The Chronicle of the Worthy Son

Interpretations

Able went back up to the municipal the next morning. Lark was still laid up, but Splendor Hatling was fussing over him, and that had managed to get him through many years of his life so Able needn't concern himself. Really needed to not concern himself.

The wind coming in from the sea was so strong it actually made the climb up the hill easier, but also made Able's hair whip him in the eyes. He should have tried trimming that too. Once in the shelter of the hall, he did his best to brush it out and back on the way to Prudent Nightwatch's office.

The old man looked up from a sheaf of papers on his desk. "Houser. I thought you had left town."

"I did, but I am back for now."

"I'm afraid I don't have anything for you to do, although..." The mayor leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully along his cabinets.

"I am happy for any work you can give me, but that's not why I came."

"Oh?"

"I realized I was being dense. You see, here I am searching haphazardly for records of this region's history, when all along the very first person I talked to when I landed is probably the one with an extensive collection of such books, am I right, Mayor of Three Hundred Years of Civilized History?"

"I see." Nightwatch bit on his smile as he looked down on his desk then flipped to the next page in the stack. "Yes, I may have a book or two you may wish to borrow, but I warn you they are all Dagobari authors, and I know Larbants don't much tolerate their philosophies."

"Are you kidding?" Able had to laugh. "I'd have no education without Dagobari authors. I'm particularly taken with the works of Thymehill and Cobbler."

"The moral skeptics, I see." Nightwatch arched his eyebrow high. "I should have known from your cold gaze."

"Oh no!" Able groaned, though he was thrilled at the reference. "You're in the camp of Eastrise, are you? So much for building rapport..."

Nightwatch shrugged. "What rapport might I build with someone whose head is up their ass about ethics?"

"Hey, my finding the logical consistency of their arguments satisfactory doesn't mean I won't agree to abide by whatever you consider ethical, or whatever ethics the culture considers absolute, but you must admit that, whatever those rules are, they will have no universal origin."

"No, every culture—every culture recognizes one rule: do not do to another that which is hateful to you. This only splinters when you begin to add the 'except when's."

"You may not be wrong, but you have to admit philosophy's greatest failing is that it has found no rational foundation that can support moral claims the way the mathematics and sciences have through numbers and method to support their—"

"So far up your ass."

"That's—" but Able reined in his argument and tried laughing it off instead. "That's fair enough. I'm looking for histories, anyway." And it would be a greater setback to lose access to them than to lose this debate.

"If you can help me get my tasks done," the mayor offered, "we can take an early lunch at my home, where said books are."

Nightwatch's home turned out to be a double-story affair on the high end of the city overlooking the sea. Most of the rooms were closed and boarded up, but he had kept the room with the best view as his personal study. The kitchen was on the ground floor, sparsely stocked and chilly. Nightwatch stirred the embers in the stove and added new logs.

"You live alone?" Able surmised.

"Never married," Nightwatch confirmed dispassionately, "and my nephews, whom my poor brother left in my care after a hard fight with an illness, both died in the war." He set about making lunch.