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 Irickle 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
