Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin Read Free Book Online Page A

half my head. She is not the daughter of my body, but of my house and heart. Her gods and ancestors are mine."
    I knew well that I was of the blood of Galva, but it gave me a painful joy to hear him say what he said.
    "In the market," Gry said, "a horse bolted when it saw my cat. It threw it's rider and ran straight at Memer. She caught the reins and stopped and held it."
    "I'll go get the room ready," I said, finding praise hard to bear.
    Gry excused herself and came with me, wanting to help me with the room. Once we had made up the bed and got a fire going in the hearth, it was done, and she said she'd go bring her husband here from the Harbor Market. I longed to hear him, and she saw that. "He'll be nearly done speaking, I think," she said, "but I'd be glad of your company. I'll leave Shetar in the wagon. She's fine there." As we went out she added, "One lion is enough."
    How could I not love her?
    So Gry Barre and I went afoot back down to the Harbor Market. There I first heard the maker Orrec Caspro speak.
    The tent was full, and the front and sides had been raised for people to stand outside it, crowded together
like trees on a mountainside, all still, listening. He was telling the tale of the Fire-Tailed Bird from Denios'
Transformations.
I knew it, and older people of Ansul there knew it, but to the Ald soldiers—and there were many, all in the best places, up close to the platform in the tent—and to most of the young people, it was new, a wonder. All stood with moving lips and gazing eyes, rapt in the story-poem. Caught in it too, hearing the teller's even, resonant voice and clear northern accent, I hardly saw him himself. I listened, and saw the story happen.
    When he was done, the great crowd stood in silence for a long breath's space, and then said, "Ah!" And then they began to applaud him, the Alds by hitting their palms together loudly, and we by crying the old praise-word, "Eho, eho!" I saw him then, a handsome, thin, straight, dark man, with a certain defiance in his stance up there on the dais, though he was most gracious with the crowd.
    We could not get near him for a long time. "I should have brought the other lion too," Gry said, as we tried in vain to pry through the massed backs of the soldiers and officers with their blue cloaks and their sheep hair and their swords and crossbows and bludgeons, all pressing round the speaker, who had come down among them.
    When he leapt back up on the platform and scanned the crowd, Gry made her bird's whistle, loud and piercing this time. At once he saw her; she nodded to our left;and a few minutes later he met us by the steps of the Customs.
    Now that the soldiers had dispersed, many citizens trailed him, but they were timid, unwilling to press forward. Only one elderly man came up to him, and bowed as we bow in thanks to our gods, deeply, with open hands that hold the gift given and received. "Praise to the maker," he whispered. He straightened up and walked swiftly away. He was in tears. He was a man who had brought books to the Waylord more than once. I didn't know his name.
    Orrec Caspro saw us and strode forward. He took both Gry's hands for a moment. "Get me out!" he said. "Where's Shetar?"
    "At Galvamant," she said, pronouncing the name northern-wise. "I am with Decalo's daughter Memer of Galvamant. We're to be guests of that house."
    His eyes widened. He greeted me courteously and asked no questions, but he looked as if he had some.
    "Please excuse me," I said on the spur of the moment, "I forgot something at the market this morning. You know the way. I'll catch up." And I left them. It was true that Ista would need more greens for a stew for eight.
    I always wondered why the makers leave housekeeping and cooking out of their tales. Isn't it what all the great wars and battles are fought for—so that at day's end a family may eat together in a peaceful house? The tale tells how the Lords of Manva hunted and gathered roots and cooked their suppers while