Tehanu The Last Book of Earthsea - Le Guin Ursula Kroeber. Страница 12

Later, falling asleep beside Therru in the night, she thought, But I never kissed him before, And the thought shook her. At first she disbelieved it. Surely, in all the years- Not in the Tombs, but after, traveling together in the mountains- In Lookfar, when they sailed together to Havnor- When he brought her here to Gont-?

No. Nor had Ogion ever kissed her, or she him. He had called her daughter, and had loved her, but had not touched her; and she, brought up as a solitary, untouched priestess, a holy thing, had not sought touch, or had not known she sought it. She would lean her forehead or her cheek for a moment on Ogion’s open hand, and he might stroke her hair, once, very lightly.

And Ged never even that.

Did I never think of it? she asked herself in a kind of incredulous awe.

She did not know. As she tried to think of it, a horror, a sense of transgression, came on her very strongly, and then died away, meaningless. Her lips knew the slightly rough, dry, cool skin of his cheek near the mouth on the right side, and only that knowledge had importance, was of weight.

She slept. She dreamed that a voice called her, “Tenar! Tenar!” and that she replied, crying like a seabird, flying in the light above the sea; but she did not know what name she called.

Sparrowhawk disappointed Aunty Moss. He stayed alive. After a day or two she gave him up for saved. She came and fed him her broth of goat’s-meat and roots and herbs, prop-

ping him against her, surrounding him with the powerful smell of her body, spooning life into him, and grumbling. Although he had recognized her and called her by her use-name, and she could not deny that he seemed to be the man called Sparrowhawk, she wanted to deny it. She did not like him. He was all wrong, she said. Tenar respected the witch’s sagacity enough that this troubled her, but she could not find any such suspicion in herself, only the pleasure of his being there and of his slow return to life. “When he’s himself again, you’ll see,” she said to Moss.

“Himself! “ Moss said, and she made that gesture with her fingers of breaking and dropping a nutshell.

He asked, pretty soon, about Ogion. Tenar had dreaded that question. She had told herself and nearly convinced herself that he would not ask, that he would know as mages knew, as even the wizards of Gont Port and Re Albi had known when Ogion died. But on the fourth morning he was lying awake when she came to him, and looking up at her, he said, “This is Ogion’s house.”

“Aihal’s house,” she said, as easily as she could; it still was not easy for her to speak the mage’s true name. She did not know if Ged had known that name. Surely he had. Ogion would have told him, or had not needed to tell him.

For a while he did not react, and when he spoke it was without expression. “Then he is dead.”

“Ten days ago.”

He lay looking before him as if pondering, trying to think something out.

“When did I come here?”

She had to lean close to understand him.

“Four days ago, in the evening of the day.”

“There was no one else in the mountains,” he said. Then his body winced and shuddered as if in pain or the intolerable memory of pain. He shut his eyes, frowning, and took a deep breath.

As his strength returned little by little, that frown, the held breath and clenched hands, became familiar to Tenar. Strength returned to him but not ease, not health.

He sat on the doorstep of the house in the sunlight of the summer afternoon, It was the longest journey he had yet taken from the bed. He sat on the threshold, looking out into the day, and Tenar, coming around the house from the bean patch, looked at him. He still had an ashy, shadowy look to him. It was not the grey hair only, but some quality of skin and bone, and there was nothing much to him but that. There was no light in his eyes. Yet this shadow, this ashen man, was the same whose face she had seen first in the radiance of his own power, the strong face with hawk nose and fine mouth, a handsome man. He had always been a proud, handsome man.

She came on towards him.

“The sunlight’s what you need,” she said to him, and he nodded, but his hands were clenched as he sat in the flood of summer warmth.

He was so silent with her that she thought maybe it was her presence that troubled him. Maybe he could not be at ease with her as he had used to be. He was Archmage now, after all-she kept forgetting that. And it was twenty-five years since they had walked in the mountains of Atuan and sailed together in Lookfar across the eastern sea.

“Where is Lookfar?” she asked, suddenly, surprised by the thought of it, and then thought, But how stupid of me! All those years ago, and he’s Archmage, he wouldn’t have that little boat now.

“In Selidor,” he answered, his face set in its steady and incomprehensible misery.

As long ago as forever, as far away as Selidor. . . .

“The farthest island,” she said; it was half a question. “The farthest west,” he said.

They were sitting at table, having finished the evening meal. Therru had gone outside to play.

“It was from Selidor that you came, then, on Kalessin?” When she spoke the dragon’s name again it spoke itself, shaping her mouth to its shape and sound, making her breath soft fire.

At the name, he looked up at her, one intense glance, which made her realize that he did not usually meet her eyes at all. He nodded. Then, with a laborious honesty, he corrected his assent: “From Selidor toRoke. And then from Roke to Gont.”

A thousand miles? Ten thousand miles? She had no idea. She had seen the great maps in the treasuries of Havnor, but no one had taught her numbers, distances. As far away as Selidor . . . And could the flight of a dragon be counted in miles?

“Ged,” she said, using his true name since they were alone, “I know you’ve been in great pain and peril. And if you don’t want, maybe you can’t, maybe you shouldn’t tell me-but if I knew, if I knew something of it, I’d be more help to you, maybe. I’d like to be. And they’ll be coming soon from Roke for you, sending a ship for the Archmage, what do I know, sending a dragon for you! And you’ll be gone again. And we’ll never have talked.” As she spoke she clenched her own hands at the falseness of her tone and words. To joke about the dragon-to whine like an accusing wife!

He was looking down at the table, sullen, enduring, like a farmer after a hard day in the fields faced with some domestic squall.

“Nobody will come from Roke, I think,” he said, and it cost him effort enough that it was a while before he went on. “Give me time.”

She thought it was all he was going to say, and replied, “Yes, of course. I’m sorry,” and was rising to clear the table when he said, still looking down, not clearly, “I have that, now.

Then he too got up, and brought his dish to the sink, and finished clearing the table. He washed the dishes while Tenar put the food away. And that interested her. She had been comparing him to Flint; but Flint had never washed a dish in his life. Women’s work. But Ged and Ogion had lived here, bachelors, without women; everywhere Ged had lived, it was without women; so he did the “women’s work” and thought nothing about it. It would be a pity, she thought, if he did think about it, if he started fearing that his dignity hung by a dishcloth.

Nobody came for him from Roke. When they spoke of it, there had scarcely been time for any ship but one with the magewind in her sails all the way; but the days went on, and still there was no message or sign to him. It seemed strange to her that they would let their archmage go untroubled so long. He must have forbidden them to send to him; or perhaps he had hidden himself here with his wizardry, so that they did not know where he was, and so that he could not be recognized. For the villagers paid curiously little attention to him still.