Absolute proof of absolute knowledge is impossible. - Poul Anderson

Inland, all except criminals lived in a tightly pulled net of regulations, duties, social standing, tax collection, expectations of how to act and speak and think—“sort of like late twentieth-century USA” Everard grumbled to himself.

Mystery is in a way the guarantee of the boundlessness of the might of the ruler: power bound to reason must always have limitations, great though it may be.

Don't talk, you," he said. "It hurts my ears. Nor think; that hurts your head.'