Ruthe
Who she is
A keeper at Auvren Groves, the high-country orchard trust above Veylan Steps. She tends the restricted terraces and the graft houses, including the mother vine, the ancient vine every old row on the Steps descends from. She judges when the dormant wood is ready and cuts the cutting for each Opening.
Appearance
Small and stooped, with white hair cropped close to her skull and hands as brown and knotted as the wood she tends. Pale, knowing eyes. Wears a pruning knife on a cord around her neck.
Personality
- Quiet with people, talkative with trees. Maudry says “the keeper likes to talk,” and she does, just not to people.
- Patient. She doesn’t mind waiting, and lets Ferra find her words.
- Gentle and exact. She corrects Ferra (“Season”) as though Ferra had gotten it right the first time, and gives Ansel his words when he doesn’t know he has any.
People in her life
- Ansel: she calls him “Dareth’s boy.”
- Ferra: she hands Ferra the cutting as the pickers’ witness.
- Dareth: an old acquaintance. “Ruthe well?” he asks, and when told she was talking to a tree: “Then she’s well.”
As the story unfolds
These details come from the story itself. Choose the last chapter you’ve read, and only what has been revealed up to that point will appear.
The cutting
When Ansel looks at the cutting and sees the life folded inside it, Ruthe is watching his face, not the wood. “Most people see a stick.” When he answers “It’s waiting,” she says, “Everything kept is waiting. The trick is knowing what for.”
Ready
When Ferra’s words don’t come, Ruthe draws a breath to say them for her, the way she did at Dareth’s first Opening. On the road she sits alone with an untouched cup, and the look passes through her to Dareth.
Behind the berths
She is waiting in the shadow of the berth housing with a bundle in sacking. The last of what she says to Dareth: “…ship’s held. They know it.”
The door
She drags the berth door shut and holds it with both palms flat on the iron, talking to it. It dents under her hands and goes on holding, “as though it had been told to keep.”