Julina tells us more about some Blackstone traditions, introduces another family to us and clears up something that concerns all Palarand and maybe even all Alaesia! (A little warning — this gets quite technical!)

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Disclaimer:

The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended.
This story is copyright © 2013 - 2020 Julia Phillips. All rights reserved.

It uses some of the associated characters and situations that arise from the world called ‘Anmar’ created by Penny Lane, whose stories
are also copyright © 2010 - 2020 Penny Lane. All rights reserved.

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Zytan belongs to another of our long-serving families here in Blackstone. Like Deegrum, he is doing the job that his father did and his grandfather, and going back many generations. He is currently teaching his son Payner to do it; giving him all the information required as the leader, for their job requires a team. It is quite an efficient method of teaching, as Payner gets to physically do the necessary things that demonstrate what he has just been told about.

Payner is just a little younger than I, and, now that I have a little more time available thanks to my siblings doing some of the chores I used to have to do, I decided to go and ask him about what he and his family actually do. This was a quite inspired decision for both of us as it transpired, but neither of us appreciated it at first. Payner was finding it awkward to actually talk to a girl (what a shock that was to him!) and his family (more particularly, his father) were still deep in the mindset that education and technicalities were beyond womenfolk. I, on the other hand, had no experience of 12 or 13 year-old boys and found it difficult at first to establish some mutual starting point.

My advantage though was my friendship with his elder sister, a girl I had grown up with all my life, she having been born a mere three and a half weeks after me. Kellonika was one of my closer friends and had often come over to help me when I was feeling inundated with responsibilities at so young an age. When we were younger, we four specially close friends had a sort of code system to enable us to communicate. Each home had a big pole sticking up with a cross pole at the top. To either side of the cross pole, we attached a string that ran through a hook. On one string we had a big white circle of wood while on the other we had a big white triangle of wood. We hoisted each wooden shape into one of three possible positions — up, middle or down. In this way we could send up to nine different messages. If the shapes were both at the top position, then that person needed help as soon as possible. If none of the shapes were raised then that person was fine, which was the tenth message of course.

Many of the elders of the village thought it all very childish, but I can tell you we got away with a lot of mischief using those signals! And when Mama died, I was able to summon my friends when I was feeling overwhelmed. And the others could also call for help, of course. It was only later that I realised we could have doubled our number of messages by simply swapping round the shapes — one set of nine messages if the circle was on the left, and another set of nine if the triangle was on the left. And of course we could have had extra shapes to increase the number of messages, and other colours but then the system would not have been so easy to use.

We had been through much together in our short lives but Kellonika and my other two closest friends were extremely tightly bound. Young children fall sick very easily and sometimes their illnesses are fatal. There are some illnesses that make the child in question break out in strange spots all over their body and for them to sweat a lot and feel as if they were on fire. There seem to be quite a few of these ‘spotty’ types, I can think of at least three varieties just like that. Another is when the child’s face swells beneath the ears, making their neck or jaw look enormous. It has become obvious that once the child recovers from these horrors, then they never get the same thing again — it’s as if their bodies take in the illness and store it in some remote corner. Then, when it comes along again, the body says: “Wait a minute! Let me check my store cupboard. Ahah! Thought so, I have that one already so you can just move on, thank you!”

We have had a ‘make or break’ policy in Blackstone for many years. As soon as one child gets ill with one of these, then mothers with children of the same age would bring their child along and all the children would be shut up together, tended by those known to have already had that particular illness. Over the years, certain herbal concoctions have proved to be effective in battling on behalf of the poor child and it is now rare for death to come. But we four all survived a strong bout and watched in horror as the poor other two got weaker and weaker. Their pitiful cries will remain with us all our lives, as well as the grief of their parents. I have heard tales from the older women that not so long ago only one child in three survived from birth to adulthood, but nowadays, with the valuable knowledge gained by the healers, that ratio has been reversed. I suppose we survivors should also be thanked as our experiences have added to the fund of knowledge.

So I had explained to Kelly what I wanted to do and we set up something that would help me get the information I wanted, and would help Payner overcome his amazing shyness. I was also to use the stuff I had written in the gentle lessons I was giving Kelly in reading and writing. Her task was to be to read what I had written, which would be about a subject she was familiar with, and then she could improve her reading and at the same time correct some things I may have misunderstood. All these ends were achieved, although I did have a few unforeseen complications.

To get it all started, I tackled Payner and Kelly and from them I got the basics. However, it soon became apparent that I would need to get more information from the ‘boss man’, Zytan. And that was going to be difficult, I knew. He was one of those convinced that education was wasted on females, and that they were best kept out of the way.

To start to explain all of this, I need first to give you their family background.

Kronkin was the first head of their family that I remember. He left our world when I was around eight, leaving behind Dowa to look after their ‘children’, Zytan and Nuortan — one of the few families with no daughters, and both sons were by then in their twenties. Zytan had imported a daughter by bringing Malet up to the head of the Bray Valley and they all settled down in the rambling home. Nuortan, being the younger, was moved into the annexe so Kronkin and Dowa could move into his room, leaving the main family rooms for Zytan and Malet. They lost little time in adding to the heads under the roof, with Kellonika popping out under two years later. A year later, a stillbirth brought a few clouds to their existence but they took great care the following pregnancy and Payner popped out with a very healthy pair of lungs.

The period just after Kronkin went was very awkward for them with just the two men and their wives to do all their duties and the occasional week-long trips Zytan took down to Tranidor strained their abilities to the limits. They got help from several of the townsfolk, including my father and mother, which was the root of my fascination with discovering what it is the bellringers do. My final comment on their family background is that Malet was the daughter of a bellringer family in a village just out of earshot of the Tranidor bells - up the Sufen valley. She is one of six children; with living grandparents and parents, that family had more than enough members and she suspected they were relieved when she went north.

We all hear the bells, we all know what they mean, but what fascinated me was just how they knew when to ring what message. And how they got the timing right. And what was involved in being awake in the night just to ring bells. And what pressures did that create for the family. And all the other things that such activities must affect in their lives which must be so different to a more ‘normal’ existence.

The very first thing I learnt was that, to the Bellringers, it was important to differentiate between the actual metal object called a bell and the period of time we residents referred to as a bell. To the bellringers, the objects were the tools of their trade and they used them to indicate to the rest of us the passage of time. The bellringers called this length of time a ‘Bell Period’, reserving the simple word ‘bell’ wherever possible for that instrument they had to both use and maintain.

The second thing I learnt was that the Bellringers use some terms that may not be immediately apparent to others — they talk of making a sound with a bell as being a ‘strike’, they talk of an occasion when they have to make a bell strike, or a series of bell strikes, as being an ‘announcement’ and so on. I hope to remember to explain each other one as it comes up!

The third thing I gathered from Kelly, confirmed early on by Payner, was that the all-important time was dawn. Each day has a dawn and the entire cycle of bellringing starts at the dawn and goes on until the following dawn.

Such a simple statement, that!

But when we got together to discuss all this, I immediately ran into difficulty. My whole information gathering exercise was nearly brought to an end at that moment, when I asked my next question:

“Who decides then when the dawn is?”

Oh Maker! This caused great consternation.

At first, Payner’s attitude was that dawn is dawn is dawn. Everyone knows when dawn is!

But as I actually asked for the details (what defines dawn? — is it at the same time of a cycle here in Blackstone as it is in Tranidor? In Holville? In Haligo? — are mountain communities different from those downvalley? — etc. etc. etc. etc.) then an entirely new vista opened up for all three of us.

It’s not as simple as just waiting for a sliver of sunshine to appear. We are a high-mountain community. The sky can be bright and blue before we get an actual ray appearing, as some peak or other blocks the direct sunshine. And in the rains, then we may not get a ray for days and weeks. Or maybe we just get some sun in, say, the afternoon. It was while arguing over this point that Payner lost his shyness and started to state his knowledge and his viewpoint forcefully. Kelly and I noticed immediately but we didn’t say anything just then. It was also apparent that he was actually thinking about this for the first time. His education in his job had so far been limited to doing what had to be done when it had to be done. Now I was asking him to think about it all at a deeper and more fundamental level - more why rather than what.

(‘Older’ Julina says: But I also learnt a great lesson then. I learnt that some things sometimes need to be put aside for the moment; make a mental note to find out the details later on, and get on with the main theme. So I did just that then, leaving the big question about dawn until later. This lesson learnt from that moment was also to stand me in great stead later on in life.)

Payner suddenly stopped in mid-stream and started blushing when he realised that he had been quite forceful. He was immediately all gawky youth again and embarrassed, so Kelly and I both kissed him on the cheek. I hadn’t imagined that he could turn redder, but he did. It took me a good few minutes, and some hard-talking (which I was used to doing, being as how I was effectively a mother at home) but I did manage to make him understand that it was a Good Thing to state his opinions and that girls would respect him far more for it. But from that moment on, he was much easier to talk to and with. And he also realised that girls (yes, even his sister!) had perfectly functioning minds and could grasp concepts in ways that his father could never imagine them being able to do. I like to think that Payner started growing up that day, and was far more ready to adapt to the changes that our Baroness eventually brought to all Palarand.

(‘Older’ Julina says: One problem that came out of that was that Payner developed a crush on me then, which took maybe three years to go away. It was sometimes awkward to see the hurt look in his eyes when I had to deny him something or other.)

But to get back to the bells - there are two of them, each with a different tone.

You will remember that the dawn is so important. Well actually, the dawn and the following dawn — that all-important bellringer’s ‘cycle’. Well, in each cycle, there are four double bell strikes performed on the deeper-toned bell. These double deeper bell strikes are done at dawn, noon, dusk and midnight — they are sometimes referred to as the Major Moments of the cycle. They need no further adornment as everyone will know whether it is a dawn bell or a noon bell, for example. It is certainly difficult to confuse the noon Moment with the midnight Moment! If a striking sequence begins with a deep bell strike, then the listener knows immediately that this is a Bell Period announcement. Strike sequences that do not start with the deep bell indicate the quarters — struck once for one quarter, twice for two quarters and thrice for three quarters.

The whole cycle starts at the dawn announcement, which is the only one of the four that is always and definitely at the same time as the start of a Bell Period. The other three are most likely to occur between Bell Period announcements. However, the dusk announcement resets the starting of the counting of a bell.

The length of a cycle doesn’t actually change much from day to day, but, at the extremes of the year, the dawn could be as much as 2 Bell Periods nearer or farther away from the noon bell. But every cycle is split into 20 nearly equal Bell Periods, each individual Bell Period being identified by a series of rings to tell everyone where they are in the cycle. The final bell period before either dawn or dusk is usually shorter than a full one!

Which actually causes a problem, what with the dawn being the base for this system.

Dawn itself, you will remember, is announced by striking the deeper bell twice.

Each subsequent Bell Period’s announcement is started by a single strike on this deeper bell. This is a fundamentally important point to understand; whenever you hear a single strike on the deeper bell, it is signifying the start of a Bell Period. This starting strike on the deeper bell is then usually followed by one or more strikes on the higher-toned bell to complete the announcement, the higher-toned strikes telling the listener exactly where this Bell Period fits in the current cycle — the only exceptions being for the first announcement after counting begins; no further identification is required since listeners will have detected that it was not a double strike.

The original idea was then to simply use the higher-toned bell to number the Bell Periods throughout the cycle. The second Bell Period after dawn would then be started of course by a single deeper bell strike followed by a single strike on the higher bell. The Bell Period following that was to be started by the deeper bell, followed by the higher bell being struck twice, and so on. This would be therefore a very simple system, on the face of it.

However! What a dreadful din there would be for the last bell before dawn! Imagine!

A deep bell followed by eighteen high bells! How dreadful! That’s 19 bell strikes. And all at the moment when the sky always seems darkest of all, and everyone wants to snuggle closer in their bedclothes before starting their day.

To help relieve this problem, it was decided to make it so the counting of the Bell Periods is reset after the dusk announcement, thus making it theoretically two half cycles, each counting 10 Bell Periods. Of course it is not going to be exactly ten in each ‘half’ as the seasons mean the summer days are longer and the winter ones shorter.

The Dusk Announcement is sounded wherever it falls between two Bell Period announcements. Let us say that the Dusk Moment occurs between the ninth and the tenth Bell Periods after dawn — in that case the ninth would be announced as normal, followed maybe by a quarter bell or bells, then would come the Dusk Announcement. At that heartbeat, the counting of bells is reset, and the next strike shall always be the first quarter bell, and so on through the quarters until the first Bell announcement is made just like the announcement of the first Bell Period after the Dawn Announcement. It should be reinforced that this means the final Bell Period before the Dusk Announcement is almost always shorter than an actual Bell! If the Dusk Announcement, however, is to fall within a moment either way of a Bell Announcement, then that Bell Period is adjusted to finish at the Dusk Announcement.

But this proved still to be not quite enough.

Payner at this point added freewillingly some of his own knowledge to make it slightly more specific: that on the shortest day of the year, when the Town is more often than not covered in snow, he knows there are 12 Bell Periods between dusk and dawn and there are 8 between dawn and dusk.
(Of course, this is reversed on the longest day of the year.)
So, since the shortest day of the year has 12 Bell Periods between dusk and dawn, that last hour would be signalled with a deep bell strike followed by 11 high bell strikes, which would be 12 bell strikes in all!

As I pondered, both aloud and within my head, what this all meant, I could see that Payner was working hard at it too, encouraged to use his intellect by my example.

Time passed as my brain hunted feverishly through the information I had until, suddenly, it just all seemed to pop into my head. I had actually worked out for myself why we use the system we do and I smiled in delight. At this point, I could see a sudden awareness in Payner’s eyes and a beaming smile on his mouth - and for the very first time in my life, I experienced that glorious moment of satisfaction that comes from managing to encourage another person to fully realise and understand something.

Because he too now understood the reason why there was a further complication in our bell ringing. Up to that moment, he just knew that that was what they did, but had not understood why.

And just then, a little after us, Kelly ‘got’ it too.

We were all delighted at that moment, one of those rare instant bonding moments that would stay with us forever.

So what is this further complication?

What we do is we break the Bell Periods up into groups of four. The entire cycle is 20 Bell Periods long, which is five lots of four and also the longest counting period occurs at either the longest or the shortest day, with 12 Bell Periods to be accounted for — this is three lots of four. So the final method used for announcing the time uses three things in all: the deep bell, the high bell and also a pause.

And they all work together to make the Bell Period announcements follow a pattern best described as:
- A deep bell first to start a Bell Period announcement,
- followed by a number of high bells to announce which group of ‘four Bell Periods’ was relevant (this number may be zero!),
- followed by a pause,
- followed finally by the counting of the Bell Period within that group of four (this number may also be zero).
In the event (very rare) that a Bell Period starts exactly at the same moment as a Major Moment, then the Major Moment alone is sounded.

So the sequence of bell strikes for that final Bell Period before dawn on the shortest day goes as follows: Deep, high, high, pause, high, high, high — which I write as: Dhhphhh.

Thus the bell strikes are reduced to a total of six, which is a vast improvement over the 19 originally suggested.

At last we had discovered for ourselves the reasons for the bell strike system that everyone uses!

Then Payner mentioned two more refinements:
a) In the night, the bells are slightly muffled so as to be less disturbing to local residents.
b) All the quarter bells are not rung during the two Bell Periods starting two Bell Periods after the midnight bell, just the middle ones signifying the half, that is two quarters.

I had not even realised this last slight change to the normal practice. On the very few occasions I had been up at those dismal hours, I assumed that I had just skipped the quarter bells in my head.

(If you are still a little confused, dear reader, then I will tell you some examples of a complete dawn to dawn sequence of bells can be found in the 'Times and Bells' section of the Anmarian Appendices).

Payner explained, with interjected confirmations from time to time from Kelly, that the ringing duties were split between the adults in the main, there being four of them — Dowa, Zytan, Nuortan and Malet. But the women did a lot less than the men, having also housekeeping duties to perform. Zytan was the leader and it was he who prepared everything for the others. Nuortan was his assistant, ready to take over if Zytan got ill or something. Sometimes Kelly would be asked to do it, but as she was a woman, she was given only very simple tasks, whereas Payner was involved more and more as he grew and learnt.

The bells were hung in a tower which formed a triangular corner of their home. They had in fact been the inspiration for our coded message devices, as they were operated by pulling on a rope which dragged the hammer in such a way as to crash onto the bell’s rim. The hammers were balanced so that releasing the striking rope meant the hammers returned immediately to their ready positions. A further rope allowed the muffling devices to be set on the bell or to be removed as required.

All these ropes were in a chamber at the foot of the bell tower, which was also called the operating room. The bellringers responsibilities were taken very seriously and most, if not all, the timepieces that were around the room were duplicated. There were two tables of sanddroppers, one on each side of the room. This was to ensure that the bells could still be rung on time if one of the sanddroppers developed a crack, or some other disaster occurred. Payner explained that the largest part of the job was actually to constantly compare the duplicated sanddroppers with each other, and with the clock.

This clock had to be reset with its weights every seventh day. They had devised a clever system whereby they stopped the clock at a specific moment immediately after a Bell Period announcement. At that exact same time, they started a sanddropper that measured exactly one Bell Period. They then had an entire Bell Period to reset the clock weights to the top limit of their travel, to do any maintenance to the clock itself and then to reset the clock to one Bell Period later. They restarted the clock as soon as the sanddropper indicated a full bell had passed. Sometimes, clock repairs might take a little longer than just one Bell Period, so they just used the sanddroppers to measure the time while the clock was not functioning. In this way, it had become a matter of pride, the main clock was rarely more than a few moments ‘out’ when it came to one of the two times a year that it could be reliably recalibrated.

A further ‘safety’ measure that Zytan’s ancestors had built into the system was to have two sets of bells. They switched to using the other set on the first day of each month, thus ensuring that one set was not too worn too soon.

This was all I could gather from Payner and Kelly, but I still had many questions that nagged at me.

I set about engineering some way I could persuade Zytan to explain the host of other questions I had. I also wanted to ask Dowa and Malet about household arrangements in this complicated existence. I spent a long while alone trying to come up with a scheme, and then ran several possibilities past Kelly who rejected them all, sometimes laughing at their complexities. But she herself could not come up with anything that might work.

I was getting increasingly desperate when, one day, the whole thing was solved so simply I just had to laugh.

Papa said to me and the rest of the our family that he was going to insist that I had two whole days and nights to myself; that I was tired, pale and stressed and that they should all give me a period in which I could do nothing. This was to occur a minimum of every other month, and he would be displeased if my siblings did not respect my private time.

(‘Older ‘ Julina says: It was only many years later that he admitted that he had hoped I would be able to use those times to meet a young man without having to worry about the rest of my family. His hope being that then the young man would start to woo me and I would be able to begin a life for myself. We neither of us could then have imagined just how my life was to develop!)

With no chores for a day or two, it was easy to get Kellonika to ask her mother to invite me to join them for an evening meal. Malet obliged with surprising ease and I sat down with them that very afternoon. I think Malet, and maybe Dowa, were pleased to have a different face and different experiences to compare with their own. We had an animated conversation as we compared recipes, housewife tips, sewing techniques and cleaning tools and concoctions. I found out what difficulties having to be constantly prepared for the next bellringing caused in running a household and I found that the women were keen to have as many people as possible to be trained in the basics of bellringing, ‘for emergencies’.

Zytan, however, apparently guarded his work environment as something only really suitable for men (intelligent men at that) and resisted training anyone else, saying that he was not going to need anyone else. I have noticed before with other families that the women try to prepare for the worst, whilst the men tend to assume that nothing untoward will ever happen. All in all, it was wonderful for me to be able to call on my experience of running a household and to be able to discuss things knowledgeably and to contribute validly to many of our conversational topics. Maybe I asked too many questions as I tried to build a mental picture of a bellringer’s life, but Malet, I am fairly sure, knew my curiosity was burning me up, so at one moment she suddenly announced:

“Julina, it is but a hand of moments before the next Bell Period starts, which will be the last before dusk. Come with me to the operating room so you can see what we do.”

I needed no further encouragement and leapt to my feet. I failed to notice the triumphant smirk that crossed Malet’s and Dowa’s faces, but Kelly had seen it and was suddenly on her guard — all this unbeknownst to me.

(‘Older’ Julina says: It was only a long while afterwards that I realised they were hoping that their second son might become interested in me! They didn’t know that that was never going to be an option.)

We entered the chamber at the foot of the bell tower and received a scowl from Zytan. Nuortan just glanced up before going back to watch a sanddropper closely. I was about to speak when Malet indicated that I should not just yet. Both men watched carefully, not saying a word and then suddenly Nuortan moved over to the little empty table close to the where the ropes dangled. He was carefully carrying a sanddropper that I could see was close to emptying. He placed the sanddropper on the table and then went and fetched another from the table on Zytan’s side. This was just as close to emptying as the other. Nuortan carried this carefully and placed it next to the other one on the little table.

“Two one,” said Zytan.

“Confirm two one,” replied Nuortan.

“Cross-checked with the clock. Confirmed. … Four, three, two, one …”

BONG. Bing. Bing.

The sound of the deep bell was so much louder contained as it was in this chamber and the sounds of the two following strikes on the higher bell were partially lost in the reverberations of that first strike. I was aware that Nuortan this time was counting down from three, and then a single higher bell strike echoed down the tower.

As Nuorton pulled the rope to ring the final bell, Zytan turned over the two sanddroppers on the little table. Then he carried one carefully over to the table at the side of the room, by which time Nuortan had picked up the other one and carried it back to the side table it came from. Both men crossed to a cupboard on the north wall, next to where the steps that were used to access the top of the tower were attached. They both consulted a parchment containing a list which was pinned to the cupboard door. Each in turn ran his finger across a particular line, and another finger down a particular column. Then they turned to face each other. Zytan started by saying: “Dusk — two and one fifth” and this was repeated by Nuortan.

Nuortan opened the cupboard and took out two sanddroppers, handing one to Zytan saying “One fifth.”

“Confirm one fifth.”

Both men then laid these sanddroppers on their sides, one on each table.

I was determined to keep quiet until given permission to speak and the subsequent silence began to stretch somewhat awkwardly.

“So Julina,” started Malet, “the first you heard was one man saying ‘two one’ and the other man confirming it. That was the number of rings to be used to mark the Bell Period. Obviously there was a deep bell to start with, then this was followed by two strikes on the high bell, a pause and then one strike on the high bell. Hence the ‘two one’. The men confirm what is to happen before it happens just as a safety measure. It helps the accuracy. It was of course the signal for the 10th Bell.

“Then both men confirmed that the next deep bell ringing would be the dusk announcement. And that the interval before the dusk announcement would be two quarters and one fifth, as given by the list pinned to the cupboard door. Nuortan retrieved the sanddroppers that run for one fifth of a Bell Period. Both men confirmed that they had the correct sanddropper and they will be set to start after the second quarter bell is sounded. They are on their sides at the moment to indicate they will be required shortly — they will be turned empty end upwards after the first quarter bell so everything is ready for immediate use after the second quarter bell.

“If you observe each of the side tables there are four sanddroppers on each. The sandroppers at the back, the ones just replaced, are the ones that count the Bell Periods from each beginning. There are three in a row at the front of the table — reading from left to right they measure the quarter bells, one to three. All four run for exactly one Bell Period which is why their upper contents look so regular as you scan across.”

“Must you always have two people here at a time to ring the changes?”

“No — it is workable with just one. That is in fact why we have the little table in the middle that is kept mostly clear. A single operator can bring the two relevant sanddroppers to the table so they can be dealt with as soon as the message has been sent on the bells. Here in Blackstone, Zytan’s family are extremely conscientious. Some remote bellringers do not bother with the constant checking and double checking. They may even rely on just one set of timepieces. But here it is done properly and that is to be commended.”

I could see Zytan and Nuortan draw themselves up with pride as Malet had brought forth that explanation.

“It must have been so very difficult for you to manage in the days after Kronkin’s death even with Malet’s arrival — she must have been busy with the children?” I said as I turned to include Zytan and his brother.

“We developed a system that worked although at times we did wonder if we would ever find a way out of the difficulties,” said Zytan as he cast a fond glance towards Malet, who returned it with equal fondness. It was a little human moment that endeared them further to me. “Your father particularly was of immense help.”

“May I ask a question or two?” I started, looking deliberately at Zytan, who nodded but began to look a little wary.

I paused before beginning, as though I was collecting my thoughts. “If I have understood this system correctly, then the only purpose of having a signal at dusk is to indicate that the Bell Period countings will now restart? And this announcement is nearly always at a time less than a full bell period after the last? ”

I was inwardly worried about getting my opening question wrong. I didn’t want to appear as a pushy female with a level of knowledge that would worry him, but at the same time I wanted to let him know that I wasn’t just an empty-headed piece of ignorant and ignorable womanhood. There was a quick flash of surprise in his eyes but he answered me after considering his response. Albeit in a slightly condescending tone.

“I am pleased that you know enough to use the term ‘Bell Period’ correctly. I congratulate you. As for your question then I must say that the same system is employed in every community in all Palarand, and indeed in many if not all neighbouring lands of the Great Valley.” He paused, searching my face for some signal that maybe this was all beyond my capabilities. “Not all such communities are blessed with the clear air and skies that we have so frequently here. Nearly everyone here works outside or close to a window or door, so they are aware of the light fading, but in some of the towns, some of the populace work indoors, or maybe have further to go to get home after their work. They need to know when darkness is about to fall.”

I debated about asking some of the questions this explanation opened up, or whether to pose my big question, but decided to leave that for later. I would work my way up to that.

“I see. Thank you. You make that fairly clear now. I do have another question or two, if it pleases you?”

“I have to ring the quarter soon, but that is a simple procedure, so please carry on.”

Again I paused, trying to convey seriousness rather than stupidity. “I have noticed that you confirm the timings against the clock. How do you know that the clock is accurate?” I knew this information would be required whenever I did get round to my big question.

“That is something that we can be relatively sure about. You will have observed that we have this system of sanddroppers and that we check each against each other, so we are very confident that they are accurate; and every time one of the sanddroppers comes to its end, we know exactly when it started compared to the clock so we can check the clock when it finishes. We are never more than a few moments apart. Then there is a special day that occurs twice a year when we can check the settings of the clock, but that is complicated and I fear you would not understand.”

“Now then, Zytan. I wouldn’t be so sure. Julina is a knowledgable woman who has successfully run a family for some years now. She is aware of the seasons and sun phases as much as you and I,” interrupted Malet. “And don’t try to bamboozle her with long words and sentences as you sometimes try with me!”

Zytan looked both annoyed and important at the same time as he took a breath to begin his reply. But before he could answer, Nuortan said “Quarter.”

Malet grabbed my arm and took me across to the bell rope for the higher-toned bell, announcing to the room that “Julina shall ring it.”

I was suddenly nervous of pulling the rope too hard or too softly, or missing the moment but Malet and Kelly and Payner all smiled encouragingly. The men carefully brought the left-hand sanddroppers from the front rows on the side tables to the little table just by me, and we all watched them closely. My tummy muscles tensed as the countdown started and I managed to pull the rope as they got to one, meaning the bell rang on the unspoken zero. The two men flipped over the sanddroppers to start them again, and carefully carried them over to where they usually sat. When they got there, they stood the side-lying sanddroppers with empty ends up, thus ensuring that they would be ready when required.

“That was very good, dear,” said Malet. “Perhaps a heartbeat too soon, but no-one outside will have noticed.”

I couldn’t hide my delight and everyone in the room grinned back. Nuortan signalled to Zytan that he had checked the sanddropper/clock correlation successfully, and I suddenly understood that the system of checks took place every quarter. And there were three instruments involved at each check.

But the accuracy of the clock still fascinated me.

“So you fascinated me earlier, Master Zytan, with your explanation involving two special days a year and something to do with the sun. If it helps you, I can say that I understand the sun travels through the sky throughout the year, sometimes it is nearer us here in the south, sometimes it goes further away from us to the north. But I cannot work out what that has to do with your clock.”

The men finished double-checking that everything was ready for the next bell ringing and then Nuortan stood back to let Zytan have the centre.

“As you so rightly said, Mistress Julina, the sun goes north for the winter, presumably to hide from the cold. While it is away, we experience our shortest day of the year, a day when I can tell you we have just under eight Bell Periods of light and just over 12 Bell Periods of darkness. It is on this day that we Palarandis say the year starts. When the sun returns for our warmer months then we experience our longest day of the year, and the strange thing is that the times of light and dark are reversed almost exactly. Just over 12 Bell Periods of light and just under eight of dark.”

I tried hard not to show any annoyance, but what he had just said was known by even the rudest pakh farmer and had not advanced my knowledge one jot.

“As we go along the year, then the days get slowly longer and the nights slowly shorter. Half way between the shortest and the longest day, around when some early plants are sprouting and the last heavy snow is thinning, then the day and the night are of equal length. This occurs once as the days increase in length, and then again between the longest day and the shortest day as the days decrease. It is on these two days in the entire year that we can measure the moment the sun achieves its highest point in the sky, and that moment is the definition of noon in the whole of Palarand. It is a matter of pride to our family that our clock has never been more than a hand of moments off at that exact measure.”

I realised that I had been unfairly critical of Zytan earlier, because he would have no way to know what I knew and his explanation was necessary in the build-up to providing me with a fact that I had not known before. I nearly apologised to him, but realised in time that that would involve more explanations than it was worth making.

It also gave me a natural opening to get in my big question so I decided to do that right there and then.

“Well I must say that’s very interesting. But it makes me confused about something. I understand now that the clock is checked twice a year, assuming that there is no cloud about …” I saw him open his mouth to respond to that, so I hurried on. “But that only sets the noon, and I suppose therefore the midnight point is also set as it must be by definition ten Bell Periods later. But the day starts with the dawn, which is at varying times away from these fixed points as the year progresses. How is the dawn set? Who decides that? Is it the same throughout all the land?”

I stood back, waiting for some information to help us continue our earlier debate. I could see in my mind’s eye Zytan being reluctantly impressed as I queried the facts, and I saw everyone in the room being impressed as I drove the discussion onwards.

And then I was shocked.

Zytan just laughed.

“Oh that’s easy! You saw us look up the dusk moment on that chart pinned to the cupboard door. We read from that that the dusk mark tonight is one fifth of a Bell Period after the second quarter bell is rung in this current Bell Period. Well the same sheet has the dawn moments listed as well, when they need to be changed. Dawn moments, if listed at all, are always listed as a certain time after the start of the last Bell Period, and dusk moments are always listed as a certain time after the start of a specified Bell Period. It’s very simple.

Also, you should know that one dawn is almost the same as the dawn of the next day, mostly just a few heartbeats difference — for this reason, the twentieth Bell Period of any full cycle might not be exactly the same length, to the heartbeat, as most of the other full Bell Periods; we cannot count the pre-dusk bell period here, of course, for that is almost always shorter. The biggest differences in that last Bell Period before dawn come in the cycles close to those times when the days are the same length as the nights. The largest difference in a whole year of a dawn from one cycle to the next is under two moments. Some weeks, we don’t change the dawn announcement at all.”

I felt so silly, building great events in my mind that were just no more than pakh wind. But this was yet another valuable lesson to me, one that I was sure would be used often in the future.

“But where does that sheet come from? And does every community have the same sheet?”

“Oh yes. It is sent out in the name of the Royal Astronomer, who is part of the Society of Questors of Palarand. Apparently astronomers all over Alaesia gather their information and they all decide when we will have the extra days in the calendar, when adjustments are required and when are the dawn and dusk times to be used. The information is usually sent out every five or so years, with any necessary amendments being sent as and when required. In this way, all Alaesia can be kept on the same time.”

With that explanation, the whole process settled easily into my mind and I knew I had now gleaned all the information I had wanted from him. And far more easily done than I had anticipated. I almost laughed at the thought of all my unfounded fears and schemes to try to prise out the information.

They allowed me to ring the next quarter bell (two strikes of the higher-toned bell) and to watch as they rang in the Dusk announcement, about two hands of moments later.

I went over to the list pinned on the cupboard doors and studied it as we waited for the next ringing, which would be the first quarter of the Bell Period — the first one after the Dusk announcement, of course.

Finally, I left the chamber after ringing in that first quarter bell. It had been a very interesting day indeed and I left their home with a promise to come and help in the early hours of one night. I was interested to see how they managed to keep a regular ringing service throughout the night. As it happened, I never did manage to make that promise come true.

All in all, I felt I had gained a lot from this exercise. I had met a nice family as a family and I had more respect for what goes on behind the scenes of us all being kept informed of the time. I had made a good impression on Dowa and Malet, Zytan seemed to accept more and more that women can actually think and argue logically, Kelly and I were just as close as ever, and I had learned some valuable lessons. Yes Payner was going to prove to be a bit of a problem, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

I also found that with this knowledge, I could construct some fresh and interesting lessons for the little ones that were at the same time informative and a basis for further development. As a result I drew up some sample bellringing cycles, and I have had to copy these out quite often as they seem to fascinate those who want to learn numbers and letters.

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