Deerskin (47 page)

Authors: Robin McKinley

And so he burst through the veil of trees into the first wide swathe of farmland, and there, at last, he saw what he sought; and he saw too that they were tired, weary nearly unto death, although he could not say for sure where this knowledge came from, for they were all still running, running as lightly as Moon on water.

But his heart was sick in him that she should run herself to death to escape him, for he was sure that she knew he would follow; and almost he took the bit from the colt and turned him away from their quarry. But he remembered the look on Lissar’s face when she had turned away from him, and remembered too what else she ran from, what she had faced and broken by her own strength before the eyes of everyone in the throne room, and then he closed his legs around the colt’s sides a little more firmly, and leaned a little lower over his flying mane. For he knew also that if he looked into Lissar’s eyes now, now that the past had burned away, if he looked into those clear eyes and still saw a despair that could not be healed, he would return and kill her father; and he needed to know if he must do this or not.

The colt caught up with the dogs only a few steps before the first of the real woodlands began; the cob would never have got him there in time. But it abruptly occurred to Ossin that he did not know what to do now that he had come abreast of them. He could not hold them captive; they could, if they chose, duck around him and dodge into the cover of the trees after all; and he would not be able to follow them closely, a man on horseback, through the undergrowth. He could, he supposed, seize Lissar herself somehow … But he would not. He hoped she would decide to stop of her own will.

She did. She stopped like a branch breaking, and stood swaying; several of the dogs flopped down immediately and lay panting on their sides.

Ossin dismounted, pulled the reins over the colt’s head and dropped them; he’d had enough of running for one morning, and would perhaps stay as he was trained. “Lissar,” said the prince.

“Go away,” she said, between great mouthsful of air.

“No,” he said. “Don’t send me away. I let you leave me the first time because I thought that was what you wanted—that what you wanted didn’t include me. But …”

“I do want you,” she said, her voice still weak with running, and with what else had happened that day. And as she stood she began to tremble, and her teeth rattled together; and it was all Ossin could do to stand his ground, not to touch her. “I had forgotten that I have thought of you every hour since the night of the ball; I had convinced myself that I thought of you only every day. I remembered the truth of it when I saw you today, standing beside … your sister.” She was too tired not to speak the truth; having him before her, himself, the warm breathing reality of him, struck down her last weak defenses; she thought she had never been so tired, and yet the strength of her love for the man who stood before her was not a whit lessened by her body’s exhaustion. Her voice had dwindled away to little more than a whisper. “But it does not matter. I am … not whole. I am no wife for you, Ossin.”

“I don’t care about—” he began; but she made an impatient gesture. “I don’t mean … only that I have no maidenhead to offer a husband on our wedding night. I am hurt … in ways you cannot see, and that I cannot explain, even to myself, but only know that they are there, and a part of me, as much as my hands and eyes and breath are a part of me.”

Ossin looked at her, and felt the hope draining out of his heart, for the red and gold were gone from her. Even her yellow eyes were closed, and her face was as pale as chalk, and nearly as lifeless. Only her glinting dark hair held its color. “Then you do not love me?” he said in a voice small and sad.

Her eyes flew open and she looked at him as if he had insulted her. “Love you? Of course I love you. Ask Lilac, or Hela or Jobe, or—or Longsword. Ask anyone I ever spoke your name to last summer.”

“Then marry me,” said Ossin. “For I love you, and I do not believe there is anything so wrong with you. You are fair in my eyes and you lie fair on my heart. I—I was there, this morning, when you—when you showed the sears you wear, and I accept that you bear them, and will always bear them, as—as Ash bears hers,” for even in his preoccupation he had seen and, unlike Lilac, recognized what he saw of Lissar’s seventh hound.

“It is not like that,” she whispered. “It is not like that.”

“Is it not?” said Ossin. “How is it not?” And in his voice, strangely, was the sound of running water, and of bells.

There was a little pause, while they looked at each other, and Ossin knew that it could go either way. He understood that she did not believe that last summer was more important than the truth he had heard spoken at such cost only an hour ago; and he could think of nothing he might say to change her mind, if his love could not reach her, if she counted the love in her own heart as nothing.

And then Ash moved forward from Lissar’s side, and leaned against Ossin’s leg, and sighed. And they both looked down at her. Almost Ossin held his breath, afraid that this was the last stroke, the final fragment that would produce Lissar’s decision, whole and implacable and—the wrong one, the one Ossin feared. And so he broke into speech, saying anything, wanting to prevent Lissar from putting that last piece into its place and presenting him with his fate. But his tongue betrayed him, betrayed the fact that he could not think of life without her, now that he had her again, now that he had caught her when she had run away—now that he had heard her say that she loved him. “This is the Ash I sent you when your mother died,” he said, “and some day I want to hear why she grew a long coat, as none of my dogs has ever done and as I as their arrogant breeder am inclined to count an insult to my skill, and why she then lost it again, and what happened since I saw you last that left this mark in her side.”

Lissar’s eyes were fixed on her dog, who had left her to lean against her lover; but then she lifted her eyes and her gaze met Ossin’s, and he saw the hot amber was a little cooled by green, and the green was very clear and calm. Her tone was wondering as she answered: “Lilac asked the same thing. It was a toro—a large toro—and I did not set them on it, for I have more sense; but Ash would not be called back. I do not know myself about her coat. She protected me by disguising herself—protecting me as she has always done.” As she believes she is protecting me now, she thought, and guessed that Ossin heard these words too, though she did not say them aloud. “The night I … ran away … After my father left me, I waited only to die. And I only did not die because Ash lived, and because she wished me to live too.” Will you desert me now, Ash, if I do not choose as you would have me choose, after all that has come before?

They both heard more unspoken words, this time Ossin’s. What do you owe me, then, for Ash? Your life? What risk will you take for her risk? For me? But he heard her answers to the words he did not speak: It is not like that. It is not like that. You do not understand.

I do not have to understand, he said. I have seen the scars you carry, and I love you. If you and Ash cannot run quite so far as you used because of old wounds, then we will run less far together. “I was never a runner anyway,” he murmured aloud, and Lissar stirred but made no answer.

Aloud he said: “There is another reason we should marry; for you are the only person I’ve ever known who loves dogs, these fleethounds, as much as I do; and therefore I suspect that I am the only person you have ever known who loves them as you do.”

Lissar almost smiled, and a little color came back into her face, and her eyes were hazel now. “And I promised you puppies, didn’t I? Ash is pregnant by Ob now, I believe.”

“You did promise me puppies,” said Ossin, trembling now himself, fighting to keep his words low and kind, as he would speak to a dog so badly frightened it might be savage in its fear; knowing that she wanted to come to him, not knowing if he could depend on that wanting, clamping his arms to his sides to prevent himself from seizing her to him as he wanted to do.

“Ossin,” Lissar said, and sighed, and the sigh caught in her throat; and she held one hand out toward him, hesitantly, and he put his arms around her, gently. I cannot decide, she said but not aloud; and so I will let you—and Ash—and my heart decide for me. But I do not know if this is the right thing. She remembered the Moonwoman’s words: Ash is looking forward to running through meadows again; can you not give yourself leave to run through meadows too? But she remembered also that Moonwoman had said, It is a much more straightforward thing to be a dog, and a dog’s love, once given, is not reconsidered.

“It is not so easy as running and not running,” she said, and found that she had spoken aloud; but she was in Ossin’s arms as she said it, and knew that she would stay there—for now. And she promised, herself and Ossin, and Ash and the puppies, that she would try to stay there, for as long as the length of their lives; that she would put her strength now and hereafter toward staying and not fleeing. But I do not know how strong I am, she said. I cannot promise.

It is enough, said Ossin. For who can make such promises? No one of us is so whole that he can see the future.

Then she stepped toward him of her own volition, and put her own arms around him, and he heaved his own sigh, and bent his head, and kissed her, and she relaxed forward, against his breast. And the dogs closed around them, pressing up against their thighs, wagging their tails, rubbing their noses against the two figures who were holding each other so tightly that they seemed only one figure after all.

Author’s note: There is a story by Charles Perrault called
Donkeyskin
which, because of its subject matter, is often not included in collections of Perrault’s fairy tales. Or, if it does appear, it does so in a bowdlerized state. The original
Donkeyskin
is where
Deerskin
began.

About the Author

Robin McKinley has won various awards and citations for her writing, including the Newbery Medal for
The Hero and the Crown
, a Newbery Honor for
The Blue Sword
, and the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature for
Sunshine
. Her other books include the
New York Times
bestseller
Spindle’s End
; two novel-length retellings of the fairy tale
Beauty and the Beast, Beauty
and
Rose Daughter
;
Deerskin
, another novel-length fairy-tale retelling, of Charles Perrault’s
Donkeyskin
; and a retelling of the Robin Hood legend,
The Outlaws of Sherwood
. She lives with her husband, the English writer Peter Dickinson; three dogs (two hellhounds and one hellterror); an 1897 Steinway upright; and far too many rosebushes.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Angela Goddard

ISBN: 978-1-4976-7367-0

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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