Lissar could not stop the visits to her old nursemaid; she was the only visitor the old woman had, barring the maid who opened and closed the curtains, and made up the bed, and brought food and clean water and linen and took away what was dirty and discarded. Only Lissar and Viaka and an under-maid cared that the last flight of stairs was now carpeted. But Lissar could not forget that Hurra had been all that she had had for all the years of her life till the death of her mother. She understood, now, what Hurra had really been to her, all those years, and she to Hurra; but that did not change the fact that it was Hurra who had fed and dressed and looked after her. And Lissar listened to the low stumbling intense syllables of Hurra~s endless, repetitive tales, and felt herself ground like wheat between stones.
But there were many things that even her now unshackled mind could not tell her, for it had no knowledge to work with; and Viaka could tell her some of these, gently, as if it were not surprising that Lissar did not know them. And Viaka was wise enough to know that it was indeed not surprising. Viaka knew about family; and it was from this knowledge, and not merely because of her own mad Aunt Rcho, that she could visit Hurra, and hold the old hands, and let the stories wash over her.
It was near Ash's first birthday that the Moon woke Lissar's body to its womanhood for the first time; Viaka, suppressing her misgivings that Lissar had come to it so late, told her what the blood meant, and that it was no wound-or that it was a wound without cure. Lissar grew in stature as well, as if catching up for the years pent in the nursery, when she should have been learning to be a young woman; and then came the first days when some of the grand visitors to her father's hall brought gifts to curry the princess's favor as well.
FIVE
LISSAR SAW LITTLE OF HER FATHER DURING THIS TIME; LITTLE
because she wished it so and he did not require otherwise. By the time of the first anniversary of his wife's death, the king was going out among his people again and his ministers no longer ruled the country alone. One or two of them who were inclined to resist this change found themselves rewarded for their deep devotion to their land and their king by the gift of country estates that urgently needed setting in order, which happened to lie at some considerable remove from the king's court.
The king was thinner than he had been, and at first, when his people saw him, he walked a little stooped, like an old man. But as the months passed he began to take on his old strength, though the deep lines on his face remained, and he wore few colors, even for festivals appearing in black and grey and white.
By the time Lissar was almost seventeen and her mother had been dead for two years, the kingdom was speaking more and more openly of the hope that their king would marry again, a strong man in his prime as he was, and with, many said, a new, ethereal beauty from the great grief he had suffered and survived.
Lissar began to be obliged occasionally to attend royal dinners, when either some visiting dignitary wished to see her, or some of her father's ministers wished such a dignitary to see her. The summons never seemed to come from the king himself, or so the phrasing led her to guess, and wonder: "the greetings and deep respects of Lord Someone Important, who wishes the princess Lissla Lissar to understand that her father the King requests and commands her attendance upon him for the occasion of the dinner to honor the arrival of Significant Personage Someone, from the county or country of Wherever."
The court banqueting tables were very long, and she rarely sat near the king; he sat at the head while she often sat at the foot, or rather at the right hand of the foot, next to the dignitary not quite so fortunate as to sit at her father's right or left hand.
Since the minister whose compliments had been delivered with the summons invariably sat opposite her at the dignitary's left, she had little to do but not spill her soup and, now and again, respond, briefly, and without too great a show of personality, to some remark addressed to her by either the dignitary or the minister.
She did not understand how it was that she had immediately known that no one who addressed the princess on these occasions was speaking to any portion of her but the part epitomized by her being her father's daughter; but she had never been tempted to make any mistake about this. Perhaps it was another result of the long years of invisibility in the nursery with her single maid; but the effect was that her brevity of speech, in a princess of such tender years, was accounted modesty, and applauded.
About one thing the princess was stubborn. Ash lay under or beside her chair, no matter how lofty and formal the event. Ash developed her own legend, and people began to speak of the grace of the pair of them, the princess entering hall or chamber not on anyone's arm, but with her hand resting gently on the head or back of her tall dog; both moved elegantly, and were inclined to silence. The people, who liked a little mystery, began to sigh over the half-orphaned princess, and how it was the loss of her mother that made her so grave.
Lissar was grave and silent because it had never occurred to her to be otherwise-not with people. And she entered every room with her hand on Ash's back that she might be observed to have a habit of entering alone with her dog; that it might therefore be that much less likely she need ever enter any room on her father's arm.
She had not forgotten the look on his face when she had entered the receiving-hall on the day that Ash was given to her-although she wanted to, although she blamed herself and was angry at her failure to forget, as if it were something she could or should control. She could not remember when, before that day, she had last seen him; she could not remember his ever looking at her. She remembered that, on a few occasions, when she was very small, her father carried her in his arms; but he seemed always to be looking over her head, at his queen, at his people. She could not remember, before that day in the receiving-hall, ever having seen her father without her mother at his side.
She tried not to look at him after that day; she tried to make not looking as much of a habit as entering rooms with her dog at her side was habit, so that she need not think about it, need nol remember its origin. But this too she failed at: she knew why she did not look. She did not want to see that expression again; and she was afraid if she looked, it was that she would see. She knew what his people saw in his face, the grief and the nobility; she could not forget that she had seen neither. She woke from nightmares, seeing his eyes bent on her again. It was that much worse that she had no name for what she saw and what she feared; and this she spoke of to no one, not even Ash. It was that much worse that she could not see what sought her down the long tunnels of dream, could not see, nor hear, nor smell it, would not escape it, neither its seeking nor simply the knowledge of its existence.
Those dreams were the worst; but she had nightmares as well that the painting of the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms, which now dominated the receiving-hall, came to life, stepping down from its frame to press a tiny, shapely foot into the cushion of her husband's throne, alone now on its dais, her own great chair having been removed; and her foot left no dint. But the look she bent upon her daughter was only slightly less terrible than the king's. Six months after the queen's death the painting had been hung behind the king's throne (this too had been specified by the queen, both the space of time and the location), and since the day of its unveiling Lissar had avoided the receiving-hall almost as assiduously as she avoided meeting her father's gaze.