She started violently when a long nose was thrust into her hand, but as she looked down into Ash's brown eyes she recognized the panting breath as her own.
Deliberately she slowed her breathing, and she had regained her self-possession when the servant re-entered the room, another servant on his heels, bearing a small table, and yet another servant behind him, carrying a tray. Lissar, standing, still breathing a little too hard, barefoot, in the middle of the velvet-hung room, longing for her mountains, suddenly laughed, and then the roaring in her ears went away entirely. With the laugh she felt strangely whole and healthy again.
She looked with interest at the plate of fruit and small cakes on the tray, and was spilling crumbs down herself (which Ash swiftly removed as soon as they touched the floor) when the prince entered without warning.
She stopped chewing, and bowed, half a cake still in one hand. "By all the gods and goddesses, high, low, wandering or incarnate, never bow to me unless I'm pinned to that blasted chair in that blasted room," he said feelingly, "or, I suppose, if my parents are present, or my sister-she's suddenly gotten very conscious of her standing-that's Dorl's doing, drat him, and she doesn't even like him. Pardon me," he said, his voice a little calmer. "All my staff knows not to bow to me, that's my first instruction, but usually-I hope-handed out a little more graciously. It has not been a pleasant afternoon, and I was up all night. I didn't want to believe that Igli would let herself die on me.
"But today has been worth it--even with Dorl there-to have someone to take care of the puppies. My regular staff are all falling in each other's way to avoid it; they all have better sense than I do, and it's a grim business watching little creatures die when you're wearing yourself out trying to keep them alive."
He was not as tall as she had expected, looking up at him and his big booted feet on the dais from her place on the floor; but he was broad-shouldered and solid, and his feet were still big, even looking down at them from standing height instead of having them at chest level. "Come on, then, I'll introduce you to them."
He picked up a piece of fruit from the table and paused a moment, looking at Ash. He frowned, not an angry frown but a puzzled one. "It's true, I don't know northhounds much, but she looks so much like another bitch of mine who died a few years ago-never threw a bad pup, all her children are terrific. She was my first really top-quality dog, and when I was still a kid I gave too many of her get away to impress people-too dumb, or obsessed, to realize that most people, particularly the so-called nobility, who are, I suppose, obliged to have other things on their minds, don't know the difference between a great dog and an ordinary one. Even those who can tell a good dog from a bad one. I look at yours and I could swear. . ." He shook his head.
Lissar cast her mind back; but in the anxious, pleading, elusive way her fragmented memory now presented itself to her, she could not remember exactly how Ash had come to her. She remembered the kind man handing her an armful of eager puppy.... She remembered wearing a black-ribboned dress, as if she were in mourning.... She looked down at her dog, who, conscious of her person's gaze, moved her own from this interesting new person who smelled so fetchingly of other dogs, to meet Lissar's eyes. Her ears flattened fractionally. In public, on her dignity in the presence of a stranger, she was not going to do anything so obvious as wag her tail, or rear up on her hind legs, put her paws on Lissar's shoulders, and lick her face.
"She was a gift," Lissar said finally. "I do not know where she came from," she added truthfully. It was hard to think of her life before Ash, as if trying to remember life before walking or speech. She knew, theoretically, that such a period existed in her history, but it was very vague, as if it had happened to someone else. As if the rest of my life were not vague, she thought, in a little spasm of bitterness.
"Wherever she came from, she is obviously your dog now," said the prince, who could read dogs and their people, and knew what the look Ash was giving Lissar meant, even without tailwagging.
He had idly eaten the remaining cakes on the tray, and now he went through the door. Lissar followed with Ash at her heels; just outside the two dogs that had sat behind the prince's chair sprang to attention. Ash stopped and the other two froze; heads and tails rose, toplines stiffened. Ossin looked from one to the next. "Nob, Tolly, relax," he said, and tapped the nearer on the skull with one gentle finger. "I hope yours isn't a great fighter," he added, as his two moved forward on only slightly stiff legs.
Lissar thought of the black dog that had chased them, and said nothing.
There was some milling about-Ash did some extremely swift end-to-end swapping when she felt the two strangers were taking unfair advantage of their number-and Lissar noticed with interest that Ash was standing a little ahead and the other two a little behind when all three chose to remember the presence of human beings. "Hmm," said the prince, doubtless noticing the same thing; and strode off.
Lissar and the dogs followed.
They went down a dozen hallways, took two dozen left and right turns, and crossed half a dozen courtyards. Lissar gave up trying to remember the way, and gave herself instead to looking around her, at people and rooms and sky and paving stones, and horses and wagons, and feet and shoes and the size and shape of burdens and the faces of the people and beasts who carried them; and the end result was that she still felt hopeful about the place she had come to.
Many of the people hailed the prince, and many bowed to him, but she noticed that the ones whose greetings he answered the most heartily bowed the most cursorily. There were other dogs, but both Ash and the prince's dogs disdained to notice them.
The kennels smelled of warm dog, straw, and meat stew. Several tall silent dogs approached to investigate Ash; but Ash, apparently feeling that two at a time was enough, raised her hackles and showed a thin line of teeth, and growled a growl so low it was more audible through the soles of the feet than the ears. "Con, Polly, Aster, Corngold, away," said the prince, as carelessly as he had gestured at the two dogs behind his chair; and the dogs departed at once, though there was much glancing over shoulders as they trotted soundlessly back into the kennel hall.
The prince strode after them without pause; Nob and Tolly circled Ash carefully to stay at his heels. Lissar and Ash followed a little more warily. The floor was hard-packed earth, and wellswept; Lissar thought of the double handful she had combed out of Ash that morning, and wondered how often someone swept here, even with short-haired dogs. The hall was lined with half-doors, the tops mostly open and the bottoms mostly shut. One wall by the wide doorway was covered with hooks from which hung a wide assortment of dog-harness.
The roof was much higher on one side than the other, and the high side held a line of windows, so that the entire area was flooded with light (Lissar was faintly reassured to see a few short dog-hairs floating in the sunbeams). The dogs that had come out to look them over were retiring through one or two of the open half-door bottoms; one disappeared through a tall open arch, and Lissar heard: "It is not mealtime, as you perfectly well know, Corngold! Get out of here or I'll lock you up."