Free Water by Peter Dickinson, Robin McKinley Page B

loved him; but she knew that he
    did, because there was so much in each of their natures that reflected the other, in a way that was
    new and strange and wonderful. And nothing at all like her days with Robert had been. Nothing
    at all. Nothing. Nothing.
    It was an afternoon when Dreiad had told her with an odd suppressed excitement that he could
    not meet her the next day. She had begun to ask him what his excitement was about, and he had
    begun to put her off—and so she stopped asking; but as a result they looked at each other with
    embarrassment and had not known how to pick up their conversation again. Even with the
    knowledge of having hurt her, Dreiad could not quite hide his excitement, whatever it was; and
    this hurt her too, that there should be something that gave him such pleasure that he could not tell
    her of. And as a result she began to doubt herself, to doubt the truth of his unspoken love; after
    all, she had believed—for much longer than she had known Dreiad—that Robert had loved her,
    and he had filled her ears with the telling of it besides.
    It cannot end in any way but unhappiness, she thought. He will marry a sea-princess, for his
    parents need an heir; and I am not even a land-princess. I suppose, when the harvest is over, we
    will go to the city, as we were to do last year, and they will find me a nice young man to marry.
    The idea was so bleak, she could only look at it glancingly. But they were right about Robert; I
    should have listened to them—I should have let them speak. They will be able to find me
    someone who is kind, and keeps his promises, and I will listen to their advice. It will not be a bad
    life.
    She drew on reserves she did not know she had, for she had never had cause to learn to put
    herself aside to be bright and merry for someone she cared about. But after they parted, for all
    that Dreiad had looked long into her eyes before he walked back into the sea again, and promised
    as eagerly as he had ever promised to meet her the day after tomorrow, she went home very
    unhappy.
    She did not even hear the approaching hoofbeats, nor had she paid attention to Gruoch’s sudden
    look of interest and warning. When she did hear them, and knew it was too late to turn aside, she
    ignored them, keeping her face resolutely down, determined to pass without acknowledging the
    rider whomever it was. But this proved impossible, for a once-familiar hand reached out and
    seized her mare’s bridle, and Robert swung his horse around to walk next to hers, clumsily, for
    he was still holding her rein, and his leg ground against hers in the saddle. It was a heavyish
    blow, and his stirrup leather pinched her calf above her low riding boots and beneath the thin
    cloth of her skirt; but that was not the reason she cringed away from it, sending such a message
    to her sensitive mare that Flora curvetted away, fighting the strange hand on her rein, and
    threatening to kick. Robert had to let go.
    By the time Jenny had her mare under control again, she realised there was no point in running
    away, although this had been her first thought Gruoch was moving in that painstaking, measured
    way that a hound expecting the command Go! moves, and while Jenny did not believe that even
    with such a command her gentle bitch would leap for Robert, she was careful to keep her own
    gestures placid. She patted her mare’s neck, but Flora was no fool, and did not drop her head, but
    kept her neck and ears stiffly upright, and pranced where she stood.
    “Jenny,” said Robert, and all of his twenty years’ experience of playing to his audience was in
    his voice. No one could have stuffed the two syllables of her name more full of anguish.
    How could I ever not have known? she thought. She risked a glance at his face, and saw anguish
    beautifully arranged there too. It was a splendid performance, but it neither moved nor amused

her. She felt low, and stupid, and humiliated.
    “Forgive me,” he said. He was already a