The Midnight Circus, стр. 42
Aheadof them raced the little terrier, his tail flagging them on, ’til heled them right to the circle of dogs waiting patiently beneath her tree.
“Look,my lord, they have found something,” said one man.
“Oddthey should be so quiet,” said another.
Butthe one they called lord dismounted, waded through the sea of dogs, andstood at the very foot of the oak, his feet crunching on the fallenacorns. He stared up, and up, and up through the green leaves and atfirst saw nothing but brown and green.
Oneof the large gray dogs stood, walked over to his side, raised its greatmuzzle to the tree, and howled.
Thesound made her shiver anew.
“See,my lord, see—high up. There is a trembling in the foliage,” one of themen cried.
“Youfool,” the lord cried, “that is no trembling of leaves. It is a girl.She is dressed all in brown and green. See how she makes the very treeshimmer.” Though how he could see her so well in the dark, she wasnever to understand.
“Comedown, child, we will not harm you.”
Shedid not come down. Not then. Not until the morning fully revealedher. And then, if she was to eat, if she was to relieve herself, shehad to come down. So she did, dropping the rope ladder, and skinningdown it quickly. She kept her knife tucked up in her waist, out wherethey could see it and be afraid.
Theydid not touch her but watched her every movement, like a pack ofdogs. When she went to the river to drink, they watched. When she atethe bit of journeycake the lord offered her, they watched. And evenwhen she relieved herself, the lord watched. He would let no one elselook then, which she knew honored her, though she did not care.
Andwhen after several days he thought he had tamed her, the lord took heron his horse before him and rode with her back to the far west where helived. By then he loved her, and knew that she loved him in return,though she had yet to speak a word to him.
“Butthen, what have words to do with love?” he whispered to her as theyrode.
Heguessed by her carriage, by the way her eyes met his, that she was aprincess of some sort, only badly used. He loved her for the past whichshe could not speak of, for her courage which showed in her face, andfor her beauty. He would have loved her for much less, having found herin the tree, for she was something out of a story, out of a prophecy,out of a dream.
“Iloved you at once,” he whispered. “When I knew you from the tree.”
Shedid not answer. Love was not yet in her vocabulary. But she did not saythe one word she could speak: avaunt. She did not want him togo.
Whenthe cat wants to eat her kittens, she says they look like mice.
Hisfather was not so quick to love her.
Hismother, thankfully, was long dead.
Sheknew his father at once, by the way his eyes were slotted against thehot sun of the gods, against the lies of men. She knew him to be a kingif only by that.
Andwhen she recognized her mother and her sisters in his retinue, she knewwho it was she faced. They did not know her, of course. She was nolonger seven but nearly seventeen. Her life had browned her, bronzedher, made her into such steel as they had never known. She couldhave told them but she had only contempt for their lives. As they hadcontempt now for her, thinking her some drudge run off to the forest,some sinister throwling from a forgotten clan.
Whenthe king gave his grudging permission for their marriage, when theprince’s advisers set down in long scrolls what she should and shouldnot have, she only smiled at them. It was a tree’s smile, giving awaynot a bit of the bark.
Shewaited until the night of her wedding to the prince when they werecouched together, the servants a-giggle outside their door. She waiteduntil he had covered her face with kisses, when he had touched her insecret places that made her tremble, when he had brought bloodbetween her legs. She waited until he had done all the things she hadonce watched her brother do to the maids, and she cried out withpleasure as she had heard them do. She waited until he laid asleep,smiling happily in his dreams, because she did love him in her warriorway.
Thenshe took her knife and slit his throat, efficiently and withoutcruelty, as she would a deer for her dinner.
“Yourfather killed my father,” she whispered, soft as a love token in hisear as the knife carved a smile on his neck.
Shestripped the bed of its bloody offering and handed it to the servantswho thought it the effusions of the night. Then she walked down thehall to her father-in-law’s room.
Hewas bedded with her mother, riding her like one old wave atop another.
“Here!”he cried as he realized someone was in the room. “You!” he said when herealized who it was.
Hermother looked at her with half opened eyes and, for the first time, sawwho she really was, for she had her father’s face, fierce anddetermined.
“No!”her mother cried. ‘‘Avaunt!’’ But it was a cry that was ten years late.
Shekilled the king with as much ease as she had killed his son, but shelet the knife linger longer to give him a great deal of pain. Then shesliced off one of his ears and put it gently in her mother’s hand.
Inall this she had said not one word. But wearing the blood of the kingon her gown, she walked out of the palace and back to the woods,though she was many days getting there.
Noone tried to stop her, for no one saw her. She was a flower in themeadow, a rock by the roadside, a reed by the river, a tree in theforest.
Anda warrior’s mother by the spring of the year.
AnInfestation of Angels
THE ANGELS CAME AGAIN TODAY, filthy things, dropping golden-hard wingfeathers and turds as big and brown as