Deerskin Read online

  She was sitting in a window seat, as she often sat, staring out of the window as she often stared, turning over her bewildering and possibly traitorous idea, and the even more bewildering ideas that fell from it, like sparks from a burning stake, all of which seemed somehow connected with that earlier wondering of what she might be capable of. She still could not imagine uttering any of her musings aloud; and she glanced down at her mourning clothes. The nursemaid sat by the cold hearth, hugging and rocking herself, absorbed in her own grief; dimly aware of the creature comfort of the presence of another human being, assuming that the princess was as mazed by grief as she was—no more and no less. That the princess was the queen’s daughter left no special mark on her; all the nursemaid knew was that her own grief was overwhelming, and that she had no attention to spare from it.

  The knock on the door surprised them both, for it was not time for a meal or a bath or a ladylike walk in the formal gardens; and they both started in their seats. The door was flung open after a minute of silence, and a footman stood there. The nursemaid fell out of her chair to curtsey, for this was an upper footman, and he did not look at all pleased with his commission. “Her highness’s presence is requested in the receiving-hall. At once.” He turned and left immediately. He did not close the door.

  “Oh! Oh!” cried the nursemaid. The princess stepped down from her perch and let the maid flutter around her, still murmuring, “oh—oh—oh.” The princess herself combed her hair, and asked her maid, in a clear, careful voice, to press her black ribbons for her, and shine the toes of her black boots, while she washed her face and put on her new black stockings. She was perfectly composed as she walked out of her chamber, the nursemaid still bobbing after her and murmuring, “Oh!”

  The princess walked down the stairs, her boot-heels clicking to the first landing, for the final flight to the nursery was uncarpeted. She had consciously to recall the way to the receiving-hall, for she went there so rarely, and it was down and down long twisting corridors and more flights of stairs. The footman had, of course, not waited to escort her. She paused, hesitating, at a final corner, and looked round, and knew she had come the right way after all, for at the door of the receiving-hall the upper footman stood, still stiff with outrage at having to climb to a region of the palace where the stairs were uncarpeted, and with him were two lower footmen and two pages.

  The upper footman flung open the door for her without ever looking at her, and entered, and bowed, and stood aside; then the lower footmen entered as a pair, and parted, and faced each other across the doorway. The princess paused, waiting, but decided that perhaps it was her turn next, so she entered, with her chin up, and her steps were quite steady. The pause after the squad of footmen had prepared her entrance had done her no harm in the court’s eyes; what she knew was the feeling of their gaze upon her, a feeling not unlike the prickly cling of cloth before a thunderstorm. She felt their awakening curiosity; they were wondering about her for the first time, she thought, wondering who she was and what she was worth. She wondered too. She was just fifteen years old; even her nursemaid had forgotten her birthday in grief for the dead queen.

  One herald stood beside the dais where her father and his ministers sat, and one crouched at its foot with something, some pale lumpish bundle, in his lap. She walked calmly forward, not knowing what else to do, nor where the summons had come from, nor to what purpose. She went up to the dais and curtseyed to the floor, to her father; and looked up, and met his eyes. The blankness there parted for a moment, and she saw—she did not know what she saw, but it made her cold all over, suddenly, so cold that the sweat of terror broke out on her body. She stood up from her curtsey too hastily, and had to catch her balance with an awkward side-step. There was a whisper behind her, among the court: a pity she is not more graceful. Who has had the teaching of her? Such a drab little thing, such an odd child of such parents.

  One of the ministers addressed her. “These heralds are come from King Goldhouse and Queen Clementina to offer their sorrow to us in our … loss. And their son, the prince Ossin, has sent you a gift.”

  The standing herald came forward, and bowed to her, and handed her a piece of stiff paper, folded and sealed. She looked at the herald on the floor, and realized that what was on his lap was the rear parts of a dog; the head and forequarters were wedged under his arm. She took the paper and broke the seal.

  “To the princess Lissla Lissar, from the prince Ossin, I give you greeting. I have heard of your great grief and I am very unhappy for it. I do not know how I could bear it if my mother died. My favorite bitch had her puppies a few weeks ago and I am sending you the best one. Her name is Ash, for her coat is the color of the bark of that tree. There are many ash trees here. She will love you and I hope you will be glad of her. My highest regards and duty to you and your father. Ossin.”

  She looked up. She did not quite know what to do. The herald with the dog, who had children (and dogs) of his own, stood up, tucking the puppy firmly under the arm she was trying to disappear beneath. Her legs began a frantic paddling. He supported them with his other arm and slowly drew her out from hiding, turning her round to face the princess. The puppy bobbed in his grasp for a moment, but the princess had, as if involuntarily, taken a step forward, and reached out a hand.

  The puppy caught the gesture, and large brown silvery-lashed eyes caught the glance of large dark-fringed amber-hazel eyes, and then the puppy began bobbing in good earnest, her ears flattening, her tail going like a whirlwind. The princess held out her arms, and the herald, smiling, lay the puppy in them, and the puppy thumped and paddled and kicked, and banged her nose against the princess’s breastbone, licked her chin, and made tiny urgent noises deep in her throat.

  The princess looked up: hazel eyes met blue, and the princess saw kindness, and the herald saw that the puppy would have a good home, and he was pleased, both because he loved dogs and because he loved his prince; and because he felt sorry for this young girl who had lost her mother. The herald bowed, deeply, and the princess smiled down at her armful. (Which made a dive at her face again, and this time succeeded in grazing the princess’s nose with a puppy fang.) The court noticed the smile, and found themselves interested again, despite the clumsy curtsey. “She’s a pretty little thing,” they murmured to each other. “I had never noticed. She might even grow up to be a beauty; don’t forget who her mother was. How old is she now?”

  But the princess had forgotten all about the court. She curtseyed again to her father—without raising her eyes from her new friend’s face—and requested permission to withdraw, in a voice as steady as her steps had been, before she met her father’s eyes. There was a pause, and her smile disappeared, and she stared fixedly downward—she would not look up, remembering without remembering why she had not liked looking at her father before—but the puppy made her smile again and the waiting was no longer onerous. As the court began to wonder if the father was seeing something in the daughter that he, like they, had perhaps overlooked, he moved abruptly in his chair, and without any prompting from his ministers, spoke aloud, giving his leave for her to go.

  As she turned away, the herald who had handed her the letter (which was presently being beaten to death by the puppy’s tail) stooped to one knee before her. “I have also instructions for your splendor’s new dog’s feeding and care,” he said. “May I give them to your waiting-women?”

  She had no waiting-women, but she now had a dog; and she thought her old nursemaid would never notice the existence of a dog, let alone remember the necessities of caring for it. Then it occurred to her that she did not want anyone caring for her dog but herself: and this thought pleased her, and banished, for the moment, the memory of her father’s eyes. “No, I thank you, you may give them to me,” she said. Both the heralds remembered this, to take home and tell the prince, for he too took personal care of his dogs. It never occurred to them that the princess of this great state, much richer and vaster than their own and their king’s and qu
een’s and prince’s, had no one to give instructions to.

  FOUR

  THEN BEGAN THE HAPPIEST TWO YEARS OF THE PRINCESS’S LIFE. It was as if Ash crystallized, or gave meaning to, the princess’s tumbled thoughts about who she herself was, and what she might do about it. Being a princess, she recognized, was a decisive thing about her, though it had meant little thus far; perhaps it would mean more if she tried to make it mean more. She did not know for certain about this, and for herself she might have hesitated to try. But now there was Ash, and nothing was too good or wonderful for Ash.

  First she had her rooms moved to the ground floor. She had no appetite for breakfast on the day she steeled herself to tell the under-maid who brought them their morning meal that she wished to speak to a footman; and she was glad that she had eaten no breakfast when the under-footman presented himself to her and she informed him that she desired to change her rooms.

  He disappeared, and an upper footman appeared, and she repeated her declaration, but more firmly this time, for she was growing accustomed to speaking; and because the first footman had bowed, just as the under-maid had. He disappeared in turn, and three more servants with increasing amounts of gold braid on their collars and lace about their wrists appeared and disappeared, and the parade climaxed with the arrival of one of her father’s ministers—and not, she thought frowning a little, one of the most insignificant of them either. She preferred speaking to servants; the effects of asserting herself were developing a little too quickly. But she kept her face smooth, and nodded to the man as if she were accustomed to such visits at the top of the flight of uncarpeted stairs.

  He had come to look her over. He wanted a closer look at her after her appearance in the receiving-hall. “By the locks on the treasury door,” he thought, “she is going to grow up to be a beauty. All she needs now is a little more countenance—and some finer clothing.” Mentally he rubbed his hands together at the prospect of this exciting new pawn venturing onto the gameboard, for he was a mighty player; and it suited him that she should have made the first move, that it should not be quite so conspicuous that he thought of the princess now that the queen was dead and the king showed no sign of recovering his former vitality.

  He smiled, showing all of his teeth. “Of course, princess. Your rooms shall be seen to today. You are growing up, and your new status should be honored.” He cast a quick glance around the shabby nursery and gloated: the girl was young and naive, and would be marvelously grateful to him for the glamorous new chambers he would provide her with—careful that she should understand that his was the hand that provided. Some token from his own house, he thought, something that he could point to that had conspicuously not been produced from her father’s coffers, should have a prominent place. He congratulated himself on his foresight in bribing the upper footman to bring him any news of interesting goings-on in the king’s household; for it was by this means that he stood here now.

  He was very slightly discomfited by the faint smile the princess was wearing when he looked at her again after his perusal of her room; she should, he thought, be looking timid and embarrassed, tucked away here like a poor relation, like a distant cousin-by-marriage taken in out of charity. He did not know that she was thinking, Because I am growing up! I want rooms on the ground floor because I don’t want to run up and down four flights of stairs every time Ash must go out; how can I ever train her about outdoors, if she has forgotten, by the time we get there, what she was scolded about when we began trying to leave indoors?

  Again the minister demonstrated all of his teeth, and then bowing low, he backed through the door he had entered by, and left her.

  Ash was in her lap, eating one of the black ribbons on her dress. Ash did not fit in her lap very well, for already her length of leg spoke of the dog she would become; but she did not care about that, and neither did the princess. As one or another dangling leg began to drag the rest of the puppy floorward after it, the princess scooped it back into her lap, whereupon some other dog-end inevitably spilled off in some other direction. “Did you see him?” Lissar murmured. “He backed out of my presence—just as if I were …” She stopped. She had been going to say “as if I were my father,” but she found that she did not want to align herself with her father about this or any other thing.

  To distract herself, she concentrated on the silky fur along Ash’s back. The ribbon on her dress was beginning to look rather the worse for wear. Lissar thought she should probably remove it from the puppy’s joyful attentions. But she didn’t. She didn’t care about mourning or about mourning clothes; all she cared about was Ash.

  The chambers that the important minister arranged for her were very grand indeed. There were seven individual rooms opening off a great central room like a smaller version of the royal receiving-hall; and not, to her startled eyes, enough smaller. Squarely in the center of the big room was a sculpture, that of a woman festooned with a great deal of tumultuous drapery, which appeared to be trying to strangle her. Lissar stopped dead in front of it, momentarily transfixed; and then the minister with the teeth appeared as if from nowhere, very pleased at the effect his chosen art object appeared to be making. The princess, who was growing accustomed to the surprising things her intuition told her since the first profound shock of knowing that she did not care about her mother’s death, looked at him, knew what he was thinking, and let him go on thinking it.

  Her bed-chamber was almost as large as the room with the alarming statue in it, and the bed itself was large enough for several princesses and a whole litter of long-legged puppies. She discarded it instantly, behind the unbroken calm of her expression, and explored further. In the last of her over-furnished rooms there was a large purple couch which Ash leaped on immediately, and rolled over, gaily, digging her shoulder and hipbone and long sharp spine into its cushions, leaving a mist of little silver-fawn dog hairs behind her. The princess, all of whose black clothing was now covered in little fawn-silver dog hairs, laughed.

  To the right of the couch was a door; a rather plain door, after all the princess had recently seen, which she therefore opened hopefully. There was a key-hole in the door, and as she opened it, there was a clatter on the stone flags beyond, where the key, which had been left loosely in the far side of the door, fell out. She picked it up without thinking, and pocketed it.

  There was a flight of three shallow stone steps and then a little round room, and she realized she was standing at the bottom of one of the palace’s many towers. The wall, immediately above the ceiling of this little room, began to flare out, to support a much vaster tower above; the walls of this little ground-level room were subsequently very thick.

  There was another door, which she again opened. This time she looked for a key in the key-hole, but there was none; perhaps the key to the inner door opened both, for the shape of the lock looked the same. She did not greatly care, and did not pause to try the key she had picked up in this second lock. She stepped through the door and found herself in what once had been a garden, though it had obviously been left to go wild for some years. The official door to the out-of-doors, from a short but magnificent hall off the princess’s receiving-room, and through which therefore she would have to take Ash several times a day, led into a formal courtyard with raked gravel paths and low pruned hedges; simple grass was not to be got at for some distance, grass being too ordinary for the feet of a princess who was abruptly being acknowledged as possessing the usual prerequisites of royal rank.

  She had looked out over the clipped and regulated expanse and thought that this was not a great deal better than the four flights of stairs she was seeking to escape. And, standing on the wide shallow marble steps, she had wondered what the high wall to the left was, with ivy and clematis creeping up it so prettily; but she had not cared much, for she was already rejecting the minister’s exotic suite in her mind. When she had gone back indoors through the receiving-room, past the statue, she had begun, between the sixth and seventh rooms, to arrange wh
at she would need to say to the minister to get what she wanted. That was before she found the tower room, and the wild garden.

  But now she was changing her decision, standing on the other side of the high mysterious wall. Great ragged leaves on thick stalks stood shoulder-high on that side; yellow sunbursts of flowers erupted from them, and shorter spikes of pink and lavender flowers spilled out in front of them. A small graceful tree stood against the wall, over which rioted the ivy and clematis so tidily cut back on the other side. In the center she could see where paths had once been laid out, to demarcate, she thought, an herb garden; she could smell some of the herbs growing still, green and gentle or spicy and vivid, though she could not give names to them. One path looked as if it led to the small tree; perhaps there was a door in the wall there, buried under the tiny grasping hands of ivy and the small curling stems of clematis seeking purchase. The garden was walled all around; against the wall opposite the one she had seen from the other side a tangle of roses stood, leggy as fleethound puppies, sadly in need of some knowledgeable pruning.

  Perhaps this was something she could learn: to prune roses, to recognize herbs from weeds and cultivate the one and pull up the other. Between the herb garden and the flower beds there was plenty of room for rolling and leaping and the chasing of balls, even for a dog as large and quick as Ash was becoming; Lissar wondered why such a lovely garden had been neglected for so long. But it did not matter.

  For the moment she looked at the high wall around her garden with satisfaction; Ash was no more than half grown and already she could leap higher than Lissar’s head. The little round room, for her, and the big walled garden, for Ash, made her new chambers perfect. The other rooms mattered little, but … it would probably be wise not to ask that the statue be removed; she could learn to ignore it. And perhaps a few pillows could stun the purple of that couch.