'Fortunately I'm already known as less than a splendid conversationalist,' he told her ruefully; 'I'm now gaining a reputation as a total blockhead.' They talked softly, the puppies clean and fed and asleep, and Lissar's long hairy head- or foot-rest snoring gently.
He talked more than she did, for she had only half a year's experience available to her, and much of it was about not remembering what went before-about fearing to remember what went before; and the rest was not particularly interesting, about hauling water and chopping wood, and walking down a mountain. She did not mean to tell him this, that she did not remember what her life had been, but at four o'clock in the morning, when the world is full of magic, things may be safely said that may not be uttered at any other time, so long as the person who listens believes in the same kind of magic as the person who speaks. Ossin and Lissar did believe in the same kinds of magic, and she told him more than she knew herself, for she was inside her crippled memory, and he was outside.
But one thing she always remembered not to tell him was her name. Since she remembered so little else, and since she had a name-Deerskin-this created no suspicion in his mind; but she wondered at it herself, that she should be so sure she dared not tell him this one fact-perhaps the only other fact she was sure of beyond Ash's name.
He in turn told her of his life in ordinary terms. There were no gaps in his memory, no secrets that he could remember nothing of but the fearful fact of their existence. He was the only son of his parents, who had been married four years before he was born; his sister was eight years younger. He could not remember a time when he had not spent most of his waking hours with dogs-except for the time he spent with horses-or a time in which he had not hated being dressed up in velvets and silk and plonked on a royal chair atop a royal dais, 'like a statue on a pedestal, and about as useful, I often think. I think my brain stops as soon as brocade touches my skin.'
'You should replace your throne with a plain chair then,' said Lissar. 'Or you could take one of the crates in the common-room with you.'
'Yes,' said Ossin, 'one of the crates. And we could hire an artist to draw running dogs chasing each other all the way around it, as an indication of my state of mind.'
TWENTY-THREE
SPRING HAD PASSED AND THE WARMTH NOW WAS OF HIGH summer.
When Lissar paused on the way to the bathhouse and lifted her face to the sky, the heat of the sun struck her like the warmth of the fire in the little hut had struck her last winter, as a lifegiving force, as a bolt of energy that sank through her flesh to her bones. She took a deep breath, as if welcoming her life back; as if the six small furry life-motes in the kennels behind her were ... not of no consequence, but possessed of perfect security.
It was a pleasant sensation; she stood there some minutes, eyes closed, drinking the sun through her pores; and then Hela's voice at her shoulder, 'There, you poor thing, you've fallen asleep on your feet.' Lissar hadn't heard her approach. She opened her eyes and smiled.
Two days later she and Ossin took the pups outdoors for the first time. He carried the big wooden box that held all six of them, and she had occasion to observe that the bulk of his arms and shoulders, unlike that of his waistline, had nothing to do with how many sweet cakes he ate. She and Ash followed him, Lissar carrying blankets, as anxious as any nursemaid about her charges catching a chill.
The puppies tumbled out across the blankets. The bolder ones at once teetered out to the woolly edges and fell off, and began attacking blades of grass. They were adorable, they were alive, and she loved them; and she laughed out loud at their antics. Ossin turned to her, smiling. 'I have never heard you laugh before.' She was silent.
'It is a nice sound. I like it. Pardon me if I have embarrassed you.'
She shook her head; and at that moment Jobe came up to ask Ossin something, a huge, beautiful, silver- and-white beast pacing solemnly at his side. It and Ash threw measuring looks at each other, but both were too well-behaved to do any more: or simply too much on their dignity to initiate the first move. Lissar still had only the vaguest idea of the work that went on around her every day in the kennels; she heard dogs and people, the slap of leather and the jingle of metal rings, the shouts of gladness, command, correction-and frustration; smelled food cooking, and the aromas from the contents of the wheelbarrows the scrubbers carried out twice a day.
The scrubbers were not lightly named; they did not merely clean, they scrubbed.
Lilac came to visit her occasionally, the first time the day after Lissar had gone to meet the king and queen in the receiving-hall. By the mysterious messenger service of a small community, word had reached her that evening of what had become of her foundling, and why Lissar had not returned as she had promised. 'I knew you would land on your feet,' she said cheerfully in greeting.
Lissar, after one nearly sleepless night, and weeks of them to come, and six small dog-morsels threatening to die at any moment, was not so certain of Lilac's estimation of her new position, and looked at her with some irony.
Lilac, who had dropped to her knees beside the puppies, did not see this.
'They're so tiny,' she whispered, as if speaking loudly might damage them. 'I'm used to foals, who are born big enough that you know it if one stands on your foot.'
'I'm supposed to keep them alive,' Lissar said, as softly as Lilac.
'You will,' said Lilac, looking up, and for just one moment Lissar saw a flash of that look she saw in almost everyone's face. Lilac's eyes rested briefly on the white dress Lissar had not yet changed for kennel clothes; and Lissar wondered, suddenly, for the first time, why Lilac had spoken to her at the water trough, what seemed a lifetime ago already, and was yet less than three days.
The glimpse left her speechless. 'You will,' said Lilac again, this time turning it into a croon to a puppy, who, waking up, began to crawl toward the large warm bulk near him, cheeping hopefully. This was the one Lissar would name Ob: he was growing adaptable already, and was realizing that more than one large warm bulk provided food.
As the pups grew and blossomed, the names she had at first almost casually chosen, as a way of keeping them sorted out, instead of calling them 'white with brindle spot on left ear,' 'small grey bitch,' or 'big golden-fawn,' began to feel as if they belonged, that they did name; and she slipped, sometimes, and called them by their private names when someone else was near. At first it was only Lilac. Then, one day, Ossin.
