Tehanu The Last Book of Earthsea - Le Guin Ursula Kroeber. Страница 31

“It was a girl from Atuan,” Tenar said. “A thousand years ago. I think I could sleep for a thousand years, just now.

“Go to bed, then.” Apple turned away, then turned back, lamp in hand. “King-kisser,” she said.

“Get along with you,” said Tenar.

Apple and her husband kept Tenar a couple of days, but after that she was determined tO go to the farm. So Apple walked with her and Therru up along the placid, silvery Kaheda. Summer was turning to autumn. The sun was still hot, but the wind was cool. The foliage of trees had a weary, dusty look to it, and the fields were cut or in harvest.

Apple spoke of how much stronger Therru was, and how sturdily she walked now.

“I wish you’d seen her at Re Albi,” Tenar said, “before-’” and stopped. She had decided not to worry her daughter with all that.

“What did happen? “ “ Apple asked, so clearly resolved to know that Tenar gave in and answered in a low voice, “One of them.”

Therru was a few yards ahead of them, long-legged in her outgrown dress, hunting blackberries in the hedgerows as she walked.

“Her father?” Apple asked, sickened at the thought.

“Lark said the one that seems to be the father called himself Hake. This one’s younger. He’s the one that came to Lark to tell her. He’s called Handy. He was.., hanging around at Re Albi. And then by ill luck we ran into him in Gont Port. But the king sent him off. And now I’m here and he’s there, and all that’s done with.””

“But Therru was frightened,” Apple said, a bit grimly. Tenar nodded.

“But why did you go to Gont Port?”

“Oh, well, this man Handy was working for a man

. . . a wizard at the lord’s house in Re Albi, who took a dislike to me She tried to think of the wizard’s use-name and could not; all she could think of was Tuaho, a Kargish word for a kind of tree, she could not remember what tree.

“So?”’

“Well, so, it seemed better just to come on home.’”

“But what did this wizard dislike you for?”’

“For being a woman, mostly.”

“ Bah,” said Apple. “Old cheese rind.”

“Young cheese rind, in this case.”

“Worse yet. Well, nobody around here that I know of has seen the parents, if that’s the word for “em. But if they’re still hanging about, I don’t like your being alone in the farmhouse.’”

It is pleasant to be mothered by a daughter, and to behave as a daughter to one’s daughter. Tenar said impatiently, “I’ll be perfectly all right!”

“You could at least get a dog.”

“I’ve thought of that. Somebody in the village might have a pup. We’ll ask Lark when we stop by there.”

“Not a puppy, mother. A dog.”

“But a young one-one Therru could play with,” she pleaded.

“A nice puppy that will come and kiss the burglars,” said Apple, stepping along buxom and grey-eyed, laughing at her mother.

They came to the village about midday. Lark welcomed Tenar and Therru with a festivity of embraces, kisses, questions, and things to eat. Lark’s quiet husband and other villagers stopped by to greet Tenar. She felt the happiness of homecoming.

Lark and the two youngest of her seven children, a boy and a girl, accompanied them out to the farm. The children had known Therru since Lark first brought her home, of course, and were used to her, though two months’ separation made them shy at first. With them, even with Lark, she remained withdrawn, passive, as in the bad old days.

“She’s worn out, confused by all this traveling. She’ll get over it. She’s come along wonderfully,” Tenar said to Lark, but Apple would not let her get out of it so easily. “One of them turned up and terrified her and mother both,’” said Apple. And little by little, between them, the daughter and the friend got the story out of Tenar that afternoon, as they opened up the cold, stuffy, dusty house, put it to rights, aired the bedding, shook their heads over sprouted onions, laid in a bit of food in the pantry, and set a large kettle of soup on for supper. What they got came a word at a time. Tenar could not seem to tell them what the wizard had done; a spell, she said vaguely, or maybe it was that he had sent Handy after her. But when she came to talk about the king, the words came tumbling out.

“And then there he was-the king!-like a sword blade- And Handy shrinking and shrivelling back from him- And I thought he was Spark! I did, I really did for a moment, I was so-so beside myself-”’

“Well,” said Apple, “that’s all right, because Shinny thought you were his mother. When we were on the docks watching you come sailing in in your glory. She kissed him, you know, Aunty Lark. Kissed the king-just like that. I thought next thing she’d kiss that mage. But she didn’t.”

“I should think not, what an idea. What mage?” said Lark, with her head in a cupboard. “Where”s your flour bin, Goha?’”

“Your hand’s on it. A Roke mage, come looking for a new archmage.”

“Here?”

“Why not?”’ said Apple. “The last one was from Gont, wasn’t he? But they didn’t spend much time looking. They sailed straight back to Havnor, once they’d got rid of mother.”

“How you do talk.”

“He was looking for a woman, he said,’” Tenar told them. “‘A woman on Gont.’ But he didn’t seem too happy about it.”

“A wizard looking for a woman? Well, that’s something new,”’ said Lark. “I’d have thought this’d be weevilly by now, but it’s perfectly good. I’ll bake up a bannock or two, shall I? Where’s the oil?’”

“I’ll need to draw some from the crock in the cool-room. Oh, Shandy! There you are! How are you? How’s Clear-brook? How’s everything been? Did you sell the ram lambs?”

They sat down nine to supper. In the soft yellow light of the evening in the stone-floored kitchen, at the long farm table, Therru began to lift her head a little, and spoke a few times to the other children; but there was still a cowering in her, and as it grew darker outside she sat so that her seeing eye could watch the window.

Not until Lark and her children had gone home in the twilight, and Apple was singing Therru to sleep, and she was washing up the dishes with Shandy, did Tenar ask about Ged. Somehow she had not wanted to while Lark and Apple were listening; there would have been so many explanations. She had forgotten to mention his being at Re Albi at all. And she did not want to talk about Re Albi any more. Her mind seemed to darken when she tried to think of it.

“Did a man come here last month from me-to help out with the work?”

“Oh, I clean forgot!’” cried Shandy. “Hawk, you mean- him with the scars on his face?”

“Yes,’” Tenar said. “Hawk.”

“Oh, aye, well, he’ll be away up on Hot Springs Mountain, above Lissu, up there with the sheep, with Serry’s sheep, I believe. He come here and says how you sent him, and there wasn’t a lick o’ work for him here, you know, with

. Clearbrook and me looking after the sheep and I been dairying and old Tiff and Sis helping me out when needed, and I racked my brains, but Clearbrook he says, ‘Go ask Serry’s man, Farmer Serry’s overseer up by Kahedanan, do they need herders in the high pastures,’ he said, and that Hawk went off and did that, and got took on, and was off next day. ‘Go ask Serry’s man,’ Clearbrook told him, and that’s what he done, and got took right on. So he’ll be back down with the flocks come fall, no doubt. Up there on the Long Fells above Lissu, in the high pastures. I think maybe it was goats they wanted him for. Nice-spoken fellow. Sheep or goats, I don’t remember which. I hope it’s all right with you that we didn’t keep him on here, Goha, but it’s the truth there wasn’t a lick o’ work for him what with me and Clearbrook and old Tiff, and Sis got the flax in. And he said he’d been a goatherd over there where he come from, away round the mountain, some place above Armouth he said, though he said he’d never herded sheep. Maybe it’ll be goats they’ve got him with up there.”