For a great many days, while men worked in the fields
and brought in the harvest, gathered food to the barns,
Avren and his sailors dwelled in delerium,
recovering their wits and their physical strength.
Within Wellan’s steading, Avren was well-tended
by Indigo women, trained in the healing arts.
Lenna, like her mother, wore the indigo wool,
and loving her people, taught the art to others.
The four men in her care were first to recover,
and Avren first of all, arising from his bed
six days after landing, still parched and most weary,
yet healed of the worst ills and no more lacking sense.
He rose in the morning like a man newly born,
and went outside to greet the swiftly rising sun,
bare as from his mother, a hand shielding his eyes.

“Greetings and good morning,” said Lenna to the man,
keeping her face from his stare, yet smiling all the same.
“Many days you have slept, shedding your weariness.
We fed you at odd times, and bade you sleep once more.
Yet your skin is healing, and your wits seem returned.
There is food and clothing, and kindly company,
if you will come inside, and set yourself at table.”
But Avren made no sound, and only looked at her.
She tried to speak again, and this is what she said:
My father is eager to speak with you, stranger.
He thinks you may know much, and be of help to him.
His words saved you from death; you owe him very much.”
But Avren made no sound, and only looked at her.
Then he spoke a torrent, but she understood not.
For a moment she mourned, and then she understood.

I am called Lenna, friend.” Thus she began to teach,
and gave him many words, and the speech of the land.
He laughed at her teaching, but gathered up the words,
and learned Orien’s tongue. He was a good learner,
and taught her his own name, and the names of his friends
who still slumbered deeply in her infirmary.
From harvest to Solstice he gathered up language,
learned the way of speaking, and astounded them all.
Even his companions never made such progress
as Avren the Heron learned language from Lenna.
No one wore the Jade robe anywhere in that house,
so no one knew the runes or the making of signs.
Yet Avren had some skill with his own letter-set,
He made lists for himself, and taught them to others,
the signs of his country, the runes from far away.

Wellan judged Avren well, and found him kind and good.
They spoke only rarely, and of trivial things,
for all those many moons,’til Wellan thought best.
He judged Avren ready, and skilled in his new tongue,
though his three friends were mute or very nearly so.
(Their names were Colama, Bramen and Vediran,
and their sons were great men, each one loyal and true.)
Thus Wellan sought his guest, just after first snowfall,
and opened all his thoughts. “Avren, you are my guest,
and will be many moons, at least until the spring.
You understand our tongue, and my men all like you;
since the apple harvest, and treading out the grapes,
they know you do good work. At the solstice feasting,
you will tell us your tale, and say how you came here.”

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