I had not been kissed, I had scarcely been touched, by any human being since my mother’s death. The touch ran through my body like lightning through a cloud. I caught my breath with the shock and sweetness of it.
“Ash-Prince,” Gry said. She smelled of horse sweat and grass, and her voice was the wind in the leaves. She sat down beside me. “Do you remember that?”
I shook my head.
“Oh, you must. You remember all the stories. But that one was a long time ago. When we were little.”
I still said nothing. The habit of silence is lead on the tongue. She went on, “The Ash-Prince was the boy who slept in the hearth corner because his parents wouldn’t let him have a bed—”
“Foster parents.”
“That’s right. His parents lost him. How do you lose a boy? They must have been very careless.”
“They were a king and queen. A witch stole him.”
“That’s right! He went outdoors to play, and the witch came out of the forest—and she held out a sweet ripe pear—and as soon as he bit into it she said, Ah, ha, sticky-chin, you’re mine!’” Gry laughed with delight as she recovered this. “So they called him Stickychin! But then what happened?”
“The witch gave him to a poor couple who already had six children and didn’t want a seventh. But she paid them with a gold piece to take him in and bring him up.” The language, the rhythm of the words, brought the story I had not thought of for ten years straight to my mind, and with it the music of my mother’s voice as she told it. “So he became their serf and servant, at their beck and call, and it was, ‘Stickychin, do this!’ and ‘Stickychin, do that!’ and never a free moment for him till late at night when all the work was done and he could creep into the hearth corner and sleep in the warm ashes.”
I stopped.
“Oh, Orrec, go on,” Gry said very low.
So I went on and told the tale of the Ash-Prince, and how he came into his kingdom at last.
When I was done there was a little silence. Gry blew her nose. “Think of crying over a fairy tale,” she said. “But it made me think of Melle…Coaly, you have ashy paws. Give me your paw. Yes.” Some cleaning operation ensued, and Coaly stood up and shook herself with great vigor. “Let’s go out,” said Gry, and she too stood up, but I sat still.
“Come see what Star can do,” she coaxed.
She said “see,” and so did I usually, for it’s laborious to find some other, more exact, exclusive word every time; but this time, because something had changed in me, because I had turned around and did not know it, I broke out—“I can’t see what Star does. I can’t see anything. There’s no use in it, Gry. Go on home. It’s stupid, you coming here. It’s no use.”
There was a little pause. Gry said, “I can decide that for myself, Orrec.”
“Then do it. Use your head!”
“Use your own. There’s nothing wrong with it except that you don’t use it any more. Exactly like your eyes!”
At that the rage broke out in me, the old, stifling, smothering rage of frustration I had felt when I tried to use my gift. I reached out for my staff, Blind Caddard’s staff, and stood up. “Get out, Gry,” I said. “Get out before I hurt you.”
“Lift your blindfold, then!”
Goaded to fury, I struck out at her with the staff-blindly The blow fell on air and darkness.
Coaly gave a sharp, warning bark, and I felt her come up hard against my knees, blocking me from going forward.
I reached down and stroked her head. “It’s all right, Coaly,” I muttered. I was shaking with stress and shame.
Gry spoke presently from a little distance away. “I’ll be in the stable. Roanie hasn’t been out for days. I want to look at her legs. We can ride if you want to.” And she left.
I rubbed my hands over my face. Both hands and face felt gritty I was probably smearing ash on my face and hair. I went to the scullery and stuck my head in the water and washed my hands, and then told Coaly to take me to the stable. My legs were still shaky. I felt as I thought a very old man must feel; and Coaly knew it, going slower than usual, taking care of me.
My father and Alloc were out on the stallions. Roanie had the stable to herself and was in the big stall, where the horse could lie down. Coaly led me to her. Gry said, “Feel here. That’s the rheumatism.” She took my hand and guided it to the horse’s foreleg, the hock and powerful, delicate cannon bone up to the knee. I could feel the burning heat in the joints.
“Oh, Roanie,” Gry said, softly whacking the old mare, who groaned and leaned up against her as she always did when she was petted or curried.
“I don’t know if I should be riding her,” I said.
“I don’t know. She should have some exercise, though.”
“I can walk her out.”
“Maybe you should. You’ve got so much heavier.”
It was true. Inactive as I had been for so long, and though food had little taste or savor to it ever since I had put on the blindfold, I was always hungry, and Rab and Sosso and the kitchen girls could feed me if they could do nothing else for me. I had put on weight, and grown taller so fast that my bones ached at night. I was always knocking my head on lintels that hadn’t been anywhere near it last year.
I put the lead on Roanie’s bridle—I had considerable skill at doing such things by now—and led her out, while Gry took Star to the mounting block and got up on her bareback. So we went out of the courtyard and up the glen path, Coaly leading me and I leading Roanie. I could hear how uneven her steps were behind me. “It’s like she’s saying ow, ow, ow,” I said.
“She is,” said Gry, riding ahead.
“Can you hear her?”
“If I make the link.”
“Can you hear me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t make the link.”
“Why not?”
“Words get in the way. Words and… everything. I can make a link with little tiny babies. That’s how we know when a woman’s pregnant. We can make a link. But as the baby gets human, it goes out of reach. You can’t call, you can’t hear.”
We went on in silence. The farther we went, the easier it seemed to be for Roanie, so we circled round to the Ashbrook path. I said, “Tell me what it looks like, when we come to that place.”
“It hasn’t changed much,” Gry said when we came past the ruined hillside. “A little more grass. But it’s still what’s-its-name.”
“Chaos. Is the tree still there?”
“Just a snag of it.”
We turned back there. I said, “You know, what’s strange is that I can’t even remember doing that. As if I opened my eyes and it was done.”
“But isn’t that how your gift works?”
“No. Not with your eyes closed! Why else am I wearing this damned bandage? So I can’t do it!”
“But being a wild gift— You didn’t mean to do it— And it happened so fast—”
“I suppose so.” But I had meant to do it, I thought.
Roanie and I plodded on while the others danced before us.
“Orrec, I’m sorry I said to lift your blindfold.”
“I’m sorry I missed you with that staff.”
She didn’t laugh, but I felt better.
IT WAS NOT THAT day, but not very long after, that Gry asked me about the books—meaning what Melle had written in the autumn and winter of her illness. She asked where the books were.
“In the chest in her room.” I still jealously thought of it as her room, though it was where Canoc had sat and slept for a year and a half now.
“I wonder if I could read them.”
“You’re the only person in the Uplands that could,” I said with the random bitterness that came into all my words now.