“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.