Deerskin by Robin McKinley

Author:Robin McKinley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781497673670
Publisher: Open Road Media

NINETEEN

LILAC WENT WITH HER FAR ENOUGH TO ENSURE THAT SHE WOULD not get lost. There was a stream of people, narrow but steady, going the same way they were. Lilac knew the doorkeepers and had a friendly word for each of them, accompanied by the same clear, straightforward look that had rescued Lissar that morning at breakfast—and, she thought, had first weighed and considered her at the water cistern.

“I’ll leave you here,” Lilac said at last, at the end of one hall. “You can’t miss it from here. Straight through those silly-looking doors”—they were carved as if the open entry were a monster’s roaring mouth—“and then look around. There’ll be a group of ordinary-looking folk off to one side, and a lot of unordinary folk wandering around trying to look important. You go stand with the first lot.” She grinned. “I’d stay with you a little and watch the show, but I’ve skipped enough work for one day. Redthorn is a good fellow, but you put your hours in or he won’t keep you.”

Lissar was finding it hard to see; she blinked, but as soon as her eyes were open, she saw … two different pictures, one superimposed upon the other. She could see the monster-mouth doorway, and the friendly, casual doorkeepers, who seemed not to lose nor fear losing any of their dignity by speaking to all the mixture of people that passed in and out. Through this scene or over it she saw another, taller, plainer doorway, with guards standing by it, dressed in golden uniforms with breastplates bright enough to be mirrors; and a doorkeeper so haughty that he seemed grander than most of the stately, expensively dressed people he permitted to pass through the doors; two flunkies stood at his elbows, tense with watching for his orders.

“Thank you,” she said to Lilac, blinking again. “I’m sure I’ll find the way from here.”

“Are you feeling quite well?” Lilac asked abruptly. “You’ve gone pale.” She touched Lissar’s arm. “Did you get a touch of heatstroke yesterday? Or maybe Cala’s sausages don’t agree with you. Gods only know what all she puts into them.”

Lissar shook her head—gingerly, still blinking. “No. I’m just—still not accustomed to so many people.”

Lilac looked at her a moment longer, and dropped her hand. “I still wish you’d let me loan you some shoes. Barefoot before the king and queen!” She shook her head, but she was smiling again.

Lissar murmured, “I like to know where I’m walking. In shoes I’m always walking on shoes.”

“Well, it identifies you as a stranger, anyway, and strangers are often exotic. But it makes you look like you have no friends. Now remember, come back to the stables tonight, whatever happens. We won’t keep you in the boxroom forever.”

Lissar nodded, and Lilac, after looking at her anxiously a moment longer, turned away.

“Lilac—”

Lilac, who had moved a few steps away, stopped at once and turned back.

“What do you call them, the king and queen, I mean? Your—your”—the word fell out of

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