The Daughter of Odren Read Online Free

remember it, every word of it, and he did. He’d say it over to me and to Hovy, again and again, over the years. So that it would be always in his mind, as his sister said it must be. So that he could come back when he was grown and set things right.”
    She looked downcast at that prospect, but cheered up a little with a sip of beer. “Lovely brewing, missis.”
    â€œIt is that. Can you tell me this story?”
    Linnet was reluctant, uneasy, and the innkeeper did not press her. They spoke of the weather, the harvest, the quality of malt. Then Linnet said in a kind of whispered outburst, “I know what happened. To their father. The girl, his daughter, she saw it.”
    The innkeeper looked at her with round eyes, her dignity lost for a moment. “Weed? She saw it?”
    â€œShe never slept that night, the night her father came back. She watched. Deep in the night she saw the sorcerer go by. She followed him, hiding and creeping. She watched from the window.”
    Linnet’s voice had fallen into singsong recitation; she was repeating words she had heard said a hundred times, the same words in the same order. The innkeeper listened unmoving.
    â€œShe saw him go down to the cliff above the bay. He made signs and spoke. The ship down in the bay moved from her mooring. Her sails shivered in the starlight. No wind blew but she moved forward out of the bay. Out to sea. She was gone.
    â€œThe sorcerer came back up into the house and passed by the girl where she hid. She followed him back to the door of the bedroom. The lady came out to meet him. They spoke in murmurs. The lady went back into the room and after a time came out with her husband. She was saying: ‘You must come and see the golden house. We must go secretly.’ She coaxed him and put his shoes on his feet. He did as she pleased. And they went outside and down the road. The sorcerer followed them, Ash.
    â€œThe girl followed far after him, hiding herself.
    â€œThere was only the first light in the east.
    â€œThey came to the standing stone, the Standing Man. The three stood there. The girl hid among the willows where the path comes into that valley. She heard them talk. The lady said that Ash had looked with a wizard’s eye at the Standing Man and saw that hidden within it was the door into a wonderful house of gold. The hinges of the door were of ruby and diamond. The lady said, ‘We did not open the door.’ She said, ‘We waited for you to come, since you are my lord and the Lord of Odren.’
    â€œHe said, ‘I see no door into the Stone.’
    â€œShe said, ‘You must put your hands upon it.’
    â€œThe sorcerer said, ‘Lean your forehead on it. When I speak the key word, then you will see the golden house.’
    â€œAnd the lord laughed and did what they asked. He stood there with his hands and his forehead on the stone. The sorcerer raised up his arms quick and high and spoke a word. The air turned black. The girl could not move. There was no air to breathe. It was like death. When she could see again she saw her father and the standing stone and did not know what she saw. It was the man and it was the stone. She saw her mother crouched on the ground watching the sorcerer weave his spells.
    â€œThe girl crept away. She ran up to the house and woke her brother. They went to Hovy in his gardener’s hut. She said they must flee at once and find someone to take them in. Hovy took them to the house of a farmer he had come to know. Bay of Hill Farm took them in.
    â€œAnd the rest you know.”
    She looked at the innkeeper as if awaking from a trance.
    â€œAnd what now?” she said. “What now?”
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    The dogs of Hill Farm barked. Bay’s wife, Weed, said from the scullery, “Is there someone at the gate?”
    Her stepdaughter, Clover, a girl of fifteen or so, ran out to look and came back. “Two men,” she said.
    Weed dried her hands on her