Ursula Le Guin - Tehanu The Last Book of Earthsea

“Come in!” she said.”

They came in: five men, seeming twice as many in the low-ceilinged room, and tall, and grand. They looked about them, and she saw what they saw.

They saw a woman standing at a table, holding a long, sharp knife. On the table was a chopping board and on that, to one side, a little heap of naked greenish-white legs; to the other, a heap of fat, bloody, dead frogs. In the shadow behind the door something lurked-a child, but a child deformed, mismade, half-faced, claw-handed.” On a bed in an alcove beneath the single window sat a big, bony young woman, staring at them with her mouth wide open. Her hands were bloody and muddy and her dank skirt smelled of marsh-water. When she saw them look at her, she tried to hide her face with her skirt, baring her legs to the thigh.

They looked away from her, and from the child, and there was no one else to look at but the woman with the dead frogs.

“Mistress Goha,” one of them repeated.”

“So I’m called,” she said.

“We come from Havnor, from the King,” said the civil voice.” She could not see his face clearly against the light. “We seek the Archmage, Sparrowhawk of Gont.” King Lebannen is to be crowned at the turn of autumn, and he seeks to have the Archmage, his lord and friend, with him to make ready for the coronation, and to crown him, if he will.””

The man spoke steadily and formally, as to a lady in a palace.” He wore sober breeches of leather and a linen shirt dusty from the climb up from Gont Port, but itwas fine cloth, with embroidery of gold thread at the throat.”

“He’s not here,” Tenar said.”

A couple of little boys from the village peered in at the door and drew back, peered again, fled shouting.

“Maybe you can tell us where he is, Mistress Goha,” said the man.

“I cannot.”

She looked at them all. The fear of them she had felt at first-caught from Sparrowhawk’s panic, perhaps, or mere foolish fluster at seeing strangers-was subsiding. Here she stood in Ogion’s house; and she knew well enough why Ogion had never been afraid of great people.”

“You must be tired after that long road,’ ‘ she said. “Will you sit down? There’s wine.” Here, I must wash the glasses.”

She carried the chopping board over to the sideboard, put the frogs’ legs in the larder, scraped the rest into the swill-pail that Heather would carry to Weaver Fan’s pigs, washed her hands and arms and the knife at the basin, poured fresh water, and rinsed out the two glasses she and Sparrowhawk had drunk from.” There was one other glass in the cabinet, and two clay cups without handles. She set these on the table, and poured wine for the visitors; there was just enough left in the bottle to go round. They had exchanged glances, and had not sat down.” The shortage of chairs excused that. The rules of hospitality, however, bound them to accept what she offered. Each man took glass or cup from her with a polite murmur.” Saluting her, they drank.

“My word!” said one of them.

“Andrades-the Late Harvest, said another, with round eyes.”

A third shook his head.” “Andrades-the Dragon Year,” he said solemnly.”

The fourth nodded and sipped again, reverent.” The fifth, who was the first to have spoken, lifted his clay cup to Tenar again and said, “You honor us with a king’s wine, mistress.””

“It was Ogion’s,” she said. “This was Ogion’s house. This is Aihal’s house.” You knew that, my lords?”

“We did, mistress. The king sent us to this house, believing that the archmage would come here; and, when word of the death of its master came to Roke and I-Iavnor, yet more certain of it.” But it was a dragon that bore the archmage from Roke. And no word or sending has come from him since then to Roke or to the king. And it is much in the king’s heart, and much in the interest of us all, to know the archmage is here, and is well. Did he come here, mistress?”

“I cannot say,” she said, but it was a poor equivocation, repeated, and she could see that the men thought so. She drew herself up, standing behind the table.” “I mean that I will not say. I think if the archmage wishes to come, he will come.” If he wishes not to be found, you will not find him. Surely you will not seek him out against his will.”

The oldest of the men, and the tallest, said, “The king’s will is ours.”

The first speaker said more conciliatingly, “We are only messengers. What is between the king and the archmage of the Isles is between them. We seek only to bring the message, and the reply.”

“If I can, I will see that your message reaches him.”

“And the reply?’ ‘ the oldest man demanded.”

She said nothing, and the first speaker said, “We’ll be here some few days at the house of the Lord of Re Albi, who, hearing of our ship’s arrival, offered us his hospitality. ‘ ‘

She felt a sense of a trap laid or a noose tightening, though she did not know why. Sparrowhawk’s vulnerability, his sense of his own weakness, had infected her.” Distraught, she used the defense of her appearance, her seeming to be a mere goodwife, a middle-aged housekeeper-but was it seeming? It was also truth, and these matters were more subtle even than the guises and shape-changes of wizards.- She ducked her head and said, “That will be more befitting your lordships’ comfort. You see we live very plain here, as the old mage did.””

“And drink Andrades wine,” said the one who had identified the vintage, a bright-eyed, handsome man with a winning smile. She, playing her part, kept her head down. But as they took their leave and filed out, she knew that, seem what she might and be what she might, if they did not know now that she was Tenar of the Ring they would know itsoon enough; and so would know that she herself knew the archmage and was indeed their way to him, if they were determined to seek him out.”

When they were gone, she heaved a great sigh.” Heather did so too, and then finally shut her mouth, which had hung open all the time they were there.

“I never,” she said, in a tone of deep, replete satisfaction, and went to see where the goats had got to.”

Therru came out from the dark place behind the door, where she had barricaded herself from the strangers with Ogion’s staff and Tenar’s alder stick and her own hazel switch. She moved in the tight, sidling way she had mostly abandoned since they had been here, not looking up, the

ruined half of her face bent down towards the shoulder.

Tenar went to her and knelt to hold her in her arms. “Therru,’ ‘ she said, “they won’t hurt you. They mean no harm.”

The child would not look at her. She let Tenar hold her like a block of wood.”

“If you say so, I won’t let them in the house again.”

After a while the child moved a little and asked in her hoarse, thick voice, “What will they do to Sparrowhawk?’ ‘

“Nothing,” Tenar said. “No harm! They come-they mean to do him honor.”

But she had begun to see what their attempt to do him honor would do to him-denying his loss, denying him his grief for what he had lost, forcing him to act the part of what he was no longer.

When she let the child go, Therru went to the closet and fetched out Ogion’s broom.” She laboriously swept the floor where the men from Havnor had stood, sweeping away their footprints, sweeping the dust of their feet out the door, off the doorstep.

Watching her, Tenar made up her mind.

She went to the shelf where Ogion’s three great books stood, and rummaged there. She found several goose quills and a half-dried-up bottle of ink, but not a scrap of paper or parchment.” She set her jaw, hating to do damage to anything so sacred as a book, and scored and tore out a thin strip of paper from the blank endsheet of the Book of Runes. She sat at the table and dipped the pen and wrote.” Neither the ink nor the words came easy.” She had scarcely written anything since she had sat at this same table a quarter of a century ago, with Ogion looking over her shoulder, teaching her the runes of Hardic and the Great Runes of Power.” She wrote: