Taminy

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  “And then what?”

  “And then the Mistress of Nairnecirke began to wail ... and the Master set to praying ... and Isha just stared at that crystal, smiling like she was bewicked.”

  “And what did Taminy do?” Doireann gasped, half stumbling over a divot of earth.

  “She just smiled—her face all aglow from the stone. Oh, Doiry, it was the stuff of chills. I swear I dreamed of it all night and into morning.”

  “If only they’d let me come,” whined Doireann. “Why did it have to be my night to tend the stupid oil pots?”

  They’d reached the verge of the wood now, and hushed as if entering the Cirke. Trees formed corridors, and leafy branches, vaults. Birds sang in lieu of choirs, and leaves whispered prayers. The girls ignored all in their quiet haste; their skirts swished no louder than the breeze, their footfalls beat no louder than their hearts.

  They heard the waterfall before they could make out the murmur of voices. Pace slowed, they crept to within earshot, screened by a puff of greenery, and knelt to watch and listen.

  “ ... said naught about it this morning, but I’ve no illusions my mother will allow it unless father presses.” Iseabal sat, cross-legged, upon a rock that lay half-out of the water, shredding flower petals into her lap.

  “Do you want to go?” Taminy asked her. She was on a rock by the fall, looking for all the world like a Cwen holding court. Aine thought there ought to be an audience of squirrels and rabbits sitting in attendance.

  Iseabal was slow in answering. Her brow furrowed, she abandoned her task and rubbed her palms together. “I want to learn the use of my ... my Gift. If I must go to Halig-liath to do that, then I shall, but ...”

  “But?”

  “But I’d rather learn from you.”

  “Would you?”

  Iseabal nodded. “Oh, yes. And so would Gwynet, I wager. Am I right, Gwyn?”

  Aine noticed, then, that the woodland Cwen had other courtiers. Gwynet and a second young girl sat sprawled on the grassy stream bank between the older cailin with books and whiteboards.

  “Oh, aye!” said the blonde gamin at once, and her companion looked up with wide eyes and cried, “Oh, me too, Taminy! Me too!”

  Why, that was Niall Backstere’s youngest girl, Cluanie, Aine realized, gawping at the mouse-hued mop of hair. Could her da have any idea-?

  “It could be slow learning,” Taminy said. “You can’t learn what I can’t teach.”

  “But I’ve learnt bushels already,” protested Cluanie. “My mam’s all but sung over the perfumes I made her and she was mighty glad of that moonwort physic you taught me. She’s been raw sick with this baby and all.”

  “Herbals are only a small part of the Art,” Taminy said. “The Osraed have the knowledge-”

  “Not the way you have it,” said Iseabal. “I know. Prentices study for years and all they learn is how to make a dog chase his tail till he drops or how to interpret a dream. But look ...” She put a hand in the water beside her rock and gently moved her fingers.

  Aine frowned and looked at Doireann, who merely shrugged and dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her skirt. It was when she glanced back at the pool that she saw it—the quicksilver flash and dart of tiny, water-borne bodies as they rushed to gather about Iseabal’s rock. Aine swallowed a gasp. Doireann clapped one hand over her own mouth and brought the other one to her breast in a tight fist.

  The two little girls on the bank jumped up and tumbled to the water’s edge, squealing with delight. Taminy laughed too. “A useful trick for a fisherman, Isha, but hardly earth-shattering.”

  “It is for me,” enthused Iseabal. “It’s all earth-shattering. All of it. The world looks different to me today. The whole, entire world!” She raised her hands, flinging them wide as if to embrace that world and, suddenly, the air was full of birds, full of their songs, full of the rhythm of their wings.

  It was Iseabal they flocked to, Iseabal they circled and wheeled about and chittered to. And the little girls danced and Iseabal laughed and Aine’s heart beat so hot and so fast she thought she would swoon. Beside her, Doireann trembled and cowered and clutched her hands to her breast.

  Then, Taminy, Cwen of the Bebhinn Glade, stood up on her rock and raised her hands, palms outward. The birds were gone faster than Aine could blink an eye. Back to their trees they went, in a hush so profound, Aine was sure no Cirke had ever known it.

  “The Gift is not for the drawing of birds,” Taminy said, and Aine felt a sudden prickling at the back of her neck. “Nor is it for the gathering of fish.”

  Gwynet and Cluanie giggled and Taminy turned her face to the puff of greenery Aine and Doireann had thought concealed them. “The Gift is for the drawing of spirits and the gathering of souls ...Come out, Aine. Come out, Doireann. Come sit with us and sing duans.”

  Both girls started up, bumping painfully in their haste and tumbling from their sanctum. Finding Taminy’s eyes right on her, Doireann shrieked loudly enough to wake the dead and hurled whatever she had been crushing to her heart in Taminy’s direction. It was a good throw, and the lumpy wad landed nearly at Taminy’s feet. As the girl lifted her skirts and bent to pick it up, Doireann shrieked a second time and dashed back into the woods.

  Heart tripping over itself, Aine followed. She caught Doireann up at the edge of the fields where she had crumpled into a forlorn heap, arms and face patterned with pale scratches, tears streaking her face.

  “She’s a Wicke! She’s a Wicke! And she’s made poor Isha into a Wicke! Oh, I knew it! I knew it!”

  “Stop babbling, Doiry!” Aine told her crossly. Her own body threatened to quiver itself right into the ground, but she would never let the other girl see that, or even suspect it. “Stop babbling and tell me what that was you threw at her.”

  Doireann hiccuped loudly and grasped Aine’s wrist, all but toppling her. “It was a runebag.”

  “A what?”

  Doireann merely nodded frenetically, spilling hair into her eyes. “Daffodilly and marigold, vervain and a piece of chalcedony scratched by emery.”

  Aine shook her head dumbly. “What good-?”

  “To drive away the wicked! To expose and expel them. Daffodilly and vervain and chalcedony cut by emery all do that, so I thought why not put them together?” She hiccuped again.

  “Oh,” said Aine, not knowing what else she could say. “And the marigold?”

  Doireann pulled herself to her feet, using Aine’s arm for support. “Repels Wicke. Did you see how she tried to get away from it?”

  Aine sighed. “I think she picked it up.”

  “No, she didn’t! She lifted her skirts clear and bent to inyx it away. I saw her.”

  “Doireann, you’re wind-kissed. Besides, if what Osraed Saxan said is true, Iseabal and Taminy may gather all the fish and fowl they want.”

  Doireann peered at her from beneath a jumble of dark curls. “Do you believe it?”

  “Well, it was brought from Pilgrimage by an Osraed.”

  “Huh. Osraed Wyth Arundel. You know Wyth. Were sweet on him, I recall. Are you ready to believe he’s the voice of God?”

  Aine could only stand blinking. Wyth as the Voice of God, was rather a difficult concept to grasp.

  “And she didn’t just speak of gathering fish and fowl, Aine-mac-Lorimer,” Doireann continued, her eyes growing huge and dark. “She spoke of gathering souls. Of collecting spirits. It’s our spirits she’s after, Aine. Our souls. You heard her. Come out, she says. Come out and-and sing duans.” Her hand, clutching Aine’s arm, shook as if palsied.

  Aine met her friend’s eyes and couldn’t help but shiver, herself, at the abject fear in them. She opened her mouth to utter quashing, brave words, but a loud shaking of shrubbery within the wood robbed her of them. Doireann set off, wailing, across the fields, with Aine hard on her heels.

  oOo

  Aine-mac-Lorimer and Doireann Spenser might not welcome her, Taminy reflected, but there were others who did. The pleasure of the
Apothecary would have been hard to miss, even for one utterly without the Gift. Her eyes on the basket of herbs and confections in Taminy’s hands, she sailed from behind her counter like a galley under full sail, skirts and sleeves and aprons billowing about her ample bow. One arm swung wide to embrace, the other went straight for the basket.

  “God love you, child! Look at that wealth of riches! Wyvis! Rennie! Taminy’s here!”

  Taminy smiled as the embrace landed around her shoulders. Already she could hear the scuffle of feet on upstairs floorboards; the Apothecary’s two youngsters presented themselves in their mother’s shop before that lady had retreated behind her counter again to admire her new goods.

  At fourteen, Wyvis was showing every sign of being a winning young woman. The gamin smile she now bestowed on Taminy would someday cause male hearts to quiver. Her brother, Rennie, three years her senior, was a big-boned lad who tended to favor his mother’s plumpness. He was, as his mother would say, “a boisterer” at most times—a little loud, a little undisciplined—but in Taminy’s presence, he seemed most tame; Nairne’s Mistress of Medicaments threw the two of them together at every opportunity.

  “Oh, look what she’s brought us! Catamint, isn’t it? Ah, but the Beekeep will be glad of this. He’s afraid his new queen will take her tribe elsewhere. But not with a potion of this. Wherever did you find it? Catamint’s been so rare in these parts of late.”

  “Oh, I’ve a place,” Taminy said, noncommittally.

  “Well, you shall have to take Rennie with you next time you go so you can bring back more.”

  “Me too,” said Wyvis quickly. “I’ve heard it’s a truly fey place. That’s what Cluanie said, anyway.”

  “Cluanie’s just a babe,” protested Rennie, peeking into the basket with veiled interest. “She thinks there’re paeries in every tree and silkies in every puddle.”

  “Well, good for her, I say,” said the Apothecary. “Too few see paeries anywhere at all. There’s good herbs and such in fey places—which you’d know if you’d listen to Taminy, here. By the way, Mistress Liathach says thank you very kindly for the Five-leaf plaster. I told her it was your recipe. She says her tooth is much better and she’ll see Osraed Torridon about it on your advice. It scared her to think of anyone touching it when it pained her so. She wanted me to ask if you knew of a cure for the catarrh. She has weak lungs, you know.”

  “You wouldn’t think so if you’d heard her bray at her husband,” offered Rennie.

  “Shush, you! Such manners. What will Taminy think of you?”

  But Taminy was laughing. She fingered a leafy packet on the counter. “Tell her vervain boiled with honey. Oh and, of course, one of your good herb steams.”

  “Vervain? Well, now, I’ve used that for a salve—heals up cuts and what-not quick as you please—but, boiled with honey ... hm.” She pulled a box of paper and a graphus from beneath the counter. “What are the dimensions?”

  “Four parts vervain elixir to one part honey. Mix two spoonfuls in boiled water.” The basket empty, Taminy picked it up and settled it on her arm. “Well, I’m off to the Webber’s now.”

  Wyvis and Rennie leapt at her in perfect unison.

  “We’ll go to the fey place soon, won’t we?” asked Wyvis.

  “To gather Mam’s herbs,” Rennie qualified the utterance, giving his younger sister a sideways glance.

  “Cirke-dag, after worship?” Taminy suggested and garnered two eager nods and a wide smile from the watching shopkeep.

  Out on the street moments later, Taminy closed her eyes and took a deep sip of the late summer morning. It flew her to the far end of her time corridor again, depositing her in a place that only looked the same. It came to her in a rush so vivid she almost believed she could open her eyes and walk to the Cirke manse and find in it the familiar, the lovely, the secure—her father, her mother, her own room, the room where Iseabal now slept.

  Oh, if she could only do that ... well, what, then? Would she live things any differently, given another chance? Would she lock herself in her room and close her ears to the call of the Meri? Would she bid Iseabal deny that call? Or Gwynet or any of the receptive spirits that now graced Nairne?

  “Daeges-eage, Taminy.”

  Dragged forward through time, Taminy opened her eyes to the here-and-now Nairne and a trio of interested male faces.

  “Daeges-eage, Brys,” she murmured and nodded to the other boys, Scandy and Phelan. Odd, she thought, the impression that had struck her when her eyes first touched them. They had felt like stones: Brys, coldly metallic; Scandy, chalky and pale; Phelan, malleable as clay. She shook the impression, waiting for them to speak. But the self-assured Brys seemed ill-at-ease, hovering there before her with his coterie. At once eager and reluctant, he shuffled and blinked and thrust bold-coy glances at her.

  “Em,” he said finally. “Em, will you be in Sanctuary this Cirke-dag, Taminy?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Oh, good, then ...” He glanced at the others. “That is, I mean, I was hoping perhaps you’d join me at the Backstere’s after for tea and cakes.”

  Ice hot, his voice, full of passionless want. She beheld him, there—so handsome and golden, so like iron—and shivered in spite of the warmth of the day.

  “Well, I’ll tell you, Brys-a-Lach,” she said lightly, “that if you’d asked me that ten minutes ago I’d’ve had no reason to say ‘no’ to it. But I’ve made my promises for Cirke-dag already.”

  Brys’s mouth twitched, but his expression, otherwise, didn’t alter. Scandy, on the other hand, looked almost smug, Phelan, merely stunned that a mere cailin could refuse his awesome companion.

  “Ah, well then ...” murmured Brys and shuffled more.

  “But you will ask me again?” Taminy suggested, making her voice bright.

  “Oh, aye!” He smiled. “I will.” He muttered of errands for Osraed Faer-wald and led his devotees away. Out of earshot, they dug elbows into each other’s ribs and laughed, while Taminy made haste to the shop of Marnie-o-Loom.

  Terris was there—alone, this time. His Gram and Da were out to Arundel, he said, looking over some wool.

  Taminy pulled from her pocket a little jar of ointment and a bit of carved and polished wood. “These are for your Gram,” she told him. “I noticed her hands were a bit knotted and I thought she might try this salve on them.”

  “And this?” Terris asked, holding up the misshapen dowel.

  “That’s a sort of amulet. After putting the ointment on her hand, she should take up the wood and rub it until the tingle from the ointment wears off. Then she should salve the other hand and rub the wood with it.”

  Terris was more than doubtful of this, he was clearly discomfited and, when she turned to leave, he stopped her, coming from behind his cutting table to put himself between her and the door. “I’ve words to say to you, Taminy-a-Gled,” he told her dramatically. “And I’d be pleased if you’d listen.”

  She paused and gazed at him. What form shall the speech take today? Will you warn me off Wicke Craft or warn me off your Gram or warn me off myself?

  “It worries me,” he said, waving the amulet at her, “to see someone like you flirting, mad-hearted, with these Wickish things.”

  “Wickish things?” she repeated. “An herbal balm and a rubbing stick?”

  “That’s just the toenail of the beast, Taminy. I know. I’ve heard my Gram’s tales. And while I’d be mostly inclined to give them air, I’ve heard tell from others, too, about your paerie pool and your ways with animals and the things you’re teaching Gwynet.”

  “Gwynet is a Prentice. She’s supposed to learn those things.”

  “From her Osraed. You’re no Osraed.”

  Taminy lowered her eyes, her face flushing for reasons Terris could never appreciate. “That is certainly true.”

  “Then you’ve no business teaching her the Art.”

  “And is it your business to tell me so?”

  Terris put out his hands
then, and took her shoulders and met her eye for eye. “You’re a fine cailin, Taminy-a-Gled. As lovely and fair and fine a cailin as I’ve ever seen in Nairne or beyond—and I’ve been as far abroad as Lin-liath,” he added, begging her to be impressed. “And you’ve a temper of matching fairness from what I’ve seen. It worries me sick to think of you dabbling in unseemly matters.”

  So, he would protect her from herself—a noble gesture. She smiled. “You’re sweet, Terris,” she said. “And I’m flattered you’re so concerned, but there’s naught unseemly about my matters or my ways or the things I’m teaching Gwynet. You worry yourself needlessly. Now, please give your Gram that ointment. Her fingers are paining her more than she lets show.”

  She tried to disengage herself, but Terris wasn’t finished. He clung to her tenaciously, bent, she realized, on making himself understood.

  “Don’t think me a nosy-body, Taminy. Or a meddler. It’s just that ... well, I-I’ve been all but smitten since you first came in here—with you, I mean—smitten with you. If I wasn’t, I’m sure I’d’ve kept my mouth shut.”

  Seized by a sudden tension, Taminy jerked her head toward the front of the shop. Aine and Doireann stood framed in the open doorway, one with hands on hips and fire in her eyes, the other with hands clutched, squirrel-like, upon her breast.

  “Well, I should think,” snapped Aine, “that one of these days, you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut. At least in places you might be overheard.”

  Doireann’s mouth, open, added nothing to that as Aine backed out of the store, reaching out at the last moment to grasp her elbow and drag her into the street.

  “Not all truths were meant for utterance,” Taminy murmured, paraphrasing the Corah.

  “Aye,” Terris agreed, “but that one was. I don’t care that they heard it. It won’t change how I feel.”

  “Terris, you hardly know me-”

  “I know you’re different,” he said earnestly. “I know you’re like no cailin I’ve ever known.”