(urth) Father Inire

[Roy C. Lackey]

b sharp wrote:
>Are you sure the old man is Dorcas' husband? The tar marks him as a sailor
>and the "not a woman" comment as someone familiar with undines.

Mantis, afaik, was the first to suggest that old man to be Dorcas' husband.
Her husband was familiar with manatees and delivered the avern lecture. The
basic idea is: The Boatman (her husband) went almost daily for forty years
to look for her body. It wasn't where it was supposed to be. He said "Don't
you heed what they say. They put them where the figure shows, but they don't
stay there. Some has been see'd in the river, even."

He had to live near the Botanic Gardens and have a place to keep his boat.
The friend's loft is presumed to be among the tenements below the Citadel,
which is just downstream from the Gardens. That's why he was at the swimming
area. His concern about someone possibly seeing the body of a woman under
the water was because he thought his wife's body might have been washed
downstream. Maxellindis' uncle said he had never confused a manatee for a
woman, in CITADEL. In any event, he had no particular reason to be concerned
about whether the person Severian had seen underwater was a man or a woman.
Dorcas' husband did. That's the theory, anyway.

-Roy