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Night settled over Ogion’s house, bringing with it a touch of soft darkness infused with silver dust, so different from the overbearing darkness beneath the earth. Tenar lay curled up to Ged, listening to his breath; she thought about the burnt child sleeping in the other room and another child, cast underground so long ago.
‘How did you know my name?’ she asked aloud. She had asked him that before, there in the dark – but the more Tenar learnt about names, the less she understood.
‘Tenar?’ Ged asked, stirring awake; she felt sorry for having woken him, but only briefly.
She smiled into his chest. ‘Yes, Tenar,’ she repeated. ‘You called me Tenar… The name my mother called me.’ Called Tenar out of Arha, called that which had not been eaten. ‘But that is not my true name, as you understand it here, unless my mother was a,’ Tenar muttered the words in Kargish first, the old phrase coming from the depths of her memory, ‘a cursed dark-skinned witch.’
Ged laughed quietly and held her closer, his laughter resounding through Tenar’s body.
‘You are Tenar, even if your mother was a pale-faced barbarian,’ he said into her hair. ‘I saw Tenar in you, and knew her. This is all I know.’
Tenar hid another smile in his skin.
‘But how? Did you not tell me it is the true name that signifies all a person is?’
‘That is the basis of all our magic.’ The wistfulness in his voice was scarcely noticeable now, yet it did not escape Tenar’s attention.
‘Have I got a true name?’ she asked. At that, Ged sat up straighter, over her murmur of protest, and looked at her questioningly. Tenar sighed, uncurling. ‘I was never given one,’ she said. ‘Not by you, not by Ogion—I mean Aihal. He wished to teach me your magic, but never thought to give me a true name, which is what supposedly gives you heathen warlocks your power.’
Ged frowned. ‘A true name is given,’ he conceded. ‘I once gave a woman a new name, and her new name came to mean all she was, as her old one had before.’
‘Then I don’t have one.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘That is good,’ said Tenar, eyeing Ged playfully. ‘This way, no dark-skinned heathen warlock may bewitch me.’
He laughed again and pulled her back in, kissing her hair. Tenar lay quietly for while, content and comfortable; however, another thought rose unbidden in her mind, a worry she was never fully rid of.
‘What about Tehanu?’ she asked quietly.
There was silence, and just as it seemed to her Ged must have fallen asleep, his chest rose and fell in a deep sigh. ‘I am afraid the rules of wizards fail where dragons are concerned.’
‘Therru!’Apple called out, putting down her basket and extending her arms towards Tehanu. ‘How are you, my little one?’
Sun glistened down the girl’s thick, black hair as she left the goats behind and trotted towards Apple in a half-run, turning her head slightly to face the woman with her good eye. Tenar stepped outside Aihal’s House and watched, smiling, as her daughter hugged Tehanu. As was her wont, the girl quickly slid out of Apple’s embrace and led the way to the cottage and to the waiting Tenar.
‘I planted new peach trees,’ the child announced. ‘I water them.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ said Apple, glancing around the yard. ‘Hello, Mother. Where is Hawk?’
‘In the back,’ Tenar cast a hand vaguely, ‘repairing a fence.’ Apple nodded, visibly relaxing; she had not yet grown accustomed to her mother’s companion, nor to the fact that Tenar’s adventures had begone to make themselves known in their everyday lives, instead of staying in her mysterious and – to Apple – half-mythical past where they belonged.
It was a good thing she didn’t know about the dragon. Or, at least, about the dragon specifically.
‘Mother, what happened?’ her daughter asked the moment they entered the house, leaving Tehanu outside to complete her chores. ‘I heard the most bizarre—’
Tenar sighed. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll be all right.’
‘But—’ Apple lowered her voice, casting a look towards the window. ‘Mother—Did she really—’
‘No,’ Tenar asserted. ‘Whatever it was you heard, she didn’t do it.’
Apple didn’t seem reassured. ‘So what did she do?’ she insisted. ‘Mother, the things people say — I know Therru is a good child — ’
No you don’t, Tenar thought. You don’t know what she is. And neither do I. ‘Then stop worrying,’ she said aloud, forcing her voice to be gentle. ‘She protected us. That’s all you need to know.’
‘Protected you—All right,’ Apple subsided under Tenar’s gaze. ‘As you say, Mother.’ She smiled. ‘I’m glad Therru has found a family she wants to protect.’
Tenar did not tell Apple that the girl’s name was Tehanu; some of the customs surrounding true names still felt alien to her, yet she understood that hearing Tehanu’s name from Tenar would shock her daughter. If Tehanu indeed wanted to bear her true name openly, as was the custom of dragons, then, as Ged had explained, it had to be her decision, preferably made when she was a grown woman.
Even so, referring to the child as Therru felt odd to her now.
‘I hope in the future we can protect our child, not the other way around,’ she told Apple.
Our little dragon child.
Fire crackled in the fireplace of the old house.
‘I used to worry about what would become of her,’ Tenar said, watching Tehanu meticulously practice stitching with her left hand, securing the handiwork a bit clumsily with the right, burnt one. ‘I tried to apprentice her to Moss, I thought of apprenticing her to a trader… Aihal told me to teach her. I wonder if he saw what she was.’
Ged put his arm around her. ‘Aihal saw further than most,’ he said.
‘Moss saw it also, but did not know what it was she saw.’ Tenar reached to take the hand he embraced her with. ‘What do we do, Ged?’ she whispered. ‘We have living fire in our hands.’
‘We do nothing,’ he replied, squeezing her fingers. ‘Nothing but everything. We live. We love her. These are things that go deeper than the knowledge of wizards. You know this well, Tenar. You taught me to see it.’
‘She didn’t want to leave us,’ Tenar said quietly. She had not understood the exchange when it had happened, but Ged had repeated it to her. ‘She didn’t want to leave us.’
‘No, she didn’t.’
Suddenly, Tenar gave a short laugh; when Tehanu glanced in her direction questioningly, she reached out. The girl stepped towards them and allowed Tenar to hug her lightly.
‘Tehanu, my little starlet,’ she said warmly, caressing the child’s head. ‘Here I am, living in Ogion’s house with a former Archmage and a dragon. To think I married a farmer to live a normal life!’
By her side, Ged also embraced Tehanu and turned to kiss Tenar. ‘Tenar… Tehanu,’ he said softly, ‘I promise you, we will have a normal life.’