Taminy

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  “Is there no Weave you can perform, Osraed, that can unravel these matters?”

  “Ah, we may look, Catahn, but we may not touch.”

  The Hillwild nodded. “Nor can we, without appearing disloyal to the House Malcuim. Aye, more bite to that beast—I am blood-bound to this Cyne of ours. There are times I wish I was not.”

  oOo

  Wyth was preparing to mount his horse when his mother came riding up the estate road and into the front court of Arundel, hair flying, eyes a-light, cheeks flushed to rose. She startled him in more ways than one; just to see her look like that was a revelation. His memory provided him no picture of her that contained such life. Not even in his dreams had she ever seemed so vibrant.

  He watched her pull up and dismount while, behind her, a second horse and rider galloped into the forecourt. It was the Eiric Iasgair—a widower some years younger than the Moireach. Wyth was startled anew at the keen interest in the other man’s eyes as they followed her ... and at his own lack of jealousy.

  The Moireach approached him, laughing, arms out. She embraced him and gave him a motherly peck on each cheek. “Wyth! You’re not just coming in!”

  “Just going out. Master Bevol has asked me to dine with him this evening at Gled.”

  A slight frown curled between her brows. “Then you won’t be having supper with us?” She glanced back at her riding companion, now dismounting from a bay mare. “Aidan was so hoping to hear your Tell. He was in Tuine during Tell Fest.”

  “Some other time, perhaps, Mother. Master Bevol was most insistent.”

  The Moireach made a dismissive gesture. “Surely, you don’t need to call him ‘Master’ anymore. After all, you’re his equal now.” She laughed charmingly for the Eiric’s benefit, tossing him a winsome smile.

  Wyth shuffled uncomfortably. “Mother, I may be an Osraed, but I doubt I shall ever be Bevol’s equal.”

  “Nonsense, Wyth. You’re newly chosen. Bevol-a-Gled is an old man. Besides, the Meri called you Her son. She drew you into Her waters. There’s glory in that, Wyth,” she added, smiling up at him and touching his cheek. “Your light shines so brightly ...”

  He glanced uneasily at Eiric Iasgair, blood flushing his face. “Mother, please, I—”

  “You’re too humble by far. Everyone says so. Surely you don’t have to bow and scrape and curry favor to Bevol-a-Gled.”

  Wyth tried not to feel the anger coiling in his heart. He pushed her hand gently away from his face. “I have never curried favor to any of the Osraed, but I owe Master Bevol all my respect. Besides, I need to consult with him about my work.” He patted the thick portfolio tucked beneath his arm.

  His mother glanced at it, new eagerness leaping in her eyes. She laid a hand on the polished leather. “Oh, do stay for supper. You can tell us all about your work.”

  Wyth felt his face flush yet again and wondered if he could possibly get any redder. “I’m sure the Eiric wouldn’t be interested.”

  “Oh, but I would, Osraed Wyth.” The other man assured him. “But please, don’t trouble yourself on my account. I’ll hear of it some other time—at your convenience, of course.” He finished with a courtly bow of his head.

  Wyth smiled, relieved. The courtesy was sincere. “Perhaps tomorrow evening, Eiric Iasgair—if that is convenient for you?”

  “If the Moireach is amenable.” He looked to Brighid Arundel.

  She smiled, but beneath the smile seethed fierce frustration. Wyth felt it as heat beating against his face. He stepped back from the furnace.

  “Of course,” the Moireach said and laughed again, falsely. “And I’d forgotten you might have another reason to frequent Gled Manor.” She turned coy eyes to the Eiric. “There’s a girl there. A fair-haired cailin with blue eyes. One of Osraed Bevol’s foundlings. I dare say she’s the attraction at Gled, not some fusty old scholar.”

  Mention of Taminy as if she were no more than a village flirt was enough to stir Wyth’s blood to rebellion. “Osraed Bevol is far from fusty, Mother,” he said, moving quickly to mount his horse. “And Taminy ... Taminy’s eyes are green.”

  The Moireach feigned surprise—no, not feigned, Wyth realized. Her surprise was quite real. “By the Kiss! It amazes me you recall their color at all. That tells a deep tale.”

  Wyth swung his leg over the saddle. “I have to go. I’ll be late if I don’t.” There must be a Rune for keeping mothers at bay. “I look forward to our supper with pleasure, Eiric Iasgair. Until then. Good evening, Mother.” He swooped to give her cheek a quick peck, then gathered up his horse and rode away.

  “And who is this Taminy your son so is enamored of?” he heard the Eiric ask as the two led their horses toward the stable.

  “Oh, some marsh bird Osraed Bevol loosed at Tell Fest. The local boys are agog. A great improvement over his last obsession. At least this one’s not a Wicke.”

  Wyth willed his mount to a canter and got swiftly out of earshot.

  oOo

  During supper Wyth alternated between staring at Taminy and trying not to look at her at all. He had to concentrate to keep track of the conversation, made a fool of himself several times (he thought), and spoke in non-sequiturs.

  When the meal was over, Gwynet and Skeet cleared the table while Wyth gathered up his portfolio with an eye to soliciting Osraed Bevol’s help with his manuscript. But Bevol, begging his indulgence while he helped the youngsters with the dishes, disappeared, leaving Wyth alone in his study with Taminy and the suggestion that he show her his work.

  Hugging his portfolio to his ribs, Wyth now hovered awkwardly at Bevol’s workbench. A quick glance up into Taminy’s sea green eyes spurred him to action with a spasmodic little hop. He flopped the folio onto the table top and unclasped it too quickly, sending a flurry of loose papers over the polished surface. Taminy gathered them up and ordered them while he dithered without direction.

  “You have a fine hand,” she said, returning the pages.

  “Thank you. I’m dreadfully slow, though. The Prentices help, but, well, that’s really what I was hoping Osraed Bevol could help me with—an inyx that would allow me to copy sections of books onto the fresh pages without having to re-inscribe them.”

  “Oh, like a Printweave, you mean.”

  He nodded. “Yes, but it’s just a paragraph here and a half-page there. And sometimes the originals are so faded or the printing is so cramped ...” He pulled open a small volume and showed her a finely penned entry. “You see how small this script is? And, of course, it’s in a different hand than some of the others ...” He patted a second book, more slender, but wider and peeked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You ... you wouldn’t happen ...I mean, I’m sure you must ...Do you know an inyx you could teach me that would help?”

  To his utter astonishment, she laughed. It took him a moment to realize there was little humor in it, just a wry sense of resignation.

  “No,” she said. “I might have aspired to invent such a thing once, but now ...I think you’re best off doing it yourself.”

  Wyth abandoned work on the puzzle she presented. “Yes, well, that’s what Bevol said too, but you see, I’ve never actually originated a Runeweave of my own. Truth to tell, I’ve never even successfully modified one. Weaving was never my strong suit. I was always better at the Dream Tell. I can only imagine that’s why the Meri, well ...”

  A fleeting smile strained the corners of her mouth, but her gaze was disconcertingly direct. “I somehow suspect She looked deeper than that. You’re Osraed now. There are powers bestowed with that Kiss, Wyth.”

  “As I well know. Dear God, I can sense anger through walls and joy across miles. And you ...” He hesitated, lost in his own impertinence.

  “And I?”

  He wriggled uncomfortably, wishing he’d better control over his tongue. “I can sense you constantly ... day and night. I sense something I can’t describe. Something I don’t understand ... and-and sorrow. I sense that, too. I don’t understand that any bette
r.”

  She nodded, her eyes on the books and the pages and the open portfolio. “The theory here,” she said, tapping the topmost page of text, “should be the same as a Printweave, except, of course, you wish to enlarge the print, yes?”

  “Uh.” Wyth shook himself. “Uh, yes. Exactly.”

  “But a Printweave works on direct transference, and this would need to be modified ...” Her eyes were sweeping the shelves and cubbies over Bevol’s table. “Ah!” She stretched and reached and came down with a flat piece of leaded crystal about a quarter inch thick, edge-bevelled to look like a replacement pane for a mullioned window. She followed that by collecting a couple of wire book stands, which she arranged to form a spindly framework atop the table. On it, she balanced the small pane of glass.

  “Yes,” she said. “I think that might work. Is there something in that little volume you want to copy?”

  Wyth nodded. He picked up the book and scrabbled with it for a moment before finding the passage. He held it out to her. “This one—verse three.”

  “Here.” She handed him the glass. “What you need to do, in theory, is to place the glass over the passage and pull the text into the glass.”

  Wyth studied the idea for a moment. “Circumscribed, of course; the glass will cover more than one passage.”

  She nodded. “Circumscribed, of course.”

  “And then what? I mean, assuming you could pull the image?”

  “Then place the glass over the empty page and push the image out onto the paper.” She illustrated by slipping a blank sheet under the makeshift frame.

  Wyth saw the principle immediately. “And the further from the page the glass sits, the larger the script.”

  Her mouth twisted wryly. “Theoretically.”

  “Well ...” He held the glass out to her.

  She actually blushed and took a step back. “I can’t. You do it.”

  He didn’t ask, just then, why she was so reluctant, but did as he was told, laying the little pane over the desired passage. After a moment of thought, he brought out his crystal and set it on the table atop its padded purse. Then, eyes on its golden depths, he withdrew into himself, reached above himself and, with one finger, laid a circumscription inyx around the perimeters of the passage.

  Taminy watched silently, though her lips moved with the brief duan: “Limits there must be, borders to confine. Boundaries encompass—tight within the line.”

  He paused. Pull the image. How-?

  “Try the water draw,” Taminy whispered.

  He glanced at her. Even in the tremulously rising globe light, her face was pale—almost casting its own radiance. Her eyes were like dark fires, like the sea before a storm, like deep green jewels that drank light and gave off heat.

  “But-but water is liquid.”

  “Try it,” she said.

  He did—putting himself into the duan, putting the duan into the inyx, weaving the two together, drawing the image in his mind: The print rising, bonding to the glass, becoming set in the glass. It was true, there were reserves of power he hadn’t known before. He could feel them in a great, deep, wide reservoir behind him, above him. Stretching, like the sea, into infinity, while he stood on the shore and pulled with all his might.

  “There,” murmured Taminy. “That might do. Try that.”

  Wyth surfaced from the enveloping aislinn and took the little pane of glass gingerly into his hands. He transferred it to the wire frame, adjusting it carefully over the empty page. He could still just see the golden trace of the circumscription inyx in the transparent panel and aligned it so it allowed a margin. He did not ask himself if this would work. She was demanding it of him. He would simply do it. Perhaps, he would fail.

  “Now, push the image through.”

  He held a hand over the plate and its improvised cradle—palm down, fingers straight—and he imagined pushing against its transparent surface, forcing the words out, down, onto the pristine surface beneath.

  Nothing happened. He concentrated harder. Still nothing.

  “I’ve no duan,” he murmured and reached for the crystal.

  “No,” Taminy said. “You don’t need that. Here.” She pulled his hand back into position over the glass and laid her own atop it. Then she began to sing.

  “Page to page, through the window.

  “Word by word, through the glass.

  “Line by line, let the words flow.

  “Through the pane, let them pass.”

  He had never heard the duan before and thought she must have just composed it. It worked, too, to order his thoughts, to focus his energies. Through the window, he thought, and felt the movement of the Weaving beneath their hands.

  On the table in its bed of velvet, Wyth’s crystal caught fire. A golden rectangle glowed momentarily on the page beneath the glass, then words appeared—a paragraph of neat print, nearly a perfect fit for the new page.

  Wyth stared at it, hand trembling over the framed plate. “It worked! Dearest Spirit! It worked!” He pulled the glass aside and picked up the loose page with its fresh print. “It’s perfect! Well ... nearly so. It’s a little too wide for the page, but if I adjust the height of the frame ...Look!” He turned and held the paper out to Taminy.

  She had withdrawn to the center of the room, hands tucked beneath her arms, tears glittering in her eyes. A fine sheen of perspiration stood out on her cheeks.

  Wyth was amazed, appalled. “What, mistress? What’s wrong? Have I-?”

  She was shaking her head. “So hard. Such a simple thing. Once I could have breathed and woven that Rune. Once I was beyond the weaving of Runes, beyond the chanting of duans. I was a duan. Now, I’m all but deaf to the music.”

  “But it was your duan that completed the Weave. It was your power. I felt it.”

  “But weak. So weak. I had thought I would remember more ...” She shook her head and grimaced. “No, it’s not the memory. I do remember—the feelings, the energies—as a cripple remembers walking, recalls the feel of earth beneath her feet, the freedom of movement. The memory of an act is not the same as the act, Wyth. I remember how to walk. My legs will not support my weight.”

  Wyth let himself down into the chair before the workbench. “I don’t understand. You were ... you were the Meri.” He said it. It still seemed impossible, unreal.

  “No longer,” she said.

  “Then ... what are you?”

  She laughed. “An upset balance struggling to right itself. Relearning what it is to be human, while remembering what it is to be Divine. I am dust-”

  He opened his mouth to protest.

  She raised her hand and smiled, then. “But dust with potential.”

  “Is it ... is it that way for all ... ?”

  “Osmaer,” she murmured, losing the smile. “Divinely glorious.”

  Osmaer. The name Ochan had given his great crystal. The Stone for which two wars had been fought, before which Cynes were crowned and wed and plighted treaties. Wyth’s reasoning all but drowned in the significance of it. “You ... you are not the first?”

  “Never,” she said. “Every hundred years or so-”

  “The Cusps! Of course. And always ... always a girl?”

  Taminy nodded. “Thearl was Cyne when I journeyed.”

  “One hundred and fifteen years ago,” marveled Wyth. The very thought... “And before that?”

  She tilted her head and smiled a little. “There was another. A Hillwild girl with silver eyes. Cyne Liusadhe the Bard styled her a Wicke. And before that ...” She shrugged. “Well, it’s a very long Tell, indeed.”

  Wyth was certain his eyes must fall from his head and his lungs forget how to breathe and his mouth stay eternally open. “But ... are you all given back from the Sea to wander homeless, forgotten?”

  Her eyes sparkled in the muted light. “Oh, not homeless. There is always someone sent to give us a home. And not forgotten. She doesn’t forget. She’s always here, watching, guiding, waiting.”

  �
�Waiting?” Wyth repeated.

  She didn’t explain that but, instead, turned and moved toward the study door. “Osraed Bevol will be with you in a moment,” she said, pausing in the archway. “You might want to try that Copyweave again. Do you remember the duans?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.” He came to his feet. “But without your help-”

  “You will do quite well,” she said, and left him alone to try.

  oOo

  He had seen the Castle Mertuile from the Cyne’s Way before. As a child he had sat beside his father in an open carriage and driven toward it, awed by the way it perched atop its craggy hill like a great owl hunched on a blackened stump. But his real knowledge of Mertuile ended at its gates. Everything he believed of the great heap of stone was founded on history lessons and embroidered by legend and hearsay.

  In his childhood imaginings it had been a dark and curious casket full of bearded sages and grizzled warriors, its halls haunted by the wraiths of sorrowful Cwens and treacherous courtiers, its throne room inhabited by the jewels of Creiddylad and crowned, always, by a wise and just Cyne.

  Leal squinted up at the dark walls, trying to see where the ancient foundations met the newer structures added since the reign of Cyne Earwyn—a Cyne so wise and just, his warring had invoked the wrath of the Meri and caused both his castle and his capitol to be ravaged by enemy fire. But the stones of Mertuile offered no clue as to which of them were there as a result of Earwyn’s folly, and Leal pulled himself up straight and approached her lower gates.

  By tradition, he was clad in ceremonial tunic with stole and prayer chain, the bag containing his crystal, Bliss, prominently displayed on one hip. The Gate Guards took note of this from their stone and log kiosk, greeting him with respectful smiles. The most senior of them dispatched himself to escort the Osraed Lealbhallain through the massive double arches, beneath the sheltering outer curtain, into Mertuile’s outer ward.

  There was much activity here. Jaggers unloaded their wagons in one corner. In another, a blaec-smythe hammered at a huge horseshoe while his client munched hay. A row of shops marched out of sight along the northern flank of the inner walls. Here, a group of young boys swept the cobbles; there, a bevy of women sat, spinning wool in the sun, their children playing a game nearby with brightly colored wooden balls. Near the broad archway Leal’s escort led toward, a knot of soldiers, dressed in the gold and green of the House Malcuim, conversed jovially.