We stood up. Coaly stood up and stood with her head a little on one side and a concerned look, asking, “And how do I come into your plans?”
“You walk with us, Coaly,” I told her, unhooking her leash. So we walked on up into the glen, along the little rushing stream, and every step was a joy and a delight.
Gry left in time to be back at Roddmant by dark. Canoc did not come home till after dark. Often, when he was out late like this, he stopped at one farmhouse or another of the domain, where they welcomed him and pressed him to eat and talked over the work and worries of the farming with him. I had used to do that sometimes with him, before my eyes were sealed. But these last years, he had gone out always earlier and come home always later, riding farther and working harder than ever, taking too much on himself, wearing himself out. I knew he would be tired, and that after hearing about Ogge Drum he would be in a grimmer mood than ever. But my own mood had turned reckless at last.
Canoc came in and went upstairs without my knowing it, while I was in my room. I had lighted a fire in the hearth, for the evening had turned cold. From it I lighted a candle stolen from the kitchen at my hearth fire, and sat defiantly reading the Transformations of Denios.
Realising the household had gone silent and the women had probably left the kitchen, I pulled on my blindfold and asked Coaly to take me to the towel room.
What the poor dog thought of me being blind one-moment and seeing the next I don’t know, but being a dog she asked only questions that needed a practical answer.
I knocked at the door of the tower room, and getting no reply, I pulled off my blindfold and looked in. An oil lamp on the mantel gave a tiny, smoky light. The hearth was dark and smelled sour, as if it had not been lit for a long time. The room was cold and desolate. Canoc lay fast asleep on the bed, on his back, in his shirtsleeves, having thrown himself down and not moved since. All he had for a blanket was my mother’s brown shawl. He had pulled it up across himself, and his hand was clenched in the fringe, on his chest. I felt that pinch at my heart that I had felt when I found the shawl across the footboard. But I could not afford to pity him now. I had a score to settle and no courage to spare.
“Father,” I said, and then his name, “Canoc!”
He roused, sat up leaning on his elbow, shaded his eyes from the lamp, stared vaguely at me. “Orrec?”
I came forward so he could see me clearly.
He was nearly stunned with weariness and sleep, and had to blink and rub his eyes and bite his lip to come alive; then he looked up again and said, wonderingly, “Where’s your blindfold?”
“I won’t hurt you, Father.”
“I never thought you would,” he said, a little more strongly, though still in that wondering tone.
“You never thought I would? You never were afraid of my wild gift, then?”
He sat up on the side of the bed. He shook his head and rubbed his hair. Finally he looked up at me again. “What is it, Orrec?”
“What it is, Father, is I never had the wild gift. Did I? I never had any gift at all. I never killed that snake, or the dog, or any of it. It was you.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you tricked me into believing I had the gift and couldn’t control it, so that you could use me. So you wouldn’t have to be ashamed of me because I have no gift, because I shame your lineage, because I’m a calluc’s son!”
He was on his feet then, but he said nothing, staring at me in bewilderment.
“If I had the gift, don’t you think I’d use it now? Don’t you think I’d show you the great things I can do, the things I can kill? But I don’t have it. You didn’t give it to me. All you gave me, all you ever gave me, was three years of blindness!”
“A calluc’s son?” he whispered, incredulous.
“Do you think I didn’t love her? But you didn’t let me see her—that whole year—only once—while she was dying— Because you had to keep up your lie, your trick, your cheat!”
“I never lied to you,” he said. “I thought—” He stopped. He was still too surprised, too appalled, for anger.
“There at the Ashbrook—you believe I did that?”
“Yes,” he said. “I have no power such as that.”
“You do! You know it! You drew that line through the ash grove. You destroyed men at Dunet. You have the gift, you have the gift of unmaking! I don’t. I never did. You tricked me. Maybe you tricked yourself because you couldn’t stand it that your son wasn’t what you wanted. I don’t know. I don’t care. I know you can’t use me any longer. My eyes or my blindness. They’re not yours, they’re mine. I won’t let your lies cheat me any more. I won’t let your shame shame me any more. Find yourself another son, since this one’s not good enough.”
“Orrec,” he said, like a man hit in the wind.
“Here,” I said, and tossed the blindfold onto the floor in front of him.
I slammed the door, and ran down the turning stairs. Utterly bewildered, Coaly chased after me, barking her sharp, warning bark. She caught up with me at the foot of the staircase and took the hem of my kilt in her teeth. I put my hand on her back and worked it in the soft fur to calm her. She growled once. She came along with me back to my room. When we got there and I shut the door, she lay down in front of it. I don’t know whether she was guarding me from whoever might enter, or preventing me from going out again.
I built up the fire a little, relighted my candle, and sat down at the table. The book lay open, the book of the great poet, the treasure of joy and solace. But I could not read it. I had my eyes back, but what was I to do with them? What good were they, what good was I? Who are we now? Gry had asked. If I was not my father’s son, who was I?
♦ 17 ♦
Early in the morning I left my room and went into the hall without the blindfold. As I had dreaded they would do, the women cried out and ran from me. Rab did not run away, but stood her ground, saying in a trembling voice, “Orrec, you’ll frighten the girls in the kitchen.”
“There’s nothing to be frightened of,” I said. “What are you afraid of? I can’t hurt you. Are you afraid of Alloc? He has more of the gift than I do! Tell them all to quiet down and come back.”
Just then Canoc came down the tower stair. He looked at us both with bleak eyes.
“He said you needn’t fear him, Rab,” he said. “You must trust his word, as I do.” He spoke laboriously. “Orrec, I was not able to say this to you last night. Ternoc thinks his white herd is in danger from Drummant. I’ll be going there today to ride his borders with him.”
“I can come,” I said.
He stood irresolute, and then with the same bleak look, “As you will.”
They gave us bread and cheese in the kitchen, and we stuffed it in our pockets to eat as we went. I had no weapon but Blind Caddard’s staff, an unhandy thing to carry on horseback. Canoc tossed me his long hunting dagger, and I hung the staff up in the front hall, where it used to hang, as we went out. He saddled Branty and I Greylag, for Roanie had been out to grass in the home paddock since March. Alloc met us in the courtyard; my father had asked him to stay close to the house, keep watch, and gather all the men he could to aid him in case of an attack. He stared at me but looked hurriedly away and asked nothing about my blindfold.
Canoc and I set out at a good pace to Roddmant, or as good a pace as old Greylag could keep. We said nothing all the way.
I exulted in the powers given back to me. What joy, to sit a horse without fear of falling, to see the bright world swing by at the canter, to wipe from my eyes the tears the wind brought to them. To be riding to guard a friend’s domain, riding, maybe, into danger, like a man. To be riding beside a man I knew to be brave, as brave as a man can be, whatever else he was. He sat upright and easy on the beautiful red horse, looking straight ahead.