Ursula Le Guin - Gifts

It was strange and wearisome to ride all day seeing nothing of the country we rode through, aware only of the sound of hoofs on soft or stony ground, the creak of saddles, the smell of horse sweat and broom flower, the touch of the wind, guessing what the road must be like by Roanie’s gait. Unable to be ready for a change, a stumble, a sway, a check, I was always tense in the saddle, and often had to abandon shame and hold the pommel to keep myself steady. Mostly we had to ride single file, so there was no conversation. We paused now and then so Mother could give the chicks water, and we stopped at midday to rest and water the horses and to eat our lunch. The chicks chirped and cheeped vigorously over the feed Mother scattered in their basket. I asked where we were. Under Black Crag, Father said, in the domain of the Cordes. I could not imagine the place, never having been so far to the west of Caspromant. We soon went on, and to me the afternoon was a dull, long, black dream.

“By the Stone!” my father said. He never swore, not even such a mild old-fashioned oath as that, and it startled me out of my trance. My mother was riding in front, for there was no mistaking the path, and my father behind, keeping an eye on us. She had not heard him speak, but I asked, “What is it?”

“Our heifers,” he said, “over there.” And remembering I could not see where he pointed, “There’s a herd of cattle in the meadows under the hill there, and two of them are white. The rest are duns and roans.” He was silent a moment, probably straining his eyes to see. “They have the hump, and the shallow horns,” he said. “It’s them all right.”

We had all stopped, and Mother asked, “Are we still in Cordemant?”

“Drummant,” my father said. “For the past hour. But those are the Rodd breed. And my cows, I think. If I got closer to them, I could be sure of it.”

“Not now, Canoc,” she said. “It’ll be getting dark before long. We ought to go on.” There was strong apprehension in her voice. He heeded it.

“Right you are,” he said, and I heard Greylag step forward, and Roanie followed him without my needing to signal her, and the colt’s light step followed us.

We came to the Stone House of Drummant, and that was hard for me, that arrival in a strange place among strangers. My mother took my arm as soon as I dismounted and hung on to me, maybe to reassure herself as well as me. Among the many voices, I heard Ogge Drum’s, loud and genial. “Well, well, well, so you did come at last! And welcome to you! Welcome to Drummant! We’re poor folk here but what we have we share! What’s this, what’s this, the boy bandaged up like this? What’s the trouble then, lad? Weak eyes, is it?”

“Ah, we could wish it were that,” Canoc said lightly. He was a fencer; but Ogge was no swordsman, he used a bludgeon. A bully doesn’t answer you; he may hear but pays no heed; he talks on as if you were of no account, and it gives him the advantage always at the start, though not always in the end.

“Well, what a shame, to be led about like a baby, but no doubt he’ll grow out of it. Come this way, come this way. See to their horses, there! Barro, fetch the maids to call my lady!” and so on, a shouting of orders and commands, a great commotion, much coming and going, many voices. There were people all round me, crowds of unseen, unknown people. My mother was explaining to someone about the basket of chicks for the brantor’s wife. She kept hold of my arm as I was dragged over thresholds and up stairs. My head was whirling by the time we stopped. We were brought basins of water, and people buzzed all around us as we hurriedly washed off our travel dirt and brushed our clothes and Mother changed her dress.

Then it was down stairs again, and we came into a room which, by the sound of the echoes, was a great, tall one. There was a hearth: I could hear the crackle of the fire and feel a bit of warmth on my legs and face. Mother kept her hand on my shoulder. “Orrec,” she said, “here is the brantor’s wife, the lady Denno,” and I bowed in the direction of the hoarse, tired-sounding voice that bade me be welcome to Drummant.

There followed other introductions—the brantor’s elder son Harba and his wife, his younger son Sebb and his wife, his daughter and her husband, the grown children of some of these, and other people of the household—all names without faces, voices in the dark. My mother’s shy, gracious voice was drowned out by these loud talkers, and I couldn’t help but hear how different from them she sounded, how foreign in her Lowland courtesies, even in her pronunciation of some words.

My father was close to me too, right behind me. He didn’t talk on at length the way the Drum men did, but made prompt, affable responses, laughed at their jokes, and spoke to several of the men there with what sounded like the pleasure of renewing a friendship. One of these men, a Barre, I think, said, “So the lad’s got the wild eye, has he?” and Canoc said, “He does,” and the other man said, “Well, never fear, he’ll grow into his power,” and began a story about a boy of Olmmant whose gift was wild till he was twenty. I tried hard to hear the story, but the clamor of voices kept drowning it out.

After a while we went to table, and that was a terrible strain, for it takes a long time to learn to eat in a decent fashion if you cannot see, and I had not got the skill yet. I was afraid to touch anything for fear of spilling it or soiling myself. They had tried to seat me away from my mother, and Brantor Ogge called for her to join the men at the head of the table, but she gently and immovably insisted on sitting next to me.

She helped me to a chop I could pick up in my ringers and gnaw without shocking anybody’s sensibilities. Not that they went in much for fine manners at Drummant, to judge by the noises of chewing and gulping and belching all round me.

My father was seated farther up the table, near or next to Ogge, and as the noise of talk slackened a bit, I heard his quiet voice, unmistakable, though there was a tone to it, a kind of lilt I’d never heard before: “I want to thank you, Brantor, for looking after my heifers. I’ve been cursing myself for a fool all month for not keeping my fences mended. They jumped them, of course. They’re light-footed, those Rodd cattle. I’d all but given that pair up. Thought they’d be down in Dunet by now! And so they would be if your people hadn’t kept them safe for me.” By this time nobody at that end of the table was saying a word, though at our end some of the women were still chattering. “I counted a good deal on those heifers,” Canoc went on in the same open, confident, almost confiding way. “I have it in mind to build up a herd such as Blind Caddard had. So my hearty thanks to you, and the first calf one of them drops, bull or heifer as you please, is yours. You have only to send for it, Brantor Ogge.”

There was just the one beat of silence, and then somebody near Canoc said, “Well said, well said!” and other voices joined in, but I did not hear Ogge speak.

The dinner was over at last, and my mother asked to be shown to her room, taking me with her. I heard Ogge then: “Oh, you’ll not take young Orrec off already? He’s not such a child as that, is he? Sit up with the men, boy, and taste my spring brewing!” But Melle pleaded that I was tired from the long day’s ride, and the brantor’s wife Denno said in her hoarse, tired voice, “Let the boy be for tonight, Ogge,” and so we escaped, though my father had to stay and drink with the men.

It was late, I think, when he came up to the bedroom; I had been asleep, but I roused up when he knocked over a stool and made some other clatter.

“You’re drunk!” Melle whispered, and he said, louder than he meant to, “Horse-piss beer!” She laughed, and he snorted.