Ursula Le Guin - Gifts

I suppose it seems strange that, after the intense delight of reading these precious gifts my mother left for me, I was willing to close the darkness down on my eyes again and stumble through the day led by a dog. I was not merely willing, I was ready. The only way I could defend Caspromant was by being blind, so I was blind. I had found a redeeming joy to lighten my duty, but it was no less my duty.

I was aware that I hadn’t found this redemption for myself. It was Gry who had said, “You could read them.” It being autumn, she was busy at Roddmant with the harvest and could seldom come over; but as soon as she did, I took her to my room and showed her the box of writings and told her that I was reading them.

She seemed more distracted or embarrassed than pleased, and was in a hurry to leave the room. She had a keener sense than I did, of course, of the risk she ran. People of the domains were by no means strict with girls, and nobody in the Uplands saw anything unseemly in young people riding and walking and talking together outdoors or where other people might come; but for a girl of fifteen to go to a boy’s bedroom was going too far. Rab and Sosso would have scolded us savagely, and worse, some of the others, the spinning women or the kitchen help, might have gossiped. When this possibility finally dawned upon me, I felt my face turn red. We went outdoors without a word, and weren’t easy with each other till we had talked about horses for half an hour.

Then we were able to discuss what I had been reading. I recited one of the chants of Odressel for Gry. It exalted my heart, but she wasn’t much impressed. She preferred stories. I couldn’t explain to her how the poems I read fascinated me. I tried to work out how they were put together, how this word returned, or this sound or rhyme came back, or the beat wove through the words. All this hung in my mind as I went about the rest of the day in the darkness. I would try to fit words of my own into the patterns I had found, and sometimes it worked. That gave me intense, pure pleasure, a pleasure that endured, returning each time I thought of those words, that pattern, that poem.

Gry was low in spirits that day, and again the next time she came. It was rainy October by then, and we sat in the chimney corner to talk. Rab brought us a plate full of oatcakes and I slowly devoured them while Gry sat mostly silent. At last she said, “Orrec, why do you think we have the gifts?”

“To defend our people with.”

“Not mine.”

“No; but you can hunt for them, help them get food, train animals to work for them.”

“Yes. But your gift. Or Father’s. To destroy. To kill.”

“There has to be somebody who can do it.”

“I know. But did you know… Father can take a splinter out of your finger, or a thorn out of your foot, with the knife gift. So neat and quick, it only bleeds one drop. He just looks, and it’s out… And Nanno Corde. She can make people deaf and blind, but did you know she unsealed a deaf boy’s ears? He was deaf and dumb, he could only make signs with his mother, but now he can hear enough to learn to talk. She says she did it the same way she’d deafen somebody, only one way goes forward and the other backward.”

That was intriguing, and we discussed it a little, but it didn’t mean much to me. It did to Gry. She said, “I wonder if all the gifts are backward.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not the calling. You can use it forward or backward.

But the knife, or the Cordes’ sealing—maybe they’re backward. Maybe they were useful for curing people, to begin with. For healing. And then people found out they could be weapons and began to use them that way, and forgot the other way…Even the rein, that the Tibros have, maybe at first it was just a gift of working with people, and then they made it go backward, to make people work for them.”

“What about the Morgas?” I asked. “Their gift isn’t a weapon.”

“No— It’s only good for finding out what people are sick with, so you know how to heal them. It doesn’t work for making them sick. It only goes forward. That’s why the Morgas have to hide out back there where nobody else comes.”

“All right. But some of the gifts never went forward. What about the Helvars’ cleaning? What about my gift?”

“They could have been healing, to begin with. If there was something wrong inside a person, or an animal, something out of order, like a hard knot—maybe it was a gift of untying it—setting it right, putting it in order.”

That had an unexpected ring of probability to me. I knew exactly what she meant. It was like the poetry I made in my head, the tangled confusion of words that fell suddenly into a pattern, a clarity, and you recognised it: that’s it, that’s right.

“But then why did we stop doing that and only use it to make people’s insides into an awful mess?”

“Because there are so many enemies. But maybe also because you can’t use the gift both ways. You can’t go backward and forward at the same time.”

I knew from her voice that she was saying something important to her. It had to do with her use of her own gift, but I wasn’t certain what it was.

“Well, if anybody could teach me how to use my gift to do instead of undo, I’d try to learn,” I said, not too seriously.

“Would you?” She was serious.

“No,” I said. “Not till I’d destroyed Ogge Drum.”

She gave a great sigh.

I brought my fist down on the stone of the hearth seat and said, “I will. I will destroy that fat adder, when I can! Why doesn’t Canoc? What’s he waiting for? For me? He knows I can’t—I can’t control the gift— He can. How can he sit here and not go revenge my mother!”

I had never said this before to Gry scarcely to myself. I was hot with sudden anger as I spoke. Her reply was cold.

“Do you want your father dead?”

“I want Drum dead!”

“You know Ogge Drum goes about day and night with bodyguards, men with swords and knives, cross-bowmen. And his son Sebb has his gift, and Ren Corde serves him, and all his people are on the watch for anyone from Caspromant. Do you want Canoc to go striding in there and be killed?”

“No—”

“You don’t think he’d kill from behind—the way he did? Sneaking in the dark? You think Canoc would do that?”

“No,” I said, and put my head in my hands.

“My father says he’s been afraid for two years now that Canoc’s going to get on his horse and ride to Drummant to kill Ogge Drum. The way he rode to Dunet. Only alone.”

I had nothing to say. I knew why Canoc had not done so. For the sake of his people who needed his protection. For my sake.

After a long time, Gry said, “Maybe you can’t use your gift forward, only backward, but I can use mine forward.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I am,” she said. “Though my mother doesn’t think so.” She got up abruptly and said, “Coaly! Come for a walk.”

“What do you mean about your mother?”

“I mean she wants me to go back to Borremant with her for the winter hunts. And if I won’t go with her and learn to call to the hunt, she says then I’d better find myself a husband, and soon, because I can’t expect the people of Roddmant to support me if I won’t use my gift.”

“But—what does Ternoc say?”

“Father is troubled and worried and doesn’t want me to upset Mother and doesn’t understand why I don’t want to be a brantor.”

I could tell that Coaly was standing, patient, but ready for the promised walk. I got up too, and we went out into the drizzling, windless air.

“Why don’t you?” I asked.

“It’s all in the story about the ants. —Come on!” She set off into the rain. Coaly tugged me after her.