“Do you do, do you do.”
I was speechless. My mother said, “Very well, thank you, my dear. It’s a long way from Rimmant, isn’t it. You must be quite tired.”
The whimpering, puppyish sound began again.
“Yes, she is,” her mother began, but Ogge’s big voice, right next to us, broke in, “Well, well, let the young people talk to each other, don’t be putting words in their mouths, you women! No matchmaking! Though they’re a fine pair, aren’t they? What do you say, boy, is she pretty, my granddaughter? She’s got the same blood as you, you know, not calluc blood, but Caspro blood. True lineage will out, they always say! Is she pretty, eh?”
“I can’t see her, sir. I imagine she is.”
Mother squeezed my arm, I don’t know whether in terror at my boldness or encouraging my effort to be civil.
“Can’t see her! I can’t see her sir!” Ogge mimicked. “Well, let her lead you about then. She can see. She has fine eyes. Fine, sharp, keen, Caspro eyes. Don’t you, girl? Don’t you?”
“Do you do. Don’t you. Don’t you. Mama, can I want to stairs.”
“Yes, dear. We will. It was a long ride, she’s quite tired, please forgive us, Father-in-Law, we’ll have a little rest before dinner.”
The girl and her mother escaped. We could not. We had to sit for hours at the long table. The boar had been roasting all day on the spit. There were shouts of triumph as the head was carried in. Toasts were drunk to the hunters. The strong reek of boar’s flesh filled the hall. Slabs of it were piled on my plate. Wine was poured, not beer or ale, but red wine from the vineyards in the southwest of the domain; only Drummant in all the Uplands made wine. It was heavy and sweet-sour. Ogge was soon louder-voiced than ever, shouting down his elder son and making much of the younger, Vardan’s father. “So, how about a betrothal party, Sebb?” he would bellow, and laugh, not waiting for any answer, and then again after half an hour, “So, how about a betrothal party? Hey, Sebb? All our friends here. All under our roof. Caspros, Barres, Cordes, and Drums. The best blood of all the Uplands. Hey, Brantor Canoc Caspro, what do you say? Will you come? Here’s a toast. Here’s to friendship, loyalty, love, and marriage!”
Mother and I were not allowed to go upstairs after dinner. We had to stay in the great hall while Ogge Drum and his people drank themselves drunk. He was always near us, and talked a great deal to my mother. His tone and words grew more and more offensive, but neither Melle nor Canoc, who kept as close to us as he could, could be provoked to answer angrily, or to answer much at all. And after a time the brantor’s wife intervened, staying with us as a kind of shield to my mother, answering Ogge for her. He grew sullen then and went off to quarrel again with his elder son, and we at last were able to slip out of the room and upstairs.
“Canoc, can we leave—go? Now?” my mother said in a whisper, in the long stone passage that led to our room.
“Wait,” he answered. We got to our room and shut the door. “I need to talk to Parn Barre. We’ll go early. He won’t do us any harm tonight.”
She gave a kind of laugh of despair.
“I’ll be with you,” he said. She let go of my arm to hold him and be held.
That was all as it should be, and I was very glad to hear we were going to escape, but I had a question that needed an answer.
“The girl,” I said, “Vardan.”
I felt them look at me, and there was a little silence while no doubt their eyes met.
“She’s small, and not ugly,” my mother said, “She has a sweet smile. But she’s…”
“An idiot,” my father said.
“No, Canoc, not that bad— But… not right. She’s like a child, I think, in her mind. A little child. I don’t think she’ll ever be anything more.”
“An idiot,” my father repeated. “This is what Drum offered us as a wife for you, Orrec.”
“Canoc,” my mother murmured, scared, as I was, by the fiery hatred in his voice.
There was a knocking at our door. My father went to answer it. There were low-voiced consultations. After some while he came back, without my mother, to where I was sitting on the edge of my cot. “The child’s been taken with seizures,” he said, “and Daredan’s asked for your mother to help her. Melle made fast friends with most of the women here, while we were out pig hunting and making enemies.” He gave a humorless, weary laugh. I could hear him sit down, letting himself down all at once like a tired hound, in the chair before the unlit hearth.
“I wish we were out of here, Orrec!”
“So do I,” I said.
“Lie down and sleep. I’ll wait for your mother.”
I wanted to wait for her too, and tried to sit up with him; but he came and pushed me over gently onto the cot and covered me with the fine, warm woollen blanket, and I was asleep the next moment.
I woke suddenly and was wide awake. A cock was crowing away down in the barnyards. It might be dawn, or long before dawn. There was some small noise in the room, and I said, “Father?”
“Orrec? Are you awake? It’s dark, I can’t see.” My mother felt her way to my cot and sat down beside me. “Oh, I’m so cold!” she said. She was shivering violently. I tried to put the warm blanket up around her shoulders, and she pulled it around us both.
“Where’s Father?”
“He said he had to talk to Parn Barre. He says we’ll leave as soon as there’s light to see by. I told Denno and Daredan we were leaving. They understand. I just said we had been away too long and Canoc was worried about the spring plowing.”
“What was wrong with the girl?”
“She gets overtired easily and has spasms, and her mother is frightened by it, poor thing. I sent her off to get some sleep, she doesn’t get much, and sat with the little girl. And then I half fell asleep there, and I don’t know…It seemed…I got so cold, I can’t seem to get warm…” I hugged her, and she snuggled up next to me. “Finally some of the other women came and could stay with the child, and I came back here, and your father went to find Parn. I suppose I should get our things ready to go. But it’s so dark still. I keep looking for the dawn.”
“Stay and get warm,” I said, and we sat there trying to warm each other until my father came back. He had his flint and steel and could light a candle, and my mother hurried our few things together into the saddlebag. We stole through the halls and passages and down the stairs and out of the house. I could smell dawn in the air, and the cocks were crowing as if they meant it. We went to the stables, where a sleepy, surly fellow roused up and helped us saddle our horses. My mother led Roanie out and held her while I mounted. I sat in the saddle waiting.
I heard my mother make a little surprised, grieving noise. Hoofs clopped on the cobbles as another of the horses was led out. She said,
“Canoc, look.”
“Ach,” he said in disgust.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The chicks,” my father said, low-voiced. “His people set the basket down where your mother gave it to them. Left it. Left the birds to die.”
He helped Melle mount Greylag, and then rode Branty out of the stable; the stable boy opened the courtyard gate for us, and we rode out.
“I wish we could gallop,” I said. My mother in her anxiety thought I meant it and said, “We can’t, dear,” but Canoc, riding close behind me, gave a short laugh. “No,” he said, “we’ll run away at a walk.”
The birds were all singing now from tree to tree, and I kept thinking, as my mother had, that I would soon see the light of dawn.
After we had ridden several miles, she said, “It was a stupid gift to bring to a house like that.”
“Like that?” said my father. “So grand and great, you mean?”
“In their own eyes,” said Melle Aulitta.
I said, “Father, will they say we ran away?”
“Yes.”
“Then we shouldn’t—should we?”
“If we stayed, Orrec, I’d kill him. And though I’d like to kill him in his own house, I can’t pay the price of that
