Gifts

♦ 14 ♦

All spring, Ternoc and Parn had come back and forth from Roddmant as often as they could. Ternoc was a kindly man, a follower not a leader, who was not very happy with his wilful wife but never complained of her. He had looked up to my father all his life; he had loved my mother dearly and mourned her now. Late in June he came over, went up to the tower room, and talked with Canoc for a long time. Canoc came downstairs to supper with him that evening, and from that day on ceased to lock himself away, returning to his work and duties, though he slept always in the tower room. He spoke to me, stiffly and with effort, as in duty bound. I responded the same way.

I had hoped Parn might know how to help my mother in her illness, but Parn was a hunter not a healer. She was uneasy in a sickroom, impatient, not of much use. At my mother’s funeral, Parn had led the lament, the sobbing howl that Upland women raise over the grave. It is a hideous shrill clamor, going on and on and on, unbearable, the noise of animals in pain. Coaly raised her head and howled with the women, shuddering all over, and I too stood shuddering and fighting my tears. When it was over at last I was spent, exhausted, relieved. Canoc had stood through the lament unmoving, enduring it, like a rock in the rain.

Soon after Melle’s death, Parn went up to the Carrantages. The people of Borremant had heard of her skill in calling to the hunt and sent for her to come. She wanted Gry to come with her, to begin to practice her gift. It was a rare chance to go among the wealthy highlanders and gain renown there. Gry refused. Parn got angry with her. Once again mild Ternoc intervened: “You go and come as you please,” he said to his wife, “so let your daughter do the same.” Parn saw the justice in that, though it didn’t suit her. She went off the next day, without Gry, not bidding anyone goodbye.

The colt Blaze had been returned, fully trained, to Cordemant. When Gry came to us, she rode a plow horse, if one was free; if not she walked, a long walk to go and return in a day. It was too far for me to go alone on Roanie or to walk with Coaly. And Roanie was getting old, and though Greylag got over his distemper he too was an old horse now. Branty was a splendid four-year-old, much in demand as a stud, which suited him very well indeed, though it interfered with his other duties. Our stable was pretty thin. I said one night, gathering up my nerve as I always did when I spoke to my father now, “We should get a new colt.”

“I’d thought of asking Danno Barre what he’d want for that grey mare.”

“She’s old. If we got a colt or a filly, Gry could train her.”

When you cannot see the speaker, his silence is a mystery. I waited, not knowing if Canoc was considering what I said or had rejected it already.

“I’ll look about,” he said.

“Alloc says there’s a lovely filly over at Callemmant. He heard about her from the smith.”

This time the silence went on. I had to wait a month for the answer.

It arrived in the shape of Alloc shouting at me to come out and see the new filly. I couldn’t do that, but I could come and feel her coat, and scratch her topknot, and swing up in the saddle for a short led walk round the courtyard, Alloc praising her manners and beauty all the way. She was just a year old, he said, a bright bay, with a star, for which she was named. “Can Gry come and work with her?” I asked, and Alloc said, “Oh, she’s to stay there at Roddmant for a year or so and learn her job. She’s too young a lass for your father and me, see.”

When Canoc came in that night, I wanted to thank him. I wanted to go to him and put my arms around him. But I was afraid of blundering in my blindness, afraid of making a clumsy move, afraid he did not want me to touch him.

I said, “I rode the filly, Father,” and he said, “Good,” and bade me goodnight, and I heard his weary tread on the stairs up to the tower room.

SO THROUGH the dark time, Gry could come to me riding Star, two or three or four times in a halfmonth, sometimes even oftener.

When she came we would go out riding together and she would tell me what she and Star were doing. The filly was as sweet as new bread, and as a riding horse needed little teaching, so she was learning fancy gaits and tricks, to show off the trainer, Gry said, as well as the horse. We seldom rode far, for Roanie was getting rheumatic. Then we’d come back to the Stone House, and if it was warm we’d sit out in the kitchen gardens, or in cold or rainy weather in the corner of the great hearth, to talk.

There were many times in the first year after my mother died that though I was glad Gry was there, I could not talk. I had nothing to say. There was a blankness, a deadness around me I could not get through with words.

Gry would talk a little, telling me what news she had, and then fall into silence with me. It was as easy to sit in silence with her as it was with Coaly. I was grateful to her for that.

I cannot remember much of that year. I had sunk into the black blankness. There was nothing for me to do. My only use was to be useless. I would never learn to use my gift: only not to use it. I would sit here in the hall of the Stone House and people would be afraid of me, and that was all my purpose in life. I might as well be an idiot like the poor child at Drummant. It would make no difference. I was a bogey in a blindfold.

For days at a time I said nothing to anyone. Sosso and Rab and the other people about the house tried to talk to me, cheer me; they brought me tidbits from the kitchen; Rab was brave enough to offer me tasks to do in the household, things I needed no eyes to do and had done for her gladly when I was first blinded. Not now. Alloc would come in with my father at day’s end, and they would talk a little, and I would sit with them in silence. Alloc would try to draw me into the conversation. I would not be drawn. Canoc would say to me, stiffly, “Are you well, Orrec?” or, “Did you ride today?” And I would say yes.

I think now he suffered as much as I did from our estrangement. All I knew then was that he was not paying the price I paid for our gift.

All through that winter, I made plans of how I could get to Drummant, get within sight of Ogge, and destroy him. I would have to take off the blindfold, of course. Over and over I imagined it: I would go out before daylight, taking Branty, for the older horses were not fast or strong enough. I’d ride all day to Drummant, and wait hidden somewhere till night, and wait till Ogge came out. No, better, I might disguise myself. The people at Drummant had only seen me with the blindfold, and I was growing taller, my voice had begun to deepen. I’d wear a serf’s cloak, not the coat and kilt. They wouldn’t know me. I’d leave Branty hidden in the woods, for he was a horse people would recognise, and I’d stroll in on foot, like a roving farmer lad from the Glens, and wait till Ogge appeared: and then, with one look, one word— And as they all stood in horror and amazement, I’d slip out, back to the woods, back to Branty, gallop home, and say to Canoc, “You were afraid to go kill him, so I did it.”

But I did not do it. I believed the story as I told it to myself, but not when it was over.

I told it to myself so often that I wore it out, and then I had no story to tell at all.

I went far into the dark, that year.

Somewhere in the dark at last I turned around, not knowing I was doing so. It was Chaos, there was no forward and back, no direction; but I turned, and the way I went then was back, towards the light. Coaly was my companion in the dark and the silence. Gry was my guide on the way back.

She came once when I was sitting in the hearth seat. There was no fire, it was May or June, and only the kitchen fire was lighted; but the hearth seat was where I sat most of the day, most days. I heard her come, the light clatter of Star’s hoofs in the courtyard, Gry’s voice, Sosso greeting her and saying, “He’s where he always is”—and then her hand on my shoulder; but more, this time; she leaned down and kissed my cheek.

I had not been kissed, I had scarcely been touched, by any human being since my mother’s death. The touch ran through my body like lightning through a cloud. I caught my breath with the shock and sweetness of it.

“Ash-Prince,” Gry said. She smelled of horse sweat and grass, and her voice was the wind in the leaves. She sat down beside me. “Do you remember that?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, you must. You remember all the stories. But that one was a long time ago. When we were little.”

I still said nothing. The habit of silence is lead on the tongue. She went on, “The Ash-Prince was the boy who slept in the hearth corner because his parents wouldn’t let him have a bed—”

“Foster parents.”

“That’s right. His parents lost him. How do you lose a boy? They must have been very careless.”

“They were a king and queen. A witch stole him.”

“That’s right! He went outdoors to play, and the witch came out of the forest—and she held out a sweet ripe pear—and as soon as he bit into it she said, Ah, ha, sticky-chin, you’re mine!’” Gry laughed with delight as she recovered this. “So they called him Stickychin! But then what happened?”

“The witch gave him to a poor couple who already had six children and didn’t want a seventh. But she paid them with a gold piece to take him in and bring him up.” The language, the rhythm of the words, brought the story I had not thought of for ten years straight to my mind, and with it the music of my mother’s voice as she told it. “So he became their serf and servant, at their beck and call, and it was, ‘Stickychin, do this!’ and ‘Stickychin, do that!’ and never a free moment for him till late at night when all the work was done and he could creep into the hearth corner and sleep in the warm ashes.”

I stopped.

“Oh, Orrec, go on,” Gry said very low.

So I went on and told the tale of the Ash-Prince, and how he came into his kingdom at last.

When I was done there was a little silence. Gry blew her nose. “Think of crying over a fairy tale,” she said. “But it made me think of Melle…Coaly, you have ashy paws. Give me your paw. Yes.” Some cleaning operation ensued, and Coaly stood up and shook herself with great vigor. “Let’s go out,” said Gry, and she too stood up, but I sat still.

“Come see what Star can do,” she coaxed.

She said “see,” and so did I usually, for it’s laborious to find some other, more exact, exclusive word every time; but this time, because something had changed in me, because I had turned around and did not know it, I broke out—“I can’t see what Star does. I can’t see anything. There’s no use in it, Gry. Go on home. It’s stupid, you coming here. It’s no use.”

There was a little pause. Gry said, “I can decide that for myself, Orrec.”

“Then do it. Use your head!”

“Use your own. There’s nothing wrong with it except that you don’t use it any more. Exactly like your eyes!”

At that the rage broke out in me, the old, stifling, smothering rage of frustration I had felt when I tried to use my gift. I reached out for my staff, Blind Caddard’s staff, and stood up. “Get out, Gry,” I said. “Get out before I hurt you.”

“Lift your blindfold, then!”

Goaded to fury, I struck out at her with the staff-blindly The blow fell on air and darkness.

Coaly gave a sharp, warning bark, and I felt her come up hard against my knees, blocking me from going forward.

I reached down and stroked her head. “It’s all right, Coaly,” I muttered. I was shaking with stress and shame.

Gry spoke presently from a little distance away. “I’ll be in the stable. Roanie hasn’t been out for days. I want to look at her legs. We can ride if you want to.” And she left.

I rubbed my hands over my face. Both hands and face felt gritty I was probably smearing ash on my face and hair. I went to the scullery and stuck my head in the water and washed my hands, and then told Coaly to take me to the stable. My legs were still shaky. I felt as I thought a very old man must feel; and Coaly knew it, going slower than usual, taking care of me.

My father and Alloc were out on the stallions. Roanie had the stable to herself and was in the big stall, where the horse could lie down. Coaly led me to her. Gry said, “Feel here. That’s the rheumatism.” She took my hand and guided it to the horse’s foreleg, the hock and powerful, delicate cannon bone up to the knee. I could feel the burning heat in the joints.

“Oh, Roanie,” Gry said, softly whacking the old mare, who groaned and leaned up against her as she always did when she was petted or curried.

“I don’t know if I should be riding her,” I said.

“I don’t know. She should have some exercise, though.”

“I can walk her out.”

“Maybe you should. You’ve got so much heavier.”

It was true. Inactive as I had been for so long, and though food had little taste or savor to it ever since I had put on the blindfold, I was always hungry, and Rab and Sosso and the kitchen girls could feed me if they could do nothing else for me. I had put on weight, and grown taller so fast that my bones ached at night. I was always knocking my head on lintels that hadn’t been anywhere near it last year.

I put the lead on Roanie’s bridle—I had considerable skill at doing such things by now—and led her out, while Gry took Star to the mounting block and got up on her bareback. So we went out of the courtyard and up the glen path, Coaly leading me and I leading Roanie. I could hear how uneven her steps were behind me. “It’s like she’s saying ow, ow, ow,” I said.

“She is,” said Gry, riding ahead.

“Can you hear her?”

“If I make the link.”

“Can you hear me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t make the link.”

“Why not?”

“Words get in the way. Words and… everything. I can make a link with little tiny babies. That’s how we know when a woman’s pregnant. We can make a link. But as the baby gets human, it goes out of reach. You can’t call, you can’t hear.”

We went on in silence. The farther we went, the easier it seemed to be for Roanie, so we circled round to the Ashbrook path. I said, “Tell me what it looks like, when we come to that place.”

“It hasn’t changed much,” Gry said when we came past the ruined hillside. “A little more grass. But it’s still what’s-its-name.”

“Chaos. Is the tree still there?”

“Just a snag of it.”

We turned back there. I said, “You know, what’s strange is that I can’t even remember doing that. As if I opened my eyes and it was done.”

“But isn’t that how your gift works?”

“No. Not with your eyes closed! Why else am I wearing this damned bandage? So I can’t do it!”

“But being a wild gift— You didn’t mean to do it— And it happened so fast—”

“I suppose so.” But I had meant to do it, I thought.

Roanie and I plodded on while the others danced before us.

“Orrec, I’m sorry I said to lift your blindfold.”

“I’m sorry I missed you with that staff.”

She didn’t laugh, but I felt better.

IT WAS NOT THAT day, but not very long after, that Gry asked me about the books—meaning what Melle had written in the autumn and winter of her illness. She asked where the books were.

“In the chest in her room.” I still jealously thought of it as her room, though it was where Canoc had sat and slept for a year and a half now.

“I wonder if I could read them.”

“You’re the only person in the Uplands that could,” I said with the random bitterness that came into all my words now.

“I don’t know. It was always so hard. I can’t remember some of the letters now… But you could read them.”

“Oh yes. When I take the blindfold off. When pigs fly.”

“But listen, Orrec.”

“That’s the one thing I can do.”

“You could try reading. You could try just for a little while, just with one of the books. Not looking at anything else.” Gry’s voice had gone husky. “You aren’t going to destroy everything you look at! If all you look at is what your mother wrote! She wrote it all for you.”

Gry did not know that I had seen Melle’s face before she died. No one knew that but my father. No one knew what I knew, that I would never have hurt Melle. Would I destroy, now, the one thing she had left me?

I couldn’t answer Gry at all.

I had never promised my father not to lift the blindfold. There was no bond of words, but there was a bond, and it held me. Yet it had held me when there was no need for it—it had kept me from seeing my mother all the last year of her life, and made me useless to her, for no reason. Or rather, for the reason that my blindness was useful to my father, making me his weapon, his threat against enemies. But was my loyalty only to him?

I could not get any further than that for a long time. Gry said no more about it, and I thought I had put it out of my head.

But along in the autumn, as we were in the stable together, I rubbing liniment into Roanie’s knees and Canoc paring at a hoof that was giving Greylag trouble, I said abruptly, “Father, I want to see those books Mother wrote.”

“Books?” he said in a bewildered voice.

“The book she made me a long time ago, and the ones she wrote when she was sick. They’re in the chest. In the tower room.”

Out of a silence he said, “What good are they to you?

“I want to have them. She made them for me.”

“Take them if you want.”

“I will,” I said, and Roanie stepped back, because in fighting my anger I had gripped her sore knee too hard. I hated my father. He cared nothing for me, nothing for the work my mother had spent her last energy on, nothing for anything but being Brantor of Caspromant and forcing everybody to his will.

I finished with the mare, washed my hands, and went straight to the tower room while I knew my father would not be there. Coaly led me eagerly up the stairs, as if she expected to find Melle there. The room was cold and had a desolate feel to it. I blundered about finding the chest, and put my hand out to find the footboard of the bed. The shawl lay folded on it, the brown shawl my grandmother had woven and my mother had worn when she was cold, when she was dying. I knew the feel of it, the rough softness of the homespun wool. I stooped and buried my face in it. But I did not breathe in the scent of my mother, the faint fragrance I remembered. The shawl smelled of sweat and salt.

“To the window, Coaly,” I said, and we managed to locate the chest. I raised the lid and felt the sheets of linen canvas stacked inside it. There was much more than I could carry one-handed. I felt down among the stiff pieces until I came to the bound book, the first she had made me, the History of Lord Raniu. I took it out and closed the lid. As Coaly led me out of the room I reached out and touched the shawl again, with a queer pinching at my heart that I didn’t try to understand.

All I had in mind was to have the book, to have the thing Mother had given me, made for me, left to me. That was enough. So I thought. I put it on the table in my room, where everything had its place and was never out of its place and no one was allowed to touch anything. I went in to supper, and ate in silence with my silent father.

At the end of the meal, he asked, “Did you find the book?” He said the word hesitantly.

I nodded, with a sudden spiteful pleasure, jeering at him in my mind: You don’t know what it is, you don’t know what to do with it, you can’t read!

And when I was alone in my room, I sat at the table for some while, and then deliberately and carefully slipped off the blindfold and took the pads from my eyes.

And saw darkness.

I almost screamed aloud. My heart beat with terror and my head spun, and it was I don’t know how long before I realised that somewhere in front of me hung a shape full of tiny blurred silver specks. I was seeing it. It was the window frame, and the stars.

There was, after all, no light in my room. I would have to go to the kitchen to fetch a flint and steel and a lamp or candle. And what would they say in the kitchen if I asked for such things?

As I grew a little more used to seeing, I could make out the whitish oblong of the book on the table in the starlight. I ran my hand over it, and saw the shadowy movement. To make the movement and to see it gave me such pleasure that I did it again and again. I looked up, and saw the autumn stars. I gazed at them long enough that I saw their slow movement to the west. It was enough.

I put the pads back over my eyes and tied the blindfold carefully, and undressed, and got into bed.

I had never thought for a moment, as I looked at the book and my hand, that I might destroy them; the thought of my perilous gift had not entered my mind; it had been filled with the gift of seeing. Because I could see, could I destroy the stars?