Deerskin by Robin McKinley Read Free Book Online

noises deep in her throat.
    The princess looked up: hazel eyes met blue, and the princess saw kindness, and the herald saw that the puppy would have a good home, and he was pleased, both because he loved dogs and because he loved his prince; and because he felt sorry for this young girl who had lost her mother. The herald bowed, deeply, and the princess smiled down at her armful. (Which made a dive at her face again, and this time succeeded in grazing the princess’s nose with a puppy fang.) The court noticed the smile, and found themselves interested again, despite the clumsy curtsey. “She’s a pretty little thing,” they murmured to each other. “I had never noticed. She might even grow up to be a beauty; don’t forget who her mother was. How old is she now?”
    But the princess had forgotten all about the court. She curtseyed again to her father—without raising her eyes from her new friend’s face—and requested permission to withdraw, in a voice as steady as her steps had been, before she met her father’s eyes. There was a pause, and her smile disappeared, and she stared fixedly downward—she would not look up, remembering without remembering why she had not liked looking at her father before—but the puppy made her smile again and the waiting was no longer onerous. As the court began to wonder if the father was seeing something in the daughter that he, like they, had perhaps overlooked, he moved abruptly in his chair, and without any prompting from his ministers, spoke aloud, giving his leave for her to go.
    As she turned away, the herald who had handed her the letter (which was presently being beaten to death by the puppy’s tail) stooped to one knee before her. “I have also instructions for your splendor’s new dog’s feeding and care,” he said. “May I give them to your waiting-women?”
    She had no waiting-women, but she now had a dog; and she thought her old nursemaid would never notice the existence of a dog, let alone remember the necessities of caring for it. Then it occurred to her that she did not want anyone caring for her dog but herself: and this thought pleased her, and banished, for the moment, the memory of her father’s eyes. “No, I thank you, you may give them to me,” she said. Both the heralds remembered this, to take home and tell the prince, for he too took personal care of his dogs. It never occurred to them that the princess of this great state, much richer and vaster than their own and their king’s and queen’s and prince’s, had no one to give instructions to.

F OUR
    THEN BEGAN THE HAPPIEST TWO YEARS OF THE PRINCESS’S LIFE . It was as if Ash crystallized, or gave meaning to, the princess’s tumbled thoughts about who she herself was, and what she might do about it. Being a princess, she recognized, was a decisive thing about her, though it had meant little thus far; perhaps it would mean more if she tried to make it mean more. She did not know for certain about this, and for herself she might have hesitated to try. But now there was Ash, and nothing was too good or wonderful for Ash.
    First she had her rooms moved to the ground floor. She had no appetite for breakfast on the day she steeled herself to tell the under-maid who brought them their morning meal that she wished to speak to a footman; and she was glad that she had eaten no breakfast when the under-footman presented himself to her and she informed him that she desired to change her rooms.
    He disappeared, and an upper footman appeared, and she repeated her declaration, but more firmly this time, for she was growing accustomed to speaking; and because the first footman had bowed, just as the under-maid had. He disappeared in turn, and three more servants with increasing amounts of gold braid on their collars and lace about their wrists appeared and disappeared, and the parade climaxed with the arrival of one of her father’s ministers—and not, she thought frowning a little, one of the most