Deerskin

by Robin McKinley

  No, said the voice in her head. This is a different place. You have come a long way from where you left. That place is far from here. I will believe you, she thought, slowly, in the voice she thought of as her own, because I want to. She and Ash walked on.

  That morning, as dawn slowly warmed the countryside, Lissar did not look for a place to sleep, to hide, but kept on—walking, but slowly, for it had been a long night, down the rough, endless road. And so that morning, at last, she saw another human being; and that human being spoke to her.

  He was leaning on his gate, watching her. She had seen him emerge from his house—a thin curl of smoke from its chimney had suggested to her that its occupants were awake—with harness over one shoulder and a fierce-looking rake over the other. She watched him move, and thought how strange he looked, how unwieldy, reared up on his hind legs like that; utterly without the grace of dogs, deer, of everything she had seen moving during her long solitude in the mountains, even the dragon. How very oddly human beings were made; and she wondered how she looked in Ash’s eyes.

  The man paused at the roadside before putting his hand to the gate-latch, looking up and down the road as he did every morning, expecting to see, perhaps, that damned dog of Bel’s out getting up to mischief again, or maybe someone getting an early start for a trip into town. And what he saw was a Moon-haired woman in a Moon-colored dress with a tall Moon-colored dog at her side. She was barefoot, and her hair hung down her back in a single long plait. Her dress was so white it almost hurt the eyes, while the dog’s long curly coat was softer, silver-grey, almost fawn, like the Moon in a summer fog. He paused, waiting, his hand on the latch.

  “Good morrow to you,” he said as she drew near.

  She started, though he had seen her looking back at him, had known he was there. She started, and stood still. She was close enough for him to see her eyes, black as her hair was white. The dog paused too, looked up into her lady’s face, then glanced at him and gave one brief, polite wave of her plumy tail.

  “Good morrow,” she said, with a long pause between the two short words; but he heard nonetheless that she spoke with an accent he did not know. This did not surprise him; it was her existence that surprised him. He had seen no one the least like her before; given that she existed, that she stood before him at the gate of his farm, she must speak unlike his neighbors. It was reassuring that she did so; had she not, she must be a dream, and he was not given to dreams, or a ghost. He wondered if his language was strange to her; and then, even in the thought wondering that he should think such a thing, him, a farmer, who occupied his days with seeds and crops, and mending harness and sharpening tools, and the wiles and whims of beasts both wild and tame—wondered if perhaps this woman spoke a language belonging only to her, that she spoke it aloud only to hear the sound of her own voice, for only her ears recognized the meaning of the words. Even if she were not a ghost or a dream there was some magic about her; he moved uneasily, and then thought, No. If she bears magic, there is no evil in it.

  She looked around, taking in his farm, the harness, his hand on the latch. He saw her understanding what these things meant, and was almost disappointed that such mundane matters were decipherable to her.

  “Is it far to the city?” she said.

  “The city?” he echoed, himself now startled; what could this woman want with the city, with her shadow eyes and her naked feet? “Oh, aye, it is a long way.”

  She nodded, and made to pass on.

  “Your dog, now,” he said, surprising himself by speaking his thought aloud before he had come to the end of it in his own mind: “your dog has a bit of the look of the prince’s dogs.” This was perhaps her reason for venturing down from her mountains—from the wild land beyond the farmland that was his life and his home—to go to the city. Something about her dog.

  She nodded again although whether in agreement or merely acknowledgement that he had spoken, he could not tell; and then she went on. Her footfalls were as silent as her dog’s. The farmer stared after them, relieved that their feet displaced the dust in the road.

  The next morning Lissar had two rabbits flung over her shoulder; this morning she met a man trudging toward her with a mysterious bit of ironwork over his shoulder. She guessed he was on his way to the smithy she had seen as they trotted through a village in the dark hour just before dawn. Smithy, her mind had told her, the mountaintop voice had told her; she listened. She had been emboldened by her first conversation with the man at his gate, and was almost sorry to be passing through her first village while everyone was sleeping. Not one glimpse of candlelight did she see, not one person waiting up for a birth or a death, or putting the last stitches in a wedding-dress or a shroud.

  This man had his head bent, his back bowed with the weight of his load. “Good morrow,” she said as she approached; he looked up in surprise, for he had not heard her footsteps, and she further knew and was glad for the relief the knowledge brought her that her accent branded her a stranger.

  “Good morrow,” he said, politely, the curiosity in his face open but not unkind.

  “Do you know anyone hereabout who would be willing to trade a fresh-killed rabbit for a loaf of bread?” She had thought of doing this just after she had left the man with his hand on his gate-latch, and the hope of its success made her mouth water. She had not eaten any bread since she had left the hut, and remembered further that not all bread was necessarily slightly gritty and musty-tasting.

  A flash of white teeth. “Ask for two loaves,” he said, “which is more nearly a fair trade. Your catch looks plump, and the skins are worth something besides. Ask for some of last year’s apples too, or maybe a pumpkin that wintered over.”

  She smiled back at him. It was an involuntary gesture, his smile begetting hers; yet she found the sense of contact pleasant, and she saw that he was pleased that she smiled. “My wife would give you bread,” he went on; “she did her baking yesterday. And we’ve still a few turnips and pumpkins in the barn. You ask her. My name is Barley. The house isn’t far; there’s a red post out front, you’ll see it. Her name is Ammy. There are chickens in the yard.’ Ware the black and white hen; she’s a devil. Dog’s tied up out back, won’t trouble yours.” Any other dog he might have questioned the manners of, in a yard full of chickens; somehow he did not question this dog any more than he felt the need to question the woman. His own dog was of a more ordinary breed; he and his wife were as well.

  “I am grateful for your hospitality,” Lissar said gravely, and they parted.

  She found the red post without difficulty; and the black and white hen took one look at Ash and retired from the field. The house door opened before they arrived at the step, and a smiling woman looked out at them, a curiosity a little touched with awe, much like her husband’s, bright in her eyes.

  “B-Barley said you might trade us a loaf of bread for my rabbits,” said Lissar. As soon as she had really to ask barter of a person who could say yes or no, she lost all faith that her offer was a reasonable one; forgot what Barley had said, forgot that this was his wife and that he had already bargained with her for a better price than she asked. She found, too, that it was hard to pronounce his name, to say to his wife, I know this person well enough to have his name to use.

  The woman’s eyes moved to the limp, furry forms dangling from Lissar’s shoulder. “I can do better than that,” said she, “and shame to him if he did not tell you so. Come in. I’ll give you breakfast. And I’ll cook both rabbits, and you can take one away with you, and two loaves of bread.”

  “I thank you,” said Lissar shyly, and ducked her head under the low lintel. “He—he did say that one loaf was too little.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” The woman glanced again at Lissar, measuringly, this time, and said, hesitantly, “I mean no offense, but I think you have been on the road a long time. Is there anything an ordinary house and an ordinary house-woman might offer you?”

  “Soap,” breathed Lissar in a long sigh, only ju
st realizing she was saying it, not conscious of the thought that must have preceded it. “And hot water.”

  The woman laughed, and was more comfortable at once, for her visitor’s exotic looks had made her wonder … well, it was no matter what she had wondered, for this woman’s answer was just what she would herself have answered in similar circumstances. “I can give you a bath by the fire. Barley won’t return before sundown, there are only the two of us.”

  It seemed the greatest luxury Lissar could imagine, a bath, hot water in a tub big enough to sit in, beside a hearth with a fire burning. She watched in a haze of happiness as the great kettle she had helped fill from a well-spout in the yard came to a slow trickle of steam over the fire. She ate breakfast while the water heated; Ammy declared that she had eaten already, but she fried eggs and bread and slabs of smoked meat, and long thin spicy greens and short frilly mild ones, and Lissar ate it all. Ammy, watching her narrowly, then did it all over again. She had much experience of farm appetities, and Lissar ate like a harvester at the end of a long sennight. By the time Lissar had eaten her second enormous meal she had slowed down a good deal and Ammy did not threaten her with a third.

  Ash, meanwhile, had swallowed three bowlsful—tureensful—of a mixture not wholly unlike what was more neatly arranged on Lissar’s plate, and then flopped down where she was—in the middle of the floor, so that Ammy and Lissar then had constantly to step over her—and soon began snoring gently.

  “And here is your bread,” Ammy said, plunking down two great swollen loaves on the table that Lissar felt almost too full to push herself away from. She shook her head. “You made a very bad bargain. I will leave you both rabbits for breakfast alone.”

  “You may leave me both rabbits and I will make a stew which you may have some of for dinner or supper, after your bath and a nap. When you leave I will give you something to carry the bread in,” said Ammy briskly.

  There was enough room in the tub that with her knees drawn up Lissar could sink down till her whole head disappeared underwater. The water was so hot even her uncovered knees throbbed with it, and the feeling of the warmth beating against her closed eyes was delicious. She felt her skin relaxing, as if even the hairs on the backs of her arms, at the nape of her neck, had been on watch these long months past, and felt easy at last. She sat up again, partly to breathe, partly because her full stomach protested being folded up so snugly.

  “You’re as red as winter flannel,” said Ammy, laying down towels. “I’ll leave you alone now; soak as long as you like.”

  But Lissar, leaning her head back against the lip of the tub, found herself growing uncomfortable. As her body relaxed, something that the tension of the long travel-stained weeks had held prisoner threatened to break out of its weakened bonds. A bath by the fire, she thought … In the wintertime, her mind went on, slowly, when the big grand stone-walled bathroom was too cold. … The stone stood in tall narrow panels, black, white, black, all veined with gold and grey, and polished so smooth that fingers were briefly deluded into thinking it was soft.… What…? And, unbidden, the memory of a small round room came to her, its walls hung with tapestries and rose-colored silk, and a bath drawn up by the fire, and a table with a meal for one person and one dog stood beside it. As she sat in the tub, the bed would be just behind her, there—

  She stood up and spun around, spraying the room with water. Ash, who had been struck in the face with a hot wet wave, opened one eye and registered a complaint; but Lissar was standing, staring at nothing—nothing but a table with shelves beyond it bearing ordinary kitchen things, bowls, plates, a spare pot, a cleaver, a grinder, several spoons—and shivering as if she stood naked in a blizzard.

  Slowly she recollected herself, turned her head to where the door into the garden did not stand in this other room, and slowly this other room re-formed itself around her, becoming lower, longer, rectangular, plainer. Slowest of all she sat down again.

  I have given you the gift of time, the Lady said.

  The little round room vanished, along with whatever other memory it might have given her; but it left a shadow, and Lissar’s bath was spoiled. She soaped herself thoroughly, particularly relishing working it into her long white hair, and then rinsed, and stepped out of the bath at once. She bailed enough of the water into the channel in the corner that would carry it outdoors that she could tip the bath up on one end and empty it.

  Ammy, in the kitchen garden, was surprised to see her so soon. She stood up, her apron full of weeds. “Would you like to sleep now? We’ve a spare mattress in the attic. I haven’t made it up yet, but we can do that now.”

  Lissar shook her head. She was tired, her feet did not wish to move, and her stomach did not wish them to move either because it was still concentrating on digestion; but she was anxious, restless and fidgety now, and there was something wrong with the shape of the homely, welcoming kitchen, and knew that she would not lie easily on a mattress on the floor above it.

  “What’s the matter?” said Ammy quickly, having forgotten, for the moment, that she was a little in awe of her visitor, that the sadness in her face seemed an acceptable excuse for not offering any name to her host. Courtesy prevented Ammy from asking; but there was no harm in noting none given. Ammy saw in her face now that some old pain or fear had risen somehow, suddenly, to the surface; and Ammy had raised eight children and loved them all, and missed having them around now that they were grown and gone. “You—you look like you’ve seen a dragon.” She knew that was not what she meant, but knew that she dared not say what she did mean. She reached out to touch Lissar’s arm and then paused at the last moment and did not. Lissar was not one of her own daughters, after all, and it seemed too much a familiarity to this young white-haired woman with the black eyes full of grief and secrets.

  Lissar smiled faintly. “We did once, up in the mountains.”

  All of Ammy’s first thoughts about the identity of this woman came rushing back. Very few people walked away from a solitary encounter with a dragon. “What happened?”

  “We ran—and it wasn’t very hungry.”

  Ammy stood looking at her guest for a moment, and then said, shrewdly, but in her early hesitating manner, still thinking about the dragon: “Would you be more comfortable sleeping in the barn? The hay’s still sweet and dry, not at all musty; Barley turns it so it will stay good.”

  It was Lissar’s turn to look at the other woman in surprise. “Yes … I think I would. I thank you. That’s very … thoughtful.” She touched her grateful stomach. “I would rather sleep than go on walking.”

  “Do you—know your direction?” said Ammy cautiously, a little afraid that Lissar might read Where are you from? and Where are you going? plain in her eyes.

  “How far is the city?” said Lissar.

  “The city?” Ammy said, frowning. “Do you mean the king’s city?”

  The king’s city. The king’s city. Was this what she wanted? Did she know her direction? She wished again for the breath of direction against her cheek, that she had not felt since she first saw the road; and the voice from the mountaintop was silent. “Yes,” she said.

  “It’s a way,” said Ammy doubtfully. “I’ve not been there. Barley was, once, when he was a young man; the roads are better now.” Ammy added, allowing herself a twinkle, “If you stay for supper you can ask him about it.”

  Lissar smiled, and felt her face muscles awkward again in the gesture. “Oh,” she said with a sigh, as what felt like several months’ exhaustion fell on her all at once; “I do feel I could sleep till suppertime twice over.” She thought: No wonder wild animals live such short lives. This is what it feels like, never being quite sure that that crackle in the underbrush isn’t something that wants to eat you. She felt suddenly unable to bear all that watchfulness.

  Ammy said: “Stew only gets better for waiting. I’ll keep you some for tomorrow night, if you oversleep.”

  At that Lissar laughed out loud; and the sound frightened her in the first mo
ment that it broke out of her. Ammy saw the fear, and her friendly heart was shaken by the knowledge that any human creature could fear her own laughter. Without time for thought she reached out and took both Lissar’s hands in hers, and said, “My dear …”

  Lissar grasped those hands firmly for a moment, and they stood in silence. “I have been, perhaps, too long in the mountains,” she said quietly. And then Ammy took her out to the barn, and Lissar and Ash burrowed deep in the clean sweet-smelling hay and were asleep before Ammy finished pulling the heavy door shut behind her.

  But the habits of the last months were still strong in Lissar; furthermore all the noises she heard here were unfamiliar and therefore suspicious. She half-woke when the rooster crowed, which he did at intervals, without any reference to the position of the sun in the sky; half-woke when Ammy went in and out of the house-door, when she called the chickens for their food, when she answered a friend’s greeting from the road. The farm dog barked once, perhaps at some whiff of Ash’s presence; Ash bristled and growled briefly in her sleep.

  One noise in particular disturbed her, dredged her up farther than half-sleep, almost to waking, till she recognized it: the crunch and creak of wagon wheels. She had not heard that sound for a long time, and its echoes rang off other memories she did not want disturbed. She dozed and drifted, and then came fully awake on the instant when Barley came home and entered the barn to hang up his mended tool.

  She slid down from her crackly perch, pulling hay-stems from the neck of her dress. “Ah,” said Barley. “Ammy said you were here.” He was smiling at her, but there was a puzzlement, almost a wistfulness, in his eyes similar to the way his wife had looked at her. “I thought perhaps you would have slipped out the back way and gone on—to save the trouble of talking to them old folks again. Old folks can be real meddlesome.”