Coming of Age in Karhide

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  been working hard. We'll hire a band. Who's the best in the country? Tarry andhis lot?" "Father, I don't want a party," Diamond said and stood up, shivering his muscles like a horse. He was bigger than Golden now, and when hemoved abruptly it was startling. "I'11 go to Easthill," he said, and left the room. "What's that all about?" Golden said to his wife, a rhetoricalquestion. She looked at him and said nothing, a non-rhetorical answer. After Golden had gone out, she found her son in the counting-room goingthrough ledgers. She looked at the pages. Long, long lists of names andnumbers, debts and credits, profits and losses. "Di," she said, and he lookedup. His face was still round and a bit peachy, though the bones were heavierand the eyes were melancholy. "I didn't mean to hurt Father's feelings," hesaid. "If he wants a party, he'll have it," she said. Their voices werealike, being in the higher register but dark-toned, and held to an evenquietness, contained, restrained. She perched on a stool beside his at thehigh desk. "I can't," he said, and stopped, and went on, "I really don't wantto have any dancing." "He's matchmaking," Tuly said, dry, fond. "I don't care about that." "I know you don't." "The problem is..." "The problem isthe music," his mother said at last. He nodded. "My son, there is noreason," she said, suddenly passionate, "there is no reason why you shouldgive up everything you love!" He took her hand and kissed it as they sat sideby side. "Things don't mix," he said. "They ought to, but they don't. I foundthat out. When I left the wizard, I thought I could be everything. You know -do magic, play music, be Father's son, love Rose .... It doesn't work thatway. Things don't mix." "They do, they do," Tuly said. "Everything is hookedtogether, tangled up!" "Maybe things are, for women. But I...I can't bedouble-hearted." "Doublehearted? You? You gave up wizardry because you knewthat if you didn't, you'd betray it." He took the word with a visible shock, but did not deny it. "But why did you give up music?" "I have to have a single heart. I can't play the harp while I'm bargaining with a mule-breeder. I can't sing ballads while I'm figuring what we have to pay the pickers tokeep 'em from hiring out to Lowbough!" His voice shook a little now, avibrato, and his eyes were not sad, but angry. "So you put a spell onyourself," she said, "just as that wizard put one on you. A spell to keep yousafe. To keep you with the mule-breeders, and the nut-pickers, and these." Shestruck the ledger full of lists of names and figures, a flicking, dismissivetap. "A spell of silence," she said. After a long time the young man said, "What else can I do?" "I don't know, my dear. I do want you to be safe. I dolove to see your father happy and proud of you. But I can't bear to see youunhappy, without pride! I don't know. Maybe you're right. Maybe for a man it'sonly one thing ever. But I miss hearing you sing." She was in tears. Theyhugged, and she stroked his thick, shining hair and apologized for beingcruel, and he hugged her again and said she was the kindest mother in theworld, and so she went off. But as she left she turned back a moment and said, "Let him have the party, Di. Let yourself have it." "I will," he said, tocomfort her. Golden ordered the beer and food and fireworks, but Diamond sawto hiring the musicians. "Of course I'll bring my band," Tarry said, "fatchance I'd miss it! You'll have every tootler in the west of the world herefor one of your dad's parties." "You can tell 'em you're the band that'sgetting paid." "Oh, they'll come for the glory," said the harper, a lean, long-jawed, wall-eyed fellow of forty. "Maybe you'll have a go with usyourself, then? You had a hand for it, before you took to making money. Andthe voice not bad, if you'd worked on it." "I doubt it," Diamond said. "That girl you liked, witch's Rose, she's tuning about with Labby, I hear. No doubtthey'll come by." "I'll see you then," said Diamond, looking big and handsomeand indifferent, and walked off. "Too high and mighty these days to stop andtalk," said Tarry, "though I taught him all he knows of harping. But what'sthat to a rich man ?" Tarry's malice had left his nerves raw, and the thoughtof the party weighed on him till he lost his appetite. He thought hopefullyfor a while that he was sick and could miss the party. But the day came, andhe was there. Not so evidently, so eminently, so flamboyantly there as his

  father, but present, smiling, dancing. All his childhood friends were theretoo, half of them married by now to the other half, it seemed, but there wasstill plenty of flirting going on, and several pretty girls were always nearhim. He drank a good deal of Gadge Brewer's excellent beer, and found he couldendure the music if he was dancing to it and talking and laughing while hedanced. So he danced with all the pretty girls in turn, and then again withwhichever one turned up again, which all of them did. It was Golden's grandest party yet, with a dancing floor built on the town green down the wayfrom Golden's house, and a tent for the old folks to eat and drink and gossipin, and new clothes for the children, and jugglers and puppeteers, some ofthem hired and some of them coming by to pick up whatever they could in theway of coppers and free beer. Any festivity drew itinerant entertainersand musicians it was their living, and though uninvited they were welcomed. A tale-singer with a droning voice and a droning bagpipe was singing The Deedo[ the Dragonlord to a group of people under the big oak on the hilltop. When Tarry's band of harp, fife, viol, and drum took time off for a breatherand a swig, a new group hopped up onto the dance floor. "Hey, there's Labby'sband!" cried the pretty girl nearest Diamond. "Come on, they're thebest!" Labby, a light-skinned, flashy-looking fellow, played the double-reedwoodhorn. With him were a violist, a tabor-player, and Rose, who played fife. Their first tune was a stampy, fast and brilliant, too fast for some of thedancers. Diamond and his partner stayed in, and people cheered and clappedthem when they finished the dance, sweating and panting. "Beer!" Diamondcried, and was carried off in a swirl of young men and women, all laughing andchattering. He heard behind him the next tune start up, the viol alone, strong and sad as a tenor voice: "Where My Love Is Going." He drank a mug ofbeer down in one draft, and the girls with him watched the muscles in hisstrong throat as he swallowed, and they laughed and chattered, and he shiveredall over like a cart horse stung by flies. He said, "Oh! I can't -- !" Hebolted off into the dusk beyond the lanterns hanging around the brewer'sbooth. "Where's he going?" said one, and another, "He'll be back," and theylaughed and chattered. The tune ended. "Darkrose," he said, behind her in thedark. She turned her head and looked at him. Their heads were on a level, shesitting crosslegged up on the dance platform, he kneeling on the grass. "Come to the sallows," he said. She said nothing. Labby, glancing at her, set hiswoodhorn to his lips. The drummer struck a triple beat on his tabor, and theywere off into a sailor's jig. When she looked around again Diamond was gone. Tarry came back with his band in an hour or so, ungrateful for therespite and much the worse for beer. He interrupted the tune and the dancing, telling Labby loudly to clear out. "Ah, pick your nose, harp-picker," Labbysaid, and Tarry took offense, and people took sides, and while the dispute wasat its brief height, Rose put her fife in her pocket and slipped away. Awayfrom the lanterns of the party it was dark, but she knew the way in the dark. He was there. The willows had grown, these two years. There was only a littlespace to sit among the green shoots and the long, falling leaves. The music started up, distant, blurred by wind and the murmur of theriver running. "What did you want, Diamond?" "To talk." They were onlyvoices and shadows to each other. "So," she said. "I wanted to ask you to goaway with me," he said. "When?" "Then. When we quarreled. I said it allwrong. I thought .... "A long pause. "I thought I could go on running away. With you. And play music. Make a living. Together. I meant to say that." "You didn't say it." "I know. I said everything wrong. I did everything wrong. Ibetrayed everything. The magic. And the music. And you." "I'm all right," shesaid. "Are you?" "I'm not really good on the fife, but I'm good enough. Whatyou didn't teach me, I can fill in with a spell, if I have to. And the band, they're all right. Labby isn't as bad as he looks. Nobody fools with me. Wemake a pretty good living. Winters, I go stay with Mother and help her out. SoI'm all right. What about you, Di?" "All wrong." She started to saysomething, and did not say it. "I guess we were children," he said. "Now...." "What's changed?" "I made the wrong choice." "Once?" she said.

  "O
r twice?" "Twice." "Third time's the charm." Neither spoke for a while. She could just make out the bulk of him in the leafy shadows. "You're biggerthan you were," she said. "Can you still make a light, Di? I want to seeyou." He shook his head. "That was the one thing you could do that I nevercould. And you never could teach me." "I didn't know what I was doing," hesaid. "Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't." "And the wizard in South Port didn't teach you how to make it work?" "He only taught me names." "Whycan't you do it now?" "I gave it up, Darkrose. I had to either do it andnothing else, or not do it. You have to have a single heart." "I don't see why," she said. "My mother can cure a fever and ease a childbirth and find alost ring, maybe that's nothing compared to what the wizards andthe dragonlords can do, but it's not nothing, all the same. And she didn'tgive up anything for it. Having me didn't stop her. She had me so that shecould learn how to do it! Just because I learned how to play music from you, did I have to give up saying spells? I can bring a fever down now too. Whyshould you have to stop doing one thing so you can do the other?" "Myfather," he began, and stopped, and gave a kind of laugh. "They don'tgo together," he said. "The money and the music." "The father and the witchgirl," said Darkrose. Again there was silence between them. The leavesof the willows stirred. "Would you come back to me?" he said. "Would you gowith me, live with me, marry me, Darkrose?" "Not in your father's house, Di." "Anywhere. Run away." "But you can't have me without the music." "Or the music without you." "I would," she said. "Does Labby want aharper?" She hesitated; she laughed. "If he wants a fife-player," shesaid. "I haven't practiced ever since I left, Darkrose," he said. "But themusic was always in my head, and you .... "She reached out her hands to him. They knelt facing, the willow-leaves moving across their hair. They kissedeach other, timidly at first. IN THE YEARS after Diamond left home, Goldenmade more money than he had ever done before. All his deals were profitable. It was as if good fortune stuck to him and he could not shake it off. He grewimmensely wealthy. He did not forgive his son. It would have made a happyending, but he would not have it. To leave so, without a word, on his namedaynight, to go off with the witchgirl, leaving all the honest work undone, to bea vagrant musician, a harper twanging and singing and grinning for pennies -there was nothing but shame and pain and anger in it for Golden. So he had histragedy. Tuly shared it with him for a long time, since she could see her sononly by lying to her husband, which she found hard to do. She wept to think ofDiamond hungry, sleeping hard. Cold nights of autumn were a misery to her. Butas time went on and she heard him spoken of as Diamond the sweet singer of theWest of Havnor, Diamond who had harped and sung to the great lords in theTower of the Sword, her heart grew lighter. And once, when Golden was down 'atSouth Port, she and Tangle took a donkey cart and drove over to Easthill, where they heard Diamond sing the Lay of the Lost Queen, while Rose sat withthem, and Little Tuly sat on Tuly's knee. And if not a happy ending, that wasa true joy, which may be enough to ask for, after all.

  URSULA K. Le GUIN OLDERS The moon slips and shines in the wrinkled mirrorbefore the prow, and from the northern sky the Bright Companions shootglancing arrows of light along the water. In the stern of the boat thepolesman stands in the watchful solemnity of his task. His movements as hepoles and steers the boat are slow, certain, august. The long, low channelboatslides on the black water as silently as the reflection it pursues. A few darkfigures huddle in it. One dark figure lies full length on the half deck, armsat his sides, closed eyes unseeing that other moon slipping and shiningthrough wisps of fog in the luminous blue night sky. The Husbandman of Sandryis coming home from war. They had been waiting for him on Sandry Island eversince last spring, when he went with seven men, following the messengers who

  came to raise the Queen's army. In midsummer Four of the men of Sandry broughtback the news that he was wounded and was lying in the care of the Queen's ownphysician. They told of his great valor in battle, and told of their ownprowess too, and how they had won the war. Since then there had been no news. With him now in the channelboat were the three companions who hadstayed with him, and a physician sent by the Queen, an, assistant to her owndoctor. This man, an active, slender person in his forties, cramped by thelong night's travel, was quick to leap ashore when the boat slid silently upalong the stone quay of Sandry Farm. While the boatmen and the others busied themselves making the boat fast and lifting the stretcher and its burden upfrom the boat to the quay, the doctor went on up to the house. Approaching theisland, as the sky imperceptibly lightened from night-blue to colorlesspallor, he had seen the spires of windmills, the crowns of trees, and theroofs of the house, all in black silhouette, standing very high after themiles of endlessly level reedbeds and water channels. "Hello, the people!" hecalled out as he entered the courtyard. "Wake up! Sandry has come home!" The kitchen was astir already. Lights sprang up elsewhere in the big house. The doctor heard voices, doors. A stableboy came vaulting out of the loftwhere he had slept, a dog barked and barked its tardy warning, people began tocome out of the house door. As the stretcher was borne into the courtyard, theFarmwife came hurrying out, wrapped in a green cloak that hid her night dress, her hair loose, her feet bare on the stones. She ran to the stretcher as theyset it down. "Farre, Farre," she said, kneeling, bending over the stillfigure. No one spoke or moved in that moment. "He is dead," she said in awhisper, drawing back. "He is alive," the doctor said. And the oldest of thelitterbearers, Pask the saddler, said in his rumbling bass, "He lives, Makalidem. But the wound was deep." The doctor looked with pity and respectat the Farmwife, at her bare feet and her clear, bewildered eyes. "Dema," hesaid, "let us bring him in to the warmth." "Yes, yes," she said, rising andrunning ahead to prepare. When the stretcher bearers came out again, half thepeople of Sandry were in the courtyard waiting to hear their news. Most of allthey looked to old Pask when he came out, and he looked at them all. He was abig, slow man, girthed like an oak, with a stiff face set in deep lines. "Willhe live?" a woman ventured. Pask continued looking them all over until hechose to speak. "We'll plant him," he said. "Ah, ah!" the woman cried, and agroan and sigh went among them all. "And our grandchildren's children willknow his name," said Dyadi, Pask's wife, bossoming through the crowd to herhusband. "Hello, old man." "Hello, old woman," Pask said. They eyed eachother from an equal height. "Still walking, are you?" she said. "How else get back where I belong?" Pask said. His mouth was too set in a straight lineto smile, but his eyes glinted a little. "Took your time doing it. Come on, old man. You must be perishing." They strode off side by side toward the lanethat led to the saddlery and paddocks. The courtyard buzzed on, all inlow-voiced groups around the other two returned men, getting and giving thenews of the wars, the city, the marsh isles, the farm. Indoors, in thebeautiful high shadowy room where Farre now lay in the bed still warm from hiswife's sleep, the physician stood by the bedside, as grave, intent, careful asthe polesman had stood in the stern of the channelboat. He watched the woundedman, his fingers on the pulse. The room was perfectly still. The woman stood at the foot of the bed, and presently he turned to her and gave a quiet nodthat said, Very well, as well as can be expected. "He seems scarcely tobreathe," she whispered. Her eyes looked large in her face knotted andclenched with anxiety. "He's breathing," the escort assured her. "Slow anddeep. Dema, my name is Hamid, assistant to the Queen's physician, Dr. Saker. Her majesty and the Doctor, who had your husband in his care, desired me tocome with him and stay here as long as I am needed, to give what care Ican. Her majesty charged me to tell you that she is grateful for hissacrifice, that she honors his courage in her service. She will do what may bedone to prove that gratitude and to show that honor. And still she bade metell you that whatever may be done will fall short of his due." "Thank you,"