CHAPTER 20
‘Scar-face’The house for the new oracle rose more slowly than it should, partly because Yaruk took such care, and partly because the young girl was not satisfied with a simple wooden hut such as her predecessor had used.
His interest in her was becoming intense, but she would not tell him her name, or anything else about herself. Guess and probe as he might, he could elicit nothing.
‘An oracle cannot be known by name like any other woman,’ she said. ‘If the people are given a name, they will have no respect for the office of the oracle. And if they know her family origin, they would not hesitate to question her pronouncements.’
‘So the oracle is just an ordinary woman, like anyone else, who is pretending to be something she is not?’
‘No, Yaruk,’ she replied. ‘An oracle is a
