Taminy

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  Ealad-hach pounced on the admission implicit in that. “Then you don’t believe Wyth Arundel’s Tell?”

  Parthelan’s eyes widened. “Not believe? Have I a choice? He wears the Kiss—gaudily. I suppose I must believe. He is the Meri’s Chosen, Her emissary. That doesn’t mean I agree with what he says or must like it.”

  “But if you will go that far-”

  “I will go no further.” Parthelan excused himself and left, taking Ladman with him.

  Faer-wald took that opportunity to make his own excuses. “As I said, Ealad, if you could show us this aislinn, if we could see this woman’s face and be convinced ...Perhaps when your health improves, your concentration will improve with it.”

  “I will show you,” murmured Ealad-hach. “By the Kiss, I will show you.” If Faer-wald heard him, he did not show it, and Ealad-hach found himself alone with Eadmund and a black mood. He vented the darkness at the younger Osraed. “Well, what about you? Are you going to mock an old man?”

  Brow furrowed, Eadmund shook his head. “No, Osraed. I would never mock you. I ... I understand your respect of this Cusp, of the unique danger it poses, the unique challenges it brings.”

  “Then you do believe me—about the girl?”

  Eadmund’s eyes traced the pattern in the thick carpet. “It’s hard to ... to accept that such a young, seemingly innocent cailin should be the repository of such wickedness, such power.”

  Ealad-hach allowed himself a grim smile. “And that, Eadmund, is her advantage. Her youth, her sweet appearance. But she Weaves. She weaves darkness, constantly. She weaves disagreement and dissension and if we are not astute, if we are not prepared, she will weave our destruction ...Yes, yes, I know,” he added, seeing the expression on the younger man’s face.

  “Hard to accept. But we have seen much lately that is hard to accept, have we not?”

  “You mean Osraed Wyth’s Tell?”

  “Aye. That’s hard to accept, yet it seems we are bound to its acceptance.”

  “You strive to connect the two—the girl’s Gift and Wyth’s Tell. That, I think, is what I cannot accept.”

  “She sought him out at Tell Fest. They conversed privately for some time. They, who supposedly didn’t know each other.”

  Eadmund ghosted a smile. “Well, he is a young man and she is a lovely cailin.”

  “Loveliness,” said Ealad-hach, “is like the crust on a snow. It glitters brilliantly and seems temptingly solid, but a man would be a fool to set foot upon it and trust it with his weight.”

  Eadmund nodded. “But the snow isn’t evil, Osraed. It is cold by nature—a nature decreed by the First Being.”

  “Your point?”

  Eadmund gazed at him a moment, then shrugged. “None that is worth elucidating. Pardon, Osraed, but I must go over the Academy accounts with Aelder Marschal.”

  He was gone, then, and Ealad-hach had only his black mood for company.

  oOo

  The sky did not fall. The Cyne did not send soldiers after him, did not censure him, did not stop the newly-established flow of goods to the Care House in the shadow of Mertuile. Leal had feared that, in the dark hours, staring at the ceiling of his new room at Care House. Had been terrified that, for his brash acts, Fhada would suffer—worse yet, that those who depended on the Care House for subsistence and healing would suffer.

  But that didn’t happen. The goods—fresh goods, now—arrived from the Cyne’s Market by the cartful and Leal relaxed a little, thinking perhaps the Cyne had taken the Meri’s words to heart and would cease to imagine himself Her spokesman. By the second day after the incident, he was convinced nothing would come of it and allowed himself to be pleased with the results of his brief tenure in Creiddylad. That was the day the Abbod of Ochanshrine visited Care House and called Leal aside in the presence of Osraed Fhada.

  The Osraed Ladhar was an imposing man despite his advanced age. He was not as tall as the conifer-like Fhada, but what he lacked in height, he made up in girth and presence. Balding at the crown, he had a froth of silver hair that lay densely upon his collar and framed heavy jaws. In his broad, ruddy face, his eyes stood out like diamonds pressed into red clay. They were that colorless, that chill, that piercing.

  Indestructible, Leal thought. Cynes had come and gone but Osraed Ladhar was still here and the Kiss on his forehead was still here, though Leal had to face him head on to see it—a stellate mark the color of peridot.

  “Well, young Lealbhallain!” The Abbod’s smile was a fatherly embrace and his voice exuded joviality. “You’ve made yourself a bit of a celebrity in Creiddylad.”

  The eyes didn’t change and Lealbhallain knew that either they lied or the voice did. “I’m sorry, Abbod. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  The old man chuckled, warm tones rolling deep in his barrel chest. “No? What did you mean to do?”

  Splinters of glass could not have cut more sharply than those eyes. Leal struggled to believe he had done nothing wrong and groped for an answer. “I wasn’t trying to do anything, Abbod. Except, of course, the Meri’s will.”

  “The Meri’s will? Why, I believe we all strive to do that. It’s not always easy to divine.” Ladhar flicked a glance at Fhada, who stood in his office’s one window embrasure, watchful. “How did you become convinced it was the Meri’s will that moved you?”

  “I heard Her Voice.”

  “Ah! That sweet Voice. How did She sound?”

  “Determined,” said Leal, without thinking.

  “Determined? How so?”

  Leal shook his head. “She simply did. And it wasn’t sound, exactly. She bid me rise and go forward and was determined that I do so.”

  The Abbod nodded, leaning back in his chair till Leal feared he would become wedged there. He chastised himself for the impious thought.

  “Did it occur to you, for even a moment, to question this determined instruction?”

  “No, Abbod, it did not.”

  “Really, Osraed? Not for one moment?” He smiled as an old man might smile at the antics of his grandchild.

  “No, sir.”

  “Ah, but what if it had not been the Meri’s voice?”

  “It was. I’ve never heard another like it.”

  “Never?”

  Leal shook his head.

  “Nothing else has ever whispered in your heart? Not fear or zeal or anger, perhaps?”

  “Yes. Of course they have. But not like this.”

  Osraed Ladhar considered that for a moment, his eyes taking slices out of the stone floor instead of Leal’s face. “Some time ago,” he said at length, “this young man here-” —he gestured at Fhada— “came to me with some concerns raised by an experience similar to yours. He heard a voice—a beautiful, determined voice—that prodded him to act rashly. He, too, was certain the voice was that of his Beloved. But we advised him to be cautious, to question the voice, to hold out against it until he was certain of it. This, he did, and finally the voice subsided, ceased to plague him with its ... determined demands. As we advised him, we advise you.”

  Leal glanced at Fhada. The man’s face had no more color than the dust-caked, light-washed glass behind him and his eyes were as bleak. Ladhar is wringing out his soul. Anger whispered to Leal, then; he had no trouble recognizing the voice. He silenced it and returned his attention to the Abbod.

  “I don’t want the Voice to subside. I have no doubt that it’s the Meri’s. No one has ever spoken to me as She does. I did what She desired.”

  “She expressed no such desire to me, or to Fhada, who was with you.”

  Osraed Fhada turned to gaze out the window. Ladhar’s eyes followed him, falcon quick, then returned to Leal.

  “Abbod,” Leal said, “when you came here after your Pilgrimage, did you have a mission—a calling?”

  “Of course. I was called to Ochanshrine. To take part in its administration and to serve the Abbod.”

  “Then, you made no changes in its running?”

  The Abbod’
s brows crested. “Of course, I made changes. I oversaw the addition of the High Reliquary and re-instituted the Registry of Stones. I brought fine artists and craftsmen to Ochanshrine to be trained up as Cleirachs. A regular program, mind you, not haphazard like before, when most of our Cleirachs were failed Prentices who didn’t want to return to the family stead.”

  “Those are fine accomplishments,” Leal complimented him. “Wonderful ideas. Were they yours or, perhaps, Cyne Ciarda’s?”

  A red flush crept over the Abbod’s face. “They were given me by the Meri.”

  “And not to your Abbod? Not to one of the more experienced Osraed?”

  “No.” Ladhar fingered the links of his prayer chain. “I was fresh from Pilgrimage. It was part of my mission—to improve the Abbis as a repository of spiritual artifacts and a retreat for the Osraed, to increase its ability to produce well-taught Cleirachs for the schools.”

  Lealbhallain nodded. “As my mission is to see to the welfare of the citizens of Creiddylad—most especially, its children.”

  “A broad purpose, but one which has nothing to do with what the Cyne does in his Cirke.”

  “Osraed Ladhar, it’s not his Cirke. It’s God’s Cirke, the Meri’s Cirke. And what the Cyne does before the citizens of Creiddylad, what he says to them about his relationship with their God affects their welfare at its most elemental level—the spiritual.”

  Ladhar’s eyes moved to Fhada’s back. The younger man stiffened, as if sensing that touch. “Still, none of the changes I made at the Meri’s behest publicly embarrassed my Cyne.”

  “Might they not have embarrassed your Abbod, who would have expected such insights to come to him?”

  The fatty wattles beneath the Abbod’s ample jowls shivered. “Do you deliberately misunderstand me, young man? You have embarrassed the Cyne of Caraid-land.”

  “Is that what he thinks?”

  “He’s not sure what to think.”

  He had spoken to the Cyne, then. Leal inclined his head, trying not to shake. “If I have embarrassed the Cyne, I will apologize to him. I didn’t mean to embarrass him. Not at all. But he was implying a relationship with the Meri-”

  “That you couldn’t abide?” suggested Ladhar.

  “That She couldn’t abide.”

  Abbod Ladhar studied Lealbhallain through diamond-bright eyes. Studied him until he felt all the flesh had been flayed from his face. Then the old man gathered himself and rose, slipping easily out of the chair and back into his fatherly smile.

  “Well, I must go, young firebrand. Come, both of you, and walk me to my coach.”

  They did as bidden, passing through the corridors of the Care House in relative silence. They passed by newly repaired fireplaces with freshly cleaned chimneys; Ladhar remarked on them and on the well-lit halls and clean floors. When they reached the outer courtyard, the Abbod paused to regard a dray that had pulled up before the kitchen entrance to offload goods from the Cyne’s Market.

  “Well, Osraed Lealbhallain,” he said. “You have made a good beginning to the fulfillment of your mission here. It seems you have reminded Cyne Colfre of his duty to the poor and cautioned him to kindness. What a rain of bounty you’ve precipitated! What a pity if it should cease and all this be lost.”

  Fhada spoke for the first time. “You caution him to fear the Cyne? To bend to the Cyne’s whims?”

  Ladhar shot him a slivered glance. “I would not so caution him. It is the Meri’s wrath we must fear—God’s approval we must obtain. I am concerned only that all the good you have wrought here in the Meri’s name might be lost. If the Cyne’s whims, as you call them, are foiled, they may suffer most who have the least.”

  His gaze strayed back to the dray, dragging Fhada’s and Lealbhallain’s with it. There, several older orphans and a man with one arm helped the jaeger unload goods. All were smiling over the Cyne’s largesse, dreaming, no doubt, of the meals to come.

  The Abbod turned then, clambered aboard his coach and was borne away. Fhada and Leal watched him through the gates.

  “Damn him,” said Fhada. “Damn him.”

  Shivering, Leal returned to the Care House. He spent the rest of the day thinking about Ladhar’s visit without thinking about it. It sat in his conscience where his soul could see it. Sat there without moving, captured in that last tableau: the three of them there in the court, watching the delivery of the Cyne’s bounty.

  Wrong, though, Leal thought. Wrong. The food and goods arriving by royal dray were not gifts, they were duty. It was the joint occupation of Cyne and Osraed to care for the Caraidin, and in the long history of Caraid-land, it had been the Cyne who supplied the means while the Osraed provided the way. Leal knew, as Abbod Ladhar implicitly suggested he forget, that Cyne Colfre of the House Malcuim would not be on his throne today were it not for the Meri and Her chosen representatives. It was the first Osraed, Ochan, who gave Malcuim the wisdom necessary to establish his House as the House from which Caraidin Cynes arose. Another history there might have been if Ochan-a-Coille had not staggered to the Cyne’s threshold six centuries ago and warned him that the Houses Claeg and Feich were engaged in covert rebellion.

  Still, there was a point to what the Abbod said. Leal’s mission here was to see to the welfare of the citizenry of Creiddylad—especially the poor. The Meri had impressed that upon him, that and the need for change. He had made a good start, coercing Colfre to be more open-handed. True, he hadn’t convinced the Cyne to give control of the Osraed funds back into their own hands, but that could come if ... if he didn’t lose the ground he had won.

  In the Meri’s name, Ladhar had said. The good you have wrought in the Meri’s name. Lost. Because you could not abide ...

  Had the voice in the Sanctuary been his own? Had he been motivated by simple jealousy, unable to tolerate the Cyne’s communion with his Beloved?

  Feeling wretched and confused, Leal secluded himself in his chambers. He meditated himself to calm, then took out his crystal and slipped into his aislinn chamber. The chamber, like all those at Care House, was make-shift, little more than a cylindrical closet built up with screens of wood. Leal sat cross-legged on the floor of his, while the crystal, Bliss, lay at center atop a carved wooden stand. Incense burned, home incense that carried scents of Nairne—the pines, the river, the wildflowers and spices. He breathed deeply and let his mind flow to the crystal.

  He did not ask to see visions—he wanted only certitude—it was visions he got. The crystal lit and spoke. In the ancient aislinn tongue, it poured pictures into the darkened place, pictures that passed like storm-driven clouds. There was a huge room—the Assembly Hall at Mertuile—filled with people and anger and fear and tense silence. There were flashes of fire that became torches and light globes carried high in the hands of people who laughed and cried and reached out in joyous celebration to a figure standing high above them upon a gleaming dais. The people gazed up at the dais and its occupants.

  Leal tried to see them, to determine who they were, but the image eluded him, subtly altering itself. The people still chanted, but their laughter shattered into barks of rage, fingers curled into fists, faces twisted, hideous. The Hall trembled with their rage. They became a sea of faces, a teeming ocean of souls, their emotions like a myriad waves in a crossing sea. There was thunder.

  No, Leal realized, there was someone pounding on his door.

  “Coming!” he managed to croak, and withdrew himself from the aislinn realm. The crystal sucked in its light and its darkness and his visions, folding them up again into silent facets.

  The young girl at the door bobbed an awed curtsey, her eyes on Leal’s face. “All pardon, Osraed Leal,” she said in a loud whisper, “but you bid me tell you when Aelder Buach returned from the docks. He’s in Refectory, Osraed.”

  “Of course, Fris. Thank you.” He smiled at her and she returned the smile before dropping another curtsey and scurrying away.

  Buach was indeed in the Refectory, tucking away an impressive amount
of vegetable stew. He nodded at Leal as the younger boy slid onto the stool opposite him, a bowl of stew and a spoon in hand.

  “How are things along the riverfront?” asked Leal after downing several bites of stew.

  Buach gave him a watery smile. “Is there mail, do you mean? As it happens, Osraed, there is.” He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small folio of hide and cloth packets. “Here.”

  He held one out to Leal, who took it eagerly. The packet was from his family and contained letters from each of them, the longest appearing to be from his sister, Orna. Grateful, Leal thanked Buach and laid the letters on the table.

  “You did some care calls today, did you?”

  “Aye. A few. It was a clothing run, mostly. To the families down under Farbridge. Autumn comes early down there.”

  “And did you visit your family while you were there?”

  Buach’s father owned a shop just above Farbridge and his entire family had been in the Cyne’s Cirke last Cirke-dag. He often paid them a visit when out on care calls in the area, but his wary expression said he wasn’t sure why the Osraed had brought it up.

  “Only after I’d done my dues,” he said.

  “Did you talk to them at all about the happenings Cirke-dag?”

  Buach tried to hide his grin behind a chunk of bread. “You mean when you came head on into Cyne Colfre’s ceremony?”

  Leal swallowed. “Yes. I couldn’t help but wonder what people are saying about it. I knew your family was there ...”

  Buach studied his stew-sodden bread. “Tongues are flapping, Osraed. I can tell you that. No one I’ve spoken to can agree altogether on what it meant, though. Now my Gran’da says you busted the Cyne pure and simple—showed him who’s charged by the Spirit in Caraid-land. My elder brother, on the other hand, says you were doing no such thing; that you were confirming the Cyne’s right to speak for the Meri.”

  “How does he figure that?”

  Buach shrugged. “You said only the Meri’s Chosen spoke for Her. Since the Cyne claimed to speak for Her, he must be Chosen.”

  Had he said that? The words came back to him: The Meri speaks through Her Chosen. The Meri is known through the counsel of the divine. No man among you knows the changes I have wrought.