The Eye of the Heron

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  Falco signaled his daughter, at the foot of the table, and she led a retreat of the ladies to the garden sitting room at the back of the house. This left the young toughs all the more freedom to lounge, spit, belch, swear, and get drunker. Small cups of the brandy for which the stillrooms of Casa Falco were famous got tossed off like water, and the young men yelled at the bewildered servants to refill. Some of the other young men, and some of the older ones, liked this crude behavior, or perhaps thought it was how one was expected to behave at a dinner party, and joined in it. Old Helder got so drunk he went and vomited in the corner, but he came back to table and started drinking again.

  Falco and some close friends, the elder Marquez, Burnier, and the doctor, withdrew to the hearth and tried to talk; but the noise around the long table was deafening. Some were dancing, some quarreling; the musicians hired to play after dinner had mixed in with the guests and were drinking like fish; young Marquez had a serving girl on his lap, where she sat white-faced and cringing, muttering, “Oh hesumeria! Oh hesumeria!”

  “A very merry party, Luis,” old Burnier said, after a particularly painful outburst of song and screeching.

  Falco had remained calm throughout; his face was calm as he replied, “A proof of our degeneration.”

  “The young fellows aren’t used to such feasts. Only Casa Falco knows how to give a party in the old style, the real Earth style.”

  “They are degenerates,” Falco said.

  His brother-in-law Cooper, a man of sixty, nodded. “We have lost the style of Earth.”

  “Not at all,” said a man behind them. They all turned. It was Herman Macmilan, one of the latecomers; he had been guzzling and shouting with the rest, but showed no signs of drunkenness now, except perhaps the heightened color of his handsome young face. “It seems to me, gentlemen, that we’re rediscovering the style of Earth. After all, who were our ancestors that came from the Old World? Not weak, meek men, were they? Brave men, bold, strong men, who knew how to live. Now we’re learning again how to live. Plans, laws, rules, manners, what’s that got to do with us? Are we slaves, women? What are we afraid of? We’re men, free men, masters of a whole world. It’s time we came into our inheritance; that’s how it is, gentlemen.” He smiled, deferential, yet perfectly self-confident.

  Falco was impressed. Perhaps this wreck of a dinner party might serve some purpose after all. This young Macmilan, who had never seemed anything but a fine muscular animal, a likely future match for Luz Marina, was showing both willpower and brains, the makings of a man. “I agree with you, Don Herman,” he said. “But I’m able to agree with you only because you and I are still able to talk. Unlike most of our friends there. A man must be able to drink and think. Since only you of the young men seem able to do both, tell me: what do you think of my idea of making latifundia?”

  “Big farms, that means?”

  “Yes. Big farms; large fields, planted in one crop, for efficiency. My idea is to pick managers from among our best young men; to give each a large region to run, an estate, and enough peasants to work it; and let him run it as he wishes. Thus more food will be produced. The excess population in Shanty Town will be put to work, and kept under control, to prevent any more talk about independence and new colonies. And the next generation of City Men will include a number of great estate owners. We’ve kept close together for strength long enough. It’s time, as you said, that we spread out, use our freedom, make ourselves masters of this rich world of ours.”

  Herman Macmilan listened, smiling. His finely cut lips had an almost constant smile.

  “Not a bad idea,” he said. “Not a bad idea at all, Senhor Councillor.”

  Falco bore with his patronizing tone, because he had decided that Herman Macmilan was a man he could make use of.

  “Consider it,” he said. “Consider it for yourself.” He knew young Macmilan was doing just that. “How would you like to own such an estate, Don Herman? A little—what’s the word, an old word—”

  “Kingdom,” old Burnier supplied.

  “Yes. A little kingdom for yourself. How does it strike you?” He spoke flatteringly, and Herman Macmilan preened himself. In the self-important, Falco reflected, there is always room for a little more self-importance.

  “Not bad,” Macmilan said, nodding judiciously.

  “To carry out the plan, we’ll need the vigor of you young men, and the brains. Opening up new farmland has always been a slow business. Forced labor is the only way to clear large areas quickly. If this unrest in Shanty Town goes on, we can have plenty of peasant rebels to sentence to forced labor. But, since they’re all words and no actions, they may have to be pushed, we may have to crack the whip to make them fight, we may have to drive them to rebellion, you understand? How does that kind of action strike you?”

  “A pleasure, senhor. Life’s boring here. Action is what we want.”

  Action, Falco thought, is also what I want. I should like to knock this condescending young man’s teeth out. But he is going to be useful, and I shall use him, and smile.

  “That’s what I hoped to hear! Listen, Don Herman. You have influence among the young men—a natural gift of leadership. Now tell me what you think of this. Our regular guards are loyal enough, but they’re commoners, stupid men, easily confused by the Shanty-Towners’ tricks. What we need to lead them is a troop of elite soldiers, young aristocrats, brave, intelligent, and properly commanded. Men who love fighting, like our brave ancestors of Earth. Do you think such a troop could be brought together and trained? How would you suggest we go about it?”

  “All you need is a leader,” Herman Macmilan said without hesitation. “I could train up a group like that in a week or two.”

  After that night, young Macmilan became a frequent visitor at Casa Falco, coming in at least once a day to talk with the Councillor. Whenever Luz was in the front part of the house it seemed Macmilan was there; and she took to spending more and more time in her own room, or the attic, or the garden sitting room. She had always avoided Herman Macmilan, not because she disliked him, it was impossible to dislike anyone so handsome, but because it was humiliating to know that everybody, seeing Luz and Herman say a word to each other, was thinking and saying, “Ah, they’ll be married soon.” Whether he wanted to or not he brought the idea of marriage with him, constraining her too to think about it; and not wanting to think about it, she had always been very shy with him. Nowadays it was the same, except that, seeing him daily as a familiar of the house, she had decided that—although it was wasteful and a pity—you could dislike even a very handsome man.

  He came into the back sitting room without knocking at the door, and stood in the doorway, a graceful and powerful figure in his tightly belted tunic. He surveyed the room, which faced inward on the large central garden around which the back part of the house was built. The garden doors stood open and the sound of fine mild rain falling on the paths and shrubs of the garden filled the room with quietness. “So this is where you hide away,” he said.

  Luz had risen when he appeared. She wore a dark homespun skirt and a white shirt that glimmered in the dim light. Behind her in the shadows another woman sat spinning with a drop spindle.

  “Always hiding away here, eh?” Herman repeated. He came no farther into the room, perhaps waiting to be invited in, perhaps also conscious of his dramatic presence framed in the doorway.

  “Good afternoon, Don Herman. Are you looking for my father?”

  “I’ve just been talking to him.”

  Luz nodded. Though she was curious to know what Herman and her father talked about so much lately, she certainly wasn’t going to ask. The young man came on into the room and stood in front of Luz, looking at her with his good-humored smile. He reached out and took her hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. Luz pulled away in a spasm of annoyance. “That is a stupid custom,” she said, turning away.

  “All customs are stupid. But the old folks can’t get on without them, eh? They think the world would fall
apart. Hand-kissing, bowing, senhor this and senhora that, how it was done on the Old World, history, books, rubbish … . Well!”

  Luz laughed in spite of herself. It was fine to hear Herman simply brush away as nonsense the things that loomed so large and worrisome in her life.

  “The Black Guards are coming on very well,” he said. “You must come see us train. Come tomorrow morning.”

  “What ‘Black Guards’?” she asked disdainfully, sitting down and taking up her work, a bit of fine sewing for Eva’s expected fourth child. That was the trouble with Herman, if you once smiled or said something natural or felt like admiring him, he pushed in, pushed his advantage, and you had to snub him at once.

  “My little army,” he replied. “What’s that?” He sat down beside her on the wicker settee. There was not enough room for his big body and her slight one. She tugged her skirt out from under his thigh. “A bonnet,” she said, trying to control her temper, which was rising. “For Evita’s baby.”

  “Oh, God, yes, what a breeder that girl is! Aldo has his quiver full. We don’t take married men in the Guards. A fine bunch they are. You have to come see them.”

  Luz made a microscopic embroidery knot, and no reply.

  “I’ve been out looking over my land. That’s why I wasn’t here yesterday.”

  “I didn’t notice,” said Luz.

  “Choosing my property. A valley down on Mill River. Fine country that is, once it’s cleared. My house will be built up on a hill. I saw the site for it at once. A big house, like this one, but bigger, two stories, with porches all round. And barns and a smithy and so on. Then, down in the valley near the river, the peasants’ huts, where I can look down on them. Bog-rice in the marshes where the river spreads out in the valley bottom. Orchards on the hillsides—treesilk and fruit. I’ll lumber some of the forests and save some for coney hunting. A beautiful place it’ll be, a kingdom. Come and see it with me next time I go down there. I’ll send the pedicab from Casa Macmilan. It’s too far for a girl to walk. You should see it.”

  “What for?”

  “You’ll like it,” Herman said with absolute confidence. “How would you like to have a place like that yourself? Own everything in sight. A big house, lots of servants. Your own kingdom.”

  “Women aren’t kings,” Luz said. She bent her head over a stitch. The light was really too dim now for sewing, but it gave her the excuse not to look at Herman. He kept looking at her, staring, his face intent and expressionless; his eyes seemed darker than usual and he had stopped smiling. But all at once his mouth opened and he laughed, “Ha, ha!”—a small laugh for so big a man. “No. All the same, women have a way of getting what they want, don’t they, my little Luz?”

  She sewed on and did not answer.

  Herman put his face close to hers and whispered, “Get rid of the old woman.”

  “What did you say?” Luz inquired in a normal speaking voice.

  “Get rid of her,” Herman repeated, with a slight nod.

  Luz stuck her needle carefully into its case, folded her sewing, and stood up. “Excuse me, Don Herman. I must go speak to the cook,” she said, and went out. The other woman sat still, spinning. Herman sat for a minute sucking his lips; he smiled, got up, and sauntered out, his thumbs in his belt.

  After a quarter-hour Luz looked in the doorway by which she had left, and seeing no Herman Macmilan, came back in. “That clod,” she said, and spat on the floor.

  “He’s very good-looking,” said Vera, teasing out a last shred of treesilk, twirling it into a fine even thread, and bringing the full spindle back to her lap.

  “Very,” said Luz. She picked up the neatly folded baby bonnet on which she had been working, looked at it, squashed it into a ball and threw it across the room. “Screw!” she said.

  “The way he talked to you makes you angry,” Vera said, half questioningly.

  “The way he talks, the way he looks, the way he sits, the way he is … . Ugh! My little army, my big house, my servants, my peasants, my little Luz. If I were a man I’d knock his head on the wall till his big teeth fell out.”

  Vera laughed. She did not laugh often, usually only when she was startled. “No, you wouldn’t!”

  “I would. I’d kill him.”

  “Oh, no. No. You wouldn’t. Because if you were a man, you’d know you were as strong as he, or stronger, and so you wouldn’t have to prove it. The trouble is, being a woman, here, where they always tell you you’re weak, you believe them. That was funny, when he said the South Valleys are too far for a girl to walk! About twelve kilometers!”

  “I’ve never walked that far. Probably not half that far.”

  “Well, that’s what I mean. They tell you you’re weak and helpless. And if you believe it, you get mad and want to hurt people.”

  “Yes, I do,” Luz said, facing around to Vera. “I want to hurt people. I want to and I probably will.”

  Vera sat still, looking up at the girl. “Yes.” She spoke more gravely. “If you marry a man like that and live his life, then I agree. You may not really want to hurt people, but you will.”

  Luz stared back at her. “That is hateful,” she said at last. “Hateful! To say it that way. That I haven’t any choice, that I have to hurt people, that it doesn’t even matter what I want.”

  “Of course it matters, what you want.”

  “It doesn’t. That’s the whole point.”

  “It does. And that’s the whole point. You choose. You choose whether or not to make choices.”

  Luz stood there a minute longer, still staring at her. Her cheeks were still burning red with temper, but her eyebrows were not drawn down level; they were raised as if in surprise or fright, as if something altogether unexpected had risen up before her.

  She moved indecisively, then went out the open door into the garden that lay at the heart of the house.

  The touch of the sparse rain on her face was gentle.

  Raindrops falling into the little fountain basin in the center of the garden made delicate interlocking rings, each ring gone in an instant of urgent outward motion, a ceaseless tremor of clear fleeting circles on the surface of the water in the round basin of gray stone.

  House walls and shuttered windows stood all round the garden, silent. The garden was like an inner room of the house, shut in, protected. But a room with the roof taken off. A room into which rain fell.

  Luz’s arms were wet and cold. She shuddered. She returned to the door, the dim room where Vera sat.

  She stood between Vera and the light and said in a rough, low voice, “What kind of man is my father?”

  There was a pause. “Is it fair of you to ask me that? Or of me to answer? … Well, I suppose so. So what can I say? He’s strong. He’s a king, a real one.”

  “It’s just a word, I don’t know what it means.”

  “We have old stories—the king’s son who rode on the tiger … . Well, I mean he’s strong of soul, he has grandeur of heart. But when a man is shut up inside walls that he’s been building stronger and higher all his life, then maybe no strength is enough. He can’t get out.”

  Luz crossed the room, stooped to pick up the baby bonnet she had flung under a chair, and stood with her face turned from Vera, smoothing out the little scrap of half-embroidered cloth.

  “Neither can I,” she said.

  “Oh, no, no,” the older woman said energetically. “You’re not inside the walls with him! He doesn’t protect you—you protect him. When the wind blows, it doesn’t blow on him, but on the roof and walls of this City that his fathers built as a fortress against the unknown, a protection. And you’re part of that City, part of his roofs and walls, his house, Casa Falco. So is his title, Senhor, Councillor, Boss. So are all his servants and his guards, all the men and women he can give orders to. They’re all part of his house, the walls to keep the wind off him. Do you see what I mean? I say it so foolishly. I don’t know how to say it. What I mean is, I think your father is a man who should be a great man,
but he’s made a bad mistake. He has never come outside into the rain.”

  Vera began to wind the thread she had spun off the spindle into a skein, peering at it in the dim light. “And so, because he won’t let himself be hurt, he does wrong to those he loves best. And then he sees that, and after all, it hurts him.”

  “Hurts him?” the girl said fiercely.

  “Oh, that’s the last thing we learn about our parents. The last thing, because after we learn it, they aren’t our parents any longer, but just other people like us … .”

  Luz sat down on the wicker settee and put the baby bonnet on her knee, continuing to smoothe it out carefully with two fingers. After quite a while she said, “I’m glad you came here, Vera.”

  Vera smiled and went on winding off the thread.

  “I’ll help with that.”

  On her knees, feeding the thread off the spindle so that Vera could wind it in even loops, she said, “It was stupid of me to say that. You want to go back to your family, you’re in jail here.”

  “A very pleasant jail! And I have no family. Of course I want to go back. To come and go as I like.”

  “You never married?”

  “There was so much else to do,” Vera said, smiling and placid.

  “So much else to do! There’s nothing else to do, for us.”

  “No?”

  “If you don’t marry, you’re an old maid. You make bonnets for other women’s babies. You order the cook to make fish soup. You get laughed at.”

  “Are you afraid of that, being laughed at?”

  “Yes. Very much.” Luz spent some while untangling a length of thread that had snagged on the shank of the spindle. “I don’t care if stupid people laugh,” she said more quietly. “But I don’t like to be scorned. And the scorn would be deserved. Because it takes courage to really be a woman, just as much as to be a man. It takes courage to really be married, and to bear children, and to bring them up.”

  Vera watched her face. “Yes. It does. Great courage. But, again, is that your only choice—marriage and motherhood, or nothing?”