knew she had been about to say she would ride to Roddmant on my errand (though she was not much of a horsewoman, and timid even with Roanie), but what she said was, “I’ll ride with you, if you like.”
“Can we go tomorrow?”
“Put it off a little while,” Canoc said. “It’s time we were making ready to go to Drummant.”
In all that had befallen me, I had utterly forgotten about Brantor Ogge and his invitation. The reminder was most unwelcome. “I can’t go now!” I said.
“You can,” my father said.
“Why should he? Why should we?” my mother demanded.
“I’ve said what’s at stake.” Canoc’s voice was hard. “A chance of truce, if not of friendship. And the offer, maybe, of a betrothal.”
“But Drum won’t want to betroth his granddaughter to Orrec now!”
“Will he not? When he knows Orrec can kill at a glance? That his gift is so strong he must seal his eyes to spare his enemies? Oh, he’ll be glad to ask and glad to get what we choose to give! Don’t you see that?”
I had never heard that tone of harsh, fiercetriumph in my father’s voice. It shook me strangely It woke me.
For the first time I realised that my blindfold made me not only vulnerable, but threatening. My power was so great that it could not be released, must be restrained. If I unsealed my eyes… I myself was, like Caddard’s staff, a weapon.
And I also understood in that moment why so many of the people of the house and the domain treated me as they had done since my eyes were sealed, speaking to me with an uneasy respect instead of the old easy fellowship, falling silent as I came near, creeping past me as if they hoped I couldn’t hear them. I thought they shunned and despised me because I was blind. It hadn’t occurred to me that they feared me because they knew why I was blind.
Indeed, as I was to learn, the tale had grown in the telling, and I had the grisly credit of all kinds of feats. I had destroyed a whole pack of wild dogs, bursting them open like bladders. I had cleared the venomous snakes out of all Caspromant merely by sweeping my eyes over the hills. I had glanced at old Ubbro’s cottage, and that same night the old man had fallen paralysed and lost the power of speech, and it was not a punishment but only the wild gift striking without reason. When I had gone looking for the missing white heifers, the instant I saw them, I had destroyed them, against my own will. And so in fear of this random and terrible power I had blinded myself—or Canoc had blinded me—though others said no, only sealed his eyes with a blindfold. If anybody disbelieved these tales, they took him to see the ruined hillside above the Ashbrook, the dead tree, the little broken bones of voles and moles and mice on the waste ground there, the burst boulders and shattered stones.
I didn’t know these stories then, but it had dawned on me that I had a new power, which lay not in acts but words—in reputation.
“We’ll go to Drummant,” my father said. “It’s time. Day after tomorrow. If we set off early we can be there by nightfall. Take your red gown, Melle. I want Drum to see the gift he gave me.”
“Oh, dear,” my mother said. “How long must we stay?”
“Five or six days, I suppose.”
“Oh, dear, dear. What can I take the brantor’s wife? I must have some guest-present for her.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“It is,” said my mother.
“Well, a basket of something from the kitchen?”
“Pah,” said my mother. “There’s nothing this time of year.”
“A basket of chicks,” I suggested. Mother had taken me into the poultry yard that morning to let me handle a brood of newly hatched chicks, putting them into my hands, cheeping, warm, weightless, downy, prickly.
“That’s it,” she said.
And when we set off two days later early in the morning, she had a basket full of cheeping on her saddlebow. I wore my new kilt and coat, my man’s coat.
Because I must ride Roanie, she was on Greylag, who was a completely trusty horse, though his height and size scared her. My father rode the colt. He had given much of Branty’s training to me and Alloc, but when you saw him ride Branty, you saw that he and the colt were made for each other, handsome, nervous, proud, and rash. I wished I could see him, that morning. I longed to see him. But I sat good Roanie and let her carry me forward into the dark.
¦ 10 ¦
It was strange and wearisome to ride all day seeing nothing of the country we rode through, aware only of the sound of hoofs on soft or stony ground, the creak of saddles, the smell of horse sweat and broom flower, the touch of the wind, guessing what the road must be like by Roanie’s gait. Unable to be ready for a change, a stumble, a sway, a check, I was always tense in the saddle, and often had to abandon shame and hold the pommel to keep myself steady. Mostly we had to ride single file, so there was no conversation. We paused now and then so Mother could give the chicks water, and we stopped at midday to rest and water the horses and to eat our lunch. The chicks chirped and cheeped vigorously over the feed Mother scattered in their basket. I asked where we were. Under Black Crag, Father said, in the domain of the Cordes. I could not imagine the place, never having been so far to the west of Caspromant. We soon went on, and to me the afternoon was a dull, long, black dream.
“By the Stone!” my father said. He never swore, not even such a mild old-fashioned oath as that, and it startled me out of my trance. My mother was riding in front, for there was no mistaking the path, and my father behind, keeping an eye on us. She had not heard him speak, but I asked, “What is it?”
“Our heifers,” he said, “over there.” And remembering I could not see where he pointed, “There’s a herd of cattle in the meadows under the hill there, and two of them are white. The rest are duns and roans.” He was silent a moment, probably straining his eyes to see. “They have the hump, and the shallow horns,” he said. “It’s them all right.”
We had all stopped, and Mother asked, “Are we still in Cordemant?”
“Drummant,” my father said. “For the past hour. But those are the Rodd breed. And my cows, I think. If I got closer to them, I could be sure of it.”
“Not now, Canoc,” she said. “It’ll be getting dark before long. We ought to go on.” There was strong apprehension in her voice. He heeded it.
“Right you are,” he said, and I heard Greylag step forward, and Roanie followed him without my needing to signal her, and the colt’s light step followed us.
We came to the Stone House of Drummant, and that was hard for me, that arrival in a strange place among strangers. My mother took my arm as soon as I dismounted and hung on to me, maybe to reassure herself as well as me. Among the many voices, I heard Ogge Drum’s, loud and genial. “Well, well, well, so you did come at last! And welcome to you! Welcome to Drummant! We’re poor folk here but what we have we share! What’s this, what’s this, the boy bandaged up like this? What’s the trouble then, lad? Weak eyes, is it?”
“Ah, we could wish it were that,” Canoc said lightly. He was a fencer; but Ogge was no swordsman, he used a bludgeon. A bully doesn’t answer you; he may hear but pays no heed; he talks on as if you were of no account, and it gives him the advantage always at the start, though not always in the end.
“Well, what a shame, to be led about like a baby, but no doubt he’ll grow out of it. Come this way, come this way. See to their horses, there! Barro, fetch the maids to call my lady!” and so on, a shouting of orders and commands, a great commotion, much coming and going, many voices. There were people all round me, crowds of unseen, unknown people. My mother was explaining to someone about the basket of chicks for the brantor’s wife. She kept hold of my arm as I was dragged over thresholds and up stairs. My head was whirling by the time we stopped. We were brought basins of water, and people buzzed all around us as we hurriedly washed off our travel dirt and brushed our clothes and Mother changed her dress.
Then it was down stairs again, and we came into a room which, by the sound of the echoes, was a great, tall one. There was a hearth: I could hear the crackle of the fire and feel a bit of warmth on my legs and face. Mother kept her hand on my shoulder. “Orrec,” she said, “here is the brantor’s wife, the lady Denno,” and I bowed in the
