The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley Read Free Book Online Page B

her hand and said, “Welcome.”
    â€œDonathor is our eldest son,” said the dark Queen, “and so he will be King after his father; when we leave you to cross the mountains and grow flowers in a quiet garden. You will be Queen, and we will come back at least once, for the christening of your first child, and bring you armsful of flowers, flowers that only our mountain air and water can produce.
    â€œYou will meet Donathor’s brothers soon; but we have no daughters, much to our sorrow, and so our welcome to you is even greater than it would be to our eldest son’s chosen wife.” She caught her breath and opened her big eyes wide and for a moment she looked as young as Linadel; yet this woman’s beauty had no age, and it was hard to imagine her being able to count her life in years. But her eyes were as soft as a child’s as she said, “I am so pleased to have a girl to talk to again.” And her smile was a girl’s, and Linadel smiled back, and opened her mouth and heard herself saying something at last; and that something was just, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
    But as she spoke she turned back to Donathor, who stood looking down at her as if he had never looked away since he had first taken her hand to dance with her; and perhaps he had not.
    Two more people approached: young girls, perhaps Linadel’s age. It was hard to assign anybody an age, Linadel thought, looking around her again. The King looked older than Donathor, yes, she could say that, but it seemed more a state of mind than anything she could see. The King’s skin was as golden as his son’s, and his black hair had no grey in it.
    So these young girls, if they were young girls, approached; and they were carrying a golden veil between them, a veil so light that it was hard to see until they were quite near. They threw it over Linadel, and it settled around her like a fine mesh of fire, and as a delicate gold veining on her white skin. When she shook her head to toss her hair back it ran over her shoulders like water, and Donathor had to squeeze his free hand close to his side to keep it from burying itself in those dark gold-flecked waves.
    â€œHail,” said the two girls, their eyes shining like the golden veil. “Hail to Donathor and his bride, the next King and Queen! Hail Donathor and hail Linadel!”
    And the rest of the people in that glen took it up, and the shout swung through them like music, and they tossed it over their heads like a ball.
    Two more girls appeared; carrying long golden ribbons, and handed the two ends to the girls who had carried the veil, who now stood on either side of the little royal group of four: and then the ribbon was unwound, and the happy crowd stepped forward, and many white hands reached out to hold it; and soon a gold-edged path lay before them, stretching straight through the arch where the King and Queen had entered, and on and on, till Linadel could only see the people as blurs of color with two bits of thin gold unwinding swiftly before them, a strip of green between the gold, and greenness behind them. The ribbon stretched so far that she could no longer recognize it as golden; it was a sparkle of light and a boundary, the end of which she could not see. “Hail!” The cry still went near them, and then it was taken up by more and more people who stepped forward to seize the swift narrow gold. “Hail to the next King and Queen!”
    Then a silence swept back to them again, from where the gold ribbons must finally have halted, and it was a silence of waiting. The faces turned back toward the royal four, smiling and joyous faces, waiting for Donathor and Linadel to take the first step, so that the cry could be taken up again and thrown before them to where the end of the golden ribbons awaited them. They waited, smiling and expectant, and the King and Queen turned and bowed to their son and their new daughter, and stepped