Robin McKinley - Deerskin

Ash sneezed.

Lissar laid down her hairbrush and felt the weight of the evening before shut down over her again. She forgot that it was a beautiful blue day with a wide bright sky, a perfect day for visiting Rinnol and petitioning for another lesson in plantlore. She felt trapped, squeezed; she felt.... She took a deep breath. She tapped her fingers against the back of her hairbrush, shook her hair back over her shoulders. She was imagining things. She didn't even know what the things she was imagining were. But when she picked the hairbrush up again, her hand trembled.

There was no reason for her to have hated the ball as much as she did.... The word hated just slipped into her thoughts; she had not meant to use it. How could she have hated her seventeenth-birthday ball? No reason, no reason. No reason to hate and fear her father. No reason.

Ash ate Lissar's breakfast for her, licking the jam jar clean and leaving the porridge. Lissar dressed herself as if she were still going for a walk in the woods: a plain shirt, with a green tunic and long dark skirt over it, and plain dark boots. She wore no jewellery, and tied her hair with a green ribbon not quite the shade of the tunic. She did not look like a princess. Her hair was pulled severely away from her face; she fastened the shirt closed up to her throat, and the sleeves came down nearly over her hands. The heavy skirt gave no hint to the curve of hip and leg beneath it, and the boots hid her ankles.

The upper footman who was doorkeeper to the receiving-hall that day looked at the princess's clothing with something like alarm, but he knew his place, and made no comment. He stepped past the doors and announced, Her young greatness, the princess Lissla Lissar.

Lissar, her hand on Ash's back, stepped forward. The receiving hall was alight with lamps and candelabra and the flashing of jewels; there were windows in the room, but they seemed very small and distant, muffled by the heavy grand curtains that framed them. Daylight did not seem to enter the room gladly, as it did most rooms, but hesitated at the sills, kept at bay by the gaudier glare of the royal court.

Lissar thought it looked as if everyone from the ball had simply stayed up through the night and into the morning, and now had moved from the ballroom into the smaller receiving-hall and throne room, bringing the night-time with them. In the smaller room there were too many bodies, and too many shadows, tossed and flung and set against each other by the tyranny of too many candleflames, too many gestures by too many jewelled hands.

Involuntarily Lissar's eyes went to the place where her mother's portrait usually hung, expecting to see bare wall; to her dismay the portrait had already been returned to its place, and the painted eyes caught at hers like claws. Lissar blinked, and in tearing her gaze loose again two tears, hot as blood, fell from under her eyelids.

Why were so many people present? She knew that her father's court had grown over the last year, and as she avoided its occupations as much as possible, perhaps she did not know if this was an unusual gathering or not. But there was a quality of expectancy about these people that she did not like, too eager an inquiry as they turned to look at her. She had nothing for them, nothing to do with them. Nothing!

This thought wanted to burst out of her, she wanted to shout Nothing aloud, and let the sound of it push the peering faces away. But she knew that the word was not true, nor had it any charm to save her.

Last night was a beginning, not an ending.

But she still did not exactly know, beginning of what; she did not want to have to know yet. She wanted to go for a walk in the woods with her dog. She wanted not to return. Her hand on Ash's back quivered, and the tall dog turned her head to gaze up at her person's face. Whatever it is, I'm here too, her eyes said.

"My daughter!" said her father, and swept regally toward her, his handsome face shining and his tunic perfectly fitted to his wide shoulders and slim hips. Lissar registered that he was not wearing the glittering costume of the ball the night before; then his hand seized hers, and her mind went blank.

The three moved down the length of the room slowly. The princess looked dazed, as if she was having difficulty setting one foot after the other. (It is just like last night, she thought. No, it is not just like last night; Ash is here.) She seemed to cling more to her dog than to her father's hand. What an odd creature she was! And she was dressed so plainly; had she not sufficient warning that she was to wait upon her father and her father's court? But why would a princess ever dress as plainly as this? What matter be a princess? She looked like a woodcutter's daughter, not a king's.

Many people remembered how blank and bewitched she had looked she night before, and frowned; could she not remember what was due her rank, due her father; her father who was royal in all things, all ways, as her mother had been, whom she resembled so much in face and figure? How could this daughter do nothing but stumble, this daughter of such a king, such a queen, how could she refuse to meet the eyes of her own people?

But the king was resplendent enough for them both, and the people's eyes left thc unsatisfactory princess and returned to linger upon the king. More than one of the older courtiers murmured to their neighbors that they had not seen him look so strong and happy since the first days of his marriage; one would never know that he was thirty years older than the young woman at his side; he looked young enough to be her lover.

Murmured the older courtiers' neighbors: the princess's physical resemblance to her mother is astonishing to us all, and makes us recall how it was when we had both a king and a queen, and how happiness radiated from them like heat from a sun, and warmed the entire country. Briefly their eyes touched the unsatisfactory princess again: how pale she was; there was no heat there, to warm her people's hearts.

What a thousand pities that the princess has not more presence!

When the king reached the dais where his throne now stood alone, he swung the princess around, or he would have, had she not moved so stiffly, like a wooden doll with too few joints. The tall dog at her side was more graceful. Princess Lissla Lissar looked down at the dog, who looked up at her, and the court saw her lips move briefly; the dog sat, and curled its long tail around its feet, like a cat.

"I have an announcement!" cried the king; and all the court smiled and were happy to see him so joyful. It will be about the princess's marriage, they said wisely to each other; the king of Smisily must have made the offer after all; or perhaps our duke Mendaline fell so in love with her last night....

"I have an announcement!" the king repeated, gleefully, as if keeping them in suspense for another few minutes brought as much pleasure to him as the announcement itself.

"The princess Lissla Lissar is of an age, now, to marry." He turned to look at her, moving to arm's length, as if to display her to best advantage to his audience, perhaps to the future husband, while he admired her with a connoisseur's vision. One or two of the ministers-the ones who had tried the hardest the night before to present the princess to different dancing-partners-looked faintly uneasy. The pale princess closed her eyes.

"Is she not beautiful? Look at her, my friends, my lords and ladies, my vassals, servants, bondsfolk, ministers, and all of my court. Is she not the loveliest thing your eyes have ever beheld?"

The two or three ministers who were feeling vaguely uneasy exchanged even more vaguely uneasy glances.

In fact the princess was not the most beautiful thing the court of the king who had been married to the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms had ever beheld, and had they any moment of doubt they need only raise their eyes to the portrait of that queen which hung behind the very dais where the king stood and spoke of his princess. The painting seemed to be presiding over the magnificent room, the drama being enacted at its feet. Never had the painted face seemed fiercer or more compelling, or more alive; certainly it seemed more alive than the drooping princess, dangling from her father's hand, leaning upon her dog. She swayed a little, and looked ill.

The uneasiness of the ministers became a little more general, but the uneasiness had yet to take definite shape or name. It began to occur to the court that they had seen very little of the princess for the whole of the seventeen years of her existence, and was that not very odd, for a princess, and an only child of so grand a personage as their king, as well? It was true that she had been a little more visible the last two years, but she rarely spoke, and seemed to prefer the company of her dog; there were rumors of a dirty, uncouth old woman, some herb-hag, that the princess was mysteriously attached to; no one knew why.

Was it not possible therefore that there was ... something amiss about the princess?

The smiles began to fade off the faces of the courtiers. She looked, as they thought about it, haggard. Did she have a wasting illness? (What had, finally, her mother died of? The doctors never said.) Suddenly the king's over-jovial words struck on them harshly. Could he not see that there was something wrong with her?

Although perhaps he could not. She was his daughter and his only child, and he could not look at her but with eyes of love. But ... they did not want to think it, but they did ... perhaps there was a sinister reason for her habitual absence from her father's court, for her reluctance to take up her birthright, her royalty-why did she shrink from the eyes of her people?

The court shook itself, and decided to be impatient with the princess, impatient so that they need think no worse.

But the king-did he not speak a little wildly? Was it completely . . . proper ... even in a king, to praise his daughter so extravagantly? Some of the courtiers remembered his madness upon the queen's death, and the long months he had remained locked up in his rooms during her decline, seeing almost no one, state affairs attended to by a featureless collection of ministers with ponderous voices. Those had been bad times for the country.

But that was all over ... so everyone had hoped. He had been lit and capable again now for over a year-surely there was nothing really wrong now (with him or with the princess)-it would be a good thing when the princess was married and gone-he would settle down again then. He praised her extremely because she so obviously did not deserve it; with a father's love he wished her shortcomings to be overlooked; which meant that he was aware of her shortcomings.

It was really not surprising that any man should be a little over-anxious, over-thoughtful of his only daughter, particularly when that daughter was also his only child. And this girl has yawn up so distractingly like and yet unlike her mother-it is not to be wondered at, that the king does not know quite how to behave toward her.

He still misses his wife, of course, for he has not remarried. That is probably the girl's doing. Every girl wants her father to herself. Look at her now, pretending to be so bashful, so shy that she cannot open her eyes, as if she did not like being the center of attention. Look at her, half-swooning, making sure by her weakness that her father will stand close, will hold her, protect her, not take his eyes off her. She probably has a hundred little petting, luring ways with him when they're alone together. And the poor man, thinks the sun rises and sets in her. Just see the way he looks at her.

It will be better when she is married and gone.

"The princess, as I say, is to be married!" And the king gave a high-pitched giggle as he said it; and then all the court truly was uneasy. "It is high time she was married, for she is a woman grown!" And he stroked her arm in a way that made many members of the court look away, although they would not have admitted why, even to themselves.

"The princess, furthermore, is to be married very soon; the sooner the better."

The king's voice, too loud, boomed out over the heads of his people. The candles flickered, as if in response; people's gazes flickered, the expressions on their faces flickered. "I have set a great machinery in motion today, this morning, to have all this great land in readiness for the most magnificent celebration any of us has ever seen! I decided upon this thing last night, at the ball, as I beheld the princess for what seemed to be the first time; and I realized there was no time to waste. And so I set about the work this morning before dawn."

A sense of dread had settled on the company no less profound than that which lay upon the princess, who still stood silent, facing her father's people, suffering his hand upon her arm.

"For in the princess's face I have seen a thing more glorious than any I have looked on before in the long years of my life: I have seen my youth returned to me, something no man ever thinks to behold, something no man-ere now-has ever been granted. In three days' time we shall celebrate the wedding of our beautiful, beloved princess, Lissla Lissar-but it is not only your princess's wedding you shall celebrate, but your king's as well-for I shall be her bridegroom!"

Lissar fainted. She swam back toward the light again, fleeing from the roaring of invisible monsters who seemed to press close around her. She thought briefly that one of them had seized her right arm-the arm her father had held-which ached fiercely. But as she opened her eyes she realized that it was only that she had fallen on that side, and bent the arm painfully under her; and she noticed further that her shoulder ached, as if wrenched, and she guessed that her father had not wanted to let her go.

For a moment she could not move. It seemed her trapped arm held the rest of her captive; she was twisted in such a way that for a moment there seemed no way to begin the untwisting. She lay, blinking, her mind, still confused by the roaring of the monsters, failing to make sense of what she saw; the rippling of hems and the strange, abrupt, unconnected motions of shoes and boots bewildered her.