first who ever showed any interest in me. I rather liked him, actually.
Of course he did propose marriage to me, and a girl always has a
soft spot in her heart for the young man who asks her for the first
time. Anrak was an Alorn, with all that implies. He was big, burly,
and bearded, and there was good-humored simplicity about him
that I rather liked. I didn’t like the way he always reeked of beer,
however.
I was busy sulking in my Tree when he arrived, so we didn’t
even have time to get acquainted before he proposed. He came
swaggering down the Vale one beautiful morning in early spring.
My birds alerted me to his approach, so he didn’t really surprise
me when he came in under the branches of my Tree.
‘Hello, up there,’ he called to me.
I looked down from my perch at him. ‘What do you want?’ It
wasn’t really a very gracious greeting.
‘I’m Anrak, Riva’s cousin – and I came here to escort your sister
to the Isle so Riva can marry her.’
That immediately put him in the camp of the enemy. ‘Go away,’
I told him bluntly.
‘There’s something I need to ask you first.’
‘What?’
‘Well, like I said, I’m Riva’s cousin, and he and I usually do
things together. We got drunk together for the first time, and
visited a brothel together for the first time, and even both killed
our first man in the same battle, so as you can see, we’re fairly
close.’
‘So?
‘Well, Riva’s going to marry your sister, and I thought it might
be sort of nice if I got married, too. What do you say?’
‘Are you proposing marriage to me?’
‘I thought I said that. This is the first time I’ve ever proposed to
anybody, so I probably didn’t do a very good job. What do you
think?’
‘I think you’re insane. We don’t even know each other.’
‘There’ll be plenty of time for us to get to know each other after
the ceremony. Well, yes or no?’
You couldn’t fault Anrak’s directness. Here was a man who got
right down to the point. I laughed at him, and he looked just a bit
injured by that. ‘What’s so funny?’ he demanded in a hurt tone of
voice.
‘You are. Do you actually think I’d marry a complete stranger?
One who looks like a rat hiding in a clump of bushes?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You’ve got hair growing all over your face.’
‘That’s my beard. All Alorns wear beards.’
‘Could that possibly be because Alorns haven’t invented the razor
yet? Tell me, Anrak, have your people come up with the idea of the
wheel yet? Have you discovered fire, by any chance?’
‘You don’t have to be insulting. Just say yes or no.’
‘All right. No! Was there any part of that you didn’t understand?’
Then I warmed to my subject. ‘The whole notion is absurd,’ I told
him. ‘I don’t know you, and I don’t like you. I don’t know your
cousin, and I don’t like him either. As a matter of fact, I don’t like
your entire stinking race. All the misery in my life’s been caused
by Alorns. Did you really think I’d actually marry one? You’d better
get away from me, Anrak, because if,you don’t, I’ll turn you into a
toad.’
‘You don’t have to get nasty. You’re no prize yourself, you know.’
I won’t repeat what I said to him then. this document might just
fall into the hands of children. I spoke at some length about his
parents, his extended family, his race, his ancestors and probable
descendants. I drew rather heavily on uncle Beldin’s vocabulary in
the process, and Anrak frequently looked startled at the extent of
my command of the more colorful side of language.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘if that’s the way you feel about it, there’s not
much point in our continuing this conversation, is there?’ And then
he rather huffily turned and strode back up the Vale, muttering to
himself.
Poor Anrak. I was feeling a towering resentment over the fact
that some unknown alorn was going to take my sister away from
me, and so he had the privilege of receiving the full weight of my
displeasure. Moreover, mother’d strongly advised me to steer clear
of any lasting entanglements at this stage of my life. Adolescent
girls have glandular problems that sometimes lead them to make
serious mistakes.
Why don’t we just let it go at that?
I had absolutely no intention of going to the Isle of the Winds to
witness this obscene ceremony. If beldaran wanted to marry this
Alorn butcher, she was going to have to do it without my blessing
– or my presence.
When they were ready to leave, however, my sister came down
to my Tree and ‘persuaded’ me to change my mind. Despite that
sweet exterior that deceived everyone else, my sister Beldaran could
be absolutely ruthless when she wanted something. She knew me
better than anyone else in the world did – or could – so she knew
exactly where all my soft spots were. To begin with, she spoke to
me exclusively in’twin’, a language I’d almost forgotten. There were
subtleties in ‘twin’ – mostly of Beldaran’s devising – that no linguist,
even the most gifted, could ever unravel, and most of them stressed
her dominant position. Beldaran was accustomed to giving me
orders, and I was accustomed to obeying. Her ‘persuasion’ in this
situation was, to put it honestly, brutal. She reminded me of every
time in our lives when we’d been particularly close, and she cast
those reminders in a past tense peculiar to our private tongue that
would more or less translate into ‘never again’, or ‘over and done
with’. She had me in tears within five minutes and in utter anguish
within ten. ‘Stop!’ I cried out finally, unable to bear the implicit
threat of a permanent severing of all contact any longer.
‘You’ll come with me then?’ she asked, reverting to ordinary
speech.
‘Yes! Yes! Yes! But please stop!’
‘I’m so happy about your decision, Pol,’ she said, embracing me
warmly. Then she actually apologized for what she’d just done to
me. Why not? She’d just won, so she could afford to be graceful
about the whole thing.
I was beaten, and I knew it. I wasn’t even particularly surprised
to discover when Beldaran and I returned to father’s tower that
she’d already packed for me. She’d known all along just how things
would turn out.
We set out the next morning. It took us several weeks to reach
Muros, since we traveled on foot.
Beldaran and I were both uneasy in Muros, since we’ never
really been around that many people before. Although I’ve changed
MY position a great deal since then, at first I found Sendars to be a
noisy people, and they seemed to me to have a positive obsession
with buying and selling that was almost laughable.
Anrak left us at Muros to go on ahead to advise Riva that we
were coming. We hired a carriage, and the four of us, father, uncle
Beldin, Beldaran and I rode the rest of the way to Camaar. Frankly,
I’d have rather walked. The stubby ponies drawing the carriage
didn’t really move very fast, and the wheels of the carriage seemed
to find every single rock and rut in the road. Riding in carriages
didn’t really become pleasant until some clever fellow came up with
a way to install springs in them.
Camaar was even more crowded with people than Muros had
been. We took some rooms in a Sendarian inn and settled down to
wait for Riva’s arrival. I found it rather disconcerting to see buildings
every time I looked out the window. Sendars appeared to have a
kind of revulsion to open spaces. They always seem to want to
‘civilize’ everything.
The innkeeper’s wife, a plump, motherly little woman, seemed
bent on ‘civilizing’ me as well. She kept offering me the use of the
bath-house, for one thing. She rather delicately suggested that I
didn’t smell very sweet.
I shrugged off her suggestions. ‘It’s a waste of time,’ I told her.
‘I’ll only get dirty again. The next time it rains, I’ll go outside. That
should take the smell and the worst of the dirt off me.’
She also offered me a comb and a brush – which I also refused.
I wasn’t going to let the alorn who’d stolen my sister away from
me get some idea that I was taking any pains to make myself
presentable for his sake.
The nosey innkeeper’s wife then went so far as to suggest a visit
to a dressmaker. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the fact that
we’d shortly be entertaining a king, but she was.
‘What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?’ I asked her pugnaciously.
‘Different occasions require different clothing, dear,’ she replied.