Taminy

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  Aine was watching her, waiting for a pronouncement. She sighed. Dear God, how fine a thing was certitude. If only she had it.

  “Take my hand.” She held one out to the other girl.

  “W-why? Why must I take your hand?”

  “I want to know you’re telling the truth, Aine. I must at least try to know.”

  Face twisting, Aine stared at the proffered hand.

  “I’m not evil, Aine-mac-Lorimer.”

  Aine gasped. “I’m sorry. I-” She snatched the hand and held it in a quaking grip.

  For Taminy, it was as if shadows had suddenly become solid, real, colorful. The fear was for her, the anger was not. Humiliation burned and stung. How dare they? How dare they?

  Yes, the indignity, the sense of betrayal, was real. And so was the confusion. Aine-mac-Lorimer was not the maker of the runebag.

  There was something else there, too, though. Something that tickled up Taminy’s spine and tingled behind her eyes. She recognized it immediately and, in the moment of recognition, she reached up her free hand and pressed the palm against Aine’s forehead.

  What? Aine had been going to say, but the word came out in a stunned gasp.

  “You’ve got a Gift in you, Aine. A Gift of Sight. Your thoughts trouble you and your dreams wander ahead of you. You hide them. Why do you hide them, Aine?”

  Aine cried out, though weakly. The sound of her own voice was enough to break her free. Tearing from Taminy’s gentle hold, she stumbled backward against her horse, arm flung across her face, brandishing fear like a weapon. She mounted, scrabbling into the saddle without once taking her eyes from Taminy’s unmoving form, then pivoted her mount and sent it into a wild gallop down the meadow toward where Nairne lay in long shadows.

  Taminy stood for a moment, silent, aching, pressing her hands together. To live with such dread, to cache such dreams. She could see Aine, vividly then, taking the dreams apart on long, dark mornings, wondering what they meant and why they were hers.

  Not knowing whether to interpret them or how, because no one had ever taught her. Did she think everyone had these dreams?

  Taminy began her walk down the long shallow hill, her eyes on the shadows of Nairne. She was on the Nairne road when she heard someone running toward her and made out two forms. It was Iseabal, with Gwynet close on her heels. She felt Iseabal’s tears before she saw them, knew Gwynet was stunned and frightened.

  “Taminy!” gasped Iseabal and fell to silent sobbing.

  “Oh, come mistress!” Gwynet caught her arm and pulled her. “It’s awful, it is! Poor Aine’s fallen from her horse by the Cirkeyard an’ she don’t move!”

  Taminy ran. Gwynet, gasping, told her the Cirkemaster had come down and Osraed Torridon had been sent for but he was up at the Fortress this time of day and mightn’t come in time. The others were scurrying for any other Osraed they could.

  They reached the spot, and already there was a gathering by the low wall that ran round the Cirkeyard. Rennie and Wyvis had brought their mother and others came to where Osraed Saxan had set light globes out upon the wall and ground. They illuminated the spot where Aine lay on her back, her arms flung over her head, her bright hair fanned out like a billow of red mist.

  There was a different red splashed wetly across her temple, but that did not alarm Taminy so much as the angle at which her head lay. She came to her knees beside the other girl’s body, stretching out her hands. Already she could feel the life ebbing away. “What happened, Osraed?”

  “I don’t know. She was thrown ...” Saxan’s face was pale and sweat sodden. His fear vibrated on the breeze, sharp and tangy like sea brine. “Her neck is broken, I think,” he murmured and chewed his knuckle. “Dear God, where is Torridon? This is more than I am capable of.”

  Taminy’s hands framed the place where Aine’s neck twisted so absurdly. Eyes on the spot, she strained for a power that had once been automatic—like the drawing of breath that was becoming increasingly difficult for Aine.

  Please, dear God, dear Mistress, Beloved—let me see! To feel vaguely is not enough. Let me see!

  It was like the clearing of mist from the valley, details coming clear as light burned through the layers. There were layers of darkness, Wyth had said. They pulled away now, and let her see the bone and the break and the torn tissue around it, lit as if by the globes of golden light that sat about them.

  Despair clutched at her heart. Aine was dying beneath her hands, while she sat in this puny human frame, despairing. A scream of sheer frustration rose in her throat. It issued out as a whimper—like so much else. But, no. She must try. Osraed Saxan had admitted his failing and no one else here could hope to do anything. The Meri had graced her with the Healing Sight, perhaps-

  Hands gripped her shoulders and lifted her away. Stunned, she could only acquiesce, and found herself sprawled in the grass, staring at the stooped shoulders of the slight, middle-aged man bending over Aine in her stead. Torridon—she heard his name spoken.

  She picked herself up and wiped her hands on the fabric of her skirt. Voices and torches began to mill and, with them, questions. She glanced around hoping to see someone who might have answers.

  “Her horse bolted.” Rennie stood beside her, his lower lip raw from the chewing he’d been giving it. “Threw her right into the wall. Didn’t see how it happened.”

  “She was riding so fast,” Wyvis said. “And she pulled up just there.” She pointed toward the Cirkeyard’s open gateway.

  “Just level with us. I thought she was stopping to talk to us. She came up beside Phelan with this funny look on her face-”

  “Like she was trying not to cry,” added Rennie. “And then the horse-” He gestured with his hand.

  “It almost fell on her,” said Wyvis.

  The noise seemed to escalate suddenly and Taminy could hear a high keening from behind her. She turned to see Doireann Spenser leading an older woman through the crowd. As they came into the light of torch and globe, there was no doubt that this was Aine’s mother. A man followed, and three tall, red-haired boys.

  The woman saw Aine’s still body lying between the kneeling Osraed and shrieked. “What’s happened to my girl? Oh, dear God, what’s happened to Aine?”

  Doireann saw Taminy then, and blanched. Sensing that her guide had become an anchor, the Mistress Lorimer stopped and followed Doireann’s gaze.

  “What is it? What?”

  “N-nothing,” said Doiry. “It’s just that ... Aine was talking to Taminy just before. She’d ridden out to see her. She was on her way back when-”

  Anything more she might have said was cut off by a raw cry of anguish from the place where Aine lay. One of the Lorimer’s red-haired boys rose from the ground and cried, “Mama, she’s gone! Aine’s gone!”

  No, Taminy thought. It can’t be. It mustn’t be. Not Aine.

  She was drawn to the spot against her will. To see vibrant Aine, dead. Mustn’t be. She watched the mother all but swoon over the girl’s body; watched Torridon age and wither; watched Saxan sweat and shake while he held is own daughter in his arms.

  The Lorimer lifted his wife away and cocooned her. Torridon sat and shook his head. She moved forward without them seeing her and knelt opposite the Healer. She put her hands out—one over Aine’s heart, the other over her throat.

  If I never Weave again, let me Weave now. If I never know the Gift of Healing again, let me know it now. All else will I sacrifice to this moment. Only let me give this life back!

  There was a rustling of leaves no one else could hear, moved by a breeze no one else would feel. Something stirred among the people gathered at the Cirkeyard. Something rose out of the earth and descended from the sky and radiated from the stones and the trees and the tiny particles they all breathed. Blue Healing gathered itself in Taminy’s soul, collected from the stirring Thing.

  The prayer was answered.

  “What’s she doing? What are you doing?”

  Hands pushed at her, reached for her.
She willed them away.

  “I can’t-! What has she done?”

  “Get her away from my daughter!”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “What’s happened here?”

  Ealad-hach. She knew that voice now. It was part of her dreams. He was close to her. She gave him a corner of her mind; she could spare no more. The Healing was gathering in her, she must concentrate. She could feel it like an ice-hot liquid crown upon her head.

  “By the Kiss, that glow-!”

  “No, no! Leave her be!” That was Saxan.

  Hands again. Ealad-hach’s hands. She raised one of her own, reflexively, heard him give a shocked cough as he met a sudden, invisible resistance that sat him back on his heels.

  “She’s woven a Shield! I can’t touch her. Damn! Your stone, Torridon—give me your stone!”

  The bone. The bone.

  The bone, cracked, must mend.

  The sinews, taut, must bend.

  The crushed breath, flow;

  the heart beat, follow.

  The bone. The bone.

  She found her rhythm, began a duan, praying the corner of her mind given to the Shieldweave would continue to support it.

  Across Aine’s body from her, Ealad-hach held out Torridon’s crystal and tried to Weave against her. He had little strength, caught as he was in the grip of fear, but his voice, loud and sharp, distracted her. She gave a thought to the weakly glowing crystal he held in trembling hands. It flared with sudden blue light and winked out. Ealad-hach shrieked and Taminy’s duan faltered.

  No! I can’t! Beloved, it’s too much! These people, the Shield—I can’t. Not alone.

  She thought of Saxan and Iseabal and nearly reached for them when she felt Wyth at her back, calm, though quivering with her need. She reached up a hand and Wyth took it in a firm grip.

  There was another. She dared glance up. Bevol stood across from her near the gate, his eyes shining.

  She returned her own to Aine. Yes! The bones! She could see them. Twisted, so. Time slipped by; she must hurry. First the Healweave, then the Infusion. She sang.

  No one had heard the duan before—only the Meri knew it. It pulled at the bones and tissue in Aine’s broken neck. It molded them as a sculptor molds clay, with fingers of Blue Healing—Divine Fingers, unseen.

  Taminy’s fingers, poised over Aine’s throat, flexed, there was a sound like a stick being pulled from mud and a breeze sprang up, cool, from the river. Within it, the Stirring Thing moved and breathed over Aine-mac-Lorimer’s spirit, all but drained away. In Taminy’s hand, a ball of light formed, blossoming like a little flame rose, petals opening in her hand, glorious. She placed the full flower on Aine’s breast and watched it explode into filaments of molten light before sinking like ground mist into the girl’s flesh.

  The breeze gusted and Aine-mac-Lorimer gasped for air, throwing herself into a ragged fit of coughing.

  Taminy’s Shieldweave shattered into a million motes. Spent, she sagged back against Wyth’s legs. He lifted her out of the way of the pandemonium that engulfed the waking Aine and helped her to the wall, letting her down against it. From there, she watched Aine’s family, Torridon and Saxan all but crush the poor girl in their concern.

  “Thank you, Wyth,” she murmured. “How did you know to come?”

  “You called me ... or She did.”

  “Yes, I suppose we did.” She smiled wanly and shifted to move a rock from under her hip. But what her groping hand found was not a rock.

  “How did this happen?” Ealad-hach’s voice came from nearly atop her. “How did she come to be here, in the thick of it?”

  It was a runebag. It was hard and damp and smelled sharply of camphor and valerian. She looked up, puzzled, to see the old Osraed glaring down at her, clutching Doireann with one hand and Phelan with the other.

  Doireann’s eyes, horror stricken, lit upon the runebag and would not let go. She pointed. “She did it, Osraed. She had private words with Aine and then made her horse go crazy and-and dash her into the wall. She was getting even for that happening Cirke-dag. See, she’s got a runebag in her hand, now.”

  Taminy turned her eyes to Ealad-hach, ready to protest, however weakly. His smile stopped the words in her throat.

  “A reckoning, cailin. Now we shall have a reckoning.”

  She was at the center of a whirlwind, then—a whirlwind made of torchlight and darkness, of faces with harrowed eyes, of guiding hands and demanding voices. It reminded her of another such whirlwind, long ago. A wind that was part of her memory, if not her experience. Where that cyclone had blown itself out in the throne room of a Cyne, this one spent itself in the courtyard at Halig-liath, leaving Taminy surrounded by people who understood little more of what was happening than she did.

  Ealad-hach, his face flushed and shining, was speaking loudly and authoritatively about her use of the Wicke Craft to cause Aine’s horse to bolt. He spoke of revenge and jealousy. Questions were asked and voices raised and over the rush and murmur came Doireann Spenser’s trembling testimony that Taminy must have maddened Aine’s mount with the runebag she was holding, must have made the horse throw her.

  She started to protest, but realized no one would hear her—no one but Bevol and Wyth and Gwynet, who didn’t believe a word of Ealad-hach’s harangue anyway. They were close to her; Bevol’s hand was on her arm. She was safe.

  Ealad-hach called for the Osraed Council to meet. Aine’s father added his voice to the demand and Doireann’s mother, and Iseabal’s. Prentices scurried into the dark and, in what seemed like only minutes, Taminy was led from the cool, starlit courtyard into the confines of the Academy. Through the ancient stone hallways she was brought, at last, to the large chamber in which the Council of the Osraed met. There, Bevol left her side and took his seat at the long, crescent table, prepared to act as Apex.

  “One moment, brother.” Ealad-hach raised his hand in protest. “Is it appropriate for you to be part of the Council when you are so obviously prejudiced in favor of this girl? You would not find against her if the world depended on it.”

  “And you would not find for her,” said Bevol.

  “This is absurd, Ealad,” objected Osraed Calach. “And unprecedented. The Apex has never been asked to step down for any reason.”

  Bevol raised his hand. “Stay, brothers, I will not be the center of needless argument. I will step down. I accord the duties and privileges of Apex pro-tem to Osraed Calach.” He retreated then, returning to Taminy’s side.

  “Very well.” Calach glanced at Ealad-hach. “You too will step down, Osraed Ealad-hach. It isn’t appropriate for you to act as inquisitor and adjudicator ... I can only assume you are leveling some charge at the cailin.”

  “A very specific charge, Osraed. I charge that she is a very clever and powerful Wicke.”

  The chamber erupted into chaos then, as if the spoken words had invoked a human storm. The Osraed were forced to clear the room of all but their own number and such people as they hastily agreed were to be called as witnesses. The curious townsfolk settled for a long wait in the broad outer corridor, where Prentices were posted to keep them from leaning too heavily on the doors.

  Taminy watched all from a high state of trembling detachment. Watched as Ealad-hach called upon Iseabal and the other youth to relate what had happened earlier. Watched as he advanced his pet theory—that she had struck out at Aine-mac-Lorimer in revenge for the paltry effrontery of an amateurish runebag and caused the girl’s death, then, realizing she had gone too far, been forced to resuscitate her.

  “The girl was dead?” asked Calach.

  Ealad-hach was momentarily discomfited. “She was ... brought back by an Infusion Weave.”

  Calach turned his eyes to Taminy. “Your Weaving, child?”

  Taminy nodded. “My Weaving, sir. With the help of the Osraed Wyth and Bevol. Osraed Ealad-hach tried to remove me ... it was very difficult.”

  Calach looked to Ealad-hach. “You tried to remove he
r? Whatever for?”

  “I was afraid she meant the girl further harm.”

  “She was dead, Osraed. What further harm could be done?”

  Taminy heard Bevol chuckle. The sound soothed her somewhat. It had a somewhat different effect on Ealad-hach.

  “She had already caused the girl bodily harm. I was concerned for her spirit. And it was Torridon’s province, not the girl’s, to remedy the situation.”

  “Torridon? Was the girl interrupting your ministrations?”

  Torridon shook his head. “The damage was too severe. It was beyond me. I had given up ... I am ashamed to say,” he added.

  “Then you are all in agreement that Taminy-a-Gled performed a successful Infusion, saving Aine-mac-Lorimer’s life. Is that agreed?” Calach glanced around at the witnesses. All nodded or murmured their accord. “Are you also in agreement that Taminy caused the girl’s accident?”

  This question elicited no such positive response.

  “If I may,” said Osraed Saxan and was recognized. “Taminy didn’t even arrive on the scene until I had gone out to see what had happened. I heard the children screaming and shouting. Taminy wasn’t there.”

  “Taminy didn’t need to be there. Taminy did her work from afar.” Ealad-hach held up the pungent little runebag Taminy had found by the wall. “She had this in her hand. Camphor, valerian, peppermint. This concoction is known for the fear its smell inspires in certain animals. According to Doireann Spenser, Aine sought Taminy out to speak with her. Their relationship was strained, hostile. When the Lorimer girl remounted her horse, Taminy produced this bag and used it to madden the beast. It plunged down the hill and threw Aine-mac-Lorimer into the wall by the Cirke.”

  “That concoction,” said Bevol quietly, “is also thought by some to ward off evil and keep Wicke from working their Craft.”

  “It seems,” said Calach, “that we are more certain Taminy saved Aine’s life than we are that she took it. I would like to hear from Taminy, now. Come forward, child, and give us your Tell.”

  She did as bidden, finding that her legs would still carry her from here to there. She stood in the center of the great room with all eyes on her and said, “Aine rode out to see me as we were coming home over the hill. She told me she wasn’t the one who brought the runebag into the Sanctuary last Cirke-dag.”