Gifts Page 9

  "How long, then?"

  "I don't know. Until I learn—" But I didn't know what to say. How was I to learn to use a gift I couldn't use? Hadn't I been trying to, all my life?

  "You've learned all your father could teach you," she said. "Learned it only too well." She stood up then and left me without another word. I heard the soft swish as she threw her shawl over her shoulders, and her steps going out of the hall.

  She was not of the unyielding temper that could hold such anger long. That night as we said goodnight I could hear in her voice her sweet rueful smile as she whispered, "I won't burn your book, dear son. Or your blindfold." And from then on she did not plead and made no more protest, but took my blindness as a fact and helped me as she could.

  The best way I found to be blind was to try to act as if I could see: not to creep and feel my way about, but to step out, knock my face against the wall if I met a wall, and fall if I fell. I learned my ways about the house and yards and kept to them, but used them freely, going outdoors as often as I could. I saddled and bridled good Roanie, who was patient with my fumbling as she had been patient with it when I was five, and mounted her and let her take me where she thought best. Once in the saddle and out of the echoes of the walls of the stable yard, there was nothing to guide me at all; I might be on the hillsides or the highlands or the moon for all I knew. But Roanie knew where we were, and also knew I was not the thoughtless, fearless rider I had been. She looked after me, and brought me home.

  "I want to go to Roddmant," I said, after my eyes had been sealed a halfmonth or longer. "I want to ask Gry to give me a dog." I had to get up my determination to say that, for poor Hamneda and the horrible thing I had made of him were in my mind as if branded into it. But the thought of having a dog to aid my blindness had come to me the night before, and I knew it was a good one. And I longed to talk with Gry.

  "A dog," Canoc said with surprise, but Melle understood at once, and said, "That's a good idea. I'll ride—" I knew she had been about to say she would ride to Roddmant on my errand (though she was not much of a horsewoman, and timid even with Roanie), but what she said was, "I'll ride with you, if you like."

  "Can we go tomorrow?"

  "Put it off a little while," Canoc said. "It's time we were making ready to go to Drummant."

  In all that had befallen me, I had utterly forgotten about Brantor Ogge and his invitation. The reminder was most unwelcome. "I can't go now!" I said.

  "You can," my father said.

  "Why should he? Why should we?" my mother demanded.

  "I've said what's at stake." Canoc's voice was hard. "A chance of truce, if not of friendship. And the offer, maybe, of a betrothal."

  "But Drum won't want to betroth his granddaughter to Orrec now!"

  "Will he not? When he knows Orrec can kill at a glance? That his gift is so strong he must seal his eyes to spare his enemies? Oh, he'll be glad to ask and glad to get what we choose to give! Don't you see that?"

  I had never heard that tone of harsh, fierce triumph in my father's voice. It shook me strangely It woke me.

  For the first time I realised that my blindfold made me not only vulnerable, but threatening. My power was so great that it could not be released, must be restrained. If I unsealed my eyes... I myself was, like Caddard's staff, a weapon.

  And I also understood in that moment why so many of the people of the house and the domain treated me as they had done since my eyes were sealed, speaking to me with an uneasy respect instead of the old easy fellowship, falling silent as I came near, creeping past me as if they hoped I couldn't hear them. I thought they shunned and despised me because I was blind. It hadn't occurred to me that they feared me because they knew why I was blind.

  Indeed, as I was to learn, the tale had grown in the telling, and I had the grisly credit of all kinds of feats. I had destroyed a whole pack of wild dogs, bursting them open like bladders. I had cleared the venomous snakes out of all Caspromant merely by sweeping my eyes over the hills. I had glanced at old Ubbro's cottage, and that same night the old man had fallen paralysed and lost the power of speech, and it was not a punishment but only the wild gift striking without reason. When I had gone looking for the missing white heifers, the instant I saw them, I had destroyed them, against my own will. And so in fear of this random and terrible power I had blinded myself—or Canoc had blinded me—though others said no, only sealed his eyes with a blindfold. If anybody disbelieved these tales, they took him to see the ruined hillside above the Ashbrook, the dead tree, the little broken bones of voles and moles and mice on the waste ground there, the burst boulders and shattered stones.

  I didn't know these stories then, but it had dawned on me that I had a new power, which lay not in acts but words—in reputation.

  "We'll go to Drummant," my father said. "It's time. Day after tomorrow. If we set off early we can be there by nightfall. Take your red gown, Melle. I want Drum to see the gift he gave me."

  "Oh, dear," my mother said. "How long must we stay?"

  "Five or six days, I suppose."

  "Oh, dear, dear. What can I take the brantor's wife? I must have some guest-present for her."

  "It's not necessary."

  "It is," said my mother.

  "Well, a basket of something from the kitchen?"

  "Pah," said my mother. "There's nothing this time of year."

  "A basket of chicks," I suggested. Mother had taken me into the poultry yard that morning to let me handle a brood of newly hatched chicks, putting them into my hands, cheeping, warm, weightless, downy, prickly.

  "That's it," she said.

  And when we set off two days later early in the morning, she had a basket full of cheeping on her saddlebow. I wore my new kilt and coat, my man's coat.

  Because I must ride Roanie, she was on Greylag, who was a completely trusty horse, though his height and size scared her. My father rode the colt. He had given much of Branty's training to me and Alloc, but when you saw him ride Branty, you saw that he and the colt were made for each other, handsome, nervous, proud, and rash. I wished I could see him, that morning. I longed to see him. But I sat good Roanie and let her carry me forward into the dark.

  10

  It was strange and wearisome to ride all day seeing nothing of the country we rode through, aware only of the sound of hoofs on soft or stony ground, the creak of saddles, the smell of horse sweat and broom flower, the touch of the wind, guessing what the road must be like by Roanie's gait. Unable to be ready for a change, a stumble, a sway, a check, I was always tense in the saddle, and often had to abandon shame and hold the pommel to keep myself steady. Mostly we had to ride single file, so there was no conversation. We paused now and then so Mother could give the chicks water, and we stopped at midday to rest and water the horses and to eat our lunch. The chicks chirped and cheeped vigorously over the feed Mother scattered in their basket. I asked where we were. Under Black Crag, Father said, in the domain of the Cordes. I could not imagine the place, never having been so far to the west of Caspromant. We soon went on, and to me the afternoon was a dull, long, black dream.

  "By the Stone!" my father said. He never swore, not even such a mild old-fashioned oath as that, and it startled me out of my trance. My mother was riding in front, for there was no mistaking the path, and my father behind, keeping an eye on us. She had not heard him speak, but I asked, "What is it?"

  "Our heifers," he said, "over there." And remembering I could not see where he pointed, "There's a herd of cattle in the meadows under the hill there, and two of them are white. The rest are duns and roans." He was silent a moment, probably straining his eyes to see. "They have the hump, and the shallow horns," he said. "It's them all right."

  We had all stopped, and Mother asked, "Are we still in Cordemant?"

  "Drummant," my father said. "For the past hour. But those are the Rodd breed. And my cows, I think. If I got closer to them, I could be sure of it."

  "Not now, Canoc," she said. "It'll be getting dark be
fore long. We ought to go on." There was strong apprehension in her voice. He heeded it.

  "Right you are," he said, and I heard Greylag step forward, and Roanie followed him without my needing to signal her, and the colt's light step followed us.

  We came to the Stone House of Drummant, and that was hard for me, that arrival in a strange place among strangers. My mother took my arm as soon as I dismounted and hung on to me, maybe to reassure herself as well as me. Among the many voices, I heard Ogge Drum's, loud and genial. "Well, well, well, so you did come at last! And welcome to you! Welcome to Drummant! We're poor folk here but what we have we share! What's this, what's this, the boy bandaged up like this? What's the trouble then, lad? Weak eyes, is it?"

  "Ah, we could wish it were that," Canoc said lightly. He was a fencer; but Ogge was no swordsman, he used a bludgeon. A bully doesn't answer you; he may hear but pays no heed; he talks on as if you were of no account, and it gives him the advantage always at the start, though not always in the end.

  "Well, what a shame, to be led about like a baby, but no doubt he'll grow out of it. Come this way, come this way. See to their horses, there! Barro, fetch the maids to call my lady!" and so on, a shouting of orders and commands, a great commotion, much coming and going, many voices. There were people all round me, crowds of unseen, unknown people. My mother was explaining to someone about the basket of chicks for the brantor's wife. She kept hold of my arm as I was dragged over thresholds and up stairs. My head was whirling by the time we stopped. We were brought basins of water, and people buzzed all around us as we hurriedly washed off our travel dirt and brushed our clothes and Mother changed her dress.

  Then it was down stairs again, and we came into a room which, by the sound of the echoes, was a great, tall one. There was a hearth: I could hear the crackle of the fire and feel a bit of warmth on my legs and face. Mother kept her hand on my shoulder. "Orrec," she said, "here is the brantor's wife, the lady Denno," and I bowed in the direction of the hoarse, tired-sounding voice that bade me be welcome to Drummant.

  There followed other introductions—the brantor's elder son Harba and his wife, his younger son Sebb and his wife, his daughter and her husband, the grown children of some of these, and other people of the household—all names without faces, voices in the dark. My mother's shy, gracious voice was drowned out by these loud talkers, and I couldn't help but hear how different from them she sounded, how foreign in her Lowland courtesies, even in her pronunciation of some words.

  My father was close to me too, right behind me. He didn't talk on at length the way the Drum men did, but made prompt, affable responses, laughed at their jokes, and spoke to several of the men there with what sounded like the pleasure of renewing a friendship. One of these men, a Barre, I think, said, "So the lad's got the wild eye, has he?" and Canoc said, "He does," and the other man said, "Well, never fear, he'll grow into his power," and began a story about a boy of Olmmant whose gift was wild till he was twenty. I tried hard to hear the story, but the clamor of voices kept drowning it out.

  After a while we went to table, and that was a terrible strain, for it takes a long time to learn to eat in a decent fashion if you cannot see, and I had not got the skill yet. I was afraid to touch anything for fear of spilling it or soiling myself. They had tried to seat me away from my mother, and Brantor Ogge called for her to join the men at the head of the table, but she gently and immovably insisted on sitting next to me.

  She helped me to a chop I could pick up in my ringers and gnaw without shocking anybody's sensibilities. Not that they went in much for fine manners at Drummant, to judge by the noises of chewing and gulping and belching all round me.

  My father was seated farther up the table, near or next to Ogge, and as the noise of talk slackened a bit, I heard his quiet voice, unmistakable, though there was a tone to it, a kind of lilt I'd never heard before: "I want to thank you, Brantor, for looking after my heifers. I've been cursing myself for a fool all month for not keeping my fences mended. They jumped them, of course. They're light-footed, those Rodd cattle. I'd all but given that pair up. Thought they'd be down in Dunet by now! And so they would be if your people hadn't kept them safe for me." By this time nobody at that end of the table was saying a word, though at our end some of the women were still chattering. "I counted a good deal on those heifers," Canoc went on in the same open, confident, almost confiding way. "I have it in mind to build up a herd such as Blind Caddard had. So my hearty thanks to you, and the first calf one of them drops, bull or heifer as you please, is yours. You have only to send for it, Brantor Ogge."

  There was just the one beat of silence, and then somebody near Canoc said, "Well said, well said!" and other voices joined in, but I did not hear Ogge speak.

  The dinner was over at last, and my mother asked to be shown to her room, taking me with her. I heard Ogge then: "Oh, you'll not take young Orrec off already? He's not such a child as that, is he? Sit up with the men, boy, and taste my spring brewing!" But Melle pleaded that I was tired from the long day's ride, and the brantor's wife Denno said in her hoarse, tired voice, "Let the boy be for tonight, Ogge," and so we escaped, though my father had to stay and drink with the men.

  It was late, I think, when he came up to the bedroom; I had been asleep, but I roused up when he knocked over a stool and made some other clatter.

  "You're drunk!" Melle whispered, and he said, louder than he meant to, "Horse-piss beer!" She laughed, and he snorted.

  "Where's the cursed bed!" he said, thumping about the room. They settled down. I lay on the cot under the window and listened to their whispering.

  "Canoc, weren't you taking an awful risk?"

  "Coming here at all was the risk."

  "But about the heifers—"

  "What's to gain by silence?"

  "But you challenged him."

  "To lie about it in front of his own people, who all know how the heifers got here—or to take the out I offered him."

  "Hush, hush," she murmured, for his voice had got louder again.

  "Well, I'm glad he took the out."

  "If he did. That's yet to see. Where's the girl? Did you see her yet?"

  "What girl?"

  "The bride. The blushing bride."

  "Canoc, be quiet!" She was half scolding, half laughing.

  "Shut my mouth then, love, shut my mouth for me," he whispered, and she laughed, and I heard the creak of the bed boards. They talked no more, and I slipped back into the luxury of sleep.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY Brantor Ogge sent for my mother to join him as he showed my father about his establishment, the buildings and barns and stables, and I had to come along. No other women were with us, only his sons and some of the men of Drummant. Ogge talked to my mother in a strange, artificial way, patronising yet with a wheedling note. He spoke of her to the other men as if she were a pretty animal, talking about her ankles, her hair, the way she walked. When he talked to her, he often mentioned her Lowland origin with half-joking contempt. He seemed to be trying to remind her or himself that she was inferior to him. Yet he stuck to her side like a great leech. I tried to be between her and him, but he always got next to her on the other side of her as we walked about. Several times he suggested, all but ordered her, to send me off with "the other children" or with my father. She never refused to do so, but answered lightly, with a smile in her voice, and somehow did not do so.

  As we returned to the Stone House, Ogge told us that he was planning a boar hunt up in the hills north of Drummant. They had been waiting, he said, for Parn, Gry's mother, to come before they set off. He pressed us to come on the hunt. My mother demurred, and he said,

  "Well, women don't belong on a pig hunt after all. Dangerous business. But send the boy along, it'll give him a change from moping about in his blindfold, eh? And if the boar charges, he can flick an eye at him and goodbye pig, eh? Eh, lad? Always a good thing to have a quick eye along on a pig hunt."

  "It'll have to be mine, then," my father
said, in the unfailingly pleasant tone he had here at Drummant. "A bit too much risk, yet, with Orrec."

  "Risk? Risk? Afraid of the pig, is he?"

  "Oh, not the risk for him," said Canoc. The tip of his fencing sword just touched Ogge that time.

  Ogge had dropped his pretense of not knowing why my eyes were sealed, since it was clear that everybody else at Drummant knew why, and indeed believed all the wilder versions of my exploits. I was the boy with the destroying eye, the gift so powerful I couldn't control it, the new Blind Caddard. Ogge struck out with his bludgeon, but his blows fell short; my reputation put us just out of his reach. But he had other weapons.

  Among all the people we had met the night before and all the people round us this morning, we had not yet been introduced to the brantor's granddaughter, the daughter of his younger son Sebb Drum and Daredan Caspro. We had met the parents: Sebb had a jovial, booming voice like his father; Daredan had spoken to my mother and me kindly enough, in a weak voice that made me picture her as decrepit, though, as Canoc had said, she wasn't all that ancient, after all. When we went back into the house later in the morning, Daredan was there, but still the daughter had not been brought forth, the girl who was, perhaps, to be my betrothed. The bride, the blushing bride, Canoc had called her last night, and at the thought I blushed.

  As if he had the Morga gift of knowing what was in your mind, Ogge said in his loud voice, "You'll have to wait a few days to meet my granddaughter Vardan, young Caspro. She's down at the old Rimm house with her cousins. What's the use of meeting a girl you can't see, I was going to say, but then of course there's other ways to get to know a girl, as you'll find out, eh? Even more enjoyable ways, eh?" The men round us laughed. "She'll be here when we're back from pigsticking."

  Parn Barre arrived that afternoon, and then all the talk was of the hunt. I had to go along. My mother wanted to forbid me to go, but I knew there was no way out of it, and said, "Don't worry, Mother. I'll be on Roanie, and it'll be all right."