Deerskin - Robin McKinley

Yes, yes, I hear you. Tomorrow. The season is well enough advanced that even if it rains it shouldn't be too cold; not with seven of us to keep her warm, and the leather is almost waterproof. And if she's about to be carrying puppies-or already is-the sooner the better.

Tomorrow.

The iron-filing feeling had never been so powerful.

There wasn't much to pack; little enough left to do. The remains of the herbs she had brought were the only perishables left, and they retained enough of their virtue to be worth saving. She had been glad enough of the medicinal ones, this grim winter.

She fished out a few dark wrinkled survivors from the root bin to take with her, and then wrapped most of the herbs and stowed them in the cupboard for any other traveller.

The extra tools would stay here; except perhaps the hatchet. She would take a couple of the extra blankets that she-and the dogs-had brought with them. She made a tidy bundle of the things that they would take and left it, with the dog harnesses, just inside the door; she would do the parcelling out the next day.

Tomorrow.

A fairly short search through the smaller, neighboring meadows netted her three rabbits, already plump from spring feeding; despite seven dogs in the immediate vicinity the small game at the top of this mountain had largely remained fatally tame.

Lissar would put some tiny young wild onions and the last of the potatoes in the stew tonight.

It was an unusually warm night; she left even the leather cloak rolled up inside the hut door. They sat and lay on the earth, grass tickling their chins and bellies, the occasional six-legged explorer marching gravely up a leg or flank. She thought the voice in her head might not let her sleep; even when it did not shape itself into a word it hummed through her muscles. But a strange, restful peace slipped down over her ... like-a freshly laundered nightgown from Hurra's hands so long ago. . .

she shivered at the memory, waiting for the panic to begin, waiting for that memory to leap forward . . . but it did not come. She remembered the softness and the sweet smell of the nightgowns she used to wear when her favorite bedtime story was the one of how her father courted the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, and the nightgown was still a pleasant memory, and she could further spare the knowledge of sorrow for what was to come to that little girl without spoiling the understanding of that earlier innocence and trust. And so she fell asleep, with dogs all around her, and a full Moon shining down upon the warm green meadow.

She woke up smiling, feeling as refreshed and strong as she ever had in her life, sat up, stretched, and looked around. As she moved, so too did the dogs.

The hut had vanished.

THIRTY-FIVE

THEIR SPEED DOWN THE MOUNTAIN WAS LESS HAMPERED BY

ASH'S weakness than Lissar had expected. She called a halt sometimes not because Ash looked tired but because Lissar felt she ought to be. It seemed as if spring were unrolling beneath their feet; as if, looking over their shoulders, they might see the last patches of snow tucked in shaded hollows, but if they looked to their vision's end before them, they would see summer flowers already in bloom.

Since Lissar's boots had disappeared with the hut and all their other gear, she was grateful there were no late blizzards; she was even more grateful that the game increased almost daily, till she could almost reach out and grab a rabbit or an ootag by the scruff of its neck any time she felt hungry. She and her seven dogs were coming down the mountain as bare of possessions as she and one dog had done a year before: she had her knife, tinder box, and pouch of throwing-stones.

But there was the urgency that she had not felt before. There was no thought of lingering this year, nor any thought of where they were going; she thought they all knew; they were going ... the word home kept rising in her heart and sitting on her tongue, and yet it was not her home and could not be, not since Ossin had said certain things to her on a balcony during a ball given to honor another woman, the woman he was expected to make his wife.

Perhaps she would return his six dogs-for all that he had told her they were hers; for all that she knew that they believed themselves to be hers. Seven was too many, if she were to go wandering. She and Ash could slip away alone one night. No, but there were Ash's puppies to consider, for puppies there would be; they would not be able to travel while the puppies were young. Then too, Ossin said he wished to have choice of any pups from the six dogs she had saved; and once he knew that Ash was who she was.... Lissar felt she owed him this thing-this one thing she could grant-and he would be doubly pleased with Ash's puppies sired by Ob. Perhaps she might then keep Ob, for Ash's company, two dogs would not be too many-although that would also result in more puppies.

As her thoughts wound in such circles, her feet carried her straight on, down and down, not much less rapidly than the snow-swollen streams she and the dogs ran beside, and camped near at night. The water's roar was no louder than the drumming of the blood inside her own veins. She slept less and less, and lay staring at the stars many nights, or listening to the rain drip off the leaves overhead, because she knew Ash would awaken and try to follow her if she moved. The night of the next full Moon she did not sleep at all, although there was nothing left to guard or disappear, except themselves; and the Moonwoman would not take her dogs away from her.

This year, when they struck the road for the first time, Lissar did not hesitate; and so they ran on, through the thinning trees, and out into the lowlands, where farmlands began emerging from the wild.

They struck the village where Barley and Ammy lived, and Lissar hesitated outside their door, anxious as she was to go on; and Ammy, as if she had been standing by the window waiting for their arrival, threw open the shutters and called Lissar's name-Deerskin.

She left the window then, and opened the door; and Lissar soberly lifted the gate-latch, and went up the little stone-flagged path. She noticed Ob looking wistfully at the chickens, though she knew he was too well-mannered to disturb them-at least so long as he was under her eye. Even young spring rabbit grows tedious at last.

"You are going to the yellow city, are you not?" said Ammy, as soon as they were within easy earshot, as if picking up a conversation they had begun last week, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world to have Lissar standing in her dooryard again. "Even Barley and I thought of going, for the wedding will be very grand."

Lissar stood as if suddenly rooted to the scrubbed-smooth stone her feet rested on.

"Did you not know?" pursued Ammy. "Did you go up into the mountains again this winter?"

Lissar nodded dumbly.

"What a silly thing to do, child. Winter is long and lonely enough, even here, where we all know one another-and hard, too. You're as thin as you were last spring, although your dogs look better than you do. In the yellow city it is probably quite merry, even in the worst of winter, and you hardly know the season at all. Well, perhaps the wedding was not set up till after you left, for it was well into autumn when the news went out. But you'll want to go back now-for you had become great friends with our prince, had you not?"

This time Lissar shook her head, not so much to deny it, but not knowing whether she wished to acknowledge Ossin as a great friend or not. Would it be more or less possible now to remain in the prince's kennels with the prince married, to Trivelda, as she supposed? She did not know this either, only that her heart ached, and the words Ossin had last spoken to her pressed on her like stones. Why should the prince not be married? It was nothing to her, because she had made it be nothing.