Deerskin - Robin McKinley

The next morning Lissar had two rabbits flung over her shoulder; this morning she met a man trudging toward her with a mysterious bit of ironwork over his shoulder. She guessed he was on his way to the smithy she had seen as they trotted through a village in the dark hour just before dawn. Smithy, her mind had told her, the mountaintop voice had told her; she listened. She had been emboldened by her first conversation with the man at his gate, and was almost sorry to be passing through her first village while everyone was sleeping. Not one glimpse of candlelight did she see, not one person waiting up for a birth or a death, or putting the last stitches in a wedding-dress or a shroud.

This man had his head bent, his back bowed with the weight of his load. "Good morrow," she said as she approached; he looked up in surprise, for he had not heard her footsteps, and she further knew, and was glad for the relief the knowledge brought her that her accent branded her a stranger.

"Good morrow," he said, politely, the curiosity in his face open but not unkind.

"Do you know anyone hereabout who would be willing to trade a fresh-killed rabbit for a loaf of bread?" She had thought of doing this just after she had left the man with his hand on his gate-latch, and the hope of its success made her mouth water. She had not eaten any bread since she had left the hut, and remembered further that not all bread was necessarily slightly gritty and musty-tasting.

A flash of white teeth. "Ask for two loaves," he said, "which is more nearly a fair trade. Your catch looks plump, and the skins are worth something besides. Ask for some of last year's apples too, or maybe a pumpkin that wintered over."

She smiled back at him. It was an involuntary gesture, his smile begetting hers; yet she found the sense of contact pleasant, and she saw that he was pleased that she smiled. "My wife would give you bread," he went on; "she did her baking yesterday.

And we've still a few turnips and pumpkins in the barn. You ask her. My name is Barley. The house isn't far; there's a red post out front, you'll see it. Her name is Ammy. There are chickens in the yard. 'Ware the black and white hen; she's a devil.

Dog's tied up out back, won't trouble yours." Any other dog he might have questioned the manners of, in a yard full of chickens; somehow he did not question this dog any more than he felt the need to question the woman. His own dog was of a more ordinary breed; he and his wife were as well.

"I am grateful for your hospitality," Lissar said gravely, and they parted.

She found the red post without difficulty; and the black and white hen took one look at Ash and retired from the field. The house door opened before they arrived at the step, and a smiling woman looked out at them, a curiosity a little touched with awe, much like her husband's, bright in her eyes.

"B-Barley said you might trade us a loaf of bread for my rabbits," said Lissar. As soon as she had really to ask barter of a person who could say yes or no, she lost all faith that her offer was a reasonable one; forgot what Barley had said, forgot that this was his wife and that he had already bargained with her for a better price than she asked. She found, too, that it was hard to pronounce his name, to say to his wife, I know this person well enough to have his name to use.

The woman's eyes moved to the limp, furry forms dangling from Lissar's shoulder. "I can do better than that," said she, "and shame to him if he did not tell you so. Come in. I'll give you breakfast. And I'll cook both rabbits, and you can take one away with you, and two loaves of bread."

"I thank you," said Lissar shyly, and ducked her head under the low lintel. "He-he did say that one loaf was too little."

"I'm glad to hear it." The woman glanced again at Lissar, measuringly, this time, and said, hesitantly, "I mean no offense, but I think you have been on the road a long time. Is there anything an ordinary house and an ordinary house-woman might offer you?"

"Soap," breathed Lissar in a long sigh, only just realizing she was saying it, not conscious of the thought that must have preceded it. "And hot water."

The woman laughed, and was more comfortable at once, for her visitor's exotic looks had made her wonder ... well, it was no matter what she had wondered, for this woman's answer was just what she would herself have answered in similar circumstances. "I can give you a bath by the fire. Barley won't return before sundown, there are only the two of us."

It seemed the greatest luxury Lissar could imagine, a bath, hot water in a tub big enough to sit in, beside a hearth with a fire burning. She watched in a haze of happiness as the great kettle she had helped fill from a well-spout in the yard came to a slow Irickle of steam over the fire. She ate breakfast while the water heated; Ammy declared that she had eaten already, but she fried eggs and bread and slabs of smoked meat, and long thin spicy greens and short frilly mild ones, and Lissar ate it all. Ammy, watching her narrowly, then did it all over again. She had much experience of farm appetities, and Lissar ate like a harvester at the end of a long sennight. By the time Lissar had eaten her second enormous meal she had slowed down a good deal and Ammy did not threaten her with a third.

Ash, meanwhile, had swallowed three bowlsful-tureensful-of a mixture not wholly unlike what was more neatly arranged on Lissar's plate, and then flopped down where she was-in the middle of the floor, so that Ammy and Lissar then had constantly to step over her-and soon began snoring gently.

"And here is your bread," Ammy said, plunking down two great swollen loaves on the table that Lissar felt almost too full to push herself away from. She shook her head. "You made a very bad bargain. I will leave you both rabbits for breakfast alone."

"You may leave me both rabbits and I will make a stew which you may have some of for dinner or supper, after your bath and a nap. When you leave I will give you something to carry the bread in," said Ammy briskly.

There was enough room in the tub that with her knees drawn up Lissar could sink down till her whole head disappeared underwater. The water was so hot even her uncovered knees throbbed with it, and the feeling of the warmth beating against her closed eyes was delicious. She felt her skin relaxing, as if even the hairs on the backs of her arms, at the nape of her neck, had been on watch these long months past, and felt easy at last. She sat up again, partly to breathe, partly because her full stomach protested being folded up so snugly.

"You're as red as winter flannel," said Ammy, laying down towels. "I'll leave you alone now; soak as long as you like." But Lissar, leaning her head back against the lip of the tub, found herself growing uncomfortable. As her body relaxed, something that the tension of the long travel-stained weeks had held prisoner threatened to break out of its weakened bonds. A bath by the fire, she thought ... In the wintertime, her mind went on, slowly, when the big grand stone-walled bathroom was too cold.... The stone stood in tall narrow panels, black, white, black, all veined with gold and grey, and polished so smooth that fingers were briefly deluded into thinking it was soft.... What ... ? And, unbidden, the memory of a small round room came to her, its walls hung with tapestries and rose-colored silk, and a bath drawn up by the fire, and a table with a meal for one person and one dog stood beside it.

As she sat in the tub, the bed would be just behind her, there-She stood up and spun around, spraying the room with water. Ash, who had been struck in the face with a hot wet wave, opened one eye and registered a complaint; but Lissar was standing, staring at nothing-nothing but a table with shelves beyond it bearing ordinary kitchen things, bowls, plates, a spare pot, a cleaver, a grinder, several spoons-and shivering as if she stood naked in a blizzard.