Ayer-like attempts to make the principle of verification a 'proposal' are pointless; a proposal must be such that it can be successfully implemented or not, and therefore has a success description; but the success description for the proposal of verification runs into the same problems.

cosmos as the first and primordial sign

Thursday, October 01, 2026

St. Therese

Today is the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Doctor of the Church. From Story of a Soul, Chapter VIII:

The Science of Love! How sweetly do these words echo in my soul! That science alone do I desire. Having given all my substance for it, like the Spouse in the Canticles, "I think that I have given nothing." After so many graces, may I not sing with the Psalmist that "the Lord is good, that His Mercy endureth for ever"?

It seems to me that if everyone were to receive such favours God would be feared by none, but loved to excess; that no one would ever commit the least wilful fault—and this through love, not fear. 

Yet all souls cannot be alike. It is necessary that they should differ from one another in order that each Divine Perfection may receive its special honour. To me, He has given His Infinite Mercy, and it is in this ineffable mirror that I contemplate his other attributes. Therein all appear to me radiant with Love. His Justice, even more perhaps than the rest, seems to me to be clothed with Love. What joy to think that Our Lord is just, that is to say, that He takes our weakness into account, that He knows perfectly the frailty of our nature! Of what, then, need I be afraid? 

Will not the God of Infinite Justice, Who deigns so lovingly to pardon the sins of the Prodigal Son, be also just to me "who am always with Him"?

Wednesday, September 30, 2026

St. Jerome

 Today is the feast of St. Jerome, Doctor of the Church. Jerome has a (deserved) reputation for being a bit of a testy curmudgeon, but, as sometimes happens with curmudgeons, he also got along very well with women, with several of whom he kept a close correspondence. The following is from a letter to Eustochium, the son of Paula, one of Jerome's closest friends, shortly after her death:

Be not fearful, Eustochium: you are endowed with a splendid heritage. The Lord is your portion; and, to increase your joy, your mother has now after a long martyrdom won her crown. It is not only the shedding of blood that is accounted a confession: the spotless service of a devout mind is itself a daily martyrdom. Both alike are crowned; with roses and violets in the one case, with lilies in the other. Thus in the Song of Songs it is written: my beloved is white and ruddy; for, whether the victory be won in peace or in war, God gives the same reward to those who win it. Like Abraham your mother heard the words: get out of your country, and from your kindred, unto a land that I will show you; and not only that but the Lord's command given through Jeremiah: flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul. To the day of her death she never returned to Chaldæa, or regretted the fleshpots of Egypt or its strong-smelling meats. Accompanied by her virgin bands she became a fellow-citizen of the Saviour; and now that she has ascended from her little Bethlehem to the heavenly realms she can say to the true Naomi: your people shall be my people and your God my God. 

I have spent the labour of two nights in dictating for you this treatise; and in doing so I have felt a grief as deep as your own. I say in 'dictating' for I have not been able to write it myself. As often as I have taken up my pen and have tried to fulfil my promise; my fingers have stiffened, my hand has fallen, and my power over it has vanished. The rudeness of the diction, devoid as it is of all elegance or charm, bears witness to the feeling of the writer. 

And now, Paula, farewell, and aid with your prayers the old age of your votary. Your faith and your works unite you to Christ; thus standing in His presence you will the more readily gain what you ask. In this letter I have built to your memory a monument more lasting than bronze, which no lapse of time will be able to destroy....


Tuesday, September 29, 2026

Fire Serpent and Water Mountain IV

Previous

 Chapter Four: Brickanbreck Receives Visiting Gods

Tera came down to breakfast the next morning to find Uncle Llew already there, taking a second helping from the sideboard. The sideboard itself was practically overflowing: dark rye bread, devilled kidneys, cold chicken, smoked fish, salted pork, oatmeal cakes, bread and jam, radishes on toast, pickled goose, cinnamon pilaf, and more. Tera helped herself to the pilaf and to an apple turnover; the moment she sat down and ate some of the pilaf, she regretted it. It was not that it was bad, exactly, nor was it quite bland, but it was flat, as if it were a distant imitation of the real thing. Uncle Llew had obviously not made it. Tera's heart sank at the thought that she would have to endure several weeks of mediocre breakfasts. And in The City of the Gods, no less. She bit into the turnover. It was serviceable, no more, no less. She ate it, and then grabbed a slice of bread which she buttered and jammed.

"What are we doing today?" she said.

Uncle Llew looked at her with a vaguely baffled expression. "What do we do everyday?"

Tera's heart sank again, and she wondered how low it could end up going. "Surely you're not going to make me study and do exercises again?" she said in a voice that she did not want to be a whine but sounded suspiciously like a whine even to her own ears. "It's the first day. Surely there is more to see!"

Llew's baffled expression became outright astonishment, as if it had never occurred to him that there might be anything at all to see in The City of the Gods.

Easy for him to be uninterested in it, thought Tera; he was born and raised here and no doubt used to it.

"Well," said Llew doubtfully. "It is mostly like anywhere else."

"Then people to meet!"

Uncle Llew seemed even more skeptical of this, as if meeting gods was a tiresome chore better avoided. But he said instead, "Yes, we will have to meet some people. Morning is visiting time here, so we'll even meet some this morning. Before you arrived, we received requests from Bleiz Twelve-Sery and from Rhiannon Fifteen-Mury."

And who was Bleiz Twelve-Sery? Llew seemed at loss at this question, and finally said, "Hmm, well, he is someone I knew well once." Then, after a moment: "I suppose he is your third cousin four, no, five times removed. A consummate ass and busybody, if he hasn't changed any, and Davnan rarely change."

"We will endure it," said Tera with energy. "And this afternoon?"

Llew looked at her a moment, then sighed as if defeated. "Fine," he said. "I have to look around the estate to see what needs to be done, anyway, so might as well be today. The clan was supposed to keep things maintained, but a thousand years is a long time for things not to fall apart, even in The City of the Gods. We can slow change to a crawl, but we cannot stop it."

He rose suddenly, "If we are going to have a day like this, I will have to get some work done before our guests come. I will be in the basement workshops; you can call me up if you need me by means of the mirror in the drawing room." He then grabbed a knife on the sideboard and, using it on a cheesewheel, carved off a truly impressive chunk, then left, cheese and knife and all.

Tera went back up to get ready, then decided that she had made the wrong decision about what to wear, then got ready again. She was inspecting all the equipment in the loom room she had seen the day before when a long, low tone, reverberant like a bell, sounded throughout the house, followed by a voice: Bleiz Twelve-Sery Metal Hand will arrive by Platform in half an hour, as appointed. She finished what was she doing and then made her way down to the welcoming hall. Uncle Llew met her there soon afterward saying, "It is an informal visit, so we will meet him directly in the receiving room. He doesn't deserve any better, anyway."

Bleiz Twelve-Sery Metal Hand was immensely disappointing as a god. He did have some features vaguely like those of Uncle Llew and her mother, with slightly paler skin, but he had rather bulbous eyes that were permanently fixed in an opened-wide state that would ordinarily look like someone boggled with astonishment. Yet he also somehow managed to convey the appearance of someone who was entirely incapable of astonishment, for he had despite his eyes a dull expression on his face. He was also dressed in a rather shabby walking outfit. The walking outfit annoyed Tera somewhat, since the Platform made it possible to go directly from one place to another; he had not actually had to walk much of anywhere at all. She had only walked downstairs and had still made more of an effort. She stopped herself, and mentally waved all of this away. There was no point in complaining about such things, and she was beginning to sound like Uncle Llew.

"Delighted, delighted," Bleiz Twelve-Sery said as they sat down after introductions had been made. But the delight did not apparently translate into interest in Tera, because he immediately turned to Uncle Llew and said, "Llew, you are back."

"It does seem to be that way," said Llew drily.

"You have been gone too long."

"Have I?"

"Yes," said Bleiz decidedly. "You have been utterly unjust to the clan in denying us all the support of your gifts."

Llew's facial expression, which until now had been forbearingly impassive, became icily cold. "Have I?" he said.

Bleiz swiveled around to look at Tera. "Your uncle," he said in an accusing tone, as if it were Tera's fault, "was the greatest mind of the age, and did he put it to good use? He did not. He hid it all away in Mizur." He swiveled back around to Llew without waiting for a response.

Correctly recognizing that although the comment had been physically directed at Tera, it was actually directed at him, Llew said, "I hid nothing. The clan made very clear that I was more trouble to have around than they wanted."

"We did nothing of the sort!"

"My sister and I were exiled from The City of the Gods."

Bleiz snorted derisively. "It was simply a cool-down! It was temporary!"

"It was betrayal," Llew said angrily. "If clan actually mattered to any of you, it would never have happened."

"Haughty Llew is haughty still!" said Bleiz derisively. "You always thought you knew better than anyone else, better than all of us together. All you had to do was make a small sacrifice for the good of the clan!"

"Being stabbed in the back and cast out is not a 'small sacrifice'."

"It was temporary!"

"So you said before," said Llew, through gritted teeth. "And Amaethon said the same. But it was betrayal."

"And that is another thing," said Bleiz, ignoring this entirely. "We have ever since had to endure Amaethon as Captain of The City. You should have been Captain."

This caught Llew off guard, and for the first time in her life, Tera saw Uncle Llew in a state of utterly baffled confusion. He sat back and in perplexity asked, "Why would I want to be Captain?"

"Again, it is all about you," said Bleiz dismissively. "It is not what you want. It is what you owe the clan."

"Owe the clan?" said Llew in something getting very near to a shout, this having pulled him back out of his confusion into his anger. "The clan who failed to protect my parents? The clan who went along with Mael's cover-up until Arianrhod and I forced the issue? The clan who sold us out for peace and the Captaincy? The clan who backed our exile? The clan who demand and demand and never give? Owe the clan? Let the Embiadwei be glad that Arianrhod convinced me to go along with it rather than give the Embiadwei what I actually owed them. And do not think that I do not know your role in it all."

There comes a moment in some conversations in which it becomes clear that someone has for the first time truly heard something that had been said, and this was the point in this conversation for Bleiz. His face went white. It was as if he had been exsanguinated. He opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again, as if trying but failing to get words out. Tera thought, with perhaps a tiny smidge of malice, that he looked like a bulging-eyed fish suddenly finding itself out of water. He took a long, shaky breath.

"Now, now, Llew," he said, in what was presumably his attempt at a reassuring tone of voice. If that was what he was attempting, though, the attempt was ruined by the slight squeek to it. "I always supported you. Always. Always?" The last 'always' seemed less a statement than a plea for agreement.

Perhaps he would have said more, but Llew cut through it. "All of this is pointless. I am not here for myself, but for my niece. If the Embiadwei want to be a clan, let them do so by supporting her."

Bleiz had regained some composure, and spread his hands. "But of course we will support her. She is clan."

"Yes," said Llew drily, "that does seem what people say. It's the execution that I question."

Bleiz opened his mouth to say something in response to this, but the mirror in the receiving room interrupted: Rhiannon Fifteen-Mury Wood River will be arriving by Platform in one-quarter hour, as appointed. This gave Llew the opportunity to say cheerfully, more cheerfully than was entirely warranted by politeness, "We thank you for your visit, Bleiz; it is always good to catch up. No doubt we will see you often. I will walk you out."

As he stood, he bent over to Tera. "Please let the servants know to bring out the small beer and relishes for Rhiannon," he said in a low voice. Then he walked over and stood above Bleiz. Bleiz was quite clearly not happy to be ushered out so quickly, but he rose, nodded at Tera, and walked out with Llew with what Tera presumed was his attempt at being dignified.

Tera went off to start the process of setting up small beer and relishes. When she came back, Uncle Llew had still not come back, so she simply sat and waited until his return, as the servants set up dishes and plates around her. 

Llew returned with a harried look on his face.

"That did not go well," remarked Tera.

He shrugged. "Better than could be expected."

"Perhaps you could be less hostile," said Tera.

He looked at her, amused. "Fair enough. But if I were any nicer, they would assume that I was planning something nefarious. And they would probably be right. Haughty Llew must be haughty still."

They were quiet a moment, then Tera said, tentatively, "What role did Bleiz Twelve-Sery play in my mother's exile?"

"Hmm?"

"You said that he played a role."

"Ah," said Llew, and he shrugged. "I do not know. I doubt whether it was central; he is much less important than he thinks. But you notice that he did not deny it."

Rhiannon made a much better impression on Tera than Bleiz had, and in fact, Tera's estimate of her was revised upward. She was far more nicely dressed, with a sapphire-studded necklace above a neat vest over a sort of belted summer dress; she wore a trim hat and soft lace-up boots. She seemed much better suited to these kinds of clothes than to the formal robes Tera in which Tera had previously seen her. When Tera had first met her at the Hall of the Fire Serpent, she had seemed very 'flat and slow', but then Tera had had no references except her mother and uncle, whom Tera had begun to understand were exceptional rather than typical. Having now seen many gods in passing the day before and an unimpressive Bleiz close up that morning, Tera now found Rhiannon quite respectably 'rounded and swift'. Possibilities might not shift around her as madly as they did around Uncle Llew, but she was easily one of the more godlike gods Tera had seen.

"I hope you are settling in well," Rhiannon said to both of them as she filled a small plate with olives and veal-stuffed cabbage leaves.

"Well enough," said Uncle Llew. "The Embiadwei seem to have done well in furnishing the place for us. Beyond that, we have not had time to do much."

"And you, my dear?" she asked Tera.

"So far I am finding it quite exciting to be in The City of the Gods," said Tera.

"Manawydan, Rhys, and I always find it refreshing to return," she replied.

"And how are Manawydan and Rhys?"

"Quite well, thank you. Manawydan is out fishing, and Rhys is currently playing soule with friends near North Landing, which gives me time to do some visiting."

"Soule?" asked Tera.

"It is a ballgame of sorts, popular here," said Rhiannon.

"Something like a ballgame and something like a chaos," said Llew.

"Yes," said Rhiannon, amused. "Did you ever play it?"

"Many times," said Llew. "I once played in a game that stretched all the way from North Landing to First Landing, had over a thousand players, and lasted three days and two nights without a moment's pause."

"I suspect you were quite good at it."

"Not so much," said Llew. "I am too easily bored. But I was very good at taking back the ball."

"I have difficulty imagining you playing a ballgame," said Tera.

"All the boys among the gods play with balls," said Rhiannon, in a tone that suggested that she thought of this as an untreatable disease to be pitied. "Which brings me, before I forget, to one of the purposes of my visit. Rhys will be playing in a game of olam, Wenovar against Muriaki, the day after tomorrow. I was wondering, Tera, if you would be interested in joining us to watch it."

"I take it that 'olam' is another kind of ballgame," said Tera.

"Yes," said Llew. "Played on a court rather than in the fields."

"It is not just another kind of ballgame, really," said Rhiannon. "It is the game. And it is worth seeing."

"Then I would be happy to go," said Tera, "if Uncle Llew can spare me."

"I have no objections," said Llew.

"And I promise we will look after her," said Rhiannon.

"Well," said Llew cheerfully, "I will hold you to that promise."

Rhiannon looked very unsettled by this comment, but she was polite enough to try to hide it behind a long drink of small beer.

Llew continued thoughtfully, as if he had not noticed, although Tera could see very well that he had, and had been amused by it, "And it is good for training, too; so it would be good to have experience with it in the company of someone who has certainly been to an olam game much more recently than I have."

Rhiannon graciously inclined her head at this. "There is a second proposal I would like to make. The day after the game, I am intending to go down to River Market, but I never like to go alone, if I can avoid it, and both Manawydan and Rhys have other plans. Would it be possible for Tera to come with me?" She looked over at Tera. "If you wish to do so, of course."

 "I would love to," said Tera.

"I have no objections to that, either," said Uncle Llew. 

"I am glad of it," said Rhiannon with a bright smile. She set her plate aside. "If it would not be considered rude to do so, I must take my leave to meet other visiting obligations."

"Of course," said Llew. "Tera and I will walk you to the Platform."

Rhiannon did something with a strange bracelet on her wrist and rose. Llew and Tera rose with her and they walked out together, across the bridge and to the Brickanbreck Platform. 

"If it works for you, come out to Bryn Abernant the day after tomorrow, early in the Forenoon Watch, and we'll go down together, see the game, and take lunch. We should be back in the mid-afternoon."

"I look forward to it," said Tera.

"As do I, my dear."

The inside of the Platform was just an open space with a circle in the floor and mirror on the wall. Rhiannon held her bracelet up to the mirror and then stepped into the circle. She waved, and then suddenly she was gone.

to be continued