Taminy Read online

“I don’t-” Taminy began, then hesitated. I don’t remember, she’d been about to say, but it seemed as if the moist breeze had blown memory back into her head with the tune. “My mama taught it to me. It was our rainy day song. When I was a little girl, we’d sit in the window casement of my room and sing the song to the drops that fell on the Sanctuary roof. I remember how the rain would make the slate of the roof look dark and stormy like the sky.”

  Iseabal glanced at her, eyes amazed. “Is your father a Cirkemaster, too? Or, I mean, was he? I ... I’d heard ... that is, someone said you were orphaned.”

  Taminy nodded, fighting a sudden sense of vertigo and wondering if it showed.

  Time. It’s like a corridor. I think I’m at one end and suddenly—whisk!—I’m at the other, looking back at myself and wondering, Who is that girl?

  “I can see the Sanctuary roof from my bedroom window, too,” said Iseabal. “When it rains I pretend ...” She smiled shyly and lowered her eyes to the toes of her shoes. “I pretend the roof is a sea snake’s back, long and streaming slick with water, and that I’m riding high up among its great fins, all dry and cozy.” She bobbed her head. “I mean, I used to pretend that. Child-ways. I’m too old now, of course.”

  “Never,” said Taminy, tearing her eyes from the other end of the time corridor. “Never be too old to ride sea snakes in the rain, Iseabal.”

  They were running by the time they reached Gled Manor. Running and laughing and soaking wet. They erupted into the hall, swept up the stairs, and collapsed into Taminy’s room, dropping packages and scurrying for towels. While Taminy sat on her bed peeling off wet stockings, and Gwynet curled in the window seat, Iseabal dried her hair and wandered. She marveled at the variety of books on Taminy’s shelf, admired the hangings of calligraphies, and musical scores, and glass-pressed flowers and feathers, and stopped stone still to stare at a crystal set atop a wooden sconce.

  She turned from it to award Taminy a wondering gaze. “Is it yours?” she asked, and when Taminy nodded, “May I ... may I hold it?”

  “Of course.”

  Iseabal lifted the crystal from the little shelf and turned it in her hands. “It’s beautiful! So very beautiful. Pure, like rain and ... warm!”

  Taminy watched the other girl’s face bathed in lamp light, her eyes great and pale and very like the crystal. She watched the crystal, too, and wondered if those pale-pure eyes noticed the tiny pulse of light deep down among the converging facets—a pulse that would have been there if every light in the room was extinguished. The crystal knew, if Iseabal did not, what gifts might live in the soul of a Cirkemaster’s daughter.

  “Look how it glows!” said Iseabal. “Does it have a name? Papa says the Osraed always name theirs. His is Perahta—and, of course, I know about Ochan’s Osmaer—everyone does. Does this one have a name?” She turned curious eyes to Taminy.

  “Ileane,” Taminy said. “Light Bearer.”

  “And you Runeweave with it?”

  “I did ... once. It’s been a long time.”

  “I suppose I should believe that’s wicked. I suppose I should leave.”

  “Do you want to?”

  Iseabal shook her head, dragging rain-heavy hair across her shoulders. “No.” She set the crystal back on its sconce and came to perch beside Taminy on the bed. “I did run out on Meredydd. I didn’t want to, but I did.” She glanced over at the crystal. “Aine thinks it’s all so much frivol, or at least she’d like me to believe she thinks that. And to Doireann, it’s all impossibly wicked. My father felt sorry for Meredydd. He wanted me to befriend her so I could help save her soul. I didn’t want to save her soul—I mean, I didn’t think it needed saving—but I couldn’t be her friend while Aine and Doireann teased, and Brys-a-Lach threatened that my own soul was at risk, and my father waited for me to steal Meredydd away from her Weaving and visions.”

  She pulled her knees up and buried her face between them. “It was too much,” she said, muffled. “I tried to talk to mother about it, but all she’d say was, ‘I imagine your father’s right, Isha. The poor cailin’s spirit wants saving.’”

  “She’d likely say the same of me,” said Taminy.

  “Aye.”

  “But you’re not running from my house.”

  “No.”

  “And why not?”

  Iseabal raised her head. “I don’t know,” she said. She glanced, again, at the crystal, Ileane, then back into Taminy’s face. “I don’t really know. Maybe I’m a little more wicked now. Or ... a little less a coward.”

  Taminy smiled and took the other girl’s hands. “I’ve some dry clothes you can wear,” she said.

  Below stairs, the front door opened and Osraed Bevol called and the three girls scurried to dress themselves for supper.

  CHAPTER 7

  When the Pilgrim shall have fulfilled the conditions inherent in the name, “Who Seeks Us,” that one shall know the blessing inherent in the words, “We shall guide in our Way.”

  —Osraed Ochan

  Book of the Covenant, compiled by Osraed Wyth

  Wyth Arundel flexed his cramped hand and stretched. His shoulders felt as if someone had been pummeling them. He closed his eyes, rolled them behind burning lids, then bent to examine his work. The lettering was good, but his hand was cramping horribly. He glanced up as a Prentice laid a set of freshly transcribed pages beside him on the library work table.

  “Here, Osraed Wyth. Here are my pages and Fairlea’s, too. Ready for proofreading.”

  Wyth smiled. “Thank you, Peagas. You’ve done very good work—both of you. Why don’t you take a break now?”

  The Prentice bobbed respectfully, glowing at having earned the new Osraed’s smiles and praise, and hurried away to relieve his companion.

  “How goes the work, Wyth?”

  Wyth raised his eyes to see Osraed Bevol regarding him from the other side of the table. “Slowly, Osraed Bevol. The Prentices are a great help, but there is so much to get through.” He rubbed his stiff fingers. “I don’t suppose you know a Weave that will copy these pages without us having to write them out by hand.”

  Bevol’s brows ascended. “I don’t know of one. There’s a Runeweave for the printing of books, of course, so the text is clear and the ink won’t smudge or fade.” He eyed the neatly scripted pages. “I don’t suppose anyone has ever had need of such an inyx. The old books are journals, added to year upon year and the only copies are made wholesale. I doubt anyone has ever had a job quite like this one—extracting pieces of the text ...Why don’t you invent your own Weave?”

  “I?” Wyth nearly laughed. “I, invent a Runeweave?”

  Bevol shrugged. “Why not? You’re entitled. Heh! Quite literally. And if you want to be finished anytime soon ...”

  Wyth followed his eyes to the stack of Holy Books and Osraed Treatises waiting to be read. “Yes. And I must be done soon.” That was a troubling thought and made him raise his eyes to Bevol’s, seeking some reassurance. He got none.

  “Yes, I believe you must.”

  A Prentice scurried to present himself, then, and informed the Osraed Bevol that his presence was requested in the small audience chamber.

  “It’s the Ren Catahn, Master,” said the boy awfully. “The Osraed Eadmund is already with him. I understand it’s about the General Assembly of the Cyne’s Council.”

  “Ah, yes. This is no surprise. Tell Eadmund I’ll be there immediately.” He turned back to Wyth. “Supper tonight, Wyth?”

  Heat raced across Wyth’s face, followed by an intense chill. Oh, yes! he thought. Oh, no! “I ... I don’t know if ...” If what, you idiot?

  Bevol was smiling at him. “She overwhelms?”

  Wyth could only nod. “I don’t know what to think of her. I don’t know ... how to behave.” He glanced about the library. “Does anyone else know who-?”

  “No. You and I and Pov-Skeet. Gwynet, too, but Gwynet is too young, I think, to understand what that means.”

  “I empathize,” Wyth m
urmured, then furrowed his brow in puzzlement. No, he was more than puzzled. “You mean none of the other Osraed know her?”

  Bevol shook his head.

  “But ... how can that be?”

  Bevol shrugged. “It simply is. Supper?”

  Wyth licked his lips. “Thank you ... yes. I’ll come.”

  When Bevol had gone, Wyth tapped the lightbowl on his work table and watched the glow eddy and pulse. No one else knew. How could they not when she was a magnet? No, not a magnet—a crystal.

  Someone rustled among the shelves behind him, breaking into his rumination. Flexing his fingers, he bent back to his work.

  oOo

  Osraed Bevol found the Ren Catahn Hillwild in the small annex to the Osraed council chamber, pacing before the tall windows and worrying the beaded sash of his leather shawl. He was a big man, blocking the instreaming sunlight and casting a long, broad shadow across the polished wooden floor. He turned at Bevol’s footfall, sunlight glinting from the gold and silver filigree woven into his burgundy-black hair and beard, and flashing from the neat row of cuffs that bound a braided sidelock.

  Bevol held out his arms in greeting. “Catahn! Your presence honors the place and cheers its people.”

  The Hillwild lord awarded him a wide smile, rendered especially brilliant by its dark frame of beard, and moved to smother him in a bear’s embrace. “Bevol! God’s Eyes, but it’s good to see you! Pity we have not more pleasant things to discuss.”

  Bevol stepped back and glanced to where Osraed Eadmund sat at a small table, grimly shuffling papers. “Perhaps we should sit and discuss these unpleasant things—the quicker to deal with them.”

  The Osraed seated himself at the table, but Catahn’s haunches had no more than grazed the velvet cushion before he was up again, pacing.

  “Our Cyne ignores us,” he said. “He stoppers his ears and blinkers his eyes and turns from his own mountains to look to someone else’s seas and valleys. And if that were not enough, he insults us, slights us.” He stopped pacing and faced the two Osraed. “He forgets himself, Chosen Ones. He forgets his duty to the Hillwild.” He motioned at the roll of leather among the papers on the table. “We have inquiries, petitions, plaints which have waited months to be taken up in the Hall. Some of these issues have lain since last Assembly. And there, they were set aside as if they were of no consequence. The education of our children,” he added, “is of consequence!”

  Bevol pulled the leather scroll about so he could view its contents. He glanced at Eadmund. “Have you copied this?”

  Eadmund shook his head. “I thought we should first discuss it. If there are modifications to be made-”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Catahn, are you certain about this business with the Caraidin scouts?”

  The big man nodded with a jingle of ornamentation. “There are no finer trackers than the Hillwild of Hrofceaster. They know how to read signs. The Cyne’s men are scouting our villages, watching our holts.”

  “But to what end?” asked Eadmund. “Have you confronted them? Asked them what they’re about?”

  The Ren laughed, teeth flashing white in his dark face. “Oh, aye. Some’ve been faced off. They pose themselves as vagabonds, oddjobmen. Then off they go. And they dog us, going from village to village, from holt to holt. Watching.” He gritted his teeth in a grimace; Bevol thought he even growled. “We do not like being watched.”

  “What do you suspect them of?” Bevol asked.

  The Ren’s queer amber eyes narrowed. “If the Cyne was not my own kinsman and covenanted ally, I would say they were assessing the strength of my fortifications, estimating my forces.”

  Eadmund’s face went white. “Why should he-? Is there a chance they might not be the Cyne’s men?”

  In answer, Catahn Hillwild reached beneath his shawl and pulled out a pouch. Holding it upside-down, he let a piece of metal the size of an ambre fall to the table with a clatter.

  Bevol picked it up and turned it in his hands.

  “Sash clip,” said Catahn.

  “Yes, and bearing the emblem of the House of Malcuim,” murmured Bevol. “Caraidin Guard.”

  “It might have been stolen,” conjectured Eadmund. “Or perhaps the man who lost it is an ex-soldier.”

  “Aye, either thing might be possible,” admitted Catahn. “But though they claim to be rough men, they speak a mighty fine tongue in private speech. And of their clothing, only their cloaks and tunics and boots are rough. I have it on good authority that what they wear close to their skin is fairer by far. Then there is the fact of their origins. My men have back-tracked several of their parties. They’re coming up from the old outposts in the foothills.”

  “The outposts? But those have been empty for years,” objected Eadmund. “Decades.”

  “Well, they’re empty no longer. They’re provisioned and they’re populated.”

  “But flying no banners, I presume.”

  “No, Osraed Bevol. Not a scrap of cloth on any standard. But the forces are there and they crossed Feich land to get there. Now, as the Feich are a jealous lot, I would expect them to know when pack trains cross their lands and, as the Cyne’s Durweard is a Feich, I would expect the Cyne to know what the Feich know.”

  “Gauging your strength,” mused Bevol. “Why, I wonder? To know how many men he may call upon to raise an army?”

  “Why would he not come straight about it and ask after our forces?”

  Bevol raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps because he wants no one to know he plans to raise a fighting force?”

  Catahn considered that. “Aye. He is talking cozy with the Deasach. Perhaps he doesn’t trust them. Or perhaps it’s the Hillwild he doesn’t trust. I want to know the whichever of it, Osraed. My folk are nervous with this cat-footing. And they’re angry on other counts, as well.”

  “Yes,” said Bevol, glancing again at the petition. “I see the schools are not being kept up.”

  “Ah! The schools!” The Hillwild’s face reddened. “That’s the rawest of it, Osraed.” He moved to perch on one corner of the chair opposite Bevol. “Two years have passed in which we have petitioned your Brothers of the Jewel for teachers, for books to fill our wisdom halls. None have come. They seem content to abandon us to ignorance.”

  “Surely-” began Eadmund, but a look from the Hillwild hushed him.

  “Only the Meri remembered us last year, sending several of Her Chosen to us. But it is not enough. Our schoolrooms are crowded beyond their capacity. What teachers we have are unable to take in all the children, and some of the best of those sent to us afore time have been recalled to schools in Creiddylad and Lin-liath. Our Cleirachs have called upon the elder children to teach the younger, but some holts have no teachers at all. None. If their children will be taught, they must travel to a village or holt that has a school. And, to add salt to the wound, the Cyne has raised our Mercer taxes. Our petitions fall on deaf ears.”

  “A grave matter,” Bevol agreed. He took a deep breath. “I think perhaps we, ourselves, must arrange for the Cleirachs you need. We have, also, Aelder Prentices who may be assigned as teachers. They are not full Cleirachs, but their knowledge should serve you well.”

  Eadmund uttered a cough of protest. “Osraed Bevol—forgive me, but—without the approval of the Hall and the Cyne—not to mention the Brothers of the Jewel—how can we presume ...I mean, it is their responsibility to assign Cleirachs to the schools.”

  “It is a responsibility they have obviously defaulted on. If they are not willing or able to undertake it, then we must. By the Meri’s Kiss, we must. We will inform them of what we are doing, of course. And—of course—we must inquire why they are not doing it ...And why it never reached the floor of the Hall.”

  Eadmund shifted in his seat. “But should we not at least petition-”

  “That is precisely what the Ren Catahn is doing, Eadmund—petitioning. But now the Hall will not hold session until only God and the Cyne know when. Our only other recourse is to remand th
ese plaints to the Privy Council.”

  Eadmund wrinkled his nose and Catahn let out a bark of humorless laughter.

  “And have them disappear!” said the Hillwild scathingly. “That’s another issue, Osraed. The Privy Council no longer has Hillwild membership.”

  “What?” said Eadmund weakly. “Why not?”

  “Ren Rhum was our appointee. You recall him, Osraed Bevol—he was from Alt-Reelig. Aye, well, his brother died and he took his family and went up home to bury him and set his affairs in order. At the end of a six-week, he was curried a missal from the Cyne and Council saying he was too long gone and had been replaced by an Eiric of the Saewode.”

  Bevol frowned. “And his second? Surely he had a hand-picked alternate?”

  Catahn watched one huge hand flex and clench on the table top. “Luthai. Dead by drowning a month after Rhum left. Her family was sent home—they were lodged within Mertuile, so they had no recourse.”

  “Well, of course, they’d have had no reason to stay, would they?” asked Eadmund weakly.

  Catahn gave the Osraed a look that drained any remaining color from his cheeks. “Funny thing, that. Her eldest son was love-bound to a daughter of the Eiric Cinge—a new member of the Assembly, as you may recall. The wedding has been cancelled. By order of the Privy Council, according to Luthai’s widower. And that’s the unseen, Osraed.” Catahn poked the leather scroll with a stout finger. “You will not find, in our plaint, mention of all the Hillwild courtiers who have been ‘excused’ from their posts, nor of all the marriages between Caraidin and Hillwild that have been ... postponed. How may we petition about that?”

  He hauled himself up from the table and paced back to the windows. “It galls me, Osraed. He seems bent to cut our ties, one by one. In the name of the Gwyr, how can he, when his own mother—aye, and his own grandmother—were Hillwild?”

  Bevol sighed and sat back in his chair. Worse and worse. “We have already sent a message to Cyne Colfre,” he told Catahn, “expressing our conviction of the dire need to convene the Hall before Harvest. We can only hope he will respond. Until then, we will send you such teachers and books as we can locate or spare. About the other matters, we can do nothing ... but pray.”