Robin McKinley

by Deerskin

  The minister swallowed hard. He had little experience of dealing with anyone so apparently unmotivated by greed. He could not think what to do in this instance, and so in confusion and dismay he acquiesced, assuming he could regain lost ground-for he felt sure that somehow he had lost ground-later. He was too good a player to withdraw; this was but a pause to recoup.

  In this he was mistaken, for in awakening to the fact that she had a mind to use, Lissar was discovering the pleasure of using it. And by using it, she came to know it.

  Had Ash not come to her, she might have discovered greed instead, for her world as she understood it had ended with her mother's death; and what she had learned by that death was that she was alone, and had always been alone, and had grown accustomed to it without knowing what she was accustoming herself to.

  With the knowledge of her aloneness came the rush of self-declaration: I will not be nothing. She was fortunate, for Ash happened to her before the minister or his kind did. She understood that she was fortunate, but not for years would she understand how fortunate; she did not see, because she already had Ash, the threat that the minister really was, behind the machinations she saw quite well enough to wish to avoid.

  The little tower room was furnished as she wished; and she herself began the work of reclaiming the garden, although she was frustrated in this for some time, since she could only guess at how to do what needed to be done. There was no one to ask; her muddy fingers and green-stained skirt-knees and hems horrified the waiting-women, whose ideas of gardening began and ended with baskets full of cut flowers and graceful pairs of shears specially made for a lady's soft delicate hands.

  Lissar, indeed, proved so odd in so many ways that one or two of the waiting-women decided at once that the game was not worth the candle, and disappeared as mysteriously as they had come. Some of the others stayed for the pleasure of a turn in the bed-chamber that had been outfitted for a princess.

  A few of the waiting-women and one or two of the ministers (not including the one whose statue continued to grace the princess's receiving-room) had enough common sense to recognize what was under their noses, and cultivated relationships with Ash. Lissar, who was learning many things, rapidly formed a working definition of expediency, but could nonetheless not quite harden her heart against anyone who smiled at her dog. Ash, who thought that people existed to be playmates for puppies, was only too happy to be cultivated.

  Lissar became friends with one of her ladies, not a great many years older than herself, who obviously was not pretending her affection for Ash, nor her admiration for a fleethound's beauty. It was novel and interesting to have a human friend, Lissar found, although a little alarming; she was never quite sure what she could say to Viaka. Viaka laughed, sometimes, at the things Lissar said, and although her laughter was never unkind, Lissar was puzzled that she had laughed at all, and thought it was perhaps because she, Lissar, had had so comparatively little practice talking to other people. But when she suggested this to Viaka, Viaka became so distressed that Lissar stopped in the middle of what she was saying. There was an unhappy little pause, and then Viaka patted Lissar's cheek and said, "You mustn't mind my laughing; I am a very frivolous person. Everyone knows that." But her eyes were sad as she said it, and not frivolous at all.

  Viaka was kind and good-natured, and pleasant to have around, and Lissar began to rely on her without, at first, intending to, or even realizing what she was doing. It became Viaka who went with Lissar once a week to visit her old nursemaid, who now lived in a little comfortable room not far from where the old nursery was. The nursery itself had become something of a boxroom, and was mostly shut up, but the room Hurra now occupied was brighter and cosier than the nursery had ever been, and when Lissar suggested, quite gently, that the last flight of stairs might be carpeted, it was done.

  Hurra sat rocking in her favorite chair, knitting, sometimes, her yarns almost always some shade of blue, which had been the queen's favorite color. Sometimes she only sat and rocked and stared at her hands. Often she talked to herself. The most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, she murmured. The most beautiful.... She would seize the hands of anyone who came too near her, and tell stories of the dead queen, of her beauty and charm, of how the king loved her, how neither he nor his kingdom would ever be the same again.

  Lissar sat and stared out the window that Hurra never seemed to notice, and endured the stories of her mother; but it was Viaka's hands that Hurra held, Viaka's eyes she fixed her bright mad gaze on. Lissar tucked her own hands under Ash's ears, as if to protect her dog from the tales; she wished she could protect herself.

  Ash sat with her head in Lissar's lap (which was all that would fit any more), and waited till it was time to leave. Lissar did not realize how much Viaka learned of what Lissar's life had been by listening to Hurra's stories.

  Lissar could not stop the visits to her old nursemaid; she was the only visitor the old woman had, barring the maid who opened and closed the curtains, and made up the bed, and brought food and clean water and linen and took away what was dirty and discarded. Only Lissar and Viaka and an under-maid cared that the last flight of stairs was now carpeted. But Lissar could not forget that Hurra had been all that she had had for all the years of her life till the death of her mother. She understood, now, what Hurra had really been to her, all those years, and she to Hurra; but that did not change the fact that it was Hurra who had fed and dressed and looked after her. And Lissar listened to the low stumbling intense syllables of Hurra~s endless, repetitive tales, and felt herself ground like wheat between stones.

  But there were many things that even her now unshackled mind could not tell her, for it had no knowledge to work with; and Viaka could tell her some of these, gently, as if it were not surprising that Lissar did not know them. And Viaka was wise enough to know that it was indeed not surprising. Viaka knew about family; and it was from this knowledge, and not merely because of her own mad Aunt Rcho, that she could visit Hurra, and hold the old hands, and let the stories wash over her.

  It was near Ash's first birthday that the Moon woke Lissar's body to its womanhood for the first time; Viaka, suppressing her misgivings that Lissar had come to it so late, told her what the blood meant, and that it was no wound-or that it was a wound without cure. Lissar grew in stature as well, as if catching up for the years pent in the nursery, when she should have been learning to be a young woman; and then came the first days when some of the grand visitors to her father's hall brought gifts to curry the princess's favor as well.

  FIVE

  LISSAR SAW LITTLE OF HER FATHER DURING THIS TIME; LITTLE

  because she wished it so and he did not require otherwise. By the time of the first anniversary of his wife's death, the king was going out among his people again and his ministers no longer ruled the country alone. One or two of them who were inclined to resist this change found themselves rewarded for their deep devotion to their land and their king by the gift of country estates that urgently needed setting in order, which happened to lie at some considerable remove from the king's court.

  The king was thinner than he had been, and at first, when his people saw him, he walked a little stooped, like an old man. But as the months passed he began to take on his old strength, though the deep lines on his face remained, and he wore few colors, even for festivals appearing in black and grey and white.

  By the time Lissar was almost seventeen and her mother had been dead for two years, the kingdom was speaking more and more openly of the hope that their king would marry again, a strong man in his prime as he was, and with, many said, a new, ethereal beauty from the great grief he had suffered and survived.

  Lissar began to be obliged occasionally to attend royal dinners, when either some visiting dignitary wished to see her, or some of her father's ministers wished such a dignitary to see her. The summons never seemed to come from the king himself, or so the phrasing led her to guess, and wonder: "the greetings and deep respects of Lord Someone Important, who
wishes the princess Lissla Lissar to understand that her father the King requests and commands her attendance upon him for the occasion of the dinner to honor the arrival of Significant Personage Someone, from the county or country of Wherever."

  The court banqueting tables were very long, and she rarely sat near the king; he sat at the head while she often sat at the foot, or rather at the right hand of the foot, next to the dignitary not quite so fortunate as to sit at her father's right or left hand.

  Since the minister whose compliments had been delivered with the summons invariably sat opposite her at the dignitary's left, she had little to do but not spill her soup and, now and again, respond, briefly, and without too great a show of personality, to some remark addressed to her by either the dignitary or the minister.

  She did not understand how it was that she had immediately known that no one who addressed the princess on these occasions was speaking to any portion of her but the part epitomized by her being her father's daughter; but she had never been tempted to make any mistake about this. Perhaps it was another result of the long years of invisibility in the nursery with her single maid; but the effect was that her brevity of speech, in a princess of such tender years, was accounted modesty, and applauded.

  About one thing the princess was stubborn. Ash lay under or beside her chair, no matter how lofty and formal the event. Ash developed her own legend, and people began to speak of the grace of the pair of them, the princess entering hall or chamber not on anyone's arm, but with her hand resting gently on the head or back of her tall dog; both moved elegantly, and were inclined to silence. The people, who liked a little mystery, began to sigh over the half-orphaned princess, and how it was the loss of her mother that made her so grave.

  Lissar was grave and silent because it had never occurred to her to be otherwise-not with people. And she entered every room with her hand on Ash's back that she might be observed to have a habit of entering alone with her dog; that it might therefore be that much less likely she need ever enter any room on her father's arm.

  She had not forgotten the look on his face when she had entered the receiving-hall on the day that Ash was given to her-although she wanted to, although she blamed herself and was angry at her failure to forget, as if it were something she could or should control. She could not remember when, before that day, she had last seen him; she could not remember his ever looking at her. She remembered that, on a few occasions, when she was very small, her father carried her in his arms; but he seemed always to be looking over her head, at his queen, at his people. She could not remember, before that day in the receiving-hall, ever having seen her father without her mother at his side.

  She tried not to look at him after that day; she tried to make not looking as much of a habit as entering rooms with her dog at her side was habit, so that she need not think about it, need nol remember its origin. But this too she failed at: she knew why she did not look. She did not want to see that expression again; and she was afraid if she looked, it was that she would see. She knew what his people saw in his face, the grief and the nobility; she could not forget that she had seen neither. She woke from nightmares, seeing his eyes bent on her again. It was that much worse that she had no name for what she saw and what she feared; and this she spoke of to no one, not even Ash. It was that much worse that she could not see what sought her down the long tunnels of dream, could not see, nor hear, nor smell it, would not escape it, neither its seeking nor simply the knowledge of its existence.

  Those dreams were the worst; but she had nightmares as well that the painting of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, which now dominated the receiving-hall, came to life, stepping down from its frame to press a tiny, shapely foot into the cushion of her husband's throne, alone now on its dais, her own great chair having been removed; and her foot left no dint. But the look she bent upon her daughter was only slightly less terrible than the king's. Six months after the queen's death the painting had been hung behind the king's throne (this too had been specified by the queen, both the space of time and the location), and since the day of its unveiling Lissar had avoided the receiving-hall almost as assiduously as she avoided meeting her father's gaze.

  But Lissar was young, and he was her father, and the king; there was little she could do but try to avoid her avoidance being noticed. She would have cultivated a fondness for the company of her ladies, if it had come more easily to her; her shyness in the company of ministers and courtiers came very easily indeed. She played tag and hide-and-seek with Ash in the garden; and she went for walks with Viaka. There was for a time some jealousy from the other ladies about Viaka's ascendence over them; but when they found that Lissar gave her preferred companion no rich presents, nor insisted on her being seated at the high table with her during banquets, the jealousy ebbed. It disappeared for good when they learned-for Viaka, who was rather cleverer than she pretended, told them-that Lissar gossipped not at all and, indeed, at times barely spoke. If all Viaka gained in her congress with the princess was the loss of time that might have been more gainfully expended elsewhere, well then, there was little to be said after all for being the princess's apparent confidante. And the waiting-women all nodded together, and argued over whose turn it was to sleep in the royal bed-chamber that Lissar never set foot in.

  The maid-servant who raked out the old embers and lit the fire in Lissar's bedroom (which was kept burning even in the summer, against the damp) more than once found the princess in her wild garden at an unfashionably early hour. The maid-servant had initially been alarmed by this, because it might mean the princess would require her to get up even earlier, and mend her fire before she arose. But the princess never made any such suggestion, and the maid-servant, cautiously, went on as she had begun, without telling anyone what she saw.

  Once Lissar was stepping back indoors as the maid entered the little rose-colored room, and impulsively Lissar held out the twig she had between her fingers. She had bruised the leaves, and from her hand arose a wonderful smell, both sweet and pungent. "Do you know what this is?" she asked.

  "No, splendor," the maid said; but she was caught for a moment by the wonderful scent and stood quite still, her bundle of sticks for the fire dangling unregarded from her hands. She remembered herself in a moment and ducked her head before the princess could have a chance to notice that she was not attending to her business; for the palace housekeeping was run under a stern eye.

  The princess was having no such thoughts, but stood with her head a little bowed, twirling the little sweet leaves in her fingers. The maid, who had come to like her a little, in a wary and disbelieving way, said, on her knees by the hearth, "My aunt would know-splendor," and then crouched lower in the ashes, fearful that she had been too bold. The fact that Lissar never asked her to do anything was almost as alarming as if she asked her to do too much. She heard the stories from some of the other maids about some of the other palace ladies, and worried that perhaps when the blow came it would be stunning. Ash ambled up behind her and licked the back of her neck, and she started.

  "Your aunt?" said Lissar. "It's only Ash," she added, as Ash did it again. "Do you mind it?" she said, not thinking that her maid would never tell her "no" but only in amazement that anyone might wish to reject Ash's advances. Lissar forgot to wear her cynicism about court life all the time, and she saw everything Ash did through a haze of devotion. The maid was saved from having to frame any reply by Ash's ceasing her attentions and climbing on the bed for a nap, having first scrabbled the coverlet into a twist to her shape and liking. The maid did not mind Ash licking the back of her neck-she'd grown up with dogs-but was braced against the possibility that her volunteering a comment might be counted too forward.

  "Could I meet your aunt?" said Lissar, taking the maid's breath away.

  "You can do anything, splendor," said the maid without irony, stating the truth as she saw it.

  "Will you ask her to come to me, then?" said Lissar, equally without irony. She did know that
she was asking something a little out of the way, but she did not know how the world looked to a young maid in a new job, especially a job involving royalty. The maid was silent for a moment, at the enormity of the breach of courtly order she was about to commit in response to this mildly spoken command, and wondered what Layith, who was mistress to all the maids, would say if she found out. "Yes, splendor," she said, accepting her fate.

  The maid, who was young and simple and came from a simple family, merely appeared one morning about a fortnight later with a small woman, wearing a great many shawls, at her side. This was Rinnol; and Rinnol was a gardener, an herbalist, a midwife. Rinnol had never been to court, nor wanted to, and was very cross with her younger sister's girl, and inclined to refuse the summons. But Lissar's maid, panic-stricken at what might happen to her if she did not fulfill the princess's orders, talked her into it, she and her mother both, who thought that she had done a good thing for her daughter by sending her up to the palace.

  So Rinnol came, prepared grudgingly to be polite but little else, for she had as little understanding of the breach of court etiquette as Lissar herself did. She found, to her surprise, a girl the age of her niece who was perfectly willing to get down on her knees and dig in the dirt with her fingers, despite the possibility of damp soft earthworms and small jointed things with many legs, and getting smudges on one's face and clothing. So Rinnol began to teach the princess which green things were weeds to pull out and which were things to be kind to, and she taught her the names of many and the uses of some, returning to the palace every few days for another lesson, without any words of any such arrangement ever passing between herself and Lissar. After that first day she simply stumped in, up the grand sweep of low stairs from the grand smooth garden that lay on the other side of the wall, through. the marble hallway, behind the statue with the homicidal draperies, and through to Lissar's tower room; and the waiting-women learned to bear her indifference because they had to, although she was one more mark against the princess in their minds. But Rinnol had found that she enjoyed the lessons, for Lissar was a good pupil.