“Those that could,” said Tenar. She turned and stirred the man’s leg a little with the toe of her shoe, as if he were an object she was a little curious about, a little repelled by, like a dead viper. “You did the right thing,” she said.
“I don’t think he even saw it. He ran right onto it, It was like-” He did not say what it was like. He said, “Drink your tea,” and poured himself more from the pot keeping warm on the hearthbricks. “It’s good. Sit down,” he said, and she did so.
“When I was a boy,” he said after a time, “the Kargs raided my village. They had lances-long, with feathers tied to the shaft-”
She nodded. “Warriors of the God-Brothers,” she said. “I made a . . . a fog-spell. To confuse them. But they came on, some of them. I saw one of them run right onto a pitchfork-like him, Only it went clear through him. Below the waist.”
“You hit a rib,” Tenar said.
He nodded.
“It was the only mistake you made,” she said. Her teeth were chattering now. She drank her tea. “Ged,” she said, “what if they come back?”
“They won’t.”
“They could set fire to the house.”
“This house?” He looked around at the stone walls.
“The haybarn-”
“They won’t be back,” he said, doggedly.
“No.”
They held their cups with care, warming their hands on them.
“She slept through it.”
“It’s well she did.”
“But she’ll see him-here-in the morning-”
They stared at each other.
“If I’d killed him-if he’d die!” Ged said with rage. “I could drag him out and bury him-”
“Do it.”
He merely shook his head angrily.
“What does it matter, why, why can’t we do it!” Tenar demanded .
“I don’t know.”
“As soon as it gets light-”
“I’ll get him out of the house. Wheelbarrow. The old man can help me.”
“He can’t lift anything any more. I’ll help you.”
“However I can do it, I’ll cart him off to the village. There’s a healer of some kind there?”
“A witch, Ivy.”
She felt all at once abysmally, infinitely weary. She could scarcely hold the cup in her hand .
“There’s more tea,” she said, thick-tongued.
He poured himself another cupful.
The fire danced in her eyes. The flames swam, flared up, sank away, brightened again against the sooty stone, against the dark sky, against the pale sky, the gulfs of evening, the depths of air and light beyond the world. Flames of yellow, orange, orange-red, red tongues of flame, flame-tongues, the words she could not speak.
“Tenar.”
“We call the star Tehanu,” she said.
“Tenar, my dear. Come on. Come with me.”
They were not at the fire. They were in the dark-in the dark hall. The dark passage. They had been there before, leading each other, following each other, in the darkness underneath the earth.
“This is the way,” she said.
Winter
She was waking, not wanting to waken. Faint grey shone at the window in thin slits through the shutters. Why was the window shuttered? She got up hurriedly and went down the hail to the kitchen. No one sat by the fire, no one lay on the floor, There was no sign of anyone, anything. Except the teapot and three cups on the counter.
Therru got up about sunrise, and they breakfasted as usual; clearing up, the girl asked, “What happened?” She lifted a corner of wet linen from the soaking-tub in the pantry. The water in the tub was veined and clouded with brownish red.
“Oh, my period came on early,” Tenar said, startled at the lie as she spoke it.
Therru stood a moment motionless, her nostrils flared and her head still, like an animal getting a scent. Then she dropped the sheeting back into the water, and went out to feed the chickens.
Tenar felt ill; her bones ached. The weather was still cold, and she stayed indoors as much as she could.. She tried to keep Therru in, but when the sun came out with a keen, bright wind, Therru wanted to be out in it.
“Stay with Shandy in the orchard,” Tenar said.