least to this our city, I think.'
'Yes, your greatness, and to your country as well; and so I thank you for your greeting.' Lissar hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. 'I-I was told that you would hear anyone who presented herself to you. I-have little to present. But I-think I would like to stay here, if I could, and so I need work.'
'What can you do?' said the prince, not unkindly. The handsome young man laughed, just a little, gently, and at that moment Lissar decided she disliked him. Her eyes moved in his direction and she noticed the princess sitting straitly on her bench, and thought that for the moment she did not look poised, but stiff, as if her backbone had turned to iron. She thought, The princess does not like the handsome young Cum of Dorl either: but what does she think of her brother?
She looked at the prince as she answered honestly: 'I do not know what I can do.' She did not know what inspired her to add: 'But I like dogs.'
'Where is yours from?' said the prince. 'If it were not for her long coat, I would say she is a line of my breeding.'
'Ossin,' said the king.
The prince smiled, unabashed, and shrugged, as if to say that a dog was a dog and he could not help himself. The Cum of Dorl made a little, catlike wriggle in his chair, and for a moment his beautiful profile presented itself to Lissar, and out of the corner of her eye she caught the curl of his lip; but she remained facing the prince.
The humor faded from Ossin's face and now she realized that he looked tired and sad, and that the droop of his shoulders as he slumped forward again was of a weary burden. He said softly, 'One of my best bitches died this morning. She left a litter of puppies a few hours old. The pups haven't a hope unless they are nursed most carefully; they probably haven't a hope even with nursing, but I dislike giving up without a struggle-and their mother was a very special dog. There are eight of them. If any survive it will have been worth almost any price to me. Would you care to play wet-nurse? It will be disgusting work, you know; they'll be sick at both ends right up through weaning time, most likely, if any should live so long, and you won't get much sleep at first.'
'I will do it,' said Lissar, 'but you will have to teach me how.'
TWENTY
THAT WAS THE END OF HER AUDIENCE; SHE BOWED, AND IF SHE did not include the Cum in her courtesy, she doubted that anyone noticed but herself.
The prince spoke a few words to a servant, who came to Lissar, bowed himself, and said, 'If the lady will follow me.' Lissar thought to bow again to the dais because the servant did; somewhere she recalled that one always bows last thing before leaving the royal presence, even if one has already bowed several times previously.
Somehow she remembered this from the wrong angle, as if she were sitting on the dais.... She followed the servant, leaning a little on Ash as a brief wash of dizziness assailed her.
The servant led her to a small antechamber off a vast hall similar to the one she had entered by. She sat down when the man bowed her to a chair, but she was not comfortable, and as soon as he left the room she stood up again, and paced back and forth. Ash remained sitting next to the chair with her chin propped on its seat but she kept an eye and an ear toward Lissar. Lissar was thinking, I have been in the wilds too long, this great building oppresses me. Why do I remember sitting while someone bows to me? I am an herbalist's apprentice-an herbalist's apprentice who has lost most of her memory to a fever she was not clever enough to cure herself of.
And yet her own thought rang strangely in her head, for a voice very like the one that had spoken to her on the mountain, the voice that had left her without guidance since she and Ash had come down from the wild lands, said, It is not that you have been in the wilderness too long. But this brought her no comfort; instead she felt angry, that she was permitted to understand so little; that even her own mind and memory spoke warily, behind barricades, to each other, without trust; that her guiding voice was not to be relied on, but spoke like an oracle, in riddles that she must spend her time and thought to unravel, to little effect.
She began to feel caged, began to feel that there was something searching for her; perhaps the creature whose gullet led to the royal receiving-room would tear itself free of its bondage and come looking for her. She heard a distant rumble like roaring, she heard a swift panting breath.
She started violently when a long nose was thrust into her hand, but as she looked down into Ash's brown eyes she recognized the panting breath as her own.
Deliberately she slowed her breathing, and she had regained her self-possession when the servant re- entered the room, another servant on his heels, bearing a small table, and yet another servant behind him, carrying a tray. Lissar, standing, still breathing a little too hard, barefoot, in the middle of the velvet- hung room, longing for her mountains, suddenly laughed, and then the roaring in her ears went away entirely. With the laugh she felt strangely whole and healthy again.
She looked with interest at the plate of fruit and small cakes on the tray, and was spilling crumbs down herself (which Ash swiftly removed as soon as they touched the floor) when the prince entered without warning.
She stopped chewing, and bowed, half a cake still in one hand. 'By all the gods and goddesses, high, low, wandering or incarnate, never bow to me unless I'm pinned to that blasted chair in that blasted room,' he said feelingly, 'or, I suppose, if my parents are present, or my sister-she's suddenly gotten very conscious of her standing-that's Dorl's doing, drat him, and she doesn't even like him. Pardon me,' he said, his voice a little calmer. 'All my staff knows not to bow to me, that's my first instruction, but usually-I hope- handed out a little more graciously. It has not been a pleasant afternoon, and I was up all night. I didn't want to believe that Igli would let herself die on me.
'But today has been worth it--even with Dorl there-to have someone to take care of the puppies. My regular staff are all falling in each other's way to avoid it; they all have better sense than I do, and it's a grim business watching little creatures die when you're wearing yourself out trying to keep them alive.'
He was not as tall as she had expected, looking up at him and his big booted feet on the dais from her place on the floor; but he was broad-shouldered and solid, and his feet were still big, even looking down at them from standing height instead of having them at chest level. 'Come on, then, I'll introduce you to them.'
