(urth) The Piteous Gate

[thalassocrat at nym.hush.com]

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 19:21:56 +1100 "Roy C. Lackey" 
<rclackey at stic.net> wrote:
>And that's part of the reason why what happened that morning at 
>the Gate was
>so unusual. The large volume of travelers waiting to exit the city 

>when the
>gates opened each morning indicates that they had no reasonable 
>expectation
>of being slaughtered by mercenary troopers waiting for them 
>outside the Gate
>on the road. 

<Snipped good argument>

And if there wasn't a permitted space on the other side of the 
gate, why were the guards letting people through it in the first 
place?

I prefer the looking-for-Hethor theory. The only other time we see 
a highway-guarding Uhlan in action, it's in Claw, when Sev by a 
strategem causes the death of one by Hethor's notules. On 
resurrection, the uhlan says, "I am to be especially vigilant", no 
doubt repeating his patrol orders. Perhaps the uhlans near the gate 
had been given the same order, and perhaps the vigilance in both 
cases was directed against Hethor.

On Hethor: Jonas says the notules are used somewere in the universe 
for ritual combat. This ties back into the monomachy with avens. 
It's not hard to guess that Hethor taught Agia and her brother all 
about them.