Taminy (28 page)

She
paused, dropping her hands to her lap. Her head tilted, sending a curtain of
flax to cover her eyes. “He asked me to have tea with him last Cirke-dag. All
this week, he’s avoided speaking to me, though he’s watched me like a sheep
dog. And Terris-mac-Webber won’t even acknowledge me when I enter his
Grandmother’s shop. And neither Doiry nor Aine will even so much as glance at
me.” Her words ran out, leaving her feeling stranded. She put back her hair
again.

“It’s
true, y’know, Maister,” said Skeet, looking up from his meal. “There’s more
gossip in th’air than dust these days, an’ more gossips than birds.”

“And
what are these gossips saying?”

Skeet
made a face. “That this cailin of Bevol’s is just like the last one—fey and
dangerous.”

Bevol’s
eyes touched Taminy’s in a caress. “And is this so unexpected?”

“No,
of course not,” she said.

“I’m
sorry you must endure this again.”

“It’s
not the enduring that pains me. It’s that I’m so hurt by it. When I’m alone
sometimes, I feel ... so very human. So unwanted by the people around me.”

“You
are human, anwyl. Your experience in the Meri’s Sea did not change that. But,
make no mistake, you are wanted desperately.” Bevol clasped his hands around
his mug. “Do you doubt that Iseabal wants you? Or Gwynet or Wyvis or Rennie or
Skeet or Wyth or myself? But most of all, Taminy, the Meri wants you.”

“Yes.
And because of that, I cannot afford to be human and frail and hurt. I try to
pretend I’m not bothered by it, but I am. And I feel weak. I feel unworthy.”

Bevol
reached across the table and took her hand. “What you have described to me,
anwyl, is a strength, as well as a weakness.”

“But
it’s so selfish, this fear of mine. This hurt.”

“Is
it? Look at your fear, Taminy. Ask it its name. When those souls reject you,
scorn you, shun you, what are they really rejecting, hmm? You know the answer
to that. So ask this: Is it your own loneliness you dread, or the loneliness of
those souls who will not suffer themselves to embrace you—to embrace Her?”

She
pondered that. He was right, in part, she realized. She could not lay claim to
being lonely or unloved. Not in any real sense. And on the deepest level of her
being she could feel the Meri’s breath fan her soul. A breeze. A Touch. More
and more often she felt connected to the Source of her fitful Gift, but the
connection was capricious, uncertain—and in those gaps of uncertainty, yawned a
gulf of loneliness. And now, a fiery collision approached. Was she ready for
it? Could she withstand it?

Watching
her pensive face, Bevol said, “You don’t have to go to worship Cirke-dag if it
will distress you.”

“Aye,”
said Skeet. “The gossip-mongery will gather there in all force with their sharp
eyes and sharp tongues.”

Taminy
shook her head. “I have no reason to hide from them. I will not hide from them.
And I can’t hide from what my dreams reveal.”

Bevol
patted her hand. “Collisions can take many forms.”

She
managed a smile. “Oh, aye. That I know.”

She
tried not to think of collisions as the week moved by. Eyes still poked at her,
tongues still wagged. Twice she walked into the Backstere’s only to have
silence fall among the animated patrons. Once a young woman carried her child
from the place, shielding its eyes from her. Niall Backstere, himself, clucked
and shook his head and confided to her in quiet tones, as he wrapped her a loaf
of bread, that he didn’t understand what made some folk so gullible as to
believe every tale they heard. Somehow she knew that the moment the door closed
behind her, he would be in the midst of it all, absorbing every rumor. Still,
he did nothing to keep Cluanie from her company, so it seemed he did not
believe the gossip he help spread.

Mistress
Lusach, the Apothecary, pooh-poohed the whole situation, saying it was the
natural thing to happen in a small town when one member, especially a new
member, stood out from the ordinary folk so startlingly.

“It’s
jealousy, Tam, dear,” she said. “You do what they can’t or won’t or don’t dare
and it sets them off. For all that the Osraed have given their cailin
permission to Weave, well, you can’t put aside six hundred and some years of ‘we
know what’s right and we know what’s wrong’ with the flick of a tongue—even a
holy one.”

That
much was true, Taminy knew. Terris-mac-Webber still wouldn’t speak to her when
she entered the shop, but his Grandmother would, and bluntly too.

“You
know what’s gnawing at ’im?” she asked, when Taminy’s appearance to purchase
some thread sent Terris scuttling for the back room. “It’s the stories they’re
telling of you.”

“Who?
Who’s telling stories?”

“Oh,
all the young cailin. Terris is a catch, don’t you know, and I doubt they want
someone doing the catching who hasn’t lived here all her life.”

Taminy
nodded and said nothing.

“They’re
saying you’ve strange powers. Well, I could’ve told ’em that, couldn’t I?” Her
thin lips cracked into a smile. “Some has it you’re a Hillwild Renic in
disguise. Legend says they’re all fey, every one of ’em. I wouldn’t know, never
having met one. Their men are rare beauties, though.” The smile deepened.

“Are
they saying I’m Wicke?” Taminy asked.

Marnie-o-Loom
screwed her wizened face into a map with a thousand tiny canyons. “No one’s
used the dread word, to my knowledge—least, not in any seriousness. Though
Cluanie Backstere has it you’re half paerie.” She tilted an eyebrow at Taminy. “But
what is a Wicke if girls be going to the Fortress?”

She
had turned to leave when the old woman spoke again. “I owe you thanks, cailin.
For the medicaments. My hands” —she held them up, fingers straight— “My hands
thank you.”

When
Taminy smiled at her, she sobered. “Be careful, cailin. When the old meaning of
Wicke fails us, we’ll be quick and sure to come up with a new one.”

But
she could not be careful. She could only be what she was bidden to be.

By
the end of the week, she was becoming accustomed to the ambivalent behavior of
her neighbors. Besides which, in the furor over Wyth’s call for female
Prentices, a young woman who dabbled in the Art and taught undisciplined
children how to make themselves useful was often eclipsed by debate over that
mystery. Already, the Hillwild had produced a handful of candidates, and
Nairnian parents fretted over what effect those half-wild females would have on
their boys.

Taminy
found she was still welcome at Cirke-manse, though the Mistress there was
disinclined to inhabit the same room. She and Iseabal wove closer bonds along
with their inyx, while Osraed Saxan looked on, alternately pleased and fretful.
She hadn’t seen Aine or Doireann face to face since that day at the pool, so it
was a great surprise when the two of them followed her into the Apothecary’s
one afternoon to inquire if she’d be going out to the pool that Cirke-dag as
had become her custom.

She
looked at Doireann, who had asked the question in a sweet voice, and reached
out questing tendrils of sense, guiltily seeking cleverness or dissimulation.
All she felt from the other girl was a shimmer of anticipation. Glancing at
Aine, she met a glowering mental roadblock.

She
nodded slowly, not quite sure what to make of the question. “Most likely, I’ll
go,” she said.

“Well,
Aine and I,” —here Doireann glanced at the other girl for support— “Aine and I
would very much like to come along. After all, we may all be at Halig-liath
soon and we’ve got to start somewhere.” She smiled. “And some of our friends
are going. It would be a raw shame to miss out on all the fun and let them get
ahead of us.”

“You’re
certainly welcome to come. But, Aine,” —she tilted her eyes at the red-head— “I
thought you’d no desire to go to Halig-liath.”

Aine’s
jaw set. “A person can change her mind.” She toyed with the laces of her vest. “What
do you think you’ll be doing? I mean, what are you teaching?”

“Oh,
yes!” breathed Doireann. “Do tell us! Shall we learn to cast inyx?”

Taminy
recoiled slightly from the sheer intensity of their energies. She offered a shy
smile. “I thought we’d try some simple Wardweaves. They’re not difficult and
they teach discipline. Besides, they often come in good use for protection.”

Aine
nodded, lifting her chin. “Fine, then. We’ll see you Cirke-dag. Come on, now, Doiry.”

Doireann
pouted. “I wanted to hear more about Wardweaves.”

“You’ll
hear more than enough on Cirke-dag, I imagine. Now, come on.” She grasped the
smaller girl’s arm and pulled her from the shop.

Taminy
glanced across the Apothecary counter at the shop-mistress and her son. They
gazed back, brows in matching furrows.

Mistress
Lusach shook her head. “Odd pair, that. Like sunrise and shadow.”

Taminy
had to agree. They were an odd pair and an ambivalent one.

oOo

The
birds were strangely silent this morning. Osraed Ealad-hach construed that as a
sign. Outside his chamber window, the air hung still and damp with sun-hazed
river rheum. He had spent the night in his aislinn chamber in meditation and
prayer. No visions had come, save one of a piercing white light that had all
but blinded him. Still, he knew what he must do.

Before
him on the table he had the things he needed: a mirror and a crystal. The
mirror was for the Weave he would perform to record the Wicke’s doings by the
pool. The crystal was protection. It had belonged to the Osraed
Lin-a-Ruminea—one hundred years ago, the courageous advisor of Cyne Thearl, who
had been on the Throne during the last Cusp. There was a rightness to that that
brought comfort to him. Of comfort, too, was the thought that he had, among the
youth of Nairne, spies and allies. He had lost Wyth Arundel, but there was
still Brys-a-Lach, a young man who fulfilled where Wyth had disappointed. And
when next Solstice came, he had no doubt Brys’s Pilgrimage would end in his
acceptance by the Meri.

Ealad-hach
breakfasted in the Refectory at Halig-liath, his appetite better than it had
been for months, then he took a carriage down into Nairne to the Cirke. He
rarely attended worship at Nairne Cirke, preferring, instead, the less crowded,
more intimate atmosphere of the small sanctum at Halig-liath. So it was that
his presence caused a stir among the worshippers. It was unavoidable that the
object of his presence should see him and send him an unreadable glance from
those great green eyes.

He
shivered at the sudden familiarity of that look, of those eyes. He met them and
felt a pang of pure sadness engulf him. He blinked and it vanished and the girl
looked aside.

He
sat along the wall of the Sanctuary where he could see her face in profile.
Brys-a-Lach sat beside him. Taminy did not look at them from her place facing
the altar. In the company of Bevol, Gwynet and the boy Skeet, with
Iseabal-a-Nairnecirke tight at her side, she was well-guarded. That was all
very well. She could flank herself with demons if she would—it would not stop
him from pursuing his duty.

Osraed
Saxan had selected Scriptural passages that spoke of callings and duties. This,
he said, in light of the recent mandate from the Meri (here, a nod to Osraed
Wyth, seated in the midst of the worshippers) to bring girls to Halig-liath. He
had selected several Prentices to read or recite from the Holy Books, but a
mild furor arose when the final reader stood, for Saxan had given to his
daughter, Iseabal, the task of reading a dissertation on Occupation revealed by
the Meri through the Osraed Gartain.

Iseabal,
black hair curried to the gleam of hard coal, waited out the murmurs that her
journey to the altar caused and, when the congregation had quieted, she read in
a clear, unwavering voice: “That one who puts forth his best effort in the line
of duty, then gives his work to the Spirit of All, attains perfection in
service. This service is the great sacrifice of life which each soul must offer
to the Source of Life. It is better by far for one to perform his duty in the
world, no matter how lowly or faulty, than to perform the duty of another. That
one who does the work indicated by his own nature errs not, but follows the
guidance of the Spirit. Natural inclination toward a calling when yoked to the
ability for its performance is worthy to be performed and, indeed, becomes
duty. Let all remember that ...” Iseabal blinked and cleared her throat,
glancing across at Taminy. “That every calling, every duty, every life, has its
pain and its joy, its hindrances and its helps, its sorrow and its triumphs.”

Iseabal
returned to her seat and her father assumed, again, his position at the altar
stone. “Osraed Wyth ...” He picked the younger man out of the rows of upturned
faces. “If you would be so kind as to share with us a bit of the Meri’s wisdom
from your own Pilgrimage, we would be grateful. I fear my secondhand comments
could hardly be adequate.”

Wyth
rose, tentatively, it seemed, and Ealad-hach’s spirit roiled. He wanted to cry
out, “Blasphemy!” He wanted to shake the Sanctuary with the thunder of
reason—shake it until he’d toppled every stone and awakened them all to what
was being played out in Nairne. But a calmer voice prevailed. Soon, it said,
soon they would see. There were still Wicke in the world and they had now been
given permission to masquerade as something else. He glanced down his row and
caught the Osraed Faer-wald’s eye. He was not alone.

“The
Meri,” Wyth was saying with some diffidence, “the Meri has given me this about
the calling of our young men and women.”

He
paused and, in that pause, a visible change overcame him. His entire frame, his
expression, his eyes, shed all hint of timorousness. Light from the windows
played through the strands of his dark hair and made his angular face appear to
glow. His prayer crystal, on its long, complex chain, followed suit, causing
all who saw it to draw admiring and awful breaths.