Ursula K. le Guin_Chronicles of the Western Shore_01

by Gifts

  11

  When we got back from the days and nights in the wilderness, and I could rejoin my mother, and bathe, and put on a clean shirt, even the unfriendly rooms of Drummant, which I had never seen, seemed familiar.

  We went down to dinner in the great hall, and there I heard Brantor Ogge speak to my father for the first time in two days. "Where's your wife, Caspro?" he was saying. "Where's the pretty calluc? And your blind boy? Here's my granddaughter come to meet him, come across the whole domain, clear from Rimmant. Here, boy, come meet Vardan, let's see what you make of each other!" There was a brassy, crowing laughter in his voice.

  I heard Daredan Caspro, the girl's mother, murmur to her to come forward. My mother, her hand on my arm, said, "We're happy to meet you, Vardan. This is my son Orrec."

  I did not hear the girl say anything, but I heard a kind of sniggering or whimpering noise, so that I wondered if she was carrying a puppy that was making that sound.

  "How do you do," I said, with a bob of the head.

  "Do you do you do you," someone said in front of me, a thick, weak voice, where the girl must be.

  "Say how do you do, Vardan." That was Daredan's tremulous whisper.

  "Do you do, do you do."

  I was speechless. My mother said, "Very well, thank you, my dear. It's a long way from Rimmant, isn't it. You must be quite tired."

  The whimpering, puppyish sound began again.

  "Yes, she is," her mother began, but Ogge's big voice, right next to us, broke in, "Well, well, let the young people talk to each other, don't be putting words in their mouths, you women! No matchmaking! Though they're a fine pair, aren't they? What do you say, boy, is she pretty, my granddaughter? She's got the same blood as you, you know, not calluc blood, but Caspro blood. True lineage will out, they always say! Is she pretty, eh?"

  "I can't see her, sir. I imagine she is."

  Mother squeezed my arm, I don't know whether in terror at my boldness or encouraging my effort to be civil.

  "Can't see her! I can't see her sir!" Ogge mimicked. "Well, let her lead you about then. She can see. She has fine eyes. Fine, sharp, keen, Caspro eyes. Don't you, girl? Don't you?"

  "Do you do. Don't you. Don't you. Mama, can I want to stairs."

  "Yes, dear. We will. It was a long ride, she's quite tired, please forgive us, Father-in-Law, we'll have a little rest before dinner."

  The girl and her mother escaped. We could not. We had to sit for hours at the long table. The boar had been roasting all day on the spit. There were shouts of triumph as the head was carried in. Toasts were drunk to the hunters. The strong reek of boar's flesh filled the hall. Slabs of it were piled on my plate. Wine was poured, not beer or ale, but red wine from the vineyards in the southwest of the domain; only Drummant in all the Uplands made wine. It was heavy and sweet-sour. Ogge was soon louder-voiced than ever, shouting down his elder son and making much of the younger, Vardan's father. "So, how about a betrothal party, Sebb?" he would bellow, and laugh, not waiting for any answer, and then again after half an hour, "So, how about a betrothal party? Hey, Sebb? All our friends here. All under our roof. Caspros, Barres, Cordes, and Drums. The best blood of all the Uplands. Hey, Brantor Canoc Caspro, what do you say? Will you come? Here's a toast. Here's to friendship, loyalty, love, and marriage!"

  Mother and I were not allowed to go upstairs after dinner. We had to stay in the great hall while Ogge Drum and his people drank themselves drunk. He was always near us, and talked a great deal to my mother. His tone and words grew more and more offensive, but neither Melle nor Canoc, who kept as close to us as he could, could be provoked to answer angrily, or to answer much at all. And after a time the brantor's wife intervened, staying with us as a kind of shield to my mother, answering Ogge for her. He grew sullen then and went off to quarrel again with his elder son, and we at last were able to slip out of the room and upstairs.

  "Canoc, can we leave—go? Now?" my mother said in a whisper, in the long stone passage that led to our room.

  "Wait," he answered. We got to our room and shut the door. "I need to talk to Parn Barre. We'll go early. He won't do us any harm tonight."

  She gave a kind of laugh of despair.

  "I'll be with you," he said. She let go of my arm to hold him and be held.

  That was all as it should be, and I was very glad to hear we were going to escape, but I had a question that needed an answer.

  "The girl," I said, "Vardan."

  I felt them look at me, and there was a little silence while no doubt their eyes met.

  "She's small, and not ugly," my mother said, "She has a sweet smile. But she's..."

  "An idiot," my father said.

  "No, Canoc, not that bad— But... not right. She's like a child, I think, in her mind. A little child. I don't think she'll ever be anything more."

  "An idiot," my father repeated. "This is what Drum offered us as a wife for you, Orrec."

  "Canoc," my mother murmured, scared, as I was, by the fiery hatred in his voice.

  There was a knocking at our door. My father went to answer it. There were low-voiced consultations. After some while he came back, without my mother, to where I was sitting on the edge of my cot. "The child's been taken with seizures," he said, "and Daredan's asked for your mother to help her. Melle made fast friends with most of the women here, while we were out pig hunting and making enemies." He gave a humorless, weary laugh. I could hear him sit down, letting himself down all at once like a tired hound, in the chair before the unlit hearth.

  "I wish we were out of here, Orrec!"

  "So do I," I said.

  "Lie down and sleep. I'll wait for your mother."

  I wanted to wait for her too, and tried to sit up with him; but he came and pushed me over gently onto the cot and covered me with the fine, warm woollen blanket, and I was asleep the next moment.

  I woke suddenly and was wide awake. A cock was crowing away down in the barnyards. It might be dawn, or long before dawn. There was some small noise in the room, and I said, "Father?"

  "Orrec? Are you awake? It's dark, I can't see." My mother felt her way to my cot and sat down beside me. "Oh, I'm so cold!" she said. She was shivering violently. I tried to put the warm blanket up around her shoulders, and she pulled it around us both.

  "Where's Father?"

  "He said he had to talk to Parn Barre. He says we'll leave as soon as there's light to see by. I told Denno and Daredan we were leaving. They understand. I just said we had been away too long and Canoc was worried about the spring plowing."

  "What was wrong with the girl?"

  "She gets overtired easily and has spasms, and her mother is frightened by it, poor thing. I sent her off to get some sleep, she doesn't get much, and sat with the little girl. And then I half fell asleep there, and I don't know...It seemed...I got so cold, I can't seem to get warm..." I hugged her, and she snuggled up next to me. "Finally some of the other women came and could stay with the child, and I came back here, and your father went to find Parn. I suppose I should get our things ready to go. But it's so dark still. I keep looking for the dawn."

  "Stay and get warm," I said, and we sat there trying to warm each other until my father came back. He had his flint and steel and could light a candle, and my mother hurried our few things together into the saddlebag. We stole through the halls and passages and down the stairs and out of the house. I could smell dawn in the air, and the cocks were crowing as if they meant it. We went to the stables, where a sleepy, surly fellow roused up and helped us saddle our horses. My mother led Roanie out and held her while I mounted. I sat in the saddle waiting.

  I heard my mother make a little surprised, grieving noise. Hoofs clopped on the cobbles as another of the horses was led out. She said,

  "Canoc, look."

  "Ach," he said in disgust.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "The chicks," my father said, low-voiced. "His people set the basket down where your mother gave it to them. Left it. Left the birds t
o die."

  He helped Melle mount Greylag, and then rode Branty out of the stable; the stable boy opened the courtyard gate for us, and we rode out.

  "I wish we could gallop," I said. My mother in her anxiety thought I meant it and said, "We can't, dear," but Canoc, riding close behind me, gave a short laugh. "No," he said, "we'll run away at a walk."

  The birds were all singing now from tree to tree, and I kept thinking, as my mother had, that I would soon see the light of dawn.

  After we had ridden several miles, she said, "It was a stupid gift to bring to a house like that."

  "Like that?" said my father. "So grand and great, you mean?"

  "In their own eyes," said Melle Aulitta.

  I said, "Father, will they say we ran away?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we shouldn't—should we?"

  "If we stayed, Orrec, I'd kill him. And though I'd like to kill him in his own house, I can't pay the price of that pleasure. He knows it. But I will get a little of my own back."

  I didn't know what he meant, nor did my mother, till in the middle of the morning we heard a horse coming up behind us. We were alarmed, but Canoc said, "It's Parn."

  She drew up with us and greeted us in her husky voice that was like Gry's. "So, where are your cattle, Canoc?" she said.

  "Under that hill, ahead there." And we jogged on. Then we stopped, and my mother and I dismounted. She led me to a grassy place by a stream where I could sit. She took Greylag and Roanie into the water to drink and cool their feet; but Canoc and Parn rode off, and soon I could not hear them at all. "Where are they going?" I asked.

  "Into that meadow. He must have asked Parn to call the heifers."

  And after what seemed a long time, during which I listened nervously for the sound of pursuit and vengeance coming down the road and heard nothing but birdsong and the distant lowing of cattle, Mother said, "They're coming," and soon I heard the grass swishing at the legs of the animals, and Branty s greeting whuff to our horses, and my father's voice saying something with a laugh to Parn.

  "Canoc," my mother said, and he replied at once, "It's all right, Melle. They're ours. Drum looked after them for us, and now I'm taking them home. It's all right."

  "Very well," she said unhappily.

  And soon we all went on together, she first, then I, then Parn with the two heifers following close behind her, and Canoc bringing up the rear.

  The cattle did not slow us down; young and lively, and of a hauling, plowing breed, they stepped right out with the horses and kept up a good pace all day. We came onto our own domain by mid-afternoon, and cut across the northern part of it, heading for Roddmant. It had been Parn's suggestion that we take the heifers there and leave them in the Rodd pastures for a while with their old herd. "A little less provocative," she said, "and a good deal harder for Drum to steal back."

  "Unless he comes calling on you," Canoc said.

  "That's as may be. I'll have no more to do with Ogge Drum in any way, except that if he wants a feud he'll have one."

  "If he has it with you he has it with us," Canoc said, joyfully fierce.

  I heard my mother whisper, "Ennu, hear and be here." That was always her prayer when she was worried or frightened. I had asked and she had told me long ago about Ennu, who smoothed the road, blessed the work, and mended quarrels. The cat was Ennu's creature, and the opal Melle always wore was her stone.

  About the time I ceased to feel the western sun on my back, we came to the Stone House of Roddmant. I had heard barking for a mile before we got there. A sea of dogs came round our horses as we rode in, all welcoming us joyously. And Ternoc came out shouting welcome to us too, and in a moment somebody came and took hold of my leg as I sat on Roanie. It was Gry, pressing her face against my leg.

  "Here then, Gry, let him get off his horse," Parn said in her dry voice. "Give him a hand."

  "I don't need it," I said. I dismounted creditably, and found Gry holding my arm now instead of my leg, and pressing her face against it, and crying. "Oh, Orrec," she said. "Oh, Orrec!"

  "It's all right, Gry, it's all right, really. It isn't—I'm not—"

  "I know," she said, letting me go, and snuffling several times. "Hello, Mother. Hello, Brantor Canoc. Hello," and I could hear her and Melle having a hug and kiss. Then she was back beside me.

  "Parn says you have a dog," I said, awkwardly enough, for the guilt of poor Hamneda's death weighed on me—not only his death, but even the choice of him, the choice that Gry had known to be wrong.

  "Do you want to see her?"

  "Yes."

  "Come on."

  She took me somewhere—even this house and grounds, that I knew almost as well as my own house, were a labyrinth and a mystery in my blindness—and said, "Wait," and after a minute or two said, "Coaly, sit. This is Coaly, Orrec. This is Orrec, Coaly."

  I squatted down. Reaching out a little, I felt warm breath on my hand, and then the delicate touch of whiskers, and a polite wet tongue washing my hand. I felt forward cautiously, afraid of poking the dog's eye or making some wrong movement, but she sat still and I felt the silky, tightly curled hair of her head and neck, her high-held, soft, flopover ears. "She's a black herder?" I said in a whisper.

  "Yes. Kinny's bitch had three pups last spring. This was the best one. The children made her a pet, and he'd started her as a sheepdog. I asked for her when I heard about your eyes. Here's her lead," Gry put a short, stiff leather leash in my hand. "Walk with her," she said.

  I stood up, and felt the dog stand. I took one step, and found the dog right in front of my legs, immovable. I laughed, though I was embarrassed. "We won't get far this way!"

  "It's because if you went that way you'd fall over the lumber Fanno left there. Let her show you."

  "What do I do?"

  "Say, 'Walk on' and her name."

  "Walk on, Coaly," I said to the darkness at the end of the leather strap in my hand.

  The strap tugged me gently to the right, then forward.

  I walked as boldly as I could, until the strap pulled me gently to stop.

  "Back to Gry, Coaly," I said, turning.

  The strap turned me a little farther round and then walked me back and stopped me.

  "I'm here," said Gry right in front of me. Her voice was hoarse and abrupt.

  I knelt, felt for the dog sitting on her haunches, and put my arm around her. A silky ear was against my face, the whiskers tickled my nose. "Coaly, Coaly," I said.

  "I didn't use the calling with her, only at the very beginning, a couple of times," Gry said. From the location of her voice she was squatting down near me. "She learned as fast as if I had. She's bright. And steady. But you both need to work together."

  "Should I leave her here then, and come back?"

  "I don't think so. I can tell you some things not to do. And try not to ask too many things of her at once for a while. But I can come over and work with her with you. I'd like to do that."

  "That would be good," I said. After the threats and passions and cruelties of Drummant, Gry's clear love and kindness, and the calm, trusting, trustworthy response of the dog, were too much for me. I hid my face in the curly, silky fur. "Good dog," I said.

  12

  When Gry and I went indoors at last, I was frightened to learn that my mother, dismounting, had fainted in my father's arms. They had taken her upstairs and put her to bed. Gry and I hung around feeling childish, useless, the way young people do when an adult is taken sick.

  Canoc came down at last. He came straight to me and said, "She'll be all right."

  "Is she just tired?"

  He hesitated, and Gry asked, "She didn't lose the baby?"

  It was part of Gry's gift to know when there were two lives in one body. It was not part of ours. I am sure Canoc had not known Melle was with child before this day; she may not have known it herself.

  To me the news carried little meaning. A boy of thirteen is at a great remove from that portion of life; pregnancy and childbirth
are abstract matters, nothing to do with him at all.

  "No," Canoc said. He hesitated again and said, "She needs to rest."

  His tired, toneless voice troubled me. I wanted him to cheer up. I was sick of fear and gloom. We were out of all that, free again, with our friends, safe at Roddmant. "If she's all right for a while, maybe you could come see Coaly," I said.