Deerskin - Robin McKinley

"Remember," he said, and then turned and left her.

She was standing looking after him when Lilac came up to her. "Come away quickly, before someone else grabs you-you've been on your feet all evening, I've been watching you. You're one of the brightest stars of the ball. Trivelda is going to send someone to spill something on you soon, to get you out of the way. But don't any of these great louts ever think you might want something to eat?"

She smiled at her friend. "Several of them have asked, but I preferred dancing to having to sit down and make conversation."

"If that isn't like you. Conversation is much easier than dancing-I think," she said, a little ruefully.

"Don't try and tell me you don't dance beautifully; I've been watching you too."

Lilac wrinkled her nose. "It depends completely on who I'm with. Ladoc, my friend's cousin, is fun; some of these fellows, well, one or two, my feet may never recover. Come and see the lovely food. I'm starving. And you don't have to make conversation with me if you don't want to."

" `Don't any of these great louts ever think you might want something to eat?' "

"This is the third time I've been down to the tables," said Lilac, handing her a plate. "The servers are beginning to recognize me. Here, this is particularly good,"

she said, thrusting her empty plate under the appropriate server's nose, and seizing Lissar's plate away from her again to proffer it too. "And this."

A little later they looked up when a pair of messenger-clad legs paused in front of them as they sat at a tiny table tucked in with other tiny tables behind the grand display of food. The messenger bowed first to Lilac and then, more deeply, to Lissar.

"The prince's compliments, and if my lady would permit this humble messenger to guide her to him for a brief moment of her time?"

Lissar rose at once. "I'll see you back on the dance floor," said Lilac, licking her fingers and trying not to look unduly curious. The messenger took her back across the long length of the dance floor, toward the far end, where the dais stood, bearing tall chairs for the king, queen, prince and princess of this country as well as the king, queen and princess who were their guests; the fact that this was a ball, and that none of them would sit in the chairs all evening, was beside the point. The latter king and queen were dowdy in comparison to their vivid daughter, but the king looked as if the court he found himself in did not live up to his opinion of his own dignity. He kept scowling at the chairs set out for his family, although they were quite as fine as the others. The queen looked like a frightened chambermaid expecting to be caught out wearing her mistress's clothes, which did not quite fit. She was small, like her daughter, but Trivelda's hauteur came obviously from her father.

Courtiers stood near the dais in groups so carefully posed Lissar found herself wondering if they had been set out that way, like flower arrangements. Perhaps there were marks on the floors, telling them where to put their feet. Trivelda's courtiers all seemed to be carrying-one each-a long-stemmed ariola in a vivid blue-green that set off, or collided with, the shade of the princess's dress. Cofta's courtiers, with the exception of the Curn of Dorl, seemed a poor lot by contrast, and they wandered about in an unmistakably individual fashion.

Trivelda, surrounded by her parents and courtiers, was delicately nibbling at various small dainties offered her from plates held by kneeling courtiers, whose other hands were occupied in grasping long-stemmed ariolas. The prince-my prince, Lissar found, to her dismay, herself thinking of him as-was standing with his back to this edifying spectacle, and his mother was whispering something, it looked rather forcefully, in his ear, which Lissar assumed was the cause of his looking increasingly sullen and stupid. Lissar wished the messenger would walk more slowly.

As the messenger stepped aside, the prince stepped forward. His mother, obviously caught mid-sentence, shut her lips together tightly, but Lissar thought she looked unhappy rather than angry, and the glance she turned on Lissar had no malice in it. Ossin bowed, and Lissar's knees bent in a curtsey before her brain told them to. She had barely straightened up when the prince snatched at her hands and danced away with her.

He was not a good dancer, but after a few turns through the figure he steadied, or relaxed, and Lissar began to think she had been initially mistaken, for he danced very ably, catching and turning her deftly, and she surprised herself by leaning into his hands trustingly instead of holding herself constantly alert as she had done with her other partners. She saw him smiling and smiled back.

"I am smiling in relief," he said, and he sounded just as he did when they had been scraping puppy dung off the floor together. "You have the knack for making your partner feel that he knows what he is doing. Which makes him rather more able to do it. Thank you. It has not been a good night thus far."

"You do yourself too little credit," said Lissar in what she realized was a courtly phrase; she knew exactly what he meant and was flattered but found herself shy of admitting it.

"Stop it," he said. "This is me, remember? We've been thrown up on by the same puppies."

She laughed. "I was thinking of cleaning up diarrhea, myself. Balls and sick puppies don't belong in the same world, somehow."

"Ah, you've noticed that, have you? I couldn't agree more, and I prefer the puppies."

"You have looked a bit like you'd be happier pulling a plough when I've seen you long enough to notice, this evening."

He sighed. "I swear, I was thinking about turning tail and running like a rabbit before hounds when I saw Trivelda advancing on me tonight. Your appearance saved me, I think."

Lissar saw a courtier carrying an ariola in one hand hurrying down the long hall again, toward the banquet tables. Another was returning, laden plate in one hand, flower in the other. She wondered if they were allowed to lay their flowers down long enough to make handling plates a little more feasible-or perhaps they held the stems between their teeth as they served? She wanted to say something to Ossin, but could think of nothing.

She became aware that the prince was dancing them firmly away from the central knot of the figure. "Come," he said suddenly, and seized her by the hand. They left the hall almost at a run, down a corridor, and then the prince checked and swerved, like a hound on a scent, threw open a door, and ushered her out onto a small balcony.

It was a beautiful night; after three days of clouds the weather had broken, and now the stars looked nearer than her sparkling skirts, and the Moon was near full.

The prince dropped her hand, leaned on the balustrade, and heaved a great sigh through his open mouth. "I feel like howling like a dog," he said, and then turned and sat on the railing, bracing his hands beside him, looking up at her.

Lissar felt a tiny tremor begin, very deep inside her, deep in her blood and brain, nothing to do with the chill in the air. "Deerskin-" he began.

"No," she whispered. Louder, she said, "We should go back to your party." The tremor grew; she began to feel it in her knees, her hands, she twisted her hands in her glittering skirts.

"Not just yet," said the prince. "Trivelda will feel that my absence is more than paid for by your absence-she likes being the center of attention, you know, and you haven't even got a lot of courtiers dressed up like unicorns or vases of flowers or something for a competition she can understand." He stood up;, stepped toward her, loomed over her. The Moon was behind him, and he looked huge; and for the moment she forgot the many hours they had spent together with the puppies, when he had never looked like he filled the sky.... She stepped back. Her trembling must be visible now, but it was dark, and he would not notice. If she spoke he would hear it in her voice. She tried to swallow, but her throat felt frozen, and she was sick at her stomach, sick with her own knowledge of her own life, sick at standing on the balcony with Ossin when the Moon shone on them.