Ursula LeGuin: The Other Wind

On most islands of the Archipelago people did not touch palms in greeting as was the way of Enlad, but only bowed the head or held both palms open before the heart, as if in offering. When Irian and the Summoner met, neither bowed or made any gesture. They stood stiff with their hands at their sides.

The princess made her deep, straight-backed courtesy.

Tenar made the conventional gesture, and the Summoner returned it.

"The Woman of Gont, the daughter of the Archmage, Tehanu," Lebannen said. Tehanu dipped her head and made the conventional gesture. But the Master Summoner stared at her, gasped, and stepped back as if he had been struck.

"Mistress Tehanu," said Gamble quickly, coming forward between her and the Summoner, "we welcome you to Roke—for your father's sake, and your mother's, and your own. I hope your voyage was a pleasant one?"

She looked at him in confusion, and ducked, hiding her face, rather than bowed; but she managed to whisper some kind of answer.

Lebannen, his face a bronze mask of calm composure, said, "Yes, it was a good voyage, Gamble, though the end of it is still in doubt. Shall we walk up through the town, now, Tenar—Tehanu—Princess—Orm Irian?" He looked at each as he spoke, saying the last name with particular clarity.

He set off with Tenar, and the others followed. As Seserakh came down the gangplank, she resolutely swept back the red veils from her face.

Gamble walked with Onyx, Alder with Seppel. Tosla stayed with the ship. The last to leave the quay was Brand the Summoner, walking alone and heavily.

Tenar had asked ged about the Grove more than once, liking to hear him describe it. "It seems like any grove of trees, when you see it first. Not very large. The fields come right up to it on the north and east, and there are hills to the south and usually to the west, It looks like nothing much. But it draws your eye. And sometimes, from up on Roke Knoll, you can see that it's a forest, going on and on. You try to make out where it ends, but you can't. It goes off into the west, And when you walk in it, it seems ordinary again, though the trees are mostly a kind that grows only there. Tall, with brown trunks, something like an oak, something like a chestnut."

"What are they called?"

Ged laughed. "Arhada, in the Old Speech. Trees, The trees of the Grove, in Hardic, Their leaves don't all turn in autumn, but some at every season, so the foliage is always green with a gold light in it. Even on a dark day those trees seem to hold some sunlight. And in the night, it's never quite dark under them. There's a kind of glimmer in the leaves, like moonlight or starlight. Willows grow there, and oak, and fir, other kinds; but as you go deeper in, it's more and more only the trees of the Grove. And the roots of those go down deeper than the island. Some are huge trees, some slender, but you don't see many fallen, nor many saplings. They live a long, long time." His voice

had grown soft, dreamy. "You can walk and walk in their shadow, in their light, and never come to the end of them."

"But is Roke so large an island?"

He looked at her peacefully, smiling. "The forests here on Gont Mountain are that forest," he said. "All forests are."

And now she saw the Grove. Following Lebannen, they had come up through the devious streets of Thwil Town, gathering a flock of townsfolk and children come out to see and greet their king. These cheerful followers dropped away little by little as the travelers left the town on a lane between hedges and farms, which petered out into a footpath past the high, round hill, Roke Knoll.

Ged had told her of the Knoll, too. There, he said, all magic is strong; there all things take their true nature. "There," he said, "our wizardry and the Old Powers of the Earth meet, and are one."

The wind blew in the high, half-dry grass on the hill. A donkey colt galloped off stifflegged across a stubble field, flicking and flirting its tail. Cattle walked in slow procession along a fence that crossed a little stream. And there were trees ahead, dark trees, shadowy.

They followed Lebannen through a stile and over a footbridge to a sunlit meadow at the edge of the wood. A small, decrepit house stood near the stream. Irian broke from their group, ran across the grass to the house, and patted the door frame as one would pat and greet a beloved horse or dog after long absence. "Dear house!" she said. And turning to the others, smiling, "I lived here," she said, "when I was Dragonfly."

She looked round, searching the eaves of the wood, and then ran forward again. "Azver!" she called.

A man had come out of the shadow of the trees into the sunlight. His hair shone in it like silver gilt. He stood still as Irian ran to him. He lifted his hands to her, and she caught them in hers. "I won't burn you, I won't burn you this time," she was saying, laughing and crying, though without tears. "I'm keeping my fires out!"

They drew each other close and stood face to face, and he said to her, "Daughter of Kalessin, welcome home."

"My sister is with me, Azver," she said.

He turned his face—a light-skinned, hard, Kargish face, Tenar saw—and looked straight at Tehanu. He came to her. He dropped on both his knees before her. "Hama Gondun!" he said, and again, "Daughter of Kalessin."

Tehanu stood motionless for a moment. Slowly she put out her hand to him—her right hand, the burnt hand, the claw. He took it, bowed his head, and kissed it.

"My honor is that I was your prophet, Woman of Gont," he said, with a kind of exulting tenderness.

Then, rising, he turned at last to Lebannen, made his bow, and said, "My king, be welcome."

"It's a joy to me to see you again, Patterner! But I bring a crowd into your solitude."

"My solitude is crowded already," said the Patterner. "A few live souls might keep the balance."

His eyes, pale grey-blue-green, glanced round among them. He suddenly smiled, a smile of great warmth, surprising on his hard face. "But here are women of my own people," he said in Kargish, and came to Tenar and Seserakh, who stood side by side.

"I am Tenar of Atuan—of Gont," she said. "With me is the High Princess of the Kargad Lands."

He made a proper bow. Seserakh made her stiff courtesy, but her words poured out, tumultuous, in Kargish—"Oh, Lord Priest, I'm glad you're here! If it weren't for my friend Tenar I would have gone mad, thinking nobody was left in the world that could talk like a human being except the idiot women they sent with me from Awabath—but I am learning to speak as they do—and I am learning courage, Tenar is my friend and teacher—But last night I broke taboo! I broke taboo! Oh, Lord Priest, please tell me what I must do to atone! I walked on the Dragons' Way!"

"But you were aboard the ship, princess," said Tenar ("I dreamed," Seserakh said, impatient), "and the Lord Patterner is not a priest but an—a sorcerer—"

"Princess," said Azver the Patterner, "I think we're all walking on the Dragons' Way. And all taboos may well be shaken or broken. Not only in dream. We'll speak of this later, under the trees. Have no fear. But let me greet my friends, if you will?"

Seserakh nodded regally, and he turned away to greet Alder and Onyx.

The princess watched him. "He is a warrior," she said to Tenar in Kargish, with satisfaction. "Not a priest. Priests have no friends."

They all moved on slowly and came under the shadow of the trees.

Tenar looked up into the arcades and groves of branches, the layers and galleries of leaves. She saw oaks and a big hemmen tree, but most were the trees of the Grove. Their oval leaves moved easily in the air, like the leaves of aspen and poplar; some had yellowed, and there was a dapple of gold and brown on the ground at their roots, but the foliage in the morning light was the green of summer, full of shadows and deep light.