Deerskin (42 page)

She must have fallen asleep, and the fire begun to smoke, for the room became full of roiling grey, and then the grey began to separate itself into black and white, and the black and white began to shape itself into an outline, although within the outline the black and white continued to chase each other in a mesmerizing, indecipherable pattern, as if light and shadow fell on some swift-moving thing, like water or fire. And the Moonwoman said, “Ash is fighting her way back to you, my dear; I believe she will make it, because she believes it herself. She is an indomitable spirit, your dog, and she will not leave you so long as you hold her as you hold her now, begging her to stay. She will win this battle because she can conceive of no other outcome.”

The Moonwoman’s words seemed to fall, black and white, in Lissar’s ears; she heard them as if they were spoken twice, as if they had two distinct meanings; and she recognized each of the meanings.

“Do not be too hard on yourself,” said the Moonwoman, reading her mind, or the black and white shadows on her own face. “It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog’s love, once given, is not reconsidered; it just is, like sunlight or mountains. It is for human beings to see the shadows behind the light, and the light behind the shadows. It is, perhaps, why dogs have people, and people have dogs.

“But, my dear, my poor child, don’t you understand yet that healing carries its own responsibilities? Your battle was from death to life no less than Ash’s is now; would you deny it? But you have not accepted your own gift to yourself, your gift of your own life. Ash is looking forward to running through meadows again; can you not give yourself leave to run through meadows too?”

Lissar woke, finding herself crying, and finding Ash, rolled up on her belly from her side, where she had lain for so many hopeless days, feebly licking the hands where the tears fell.

P
ART
T
HREE

T
HIRTY
-F
OUR

SPRING BEGAN TO COME QUICKLY AFTER THAT. SOMETHING—SEV
eral somethings—discovered the half-thawed remains of the toro one night; Lissar, who still slept lightly, woke up to hear a growling argument going on outdoors. The puppies were all awake, ears cocked, but none of them showed any desire to go to the door and ask to be let out. The next day, amid the bits of fresh fur and blood, Lissar dismembered what remained of their kill, and hung it from a few branches at the edge of the forest.

Pur’s flank was healed; Harefoot’s leg Lissar left in its splint perhaps longer than necessary, in fear of further accidents. When Harefoot ran, more so even than usual with fleethounds, it was as if some sixth or seventh sense took over, and she became nothing but the fact of running. Lissar’s belief in her had come true for all to see when the kennel staff had set up an informal match-race between her and Whiplash, considered the fastest fleethound in the prince’s kennels. And Harefoot, only seven months old, had won. Lissar remembered how the blood vessels had stood out in her neck and upon her skull, and how wild her eyes had looked, and how long it had taken her to settle down again—how slow she had been to respond to her own name—after this. She would not take care of herself—could not be trusted to take care of herself—so Lissar would take extra care of her. The leg was setting straight; but Lissar wondered if it would ever be quite as strong as it was before, if Harefoot might have lost that edge of swiftness she had been born with. She remembered Ossin’s comment on racing: a waste of a good hunting dog, and she tried not to mourn; but she wondered how it would look to Harefoot.

This year there was a new urgency to her preparations to leave, to the impatience that spring infected her with. The year before she had known it was time to leave, time to do … something; her pulse was springing like sap, and she could not be still. But this year there was a strange, anxious kind of compulsion, an uncomfortable haste, nothing like the calm delight of the Lady’s peace last year. Some of the discomfort too was because Ash was regaining her strength only slowly. Lissar wanted to believe that she was anxious about this only because she wished to be on her way; but she knew it was more that it troubled her to see Ash still so weak and slow and unlike herself. If Harefoot might have lost just the least fraction of her extraordinary speed to a broken leg, what debt might Ash have paid to recover from a mortal wound in the belly?

Days passed and became weeks. Lissar, half-mad now with restlessness, had even cleaned the eaves and patched the shutters, making do with what tools she had and what guesses she could make about a carpenter’s skills. Her own slowness was perhaps a boon, for it gave her that much more occupation, doing things wrong before she got them somewhat right. As she had spent two winters in this small house, she thought, as she missed the shutter entirely on a misguided swing with her hammer and narrowly avoided receiving the shutter in her gut as a result, she perhaps owed it some outside work as well as inside. It was a pity, though, that mending roof-holes required more skill than scrubbing a floor.

Every sunny day Ash spent lying asleep, dead center in the meadow; the puppies played or slept or wandered. Lissar had salted the rest of the toro meat—the gamy flavor was somehow more bearable when it was so salty it made the back of her tongue hurt—so she did not take them hunting. They were all badly unfit after the long weeks’ inactivity, and she did not want to distress Ash by leaving her behind, nor tax her by trying to bring her along.

The first wild greens appeared; with double handsful of the bitterest young herbs, the toro meat became almost palatable, although she noticed the puppies inexplicably preferred it plain.

The first day she caught an unwary rabbit with one of her throwing-stones, she permitted herself to have the lion’s share of the sweet, fresh meat, which she ate outdoors, so that she did not have to be distracted by the smell of the puppies’ dinner.

All the dogs were shedding; when she brushed them, short-haired even as they were, the hair flew in clouds, and made everyone sneeze. This occupation was performed exclusively out-of-doors, and downwind of the hut. It took about a sennight for Lissar to realize one circumstance of one spring coat: Ash’s long hair was falling out. It was hard to notice at first, because she was in such poor condition, and her fur stuck out or was matted in any and every direction; Lissar had sawn some of the worst knots off with her knife, so poor Ash already looked ragged.

But as the long fur came out in handsful the new, silky, gleaming coat beneath it was revealed … as close and short and fine as any other fleethound’s. The scar, still red, and crooked from too few stitches, glared angrily through; but Ash was recovering herself with her health, and when she stood to attention, her head high and her ears pricked, Lissar thought her as beautiful as any dog ever whelped. And, what pleased Lissar even more, as she began, hesitantly, in tiny spurts, to run and leap again, she ran sound on all four legs, and stretched and twisted and bounded like her old self.

They began sleeping outdoors as soon as the ground was dry enough not to soak through Lissar’s leather cloak and a blanket on top—Ash must not take a chill. Lissar watched Ash’s progress hungrily, still fearing some unknown complication, still in shock from having believed she might lose her, still not believing her luck and Ash’s determination to stay alive, still reliving in nightmare the fateful, unknowing opening of the door, seeing Ash streaking across the snow toward the toro, ignoring Lissar’s attempt to call her back—and knowing, as she had not known at the time, how it would end.

And hungrily too with a hunger to be gone from this place. It felt haunted now, haunted with two winters of old pain; that they had, she and Ash, been healed of their pain here as well seemed less strong a memory under the blue skies—and even the cold rains—of spring. Lissar built a fire-pit in the meadow—near the small hillock with the bare top, the hillock crowned by a hollow shaped like two commas curled together. There was no longer much need to go in the hut at all, although it was convenient for storage, and for when it rained; she had hauled the remains of the toro away some time since, and a good torrential rain two nights later had done the rest to eliminate the traces of its existence. It existed now only in Lissar’s dreams.

But as spring deepened and the days grew longer and the sun brighter, Lissar began to have the odd sensation that the walls of the hut were becoming … less solid. It was nothing so obvious as being able to see through them; only that the light indoors grew brighter, brighter than one small window and a door overhung by a double arm’s length of porch roof could explain. Perhaps it was only that I am seeing things brighter now, she thought bemusedly.

She left the table, where she had been chopping that night’s meat ration into smallish bits, to make it easier to divide fairly eight ways; she thought of dragging the table outdoors, since she still liked to use it, but decided that this was too silly, that furniture belonged indoors. But coming inside to use it made her skin prickle with the awareness that this was no longer home. She went to stand in the doorway, where Ash and Ob were playing as if they were both only a year old; Ash, in her eyes, glittered in the sunlight, and the corners of Lissar’s mouth turned up unconsciously. Lissar looked up at the roof, which appeared solid enough. I have no other explanation, she thought, so it might as well be that I am seeing my own life brighter.

She looked out at the dogs again. Ob was licking Ash’s face, as he—and the other puppies—had done many times before. But this time looked different. Ash did not appear to be putting up with the clumsy ministrations of someone she knew meant well; she looked like she was enjoying it. And Ob did not look like a child pestering his nursemaid for attention; he was kissing her solemnly and tenderly, like a lover.

Lissar went back to the table.

When Ash flopped down and put her head in Lissar’s lap after supper, Lissar bent over her, lifted one of her hind legs, and looked at the small pink rosebud that nestled between them. It was bigger and redder than usual. Lissar gently lay the leg back again. Ash rolled her eyes at her. “Should you be thinking about puppies with a mortal wound less than two months old in your side?” Ob chose this moment to come near and lie down protectively curled around Ash’s other side. “But then, what have I to say about it anyway, yes?”

Ash raised her head long enough to bend her neck back at an entirely implausible angle and give Ob a reflective, upside-down lick, and then righted herself, and heaved her forequarters into Lissar’s lap as well, munched on nothing once or twice in the comfortable way of dogs, and settled contentedly down for sleep.

When Lissar opened her eyes the next morning, the first shadows under dawn’s first light were moving across the meadow.
We leave tomorrow
, said the little voice in Lissar’s mind.
Tomorrow
. It fell silent, and Lissar lay, listening to Ob’s intestinal mutterings under her ear, and thinking about it. They could sleep under the sky at some place an easy walk down the mountain from here as well as where they were; they would simply stop as soon as Ash got tired.

Tomorrow
.

Yes, yes, I hear you. Tomorrow. The season is well enough advanced that even if it rains it shouldn’t be too cold; not with seven of us to keep her warm, and the leather is almost waterproof. And if she’s about to be carrying puppies—or already is—the sooner the better.

Tomorrow
.

The iron-filing feeling had never been so powerful.

There wasn’t much to pack; little enough left to do. The remains of the herbs she had brought were the only perishables left, and they retained enough of their virtue to be worth saving. She had been glad enough of the medicinal ones, this grim winter. She fished out a few dark wrinkled survivors from the root bin to take with her, and then wrapped most of the herbs and stowed them in the cupboard for any other traveller.

The extra tools would stay here; except perhaps the hatchet. She would take a couple of the extra blankets that she—and the dogs—had brought with them. She made a tidy bundle of the things that they would take and left it, with the dog harnesses, just inside the door; she would do the parcelling out the next day.

Tomorrow
.

A fairly short search through the smaller, neighboring meadows netted her three rabbits, already plump from spring feeding; despite seven dogs in the immediate vicinity the small game at the top of this mountain had largely remained fatally tame. Lissar would put some tiny young wild onions and the last of the potatoes in the stew tonight.

It was an unusually warm night; she left even the leather cloak rolled up inside the hut door. They sat and lay on the earth, grass tickling their chins and bellies, the occasional six-legged explorer marching gravely up a leg or flank. She thought the voice in her head might not let her sleep; even when it did not shape itself into a word it hummed through her muscles. But a strange, restful peace slipped down over her … like a freshly laundered nightgown from Hurra’s hands so long ago … she shivered at the memory, waiting for the panic to begin, waiting for that memory to leap forward … but it did not come. She remembered the softness and the sweet smell of the nightgowns she used to wear when her favorite bedtime story was the one of how her father courted the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, and the nightgown was still a pleasant memory, and she could further spare the knowledge of sorrow for what was to come to that little girl without spoiling the understanding of that earlier innocence and trust. And so she fell asleep, with dogs all around her, and a full Moon shining down upon the warm green meadow.

She woke up smiling, feeling as refreshed and strong as she ever had in her life, sat up, stretched, and looked around. As she moved, so too did the dogs.

The hut had vanished.

T
HIRTY
-F
IVE

THEIR SPEED DOWN THE MOUNTAIN WAS LESS HAMPERED BY ASH’S
weakness than Lissar had expected. She called a halt sometimes not because Ash looked tired but because Lissar felt she ought to be. It seemed as if spring were unrolling beneath their feet; as if, looking over their shoulders, they might see the last patches of snow tucked in shaded hollows, but if they looked to their vision’s end before them, they would see summer flowers already in bloom.