Be courteous to all, but intimate with few

The expression "Be courteous to all, but intimate with few" is a former King of Wayland’s counsel on trust, preserved in the Archives of Kenatos and cited by Possidius Adeodat. In the novel, it belongs to a wider culture of sayings and transmitted knowledge: words are not merely ornaments, but tools for judging character, shaping bargains, and deciding what may safely be shared.

Provenance and Meaning

Possidius presents the saying as advice written in a personal history at the end of a successful reign. He found it in the Archives of Kenatos and calls it among the wisest counsel ever recorded. Its two parts distinguish public courtesy from private confidence: one may treat people well without granting them immediate access to one’s innermost thoughts. The phrase thus makes trust something earned through experience rather than owed indiscriminately.

Its preservation in an archive also sets it beside the book’s other forms of knowledge. Druidecht knowledge is passed from person to person without books or written words, while the Paracelsus order’s arcane understanding is described as something its members know in their bones; the record of Celsus, by contrast, remains in the Archives. The king’s advice crosses generations through writing, but its force depends on a reader recognizing how to use it in human relations.

Sayings as Social Knowledge

The novel repeatedly presents proverbs as part of a living oral tradition. Hettie explains that Romani pride values being able to offer a saying the other person does not already know; when one hears an unfamiliar saying, one nods in deference. She has spent ten years training as a Finder and says she does not know all the newest sayings, while some have been handed down for generations. A proverb therefore carries both practical meaning and social identity: it can mark shared inheritance, display knowledge, or invite acknowledgment from a listener.

Hettie’s sayings also connect patience with the repair of hardship. She offers the paired formulations “Patience cures many an old complaint” and “Patience is a plaster for all sores,” adding that every kingdom seems to have its own version. Their similarity suggests that proverbial wisdom travels across communities even as particular formulations signal cultural belonging. The old king’s counsel about intimacy participates in the same exchange between inherited words and present circumstances.

Trust, Secrecy, and Practical Judgment

The saying’s concern with selective confidence finds a sharper counterpart in Hettie’s reflections on secrets. When Annon asks about them, she answers, “It is no secret that is known to three. Never tell your secret even to a fence,” then adds, “A secret is a weapon and a friend.” Annon recognizes that this is the saying she values most. Her guardedness is not abstract: she has been shaped by a life with little freedom, and she considers whether to see Paedrin again while fearing that Kiranrao might kill him if they meet. In this context, intimacy carries risk as well as comfort, and silence can serve as protection.

Other sayings in the story turn language directly into strategy. Hettie explains that she bargained with Kiranrao for Paedrin’s freedom in exchange for stones, understanding that Kiranrao would try to bargain with Tyrus for a blade and judging Tyrus the cleverer negotiator. She frames that calculation with the Romani saying, “Let your bargain suit your purpose.” Elsewhere, the advice “It’s for her own good that the cat purrs” prompts Hettie to recognize and defer to Kiranrao’s use of a Romani saying. These moments show proverbial language working as a compact expression of judgment, bargaining, and cultural recognition.

The Proverb in the Novel’s Pattern of Knowledge

Across the book, knowledge passes through archives, apprenticeship, memory, and speech, and each mode governs who can know what. Erasmus is renowned for remembering everything said or written and for reading the activity of the Millpond; the Druidecht guard their knowledge through oral teaching; and sayings circulate through social encounters, sometimes revealing more about a speaker than a direct explanation would. Against this larger pattern, the former king’s counsel is both a maxim and a caution: courtesy may be widely offered, but confidence should be given only after people have been tested.