A Knot in the Grain (6 page)

Then the sightings began. Her uncle was sincerely shocked when the first countryman rushed into the royal hall to babble out his story—half a man, this thing was, half a beast. But no one had seen the Regent shocked before, and those who looked on believed that the tale only confirmed the worst of his fears. But the Regent knew, hidden deep inside himself, that he was a very poor magician, and the thing he truly feared was that in his rough calling-up of storm he had set something loose that he would not be able to control.

He withdrew to his high, bare room to brood. He had ordered another storm, and it had come willingly, but he was too shaken, now, to command it, and so it loitered uncertainly on the horizon and began to break up into wandering, harmless clouds. He did not know what to do. All that night the people saw the light in his room, and told each other the story the countryman had brought—that the thing had been seen more than once; that the farmers for fear of it would not go alone to their fields—and trembled. With a wildness born of panic, at dawn the Regent collected the scattered clouds and gave the land such a storm as it had never seen; and he descended to the great public hall again, pale but composed, his hands tucked into his sleeves, while the thunder crashed and the lightning ripped outside.

That day two more messengers came, despite the storm, with stories of sightings in two more villages: that the creature was not even half a beast, but a monster, and huge; that the women and children were afraid to leave their houses even in daylight. And these villages were not so distant as was the first man's.

Even the princess heard the rumors, although she was not told what precisely the sightings were of; perhaps the women did not know either. But she understood that the sightings were of some evil thing, and that her people shrank from her the more for them. She dismissed her women, trying not to notice the relief in their faces, asking only that her meals be sent up to her private room. Even her last claim upon the royal economy was poorly delegated, and occasionally she missed a meal when no one remembered to bring her her tray; but someone remembered often enough, and she needed little food.

One day the door of her room opened, and she looked around in surprise, for she had been utterly alone for so long. Her uncle stood upon the threshold and frowned, but she was accustomed to his frowns, and saw nothing unusual.

“It is your name day,” he said.

She started. “I had forgotten.”

“Nonetheless, there is a … ritual … that must be performed. A ritual of … purification, most suitable for this day that you should have come into your queenship.”

She thought she understood him, and she bowed her head; but for all the years of her uncle's domination she had a brave heart still, and it shrank with sorrow. “So be it,” she whispered. When she raised her head again, she saw there were people with him; and a woman she did not recognize laid a white robe at the foot of her bed, and stepped behind the Regent again at once, as though his shadow were a protection.

“Dress yourself,” said her uncle, and he and his attendants left her.

Four of the royal guard escorted her punctiliously to the great hall where her uncle was; and with him waited many other people, and she shrank from their eyes and their set, grim faces. Almost she turned and ran back to her empty room; but she was her parents' daughter, and she clenched her fingers into fists beneath the too-long sleeves, and stepped forward. Her uncle spoke no word to her, but turned to the doors that led outside; and she followed after him, her eyes fixed on the back of his white gown, that she did not have to look at all the people around her. But she heard the rustle as they followed behind.

The Regent led them out of the city, and the crowd that accompanied them grew ever greater, but none spoke. The princess kept her fists clenched at first; but she had eaten so little, and been in her small room so long, that she soon grew weary, and no longer cared for the people who followed. But her pride kept her eyes on her uncle's back, and kept her feet from stumbling. On they went, and farther on, and the sun, which had been high when they set out, sank toward twilight.

The sun was no more than a red edge on a slate grey sky when they stopped at last. It was a clear night, and one or two stars were out. Her uncle turned to face his niece and the people. “Here is the place,” he said. “The place shown me in my dream, as what is to be done here was shown me.” He dropped his eyes to his niece and said, “Come.”

The princess followed numbly. They were in the hills beyond the city, beyond the place where her parents and their parents were buried. Beyond these hills were the farmlands that were her country's major wealth, but just here they were in wild woodland. There was a small hollow in the gentle rise of the hills, and within the hollow were standing stones that led to a black hole in one hillside; and suddenly she knew where she was, and her exhaustion left her all at once, for the terror drove it out. “No,” she whispered, and put her hands to her face, and bit down on the cuff of one sleeve.

Her whisper was barely audible, but her uncle wheeled around. “I beg you,” she whispered through her fingers.

“I do only what is necessary—what I was ordered to do,” her uncle said, loudly, that the crowd might hear; but his voice was not low and harsh, but thin and shrill.

Desperately she turned around and stared at her people. There was light yet enough to see their faces palely looking back at her. They watched, mute and grim and expressionless. She dropped her hands and turned back to follow her uncle; oblivion seized her mind. The crowd waited at the edge of the hollow; six courtiers only followed the Regent and his niece, and at the mouth of the tunnel these courtiers paused to kindle the torches they carried. Then they entered the dark hole in the hillside.

When they reached the end of the short tunnel, the princess stopped and stared dully at the chain pegged into the rock wall; the links were rusty with disuse, for her greatgrandfather had ended the sacrifices which had once been a part of the twice-yearly Festival. The only sacrifices for generations had been the sheaf of corn burnt at every threshold for the winter solstice. Dully she turned her back to the low rough wall and leaned against it, and raised her arms, the huge sleeves belling out around her like wings, that her uncle might the easier fasten the chains to her wrists. How long? she wondered, and did not know. In the old days, she had read, the priests killed the victim when he, or, rarely, she, was chained, that he might not truly suffer the agonies of thirst and starvation; and then left him there for the seven days tradition said it would have taken him to die. When the waiting was done, they took the body away and buried it honorably. She thought, wearily, that she doubted her uncle would have the mercy of the old priests.

One torch they left her; one of the courtiers tipped it against the wall, where it trailed soot up to the ceiling; then the seven of them turned and left her, never looking back, as she, wide-eyed, watched them go, and listened to the echo of their footsteps fading into silence, into the grass under the sky beyond the stony cavern in the hill.

Then she broke, and screamed, again and again, till her voice tore in her throat; and she hurled herself at the ends of the chains till her wrists were cut and bleeding; but still she pulled at her fetters and sobbed, and clawed backward at the indifferent wall, and kicked it with her soft slippered feet. Then she sank to her knees—her chains were too short to permit her to sit down—and turned her cheek against the rock, and knew no more for a time.

The ache in her shoulders and wrists woke her. The torch had nearly burnt itself out, and what light there was was dim and red and full of shadows. She sighed and stood up, and leaned against the wall again. She closed her eyes. Almost she could imagine that she heard the hill's heartbeat: a soft thud, thud. Thud.

Her eyes flew open. I am no Festival offering, she thought. I've been left for the monster; the monster has come for my name day. That is why I am here. A ritual of purification—if it is my fault the thing came, then perhaps I do belong to it; gods, I can't bear it, and she bit down a scream. Thud. Thud. Please make it hurry. She gave a last horrible, hopeless jerk at her chains, but her mind was too clear for this now, and the pain stopped her at once. The torch flickered and burnt lower yet, and for a moment she did not recognize the antler shadows from the other shadows on the low smoky wall. Then she saw his great head with the wide man's shoulders beneath it, the stag pelt furring him down to his chest. But it was a man's body, naked and huge, and a man's huge hands; and panic seized her, and she screamed again, though her voice was gone and the noise was only a hoarse gasp. But the stag head's brown eyes saw the cords that stood out on her neck, and saw the terror that pressed her against the wall. He had taken soft, slow steps thus far, but now he hurried, and his huge hands reached out for her. She had just the presence of mind to be able to close her eyes, though she could not avoid the warm animal smell of him; and she felt his hands close around her bleeding wrists, and she fainted.

She came to herself lying stretched out on the ground. She was not sprawled, as though she had fallen, but rested peacefully on her back, her poor sore wrists laid across her stomach. She blinked; she had not been unconscious long, for the torch still burnt, guttering, and by its light she saw an immense shadow looming over her, that of a stag, with antlers so wide he must turn his head with care in the narrow tunnel. She raised herself to her elbows, wincing at her shoulders' protest. Surely …? The stag looked gravely down at her. She sat up the rest of the way, and gingerly touched one wrist with a finger. The stag stepped forward and lowered his nose between her hands; his eyes were so dark she could not see into them, and his breath smelled of sweet grass. “Yes, they are sore,” she said to him stupidly, and he raised his great head again, the heavy, graceful neck proudly balancing his crown. How did I …? Did I imagine …? She looked at the wall. The chains had been pulled clear out of the wall, their staples bowed into broken-backed arches; they lay on the floor near her, flakes of rust mixing with smears of fresh blood.

The stag dropped his nose again, and touched her shoulder as gently as a snowflake landing, or a mare greeting a new foal. She stood up as shakily as any foal; her head swam. Then she took an eager step forward, toward the other end of the tunnel, toward the grass and the sky—but the stag stepped before her, and blocked her way. “But …” she said, and her eyes filled with the tears of final exhaustion, of desolation of spirit. The stag knelt before her. At first she did not understand, and would have stepped over and around him, but he was stubborn. She seated herself meekly on his back at last, and he rose gently and walked out of the cave.

She shivered when the first breath of air from the hill touched her face, although it was a warm night. She looked up in wonder at the sky, and the stars twinkling there; she could not believe she had spent so little time in the tunnel, leaning against the rock wall, with her arms aching and her mind holding nothing but despair. She looked uncertainly back the way her uncle had led them, though she could not see far for the trees that ringed the small valley. But it seemed to her that the shadows under the trees were of more things than leaves and stones, and some of them were the shapes of human watchers; and it seemed to her too that a low murmur, as from human throats, rose and mixed with the gentle wind; but the murmur was a sound of dismay. The stag paused a moment a few steps beyond the cave's threshold, and turned his fine head toward the murmur, toward the path to the city; then he turned away and entered the forest by a path only he could see.

They stopped at dawn, and he knelt for her to dismount; she stretched her sore limbs with a sigh, and sat stiffly down. The next thing she knew it was twilight again, the sun setting, and a small fire burnt near her, and beside that lay a heap of fruit. There were several small apples, and sweet green gurnies, which must have come from someone's orchard, for the gurny tree did not grow wild so far north. She did not care where they had come from, though, and she ate them hungrily, and the handful of kok-nuts with them. She recognized the sound of a stream nearby, and went toward it, and was glad of a drink and a wash, though she hissed with pain as she rubbed the caked scabs on her wrists. When she returned to the little fire, the great stag was standing beside it. He stamped the fire out with his forefeet and came to her and knelt, and she trustfully and almost cheerfully climbed onto his back.

They travelled thus for three nights. Each evening she awoke to a fire and to a small offering of fruit and nuts; but she had never eaten much, and it was plenty to sustain her. Even though she did not know it, her eyes grew brighter, and a little color crept back to her pale face; but only the stag saw, and he never spoke. On the third morning, though she lay down as she had done before, she did not sleep well, and once or twice she half awoke. The second time she felt a flickering light against her closed eyelids, and sleepily she opened them a little. A huge man knelt beside a small fire, setting down a small pile of fruit beside it, and then prodding it with a stick to make it burn up more brightly. He stood up beside it then and held his hands out as if to warm them. He was naked, though his heavy hair fell past his shoulders, and his thick beard mixed with the mat of hair on his chest and down his belly. His hair was a deep red brown, like the color of a deer's flank, and the bare skin beyond was much the same color. If this were not enough to know him by, the antlers that rose from his human head would have reassured her. She closed her eyes again and drifted peacefully back to sleep; and when she awoke at twilight, the stag lay curled up with his legs folded neatly under him and the tip of his nose just resting on the ground.

That night they climbed a hill face so steep that she had to cling to his antlers to prevent herself from sliding backward; the incline did not seem to distress him, although she could feel the deep heave of his breathing between her knees. About midnight they came to a level place, and she saw that a vast lake stretched to their right, and the moon shone silver upon its untroubled surface. She could not see its farther shore; the silver faded to blackness beyond the edge of her eyesight. The stag stood for a few moments till his breathing calmed, and then took a path that led them away from the lake, through more trees, and then to a broad field that smelled sweetly of grass and sleeping cattle, and then into more trees. But something now twinkled at them from beyond the trees; something too low and golden for a star. Her heart sank. She had thought as little as she might for the past four nights; she knew irresistibly that she must be being carried to somewhere, but she was sorry that the somewhere was so close. She reached out and grasped a silky-smooth horn. “Stop,” she said. “Please.”