Pansy believes this Deerskin is really the Moonwoman, come to earth again."
"I do not dance like a goddess, do I?" said Lissar gently. She took her hand out of his for a moment, and pulled her glove down her forearm. There were a series of eight small deep scratches, just above her wrist, in two sets of four. "One of the puppies from the litter I raised taught himself, when he was still small enough not to knock me down, to jump into my arms when I held them out and called his name.
Once he missed. I do not think Moonwoman's dogs would miss; nor would she willingly wear scars from so foolish a misadventure."
The young man was smiling over her shoulder, dreamily; but he said no more.
The dance came to an end; they parted, bowing to each other. As she rose from her curtsey he, obviously daring greatly, said, "Sh-she might, you know. To look ordinary. Human, you know." Then he bowed a second time, quickly, almost jerkily, the first graceless gesture she had seen from him, and walked quickly away.
THIRTY
SHE DANCED STEADILY ALL EVENING. ONCE OR TWICE HER
PARTNERS asked her if she would rather have a plate from the long tables of sumptuous food laid out at one end of the hall, but she declined; it would be harder not to talk, away from the noise and bustle of the dancing; she could not keep her mouth full all the time. Nor was she hungry; she was managing to keep her useful skills separate from her secret, but the secret was a weight on her spirit, and in the pit of her stomach, and she was not hungry; nor was she aware of growing tired.
She was too tight-stretched, alert to keep the old terror at bay, to keep herself from doing anything so appalling as blurting out her real name again; to keep her mind on what she was doing, dancing, and not making conversation. Some of her partners were more persistent than others. She made a mistake in choosing to dance with one old fellow, stiff and white-haired, thinking he would probably be deaf, and if inclined to talk, would want to talk exclusively about himself and, as she guessed from the metal he wore across his chest, his glorious career in the military.
But he surprised her; he was not in the least deaf, and very curious about her. "I have five daughters within, I would guess, five years on either side of your age, and I thought I knew every member of Cofta and Clem's court of their age and sex. You never came with Trivelda-you're not her type-so who are you?"
"I'm a kennel-girl who has slipped her leash for the evening." He laughed at this, as he was supposed to, but he did not let her off. And so he extracted her story from her, piece by piece, backwards to her appearance in King Goldhouse's receiving-hall the day after the prince's favorite bitch had died giving birth to her puppies. "And where did you come from before that?" the relentless old gentleman pursued.
"Wouldn't you rather tell me of your dangerous campaigns in the wild and exotic hills of somewhere or other?" she said, a little desperately.
He laughed again; it was impossible not to like him. "No. Campaigns are a great bore; they are mostly about either finding enough water for your company, or being up to your knees in mud and all the food's gone bad. Battles are blessedly brief; but you're sick with terror before, blind with panic during, and miserable with horror by the results, when you have to bury your friends, or listen to them scream. I'm glad to be retired. But you remind me of someone, and I'm trying to think of whom; I've done a lot of travelling in my life, and-"
She jerked herself free of his loose hold in an involuntary convulsion of fear. "My dear," he said, and they halted in the middle of the figure, whereupon four people immediately blundered into them. "Are you feeling ill?"
"No," she said breathlessly; and took his hand again, and composed herself to pick up the dance.
"I do not know what your secret is," said the old man after a moment; "I apologize for giving you pain. I have heard of Deerskin, and of what I have heard of her, and looking into your bright young face tonight, I can think no evil of her. If I remember who you remind me of, I will keep it to myself."
"Thank you," she said.
"My name is Stronghand," he said. "If you find yourself in need of a friend, my wife and I are very fond of young girls; come find us. We live just outside the city, on the road from the Bluevine Gate. The innkeeper at the Golden Orchid can tell you just where."
The dance ended then, and as she rose from her curtsey, he kissed her hand.
"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.