Gifts Read online

  "I'll be with him," Canoc said. I knew my prompt stoicism had pleased him deeply.

  We left before dawn the next morning. Canoc stayed right beside me, on horseback and afoot. His presence was my only rock in an endless confusion, a black meaningless wilderness of riding and stopping and shouting and coming and going. It went on and on. We were gone five days. I could never get my bearings; I never knew what lay before my face or feet. Never was the temptation stronger to lift my blindfold, and yet never had I feared so much to do so, for I was in a continuous, terrified rage—helpless, resentful, humiliated. I dreaded and could not escape Brantor Ogge's shouting, harrying voice. Sometimes he pretended to believe I was truly blind and pitied me loudly, but mostly he teased and dared me, never quite openly, to lift my blindfold and display my destroying power. He feared me, and resented his fear, and wanted to make me suffer for it; and he was curious, because my power was unknown. He never overstepped certain lines with Canoc, for he understood clearly what Canoc could do. But what could I do? Might my blindfold be a trick, a bluff? Ogge was like a child teasing a chained dog to see if it really would bite. I was in his chains and at his mercy. I hated him so much that I felt that if I saw him, nothing could stop me, I would, I must destroy him, like the rat, like the adder, like the hound....

  Parn Barre called a herd of wild swine down out of the foothills of Mount Airn, and called the boar away from the sows. When the dogs and hunters had the beast encircled, she left the hunt and came back to the camp, where I had been left along with the packhorses and the servants.

  It had been a shameful moment for me when they all set off. "You're bringing the boy along, aren't you, Caspro?" Brantor Ogge said, and my father replied as pleasantly as ever that neither I nor old Roanie were coming, for fear of holding others back. "So then you'll be staying safe with him too?" came the big braying voice, and Canoc's soft one: "No, I thought I'd come to the kill."

  He touched my shoulder before he mounted—he had brought Greylag, not the colt—and whispered, "Hold fast, my son." So I held fast, sitting alone among Drum's serfs and servants, who kept clear of me and soon forgot I was there, talking and joking loudly with one another. I had no idea of what was around me except the roll of bedding I had slept in the night before, which lay near my left hand. The rest of the universe was unknown, a blank gulf in which I would be lost the instant I stood up and took a step or two. I found some little stones in the dirt under my hand and played with them, handling them, counting them, trying to pile them or put them in lines, to pass the dreary time. We scarcely know how much of our pleasure and interest in life comes to us through our eyes until we have to do without them; and part of that pleasure is that the eyes can choose where to look. But the ears can't choose where to listen. I wanted to hear the birds singing, for the forest was full of their spring music, but mostly I heard only the men yelling and guffawing, and could only think what a noisy race we humans are.

  I heard a single horse coming into camp, and the men's voices became less boisterous. Presently someone spoke near me: "Orrec, I'm Parn," she said. I felt her kindness in saying who she was, though I knew her voice, which was much like Gry's. "I've got a bit of fruit here. Open your hand." And she put two or three dried plums in my hand. I thanked her and chewed away on them. She had sat down near me and I could hear her chewing too.

  "Well," she said, "by now the boar's killed a dog or two, and one or two men, maybe, but probably not, and they've killed him. And they're gutting him and cutting poles to carry him, and the dogs are after the guts, and the horses want to get away from it all but they can't." She spat. Maybe a plum pit.

  "Do you never stay for the kill?" I asked timidly. Though I had known her all my life, Parn always daunted me.

  "Not with boar and bear. They'd want me to interfere, hold the beast so they could kill it. Give them an unfair advantage."

  "But with deer, or hares—?"

  "They're prey. A quick kill's best. Boar and bear aren't prey. They deserve their fair fight."

  It was a clear position, with its own justice; I accepted it.

  "Gry's got a dog for you," Parn said.

  "I was going to ask her..."

  "As soon as she heard about your eyes being sealed, she said you'd want a guide dog. She's been working with one of our shepherd Kinny's pups. They're good dogs. Come by Roddmant on your way home. Gry might have her ready for you."

  That was a good moment, the only good moment of those endless, wretched days.

  The hunters came back late to camp, straggling in. I was anxious about my father, of course, but dared not ask and only listened for what other men said, and for his voice. He came at last, leading Greylag, who had hurt his leg a little in some kind of collision or melee. He greeted me gently, but I could tell he was exasperated almost beyond endurance. The hunt had been mismanaged, Ogge and his elder son quarreling about tactics and confusing everyone, so that the boar, though brought to bay, had killed two dogs and escaped, a horse had broken its leg in the chase, then as the boar had got into thickets, the hunt had to dismount and go in afoot, and another dog had been disemboweled, and finally, as Canoc put it, very low-voiced, to me and Parn, "they all stuck and stabbed at the poor brute but none of them dared get close to it. It took half an hour to kill it."

  We sat in silence, hearing Ogge and his son shouting at each other. The hunt servants finally brought the boar into camp; I smelled the rank wild stench of it and the metallic smell of blood. The liver was ceremonially divided up to be toasted over the fire by those who had been in at the kill. Canoc did not go to get his share. He went to look after our horses. I heard Ogge's son Harba shouting at him to come get his killfeast, but I did not hear Ogge call to him, nor did Ogge come to harass me as his custom was. That night, and all the time it took us to return to the Stone House of Drummant, Ogge did not say a word to Canoc or to me. It was a relief to be spared his jovial bullying, but it worried me too. I asked my father, when we camped the last night, if the brantor was angry with him.

  "He says I refused to save his dogs," Canoc said. We lay by the warm ashes of a fire, head to head, whispering. I knew it was dark, and could pretend that it was because it was dark that I couldn't see.

  "What happened?"

  "The boar was slashing the dogs open. He yelled to me, 'Use your eye, Caspro!' As if I'd use my gift on a hunt! I went at the boar with my spear, along with Harba and a couple of others. Ogge didn't come in with us. The boar broke then, and ran right past Ogge, and got away. Ach, it was a botch, a butchery. And he lays it on me."

  "Do we have to stay, when we get back there?"

  "A night or so, yes."

  "He hates us," I said.

  "Not your mother."

  "Her most," I said.

  Canoc did not understand me, or did not believe me. But I knew it was true. Ogge could bully me all he liked, he could prove his superiority to Canoc in wealth and strength and so on, but Melle Aulitta was out of his reach. I had seen how he looked at her when he came to our house. I knew he looked at her here with that same amazement and hate and greed. I knew how he pressed close to her; I had heard his impotent attempts to impress her, boasting and patronising, and her mild, smiling replies, to which he had no reply. Nothing he had, or did, or was, could touch her. She did not even really fear him.

  11

  When we got back from the days and nights in the wilderness, and I could rejoin my mother, and bathe, and put on a clean shirt, even the unfriendly rooms of Drummant, which I had never seen, seemed familiar.

  We went down to dinner in the great hall, and there I heard Brantor Ogge speak to my father for the first time in two days. "Where's your wife, Caspro?" he was saying. "Where's the pretty calluc? And your blind boy? Here's my granddaughter come to meet him, come across the whole domain, clear from Rimmant. Here, boy, come meet Vardan, let's see what you make of each other!" There was a brassy, crowing laughter in his voice.

  I heard Daredan Caspro, the girl's mother, murmur
to her to come forward. My mother, her hand on my arm, said, "We're happy to meet you, Vardan. This is my son Orrec."

  I did not hear the girl say anything, but I heard a kind of sniggering or whimpering noise, so that I wondered if she was carrying a puppy that was making that sound.

  "How do you do," I said, with a bob of the head.

  "Do you do you do you," someone said in front of me, a thick, weak voice, where the girl must be.

  "Say how do you do, Vardan." That was Daredan's tremulous whisper.

  "Do you do, do you do."

  I was speechless. My mother said, "Very well, thank you, my dear. It's a long way from Rimmant, isn't it. You must be quite tired."

  The whimpering, puppyish sound began again.

  "Yes, she is," her mother began, but Ogge's big voice, right next to us, broke in, "Well, well, let the young people talk to each other, don't be putting words in their mouths, you women! No matchmaking! Though they're a fine pair, aren't they? What do you say, boy, is she pretty, my granddaughter? She's got the same blood as you, you know, not calluc blood, but Caspro blood. True lineage will out, they always say! Is she pretty, eh?"

  "I can't see her, sir. I imagine she is."

  Mother squeezed my arm, I don't know whether in terror at my boldness or encouraging my effort to be civil.

  "Can't see her! I can't see her sir!" Ogge mimicked. "Well, let her lead you about then. She can see. She has fine eyes. Fine, sharp, keen, Caspro eyes. Don't you, girl? Don't you?"

  "Do you do. Don't you. Don't you. Mama, can I want to stairs."

  "Yes, dear. We will. It was a long ride, she's quite tired, please forgive us, Father-in-Law, we'll have a little rest before dinner."

  The girl and her mother escaped. We could not. We had to sit for hours at the long table. The boar had been roasting all day on the spit. There were shouts of triumph as the head was carried in. Toasts were drunk to the hunters. The strong reek of boar's flesh filled the hall. Slabs of it were piled on my plate. Wine was poured, not beer or ale, but red wine from the vineyards in the southwest of the domain; only Drummant in all the Uplands made wine. It was heavy and sweet-sour. Ogge was soon louder-voiced than ever, shouting down his elder son and making much of the younger, Vardan's father. "So, how about a betrothal party, Sebb?" he would bellow, and laugh, not waiting for any answer, and then again after half an hour, "So, how about a betrothal party? Hey, Sebb? All our friends here. All under our roof. Caspros, Barres, Cordes, and Drums. The best blood of all the Uplands. Hey, Brantor Canoc Caspro, what do you say? Will you come? Here's a toast. Here's to friendship, loyalty, love, and marriage!"

  Mother and I were not allowed to go upstairs after dinner. We had to stay in the great hall while Ogge Drum and his people drank themselves drunk. He was always near us, and talked a great deal to my mother. His tone and words grew more and more offensive, but neither Melle nor Canoc, who kept as close to us as he could, could be provoked to answer angrily, or to answer much at all. And after a time the brantor's wife intervened, staying with us as a kind of shield to my mother, answering Ogge for her. He grew sullen then and went off to quarrel again with his elder son, and we at last were able to slip out of the room and upstairs.

  "Canoc, can we leave—go? Now?" my mother said in a whisper, in the long stone passage that led to our room.

  "Wait," he answered. We got to our room and shut the door. "I need to talk to Parn Barre. We'll go early. He won't do us any harm tonight."

  She gave a kind of laugh of despair.

  "I'll be with you," he said. She let go of my arm to hold him and be held.

  That was all as it should be, and I was very glad to hear we were going to escape, but I had a question that needed an answer.

  "The girl," I said, "Vardan."

  I felt them look at me, and there was a little silence while no doubt their eyes met.

  "She's small, and not ugly," my mother said, "She has a sweet smile. But she's..."

  "An idiot," my father said.

  "No, Canoc, not that bad— But... not right. She's like a child, I think, in her mind. A little child. I don't think she'll ever be anything more."

  "An idiot," my father repeated. "This is what Drum offered us as a wife for you, Orrec."

  "Canoc," my mother murmured, scared, as I was, by the fiery hatred in his voice.

  There was a knocking at our door. My father went to answer it. There were low-voiced consultations. After some while he came back, without my mother, to where I was sitting on the edge of my cot. "The child's been taken with seizures," he said, "and Daredan's asked for your mother to help her. Melle made fast friends with most of the women here, while we were out pig hunting and making enemies." He gave a humorless, weary laugh. I could hear him sit down, letting himself down all at once like a tired hound, in the chair before the unlit hearth.

  "I wish we were out of here, Orrec!"

  "So do I," I said.

  "Lie down and sleep. I'll wait for your mother."

  I wanted to wait for her too, and tried to sit up with him; but he came and pushed me over gently onto the cot and covered me with the fine, warm woollen blanket, and I was asleep the next moment.

  I woke suddenly and was wide awake. A cock was crowing away down in the barnyards. It might be dawn, or long before dawn. There was some small noise in the room, and I said, "Father?"

  "Orrec? Are you awake? It's dark, I can't see." My mother felt her way to my cot and sat down beside me. "Oh, I'm so cold!" she said. She was shivering violently. I tried to put the warm blanket up around her shoulders, and she pulled it around us both.

  "Where's Father?"

  "He said he had to talk to Parn Barre. He says we'll leave as soon as there's light to see by. I told Denno and Daredan we were leaving. They understand. I just said we had been away too long and Canoc was worried about the spring plowing."

  "What was wrong with the girl?"

  "She gets overtired easily and has spasms, and her mother is frightened by it, poor thing. I sent her off to get some sleep, she doesn't get much, and sat with the little girl. And then I half fell asleep there, and I don't know...It seemed...I got so cold, I can't seem to get warm..." I hugged her, and she snuggled up next to me. "Finally some of the other women came and could stay with the child, and I came back here, and your father went to find Parn. I suppose I should get our things ready to go. But it's so dark still. I keep looking for the dawn."

  "Stay and get warm," I said, and we sat there trying to warm each other until my father came back. He had his flint and steel and could light a candle, and my mother hurried our few things together into the saddlebag. We stole through the halls and passages and down the stairs and out of the house. I could smell dawn in the air, and the cocks were crowing as if they meant it. We went to the stables, where a sleepy, surly fellow roused up and helped us saddle our horses. My mother led Roanie out and held her while I mounted. I sat in the saddle waiting.

  I heard my mother make a little surprised, grieving noise. Hoofs clopped on the cobbles as another of the horses was led out. She said,

  "Canoc, look."

  "Ach," he said in disgust.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "The chicks," my father said, low-voiced. "His people set the basket down where your mother gave it to them. Left it. Left the birds to die."

  He helped Melle mount Greylag, and then rode Branty out of the stable; the stable boy opened the courtyard gate for us, and we rode out.

  "I wish we could gallop," I said. My mother in her anxiety thought I meant it and said, "We can't, dear," but Canoc, riding close behind me, gave a short laugh. "No," he said, "we'll run away at a walk."

  The birds were all singing now from tree to tree, and I kept thinking, as my mother had, that I would soon see the light of dawn.

  After we had ridden several miles, she said, "It was a stupid gift to bring to a house like that."

  "Like that?" said my father. "So grand and great, you mean?"

  "In their ow
n eyes," said Melle Aulitta.

  I said, "Father, will they say we ran away?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we shouldn't—should we?"

  "If we stayed, Orrec, I'd kill him. And though I'd like to kill him in his own house, I can't pay the price of that pleasure. He knows it. But I will get a little of my own back."

  I didn't know what he meant, nor did my mother, till in the middle of the morning we heard a horse coming up behind us. We were alarmed, but Canoc said, "It's Parn."

  She drew up with us and greeted us in her husky voice that was like Gry's. "So, where are your cattle, Canoc?" she said.

  "Under that hill, ahead there." And we jogged on. Then we stopped, and my mother and I dismounted. She led me to a grassy place by a stream where I could sit. She took Greylag and Roanie into the water to drink and cool their feet; but Canoc and Parn rode off, and soon I could not hear them at all. "Where are they going?" I asked.

  "Into that meadow. He must have asked Parn to call the heifers."

  And after what seemed a long time, during which I listened nervously for the sound of pursuit and vengeance coming down the road and heard nothing but birdsong and the distant lowing of cattle, Mother said, "They're coming," and soon I heard the grass swishing at the legs of the animals, and Branty s greeting whuff to our horses, and my father's voice saying something with a laugh to Parn.

  "Canoc," my mother said, and he replied at once, "It's all right, Melle. They're ours. Drum looked after them for us, and now I'm taking them home. It's all right."

  "Very well," she said unhappily.

  And soon we all went on together, she first, then I, then Parn with the two heifers following close behind her, and Canoc bringing up the rear.

  The cattle did not slow us down; young and lively, and of a hauling, plowing breed, they stepped right out with the horses and kept up a good pace all day. We came onto our own domain by mid-afternoon, and cut across the northern part of it, heading for Roddmant. It had been Parn's suggestion that we take the heifers there and leave them in the Rodd pastures for a while with their old herd. "A little less provocative," she said, "and a good deal harder for Drum to steal back."