Eight silks drape across Belle Marche. Eight silks that frame the sky and shade the calm of commerce. But why eight? That question is posed time and again by visitor and philosopher. What in the grand history of our capital is displayed in this subtle choice? The ages? But we have had nine, and what fool would have made such a prediction? There is nothing in the Orlesian mindset, in the heart of Orlais, that suggests even a hint of accepting an end to our way. "There were sixteen rods." How compares his "fact" to our search for "truth"? —From Our Orlesian Heart, by (formerly) Sister Laudine