Robin McKinley - Deerskin

Hela and the other staff left behind sometimes came out as well with half-grown dogs on long leashes. Lissar's puppies were loose (only once had one, Pur, bolted after the hunting-party; when, the next day, he was the only one of them all on a leash he was so humiliated that forever after he would face away from the hunters, and sit down, or possibly chase butterflies, resolutely ignoring everything else around him).

After the party had ridden out, there were lessons in the big field, although occasionally these were shortened if there were visitors waiting to see available pups put through their paces. The prince's interdiction about Lissar's family continued to hold; but Lissar preferred to stay out of the way of these activities nonetheless, just in case someone who could not be said "no" to took an incurable liking to one of her puppies, or merely made the prince an offer he could not refuse, including perhaps half a kingdom and a daughter who did ride and hunt.

It was on one of her long afternoons wandering beyond the cultivated boundaries of the king's meadow that a woman approached her. Lissar had begun wearing her deerskin dress again of late; she found it curiously more comfortable for long rambles, for all the apparent practicality of the kennel clothing standard. She was barefoot, of course, and on this day she had three leashes wrapped around her waist, in case she should need them. The dogs had all registered a stranger long before Lissar could differentiate this human form from any other, the puppies bounding straight up into the air to see over the tall grass, and the other three grown dogs and Ash standing briefly, gracefully, on their hind legs. Ash, as leader, made whuffling noises through her long nose. Lissar was not worried, but she was a little wistful that her solitary day was coming to an end sooner than she had wished.

Ordinarily she would not have stayed away even so long; she had missed out on doing any of the daily chores. But she had the three extra dogs with her today, dogs that Ossin had said of, "These need only one or two of Deerskin's days; but they've been hunted a little harder than they should, and they need a holiday." These three had the usual perfect manners of the prince's hunting dogs, and were no trouble; each of them had looked her mildly in the eye almost at once when she sat down to make their acquaintance; and they showed a tendency to like being petted, as if in their secret hearts they wished to be house-dogs instead of hunters. "One day," she told them, "when you have retired, you will go to live with a family who will love you for your beauty and nothing more, and if you're very lucky there will be children, and the children will pet you and pet you and pet you. Ossin has a list, I think, of such children; he sends his hunting-staff out during the months they are not needed for that work, to look for them, and add names to the list." The fleethounds stared back at her with their enormous dark liquid eyes, and believed every word.

She had spoken to each in turn, cupping her hand under their chins, and smiling at them; and then she had taken enough bread for her, and biscuit for all ten of her companions, for a noon meal. She took a few throwing-stones as well, just in case she saw something she wished to try, for she felt out of practice, and her eyes were still better for the crouched and trembling rabbit in the field than the dogs' were; their eyes responded to motion. Not that there was much chance of any honest hunting whatsoever, with the puppies along; but the three extra adults were helping to keep order, and it would be too bad if she missed an opportunity.

She was aware that she was getting hungry now as the shadows lengthened in the afternoon light, that supper would be welcome; and the two ootag she had in fact been able to kill today would be barely a mouthful each divided eleven ways. But she wasn't hungry enough yet, and there were still several hours of summer daylight. She sighed as the stranger came nearer.

It was a woman; Lissar could see the scarf wrapped around her hair, and then could recognize that the legs swishing through the tall grass were wearing a farmwife's long skirt. As she grew nearer, Lissar was teased by the notion that the woman looked a little familiar; but the thought remained teasing only.

The woman walked straight through the dogs, who were so startled at being ignored that not even the irrepressible Ob tried to leap up and lick her face. When she came to Lissar, who was standing, bemused, still hoping that the woman had made a mistake and would go away, she flung herself at Lissar's feet.

Lissar, alarmed, thought at first she had fainted, and bent down to help her; but the woman would not be lifted, and clutched at Lissar's ankles, her sleeves tickling Lissar's bare feet, speaking frantically, unintelligibly, to the ground. Lissar knelt, put her hand under the woman's chin, and lifted; and Lissar's life in the last eight months had made her strong. The woman's head came up promptly, and Lissar saw the tears on her face. "Oh, please help me!" the woman said.

Lissar, puzzled, said, "I will if I am able; but what is your trouble? And why do you ask me? I know little of this land, and have no power here."

But these words only made fresh tears course down the woman's face. "My lady, I know you are here just as you are. I would not ask were it anything less, but my child! Oh, my Aric! He is gone now three days. You cannot say no to me-no, please do not say no! For you have long been known for your kindness to children."

Lissar shook her head slowly. She knew little of children, to have kindness for them or otherwise; this poor woman had mistaken her for someone else, in her distraction over her child. "I am not she whom you seek," she said gently. "Perhaps if you tell me, I can help you find who-"

The woman gasped, half-laugh, half-choke. "No, you will not deny me! Destroy me for my insolence, but I will not let you deny it! The tales-" She released Lissar's ankles and clutched at her wrists; one hand crept up Lissar's forearm and hesitantly stroked her sleeve. "I recognized you that day in the receiving-hall, you with your white dress and your great silver dog; and Sweetleaf, with me, she knew who you were too; and her cousin Earondem is close kin with Barley of the village Greenwater; and Barley and his wife Ammy had seen you come down from the mountain one dawn. And I would not trouble you, but, oh-" And her tears ran again, and she put her hands over her face and sobbed.

"Who am I, then?" said Lissar softly; not wanting to hear the answer, knowing the name Moonwoman murmured behind her back, knowing the truth of the Lady, ashamed that she, Lissar, might be confused with her. And yet she feared to hear the answer too, feared to recognize what she was not; feared to understand that by learning one more thing that she was not that it narrowed the possibilities of what she was; that if those possibilities were thinned too far, that she would no longer be able to escape the truth. Her truth.

"Tell me then," she said strongly. "Who am I?"

The woman's hands dropped away from her face, her back and shoulders slumped. "I have offended you, then," she said, dully. "I did not wish that. It is only that I love my Aric so much-" She looked into Lissar's face, and whatever she saw there gave her new hope. "Oh, I knew you were not unkind! Deerskin," she said, "if it is Deerskin you wish to be called, then I will call you Deerskin. But we know you, the White Lady, the Black Lady, Moonwoman, who sees everything, and finds that which is lost or hidden; and my Aric was lost three days ago, as your Moon waxed; I know you would not have missed him. Oh, my lady, please find my Aric for me!"

Lissar stared at her. It was her own wish to know, and not know, her own story, that had caused her to ask the woman to name her; even knowing what the answer must be, the false answer.... The woman knelt again, staring into Lissar's face with an expression that made the breath catch in Lissar's throat. She knew nothing of the finding of lost children; she did not know what to do. But she did know that she could not deny this woman; she could not walk away. A search was demanded of her; the search, at least, she could provide.

"I will go," she said slowly, "but"-raising a hand quickly before the woman could say anything-"you must understand. I am not ... what you claim for me. My eyes are mortal, as are my dogs. Therefore I ask you two things: do not speak that other name to me or to anyone when you speak of me: my name is Deerskin. And, second, go to the king's house, and ask for a messenger for the prince, and tell him what you have told me; say that Deerskin has gone to look, that no time be wasted; but that I have no scent-hounds; the prince will know that these are what is needed.

The prince, or someone for him, will send dogs after me.

"Now, tell me what village you are from, and where Aric was lost."

TWENTY-FIVE

IN DEEPENING TWILIGHT, LISSAR AND HER DOGS TROTTED

ACROSS whispering grassland, for the village the woman named lay most quickly as the crow flies, and not by road. Lissar thought wistfully of dinner, but had not wanted, for reasons not entirely clear to herself, to accompany the woman across the field in the opposite direction, to the kennels and the king's house, even to eat a hot meal and pick up a blanket for sleeping. Bunt and Blue and Kestrel could be used for hunting, and Ash would hunt without direction as she had done during their long months on the mountain, so long as the puppies could be prevented from spoiling everything. There would have been more ootag, and rabbits, today, were it not for the puppies. And as for blankets, she had slept without before.

She was reluctant to remain in the woman's company. Though she believed the woman would keep her promise to use only the name Deerskin, there was no mistaking the reverence of her manner, and that reverence had nothing to do with Lissar. She had no wish to be embarrassed before Hela and Jobe and whoever else might be around; the lives of six doomed puppies, and the dragon she had escaped, was enough to read in their eyes.

Meadowsweet wore out the soonest, as Lissar had known she would; she had persistently been the weakest pup during the long weeks when Lissar checked the puppy-heap every morning to see if they were all still breathing. Meadowsweet still had the least stamina, although she was among the sweetest tempered. Lissar slowed to a walk, and picked her up; she weighed comparatively little, although her long legs trailed. Lissar heaved her up so she could hang her forepaws over Lissar's shoulder; she turned her head and gratefully began washing Lissar's face. Next to collapse was Fen, as Lissar also expected; he went over Lissar's other shoulder, and she and the dogs walked on, gently, while twilight deepened, till the Moon came out, full and clear and bright.

Ash began walking with the look of "food nearby" that Lissar knew well; and Blue and Bunt and Kestrel knew it too but looked, as if they had trained with Ash since puppyhood, to her for a lead. Then suddenly all four dogs were gone, so rapidly that they seemed to disappear before Lissar heard the sounds of their motion. They were out of meadowland now, and into crackling scrub. Lissar had been growing tired; even undergrown fleethound puppies become heavy after a while. She turned her head, listening, and smelling hopefully for water; and as she paused, something shot out of the low scrub row of trees at her.

"Here!" she shouted, and the puppies, startled and inclined to be frightened, all bumbled toward her, even Ob and Harefoot showing no inclination to disobey.

Lissar slid the puppies off her shoulders hastily; they had woken from their half-drowse with her shout, and were glad to hunker down with their fellows. As she knelt to let them scramble to the ground she was feeling in her pocket for stones; no more than the time for one breath had passed since she had first seen the animal burst out of the thicket toward her.

She rose from her crouch, rock in hand, saw the teeth, the red tongue, the hanging jaw of the thing; saw a glint of eye in the Moonlight, let her rock go with all the strength of her arm behind it, readying the next rock with her other hand before she had finished her swing-what was it? And she had been thinking of how many rabbits they would need to feed all of themselves satisfactorily; this creature was big enough, the gods knew, if it didn't eat them first

It shrieked, a high, rageful shriek, when her stone struck it; and it swerved away from her, less, she thought, from the pain than from the confusion caused by suddenly being able to see only out of one eye. She saw no other plausible target for a second stone, and paused, and as she paused became aware of three pale and one brindle long-legged ghosts tearing out of the forest after the creature. Three were to one side of her and the puppies; the nearest one, to the other side, was by itself. She recognized the silver-blue coat a fraction of a moment before she recognized the fuzzier outline of one of the other three ghosts, as Ash bolted forward, ahead of the others, and hurled herself at her prey's nose. The beast, half-blind, staggered, but it was dangerous yet; Lissar saw the long tusks in the Moonlight. It was too big, or Ash had not judged her leap perfectly, for it threw her off, and, as it saw her fall, lurched after her.

She rolled, leaped to her feet and aside-barely in time; but by then Bunt and Kestrel were there, seizing its cheek and flank; and then Blue, at last, bit into its other flank. It screamed again, bubbling its wrath, and Ash launched herself at its nose once more.

There was nothing for it, Lissar thought; it could kill them all still. She was already holding her slender knife in her hand; the knife that ordinarily cut no more than big chunks of meat into smaller chunks for the puppies' meals. The creature was thrashing itself around-Kestrel had lost her grip, fallen, leaped back again-Lissar stared at the great dark shape. You shouldn't tackle anything this big unless you were a hunting party, dozens of dogs and riders strong! she thought wildly; did Kestrel or Blue or Bunt--0r, for that matter, her foolhardy Ash-notice the unevenness of this battle? Lissar might have more than one chance, for she did not doubt the dogs'