The Blue Sword d-1

by Robin McKinley

  "I hope so too," murmured Sir Charles to his teacup. "And—at the moment—we can't do much more than wait and see," said the colonel. "Have some more of this excellent tea, Charles. What's in your cup must be quite cold by now."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Harry and Lady Amelia took their leave, and the older woman closed the breakfast-room doors with a sigh. Harry smiled. Lady Amelia turned back to her in time to see the smile, and returned it ruefully. "Very well. We will leave the men to do their uncomfortable waiting alone. I am going to visit Mrs. McDonald, you are going to go riding with Beth and Cassie and bring them back here for luncheon."

  "Perhaps under the circumstances—" began Harry, but Lady Amelia shook her head.

  "I see no reason why you should not. If he is here, those girls have very pretty manners, and are just whom I would invite if we were to give a formal dinner. And—" here her smile broadened and became as mischievous as a girl's—"if he has brought his thousand best men, we shall be terribly short of women, and you know how I dislike an unbalanced table. I shall have to invite Mrs. McDonald as well. Have a pleasant ride, dear."

  Harry changed into her riding-clothes, mounted her placid pony, already bridled and saddled and held for her by one of the Residency's many servants, and rode off in a thoughtful mood toward her meeting with her two friends. She wondered first what and how much she should tell Cassie and Beth; and, second, found herself hoping that this Corlath would stay at least long enough for her to see him. Would a witch-king look any different than any other man?

  The sun was already hot. She pushed her hat back long enough for a cautious squint at the sky. It was more dun-colored than blue, as if it, like everything else near Istan, were faded by the fierceness of its sun. It looked as hard as a curved shell overhead, and brittle, as if a thrown lance might pierce it. The placid pony shuffled along, ears flopping, and she stared out over the sands. The woods to the west of her father's house were old, hundreds of years old, tangled with vine and creeper. Ancient trees had died and, not having room to fall, crumbled where they stood. No landlord had thought the old forest worth clearing and the land put to use; but it had made a wonderful jungle for herself and Dickie as children, to be bandits in, and hunt dragons through. Its twisted shadows had always been welcome to her; when she grew older she liked the feeling of great age that the forest gave her, of age and of a vast complicated life that had nothing to do with her and that she need not try to decipher.

  The desert, with the black sharp-edged mountains around it, was as different from what she was accustomed to as any landscape could be; yet she found after only a few weeks in Istan that she was falling by degrees in love with it: with the harsh sand, the hot sun, the merciless gritty winds. And she found that the desert lured her as her own green land never had—but what discovery it lured her toward she could not say.

  It was an even greater shock to realize that she was no longer homesick. She missed her occupation; and even more she missed her father. She had left so soon after the funeral that it was difficult to believe that he was dead, that he was not still riding around his estate in his shabby coat, waiting for her to return. Then she found that she remembered her parents together again; as if her mother had died recently, or her father five years ago—or as if the difference, which had been so important, no longer mattered. She didn't dream of honeysuckle and lilac. She remembered them with affection, but she looked across the swirled sand and small obstinate clumps of brush and was content with where she was. A small voice whispered to her that she didn't even want to go Home again. She wanted to cross the desert and climb into the mountains in the east, the mountains no Homelander had ever climbed.

  She often speculated about how other people saw the land here. Her brother never mentioned it one way or another. She was accustomed to hearing the other young people refer to "that hateful desert" and "the dreadful sun." Beth and Cassie didn't; they had lived in one part or another of Daria for most of their lives—"except the three years our mother took us Home, to acquire polish, she said"—and to both of them, Darian sun and Darian weather, whether it be on the fertile red earth of the south, with the eternal fight against the jungle to keep the fields clear, or the cool humid plateaus of the orange plantations, or the hot sand of the northeast Border, were simply things that were there, were part of their home, to be accepted and adjusted to. Harry had asked them how they liked the Homeland, and they had had to pause and think about it.

  "It was very different," Cassie said at last, and Beth nodded. Cassie started to say something else, stopped, and shrugged. "Very different," she repeated.

  "Did you like it?" pursued Harry.

  "Of course," said Cassie, surprised.

  "We've liked all the places we've lived," said Beth, "once we made some friends."

  "I liked the snow in the north," offered Cassie, "and the fur cloaks we had to wear there in the winter."

  Harry gave it up.

  The older people at the station seemed to put up with the land around them as they would put up with any other disadvantage of their chosen occupation. Darian service, civilian and military, bred stoicism in all those who didn't give up and go Home after the first few years. The Greenoughs' making-the-best-of-it attitude was almost as tangible as mosquito netting.

  Harry had once won an admission from Mr. Peterson, Cassie and Beth's father. There were several people to dinner at the Residency that evening, among them the Petersons. Mr. Peterson had been seated across from her at dinner, and had not appeared to pay any attention to the conversation on the other side of the table. But later in the evening he appeared at her side. She was surprised; he spoke rarely enough at social gatherings, and was notorious around the station for avoiding young unattached ladies, including his daughters' friends.

  They sat in silence at first; Harry wondered if she should say anything, and if so, what. She was still wondering when he said: "I couldn't help hearing some of what that young chap next to you was saying at dinner." He stopped again, but this time she waited patiently for him to continue and did not try to prompt him. "I wouldn't pay too much attention, if I were you."

  The young chap in question had been telling her about the hateful desert and the dreadful sun. He was a subaltern at the fort, had been there for two years and was looking forward to his escape in two more. The subaltern had continued: "But I wouldn't want you to think we have no change of seasons here. We do: we have winter. It rains steadily for three months, and everything gets moldy, including you."

  Mr. Peterson said: "I rather like it here. There are those of us who do." He then stood up and wandered away. She had not spoken a word to him.

  But she remembered what he said later as she realized that she too was becoming one of those who liked it here. She pondered who else might belong to their select club. It was a game, and she amused herself with it when she ran out of polite conversation. She took mental note of all those who did not complain of the heat, the wind, the unequal rainfall; and then tried to separate those like herself who actually enjoyed being scratchy with blown sand and headachy from glare, from those like Cassie and Beth who were merely cheerfully adaptable.

  Harry at last settled on Colonel Dedham as the most likely member of her club, and began to consider if there was any way to broach the subject with him. She thought that perhaps there was a club rule that read, Thou shalt not speak. But her chance came at last, less than a fortnight before Corlath's messenger arrived at the Residency at four a.m.

  It was at another small dinner party at the Greenoughs'. When the gentlemen brought themselves and an appalling reek of Sir Charles' finest cigars into the drawing-room to join the ladies, Colonel Dedham came across the room and tossed himself down on the window-seat beside Harry. She had been looking out at the mysterious white pools the moon poured across the desert.

  "Open the window a bit," he said, "and let some of this smoke out. I can see poor Amelia being brave."

  "Cigars should be like onions," she said,
unfastening the catch and pushing back the pane. "Either the whole company does, or the whole company does not."

  Dedham laughed. "Poor Melly! She would spoil many a party, I fear. Have you ever smoked a cigar?"

  She smiled, with a glint in her pale eyes, and he reflected that some of the young men had labeled her cold and humorless. "Yes, I have: that is how I know. My father was used to giving dinners for his hunting friends, and I would be the only woman there. I was not going to eat in my room, like a punished child, and I liked to stay and listen to the stories they told. They permitted themselves to become accustomed to my presence, because I could ride and shoot respectably. But the smoke, after a few hours, would become unbearable."

  "So your father—?" prompted Dedham.

  "No, not my father; he taught me to shoot, against his better judgment, but he drew the line at teaching me to smoke. It was one of his friends—Richard's godfather, in fact. He gave me a handful of cigars at the end of one of these very thick evenings and told me to smoke them, slowly and carefully, somewhere that I could be sick in private. And the next time the cigars went around the table, I was to take one for myself—and he'd help me stand up to my father. It was the only way to survive. He was right."

  "I shall have to tell Charles," said Dedham, grinning. "He is always delighted to find another cigar-lover."

  Her gaze had wandered again to the moonlight, but now she turned back. "No, thank you, Colonel. I am not that. It was the stories that made it worth it. I only appreciate smoke when I'm seeing things in it."

  "I know what you mean, but you must promise not to tell Charles that," he replied. "And for heaven's sake call me Jack. Three months is quite long enough to be called Colonel more often than business demands."

  "Mmm," she said.

  "Cassie and Beth do it very nicely. Say 'Jack.' "

  "Jack," she said.

  "There, you see? And for your next lesson I will walk across the room and ask you to say it again, and you will see how quickly I turn around and say 'Yes?' "

  She laughed. It was hard to remember that Dedham was a few years older than Sir Charles; the latter was portly and dignified and white-haired. Dedham was lean and brown, and what hair he had left was iron grey. Sir Charles was polite and kind; Dedham talked to one like a friend.

  "I see you staring out of the windows often, at our Darian wilds. Do you see yew hedges and ivy-grown oak and, um, cattle and sheep in green pastures?"

  She looked down at her lap, a little uneasily, because she had not thought she was noticed; but here was her chance. She looked up. "No. I see our Darian wilds."

  He smiled a little at the "our." "You're settling in, then? Resigned to too much sun all of the time—except for when there is too much rain? But you haven't seen our winter yet."

  "No—no, I haven't. But I'm not resigned." She paused, surprised at how hard it was to say aloud, and her club's first law floated across her mind. "I like it. I'm not sure why, but I like it here."

  The smile disappeared and he looked at her thoughtfully. "Do you?" He turned and looked out of the window himself. "There aren't many of us who do. I'm one—you must have guessed that I love the desert. This desert. Even in winter, and the three weeks of jungle after the rain stops and before the sun gets a good hold again. Quite a lot of my griping about being the oldest colonel still active is noise only; I know that if they promoted me they'd almost certainly promote me away from here—to one of the more civilized parts of this uncivilized land. Most of Daria is not like this, you know." He paused. "I don't suppose that means very much to you."

  "But it does."

  He frowned a little, studying her face. "I don't know whether to say you're very fortunate or very unfortunate. We're strangers here, you know—even I, who've been here forty years. This desert is a little piece of the old Damar. It's not even really under our jurisdiction." He smiled wryly. "Not only can we not understand it, we are not able to administer it." He nodded toward the window. "And the mountains beyond. They stand there, looking at you, and you know you'll never climb them. No Homelander ever has—at least to return to tell the tale."

  She nodded. "It is not a comfortable passion."

  He chuckled. "No; not a comfortable passion."

  "Is that why no one ever mentions it? One hears enough for the other side."

  "God! Don't I know it. 'Only four hundred and ninety-six days till I get out of this sand pit.' Yes, I suppose so. It's a strange country, especially this corner of it, and if it gets too much in your blood it makes you strange too. And you don't really want to call attention to it."

  She recalled that conversation as she rode; and now she saw Cassie and Beth jogging toward her. She was thinking again of Corlath, and trying to recall what little she knew of the Free Hillfolk. Jack had been reluctant to talk about them, and his evasiveness led her to believe that he knew quite a lot about them, because he was always open about saying he didn't know something. He was trying to spare her, perhaps, from her uncomfortable passion.

  Oh, glory, she thought, and with a quick leap her curiosity transformed itself into excitement: I do hope he's there when we get back.

  The question of what to tell her friends died painlessly. As soon as their ponies came abreast Beth said: "Is he here yet?"

  Harry was expecting a good-morning-and-how-are-you and for a moment didn't know who was meant.

  "Corlath," said Cassie. "Jack came to our house to see Daddy before breakfast, told him to go up to the Residency, that they would need him there." Mr. Peterson and Jack Dedham were the only people in the station who knew Hill-speech even passably fluently. Most Darians who had much contact with Homelanders learned Homelander. Harry had picked up a few Darian words, but only a few; no Homelander had thought to write a Darian grammar for general use, and when she inquired further was told that there was no need for her to learn it. The only person who encouraged her, and who had taught her the words she did know, was Jack Dedham, and he had not the time to spare for more. Sir Charles was reasonably articulate in Darian speech, but uncomfortable about it. He felt a responsible commissioner should know the language of those he oversees, but it made him no happier to fulfill his own expectations. He kept an interpreter near at hand.

  "Corlath," breathed Beth, as if the name were a charm. "Daddy says that the Hillfolk have never liked us much—"

  "We've always known that," put in Cassie.

  "—so he'll probably slip in and out again and we'll never even see him."

  "I've permission to invite you to lunch," said Harry. "If he's there at all, we'll see him."

  "Oh, how wonderful!" said Beth. "Surely even he won't have finished his business before lunch. Let's not ride far; we should see something when he comes, and then we'll know when to ride back. It's very tiresome to have a real king come to visit and not even have an excuse to meet him."

  "Do you know anything of the Free Hillfolk?" said Harry. They rode at an angle away from the Residency, where they could keep an eye on it over their shoulders. "I don't. No one will tell me anything."

  They both laughed. "The Hillfolk are the best-kept secret in Daria," said Cassie. "I mean, we know they exist. Some of them come here—to the station, I mean—for the spring Fair." Harry looked at her. "Oh, surely Lady Amelia has told you about our pair," Cassie said. "After three months of the rains we come out of hiding and work off our foul temper by holding a Fair—"

  "—where we sell to each other all the ridiculous little bags and bonnets and dolls and footstools that we've made during the rains to keep from going mad because we couldn't go out," Beth continued.

  "Yes, most of it is nonsense. But everyone is very gay for the first two or three weeks after the rain stops. The weather is cool enough—the only time all year you can go out even at midday; and there're green things growing up from the ground, and everything you own is spread on the roofs and hanging from the windowsills, and they're green too," Cassie added with a grimace. "We decorate the streets and the square with
paper flowers and real flowers, and banners and ribbons, and the whole town looks like it's on holiday, with the dresses and blankets hanging out everywhere. We do have real flowers here—besides the eternal pimchie—although nothing like what you're used to at Home, I daresay. Everything grows tremendously for two weeks, so for the third week, Fair week, everything is green and blossoming—even the desert, if you can believe it."

  "Then of course the sun kills everything again. That's the fourth week. And you know what it's like here the rest of the time."

  "Yes, but the Fair—everyone comes to the Fair. The Hillfolk too, a few of them, although never anyone very special. Certainly never the king. And it's not all the bead purses that our sort has been making in despair. There are always some really lovely things, mostly that the Darians themselves have made. Even the servants aren't expected to do as much, you know, during the rains. After the first few weeks you're far too cross yourself to give many orders to anyone else."

  "But mostly the best things come up from the south. It's only Way up here that the weather's so ridiculous, but the south knows about our Fair, and the merchants know that when we break out of winter prison we're so mad with our freedom that we're fit to buy anything, so they come up in force."

  "There are Fairs, or celebrations of spring of one kind or another, all around here, but ours is the biggest."

  "Well," said Beth, "we've the biggest in things to buy and so forth; and we're the only Homelander station up here. But there're quite a number of Darian villages around here, and they take spring very seriously. Lots of singing and dancing, and that kind of thing. And they tell the most beautiful stories, if you can find someone to translate into Homelander. Which isn't often."