The Returning (32 page)

 

“THE TITLES THEY do use are strange,” Pin said to Acton. “No Miss This or Master That. It's all Clothes Folder, Lady-in-Waiting, Doorman. What's wrong with a name, eh? And every pattern on every garment does all mean something. I don't know that I'll ever get it straight.”

“What?” said Acton. “Beaten by the Uplanders already?”

“Pah!” She shifted against him. “You do know, I'm learning their language.
Cho
, that is
thank you
.”

“Sounds like cats fighting.”

That made her laugh. “
Umaye
, that is
you
, and it is
my love
if you say it like this,
Umaye
.”

“Umaye.” Acton's hand was warm on the nape of her neck. “Umaye.” Kneeling, he shouldered her legs wider apart and kissed her, hair and sex and all, kissed and kissed her. Pin had her hands up against her mouth, biting at them to hold her sounds in. When the heat and rush faded, she looked up through the branches and said, “I see it, pine trees. Look, just like they do show them.”

 

WHEN SHE HAD been at the Big House a month, Pin judged it time enough. She asked Tse-tsa first. “Servant in Charge of Clothes Folding, I do want to speak to My Lady.”

“Tssssss!” said the servant in charge. “You want, tsss.”

“About my brother.”

“Fold.” Her little fingers nipped Pin's.

“His name is Cam (Attling, as I am Pin Attling) and he did go to Dorn-Lannet when I was a small maid, to give his service to the Lord.”

Tse-tsa's face went all empty and cold-looking. She did not say anything, not another word, all morning. But when Pin went to her noon meal Tse-tsa said, “You eat, then you see My Lady.”

Pin curtsied low. “Thank you, Servant in Charge.”

The lady spent most of her time in the hall. Pin trailed Tse-tsa down the stairs, pad-padding on the mats. The hall doors were closed fast. Pin looked to the servant in charge—even snippy Tse-tsa was better than no one. But Tse-tsa only mimed opening the door, shooed her off with her hands. So Pin pushed the door open and stepped into the hall. Then Tse-tsa came in, when she could have come at Pin's side and made it easier for her.

“Pin,” said My Lady. “Look at you! Aren't you tall, and those eyes, black as night's shadows. My dear, my new Clothes Folder. Look at her.”

The Lord glanced up. Pin curtsied almost to the ground, and when no one said anything, stood up again. Lord Gyaar Ryuu was sitting on a settle—grander than Mam and Da had, but a settle like any other Pin had seen before. There were the unending cushions piled anyhow all over it.

“Pin?” said one of the children.

“Aye, young Master.” Pin looked around: at a bow-legged little table against the wall, a spinning wheel—

“Young My Lord,” hissed Tse-tsa.

“Young My Lord.”

“Uncle Vercamer's sister,” said the lady.

Uncle
Vercamer? “Aye.”

“Pin?” said another child.

“Appin, my dear.” My Lady rolled Pin's name about on her tongue. Her lovely low voice gave it a magic. “Her name is Appin.”

“Uplander,” said the Lord. “It is an Uplander name. Like your brother's.”

“I don't know, My Lord. I'm sure there is nothing Uplander about me.”

“Oh,” said My Lady. “But there is.”

And the Lord laughed.

The moment was there. All she had to do was speak.
I did wonder, My Lady. I did think to see my brother with you, here
. And she could not, could not make herself bring the words out, and the moment passed, and her question was still to be asked.

 

“MY PIN,” DA took to saying, “we never do see you now.”

“They do keep me late at the Big House.”

“Aye? Well, we do miss you.”

“Oh, Da. You do see me every night and every morning.”

At the Big House she said nothing more. She just left when her time was up each day and took the low road round the hillocks, to Acton, who waited at the water hole.

“You do know . . . I did think Cam would be among the household,” Pin finally said one day.

“Ah.” Acton lifted his head and looked at her, but the sunlight was behind him and she could not make out his expression. “You did lie to me,” he said, and pushed away from her.

“Not lie, just not tell you all. We never do talk about him, at home. Not since he went. Like he was worse than dead. Mam and Da, they never do talk about him, and I could not, not to them.”

“I'm not your mam and da. You never do talk to me about him either, so how can I with you?”

She'd never thought of it that way. “I did forget how to talk about him.” She still didn't tell him her fear, because it seemed so silly—that if she had told him, right at the start, why she wanted to work at the Big House, then she would never see Cam there. Though she had not anyway. “I did ask to see the lady, to ask her about him, but when it came to it I could not. Not a word.”

“Try again. Do you ask her properly.” He shook his shirt and put it on, slapped his hat free of dust. Put it on. “I'm busy, with planting. I cannot make the time to see you for a while.”

The unexpectedness of it, the hurt, left her too surprised at first for words, or crying, then they both came together. “I did tell you now, did I not?” She shouted it at his back, which he was holding all proper and stiff. He walked on, a half a dozen steps, stopped and turned.

“I guess you did.” He took off his hat and came walking back to her. “I should like to see him again, your brother.”

 

“I LOVE THE COLORS,” My Lady Graceful Fenister said. She had come to the folding room to choose a jacket to wear with a new pair of trousers.

“They do seem to throw a spell, My Lady, don't they? So fine on hands and eyes.” Pin waved a hand happily at the robe she was folding.

The lady laughed. Tse-tsa, behind her, glared at Pin. “Yes, something like that. You know, My Lord's betrothal gift sat on the hall table for days and the colors . . . the colors were astounding.”

It was not the moment, but Pin asked anyway. “My Lady, I did think to see my brother here, did hope to.”

“He has business in Dorn-Lannet.”

“Oh.”

The lady smiled—such a warm and warming smile. “He is My Lord husband's Advisor. We could not function as we do without him.”

“I do think . . . I do think he is ashamed to come back. It was the way he did leave, sneaking out, no good-bye. Oh, My Lady I did cry! Did cry and cry, for days.”

Tse-tsa moved up behind Pin, and her nails went
scraaatch
at Pin's back. Pin thought of how these Uplanders did everything through bows and titles and layers of staff, and swallowed anything else she might have said.

“YOU DO KNOW, Mam, I did think I would see Cam, at the Big House.”

“That's enough,” said Da. His voice was sharper than Pin had ever heard it. “I do not want talk of him. And do not you go asking after him up there either.”

“But I—”

“Not!” Da roared.

Pin went to Mam as she had used to do as a small child, and clung.

“Gavrin!” said Mam to Da. “What do you think you do, bellowing at her like that!”

Hughar said, “Was he there, then? You did see him?”

“You would ask, Hughar,” said Mam. “Must you always go in boots on and mucky?”

“Well, we do all want to know.”

“Huh,” said Mam.

And Da: “Huh.”

“No.” Pin let go her hold on Mam. “I did look but, no.”

 

ORANGE FISH SWAM ripples, and the silk's cool touch on her hands, it was like dabbling her fingers in water. The silk slipped against itself, with a
szrr-szrr
—and into her mind darted a startling thought: herself and Acton, rolling about on the silk, this very silk. She blushed and folded, rushing.

Then the lady came and Pin blushed anew, was glad of an excuse not to look up from her work.

“Walk with me,” the lady said.

Pin looked to Tse-tsa, who poked her in the back. (
Bow, bow, thank you My Lady.
) So Pin did.

The lady took her around the graveled yard. Her children ran and roared and jumped about, a handful of Uplander women trailing them. “Everyone was so interested to know what the children would look like, with Gyaar so dark and me so light. I think they were disappointed. They are so mud-colored.”

“Closer to sand really,” said Pin, then could have bitten her tongue off. But the lady laughed, and laughing said, “Do you wish to pass on a message to your brother?”

Pin stopped in her tracks. “Oh! My Lady!”

“I thought you might. My Lord is returning to Dorn-Lannet, on his way to Ryuu. You may send a message with his party.”

“My Lady, could you ask him to come? To my wedding.”

The lady stood before her. “He is not mine to order, but I will send word.”

Pin went back to the folding room and thought later that she must have given Tse-tsa the happiest time of her life, for she was so distracted that Tse-tsa had opportunity to sting-sting-sting with words and fingers all the afternoon long.

 

“BEER?” DA WAS all hearty. Was always all hearty when Acton made his courting visits.

“Tea,” said Mam. So they sat, stiff as if they all had pokers for spines. Pin and Mam sipped from their cups, nice as the ladies up at the Big House. Da and the twins poured tea off from their cups and
slurr-slurrped
it from the saucer. Acton, after clutching his cup a while longer, drained it in one long gulp.

“A blowy spring, do you think?” said Edord. Hughar snorted.

“Aye.” Acton held cup and saucer awkwardly, right at his fingertips, as if they would bite him. “It does seem to be bringing on the lambs early, and I never did see so many twins.”

They talked sheep, Da and Acton and Edord, then rye against barley, then tree fruit. Acton's knee firm against hers was the only sign that he knew Pin was there.

She was allowed to walk him to the door alone, and to draw the door to behind them. Acton grinned wide, bent his head to her ear. “Do you hold strong, sweet. Come summer we do wed, and then we can all talk and behave natural again.” His lips stayed there, making soft brushes on her ear.

“Pin?” said Mam, from inside. They both jumped.

“My love.” Acton's fingers just touched hers, then he leaped off the stoop and strode across the yard and away. Pin turned and went inside, shutting the door firm behind her.

Going up to bed, she rubbed cream on her hands. “Pretty-hand working,
so
.” If Hughar caught her at it, he would never let her live it down.

 

KISA CAME UP the stairs at a run. “Clothes Folder!
Yaddle-yaddle
.” He held out a package, a small, flat package.

“Tssss,” said Tse-tsa. “Give her.”

Kisa skimmed it through the air. It
ticked
against a chest and fell to the floor. Tse-tsa scowled, and the boy bounded off, laughing. Pin picked the package up—no! Not a package, a letter. “He
wrote
.” She looked at Tse-tsa. “He has truly gone if he does forget that none of us do read or write.”

The paper felt something like cloth. She held it between her palms. Tucked it inside her bodice and took it out again at once. Written, by his hand. Seven years gone and this paper in her hand, that he had touched. “Tse-tsa.”

The tiny woman stared at her, eyes going wide. She waved her hand in the cutting motion that was the Uplander way of saying no.

“Tse-tsa, do you read it to me.”

“You-ask My Lady.”

“Tse-tsa?”

Tse-tsa took the letter. Her hands looked pretty-working as she unfolded the paper. She read in her singing Uplander accent.

Dear Sister. My dearest little Pin-sister. (Though My Lady tells me you are tall and grown and all of a young woman.) I am tall and grown now
(Pin laughed)
and I stay away because I no longer know how to come home. When I figure it out, then expect me! You could not do better than Acton Mansto. Of course I think of you all, all the time. Cam.

Pin cried. She screwed her fists against her eyes and cried. Tse-tsa folded the letter and then folded Pin's fingers around it, and Pin held it to her face and cried all over it.

“Fold,” said Tse-tsa.