It was an unworthy goal; she knew it. She knew it most cuttingly when Osraed Bevol’s eyes were on her, as they were now.
But wasn’t it justice she wanted to serve? Wasn’t it nobler than vengeance? Wasn’t it a just retribution?
“Meredydd,” said Bevol softly, so that only she could hear. “There is no duan for vengeance, did you know that? There is no Runeweave in the Divine Art for retribution. Only wicke-craft offers that consolation. Only a Dark Sister can accept such a mission.”
I can’t hear you, she thought.
Thwarted, now. Her requital was thwarted. These years she had poked about the corpse of Lagan, seeking her sign, her clue and the murderer had been dead, himself. Out of her reach, damn him! Out of the reach of her passion to be the cause of his destruction.
Ah, the frustration. She had had her revenge in her hand just a week past, when the son of her parents’ murderer had stood right in front of her and offered up his heart and soul. Had she but known, she could have spurned him viciously, made his life hell, tortured him with what she suspected. Or better, she could have accepted his offer of marriage and destroyed him slowly from the inside out, day by day.
She wondered if his mother knew the truth. Wondered if the hatred she’d felt from the woman had its source in the results of her husband’s greed—or in her own. If she had only known, she might have woven a Truth Rune for Moireach Arundel...if only she had known. She recalled the scene in the Osraed’s Chamber, but recalled it differently. Instead of Meredydd the Meek, standing naively before her accusers. She was the Avenger of Lagan, hurling a counter-accusation, pressing for a Runeweave that would force the truth into the open. A far different Moireach Arundel would that be, cowering on the polished floor. What would Wyth think of his mother, then, when it was shown without doubt that Meredydd was innocent?
Innocent?
She cowered herself, then, cringing away from the stuff of her own thoughts. Not innocent. Vicious. Cruel. The same Meredydd Wyth thought gave such good counsel: The sins of the father are visited upon the son only if the son allows them to be. And Wyth had allowed them to be—without her help. He stewed each day in shame that did not even belong to him; stirred the fire beneath his personal cauldron with feelings of inadequacy and failure and became enamored of Lagan’s sole survivor—his father’s legacy.
It was very quiet in Meredydd’s mind suddenly, and her heart lay hushed in her breast. She did not want Wyth to suffer. She took no joy, at this moment, in knowing that he did suffer, and on her behest. Her desire for revenge tasted bitter on the back of her tongue and she was glad that the Osraed Bevol had not marred her years with him by telling her all he knew of the death of Lagan.
Meredydd closed her eyes. They burned from the dry heat of the fire and the wet heat of her tears.
“Master,” she said, “I’m glad there is no such duan. No such rune.”
She moved to lie down, then, exhausted, and felt Bevol take her shoulders and guide her drooping head to his breast. Across the firepit, Skeet blinked and nodded and mumbled the melody of an old prayer duan. But Meredydd neither saw nor heard him. She had fallen down a well of sleep so deep even dreams could not escape.
o0o
He stood at the top of the stairs, his back to the long stone flight, his face pressed against the mullioned window. His eyes were focused through one of the flat panes that alternated with the faceted lead-crystal ones. The window looked north, over the kitchen roof, across the garden, above the sash of trees along Halig-tyne. He could see the river pasture from here, see the sheep dotted like fleecy mushrooms over the shadow-strewn meadow.
He moved a step to the right and the green world outside fractured into a dizzying collection of tiny pictures—each, a realm complete. He tilted his head and the little images reeled and danced, bright, in shades of green and azure and cloud white.
He was wishing for other colors when the dark banner intruded into his lead-crystal world, appearing out of the darker green of the treetops. He squinted and caught a splash of orange, searing against the new backdrop of sooty grey. He stepped back to the left and the myriad worlds coalesced into one. A world of green and blue and white riven by a pennant of near-black that soared above the tyne-wood.
The tongue of orange licked again at the dark stain and the boy gasped. How pretty it was, that glowing tongue, how eloquently it dispelled his boredom, how delightfully it changed the unchanging world outside the windows of Arundel. He moved back to the faceted pane and watched the play of flame and smoke, his eyes finding more delight in the way the encroaching twilight spread the radiance of the fire out upon the treetops in a soft, diffuse blanket.
Such a blanket! Such a warm, lovely blanket. He tried to imagine curling up within it, warm to the soul, while his mother sang him to sleep the way she had done once, before the responsibilities of being Moireach of Arundel had increased.
Their grand house was full almost every evening with equally grand visitors from as far away as Creiddylad and Eada. There were no visitors this evening, but Mother had been distant and distracted and even angry-seeming, so Wyth had come here to his window world.
He was glad he had been here to see such a grand show. It was almost like the fireworks of Solstice and it went on for a very long time.
He was still watching it as twilight darkened and lost its color, was pulled from the entrancing display when the tiny white dots that were sheep scattered in sudden chaos and something dark darted into the crystal pictures. He moved back to the flat pane and saw a horse dash along the wooded road to disappear out of sight around the flank of the great house.
He smiled. Father was home. He turned his back to the window and came to the top of the stairs as the front door opened and his father, cloaked and bundled despite the warm weather, stepped into the hall.
“Papa!” he cried. “Did you see the fire?”
His father looked up at him, white-faced, and said nothing. He was still staring voicelessly when his wife swooped into the hall like a great, colorful bird, and drew him away into the parlor. The doors closed behind them, but they did not seal away the sound of raised, yet muffled voices—the sound of anger, the sound of fear, the sound of weeping...of his father weeping.
He had never heard his father weep. Never.
He sat down upon the stairs and listened to the frightening new sound while, behind him, the tiny window panes glittered with points of orange light.
Wyth Arundel awoke with a shudder and forced his eyes open. He hadn’t had that dream for years. He hadn’t wanted to have it because he feared it. Not for itself, but for its companion. If and when he slept again tonight, he would dream another dream that seemed always to pair itself with this one. A dream of a horrifying, stretched shadow swinging, pendulum-like, upon a slanted wall.
Wyth shuddered again and blinked rapidly, not daring to close his eyes for any length of time. He knew that if he did he would see his father hanging there, beneath the third floor stair, his face white, his bulging, startled-looking eyes still full of an emotion his son hoped never to know.
Chapter 6
Beholding the worlds of creation, let the true Pilgrim attain renunciation and know this: The Spirit which is above creation cannot be attained by action.
In his hunger for divine wisdom, let the Pilgrim go
reverently to a Teacher who lives the sacred words and those soul has the peace of the Spirit.
To a Pilgrim who comes with mind and senses in peace, the Teacher gives the vision of the Spirit of truth and eternity.
— The Book of Pilgrimages
(On Pilgrims)
The morning was hushed and wool-hood close. Mist drifted in puffs and tendrils, rising from the earth like waking angels and lifting ephemeral wings toward the Sun—a Sun whose own waking turned lead to gold.
Meredydd sat, cross-legged, on a grassy tussock, meditating on the alchemy inherent in light. Even scents grew more vivid, as if they escaped from dark recesses unlocked a
t sunrise. She breathed deeply, sorting out perfumes and mere smells—morn-blooming flowers, dewy vegetation, wet wood. Sweet, tangy, musky. This moment she would have gladly held forever—a moment with neither purpose nor passion, success nor failure; a moment with no inherent struggle, only peace.
“There is a village not far from here,” said the Osraed Bevol.
Meredydd stirred, exhaling the fragrances of the wood. The first bird of morning sang somewhere high overhead.
“And in that village is a woman.” The Osraed moved to sit nearby, choosing a fallen log over the dewy ground. “Some people, call her Wicke, but they’ve done nothing to offend her in spite of it—or perhaps, because of it. She has, in her possession, several amulets.”
Meredydd pricked up her ears, attention focused completely on Bevol’s words. “Did you make me dream of the amulets, Master?”
“No. The dream was yours, I merely follow its prompting.”
She didn’t question that he knew the substance of the dream. “Tell me about these amulets, Master.”
“There are three. Each of them has a focus, a particular power, which it may manifest when worn by a Pilgrim.” He paused.
“Pardon, Osraed Bevol, but that is not how I understood the workings of an amulet.”
“No? And how did you understand them, then?”
“An amulet is merely a magnifier, not a manifestor. It enhances powers or...qualities already possessed by the wearer. If the wearer does not know how to focus those qualities, the amulet is useless.”
“Ah. Very good. Now, let me tell you about these magnifiers. One enables the wearer to restore faded health, return vigor, energy and youthfulness. It can aid in the healing of wounds, even soothe diseased minds. The second magnifies wisdom and knowledge, makes the crooked straight and the clouded clear. The third enables the wearer to use the Sight—a Sight far keener than any Past Tell. With this amulet, one could see the truth of any matter on which he or she meditated. For the spirit can know things it will not reveal to the conscious mind until focused properly. This amulet contributes to that focus.”
Meredydd shifted uneasily. “And my task?”
“Bring me the most important amulet.”
Meredydd turned her face to him and frowned. “The most important amulet? But important in what way?”
“This is all I am bidden to tell you. Bring me the amulet you think is most important.”
“How will I know?”
Bevol smiled. “Anwyl, that is the test.”
o0o
They walked slowly to the village, Bevol setting the pace.
That was all right by Meredydd. It gave her time to ponder the significance of the amulets she was going to be offered. Healing, Wisdom, the Sight; which of these was the most important?
Healing brought obvious benefits both to the wearer and to his beneficiaries. To return to Bevol his vigor, to place in his hands the tool to magnify his already substantial powers...well, where he had healed tens, he could then heal hundreds. And if, indeed, it could also return his youth, perhaps it would lengthen his life—thereby lengthening her life at his side.
And wisdom—had there ever been a time when wisdom was not necessary, but in short supply? Yet, Bevol certainly did not need something he already possessed in abundance. Perhaps she could eliminate that one.
And the Sight—
Meredydd wriggled inside as part of her lunged at it—to know for certain, once and for all time, if Rowan Arundel had been instrumental in the deaths of her mother and father. To know...
She tore herself from the thought. No! To know the truth of any situation, that was the purpose of the amulet. To be able to tell friend from enemy, good from evil, real from unreal. That was the focus. A tool for justice that was, and someone of the Osraed Bevol’s influence could take such an amulet and make Nairne a shrine of justice. People would come from within and without Caraid-land for the dispensing of real justice.
They stood on the outskirts of a village so tiny it barely merited the title. It was little more than a market square outlined in white stones, a tiny Cirke and a wayhouse.
The Osraed Bevol sighed deeply. “Ah! Here at last. How loathe are these old bones to move. Especially after they’ve been forced to sleep on the cold ground all night. Now, anwyl, Skeet and I will visit the wayhouse while you seek out your first task.”
Meredydd jerked her head about to look at him. “But how will I find the woman who has the amulets, Master? I don’t know her name.”
“Didn’t you see her in your dream?
Meredydd’s brow puckered. “Yes. I think so.”
“Well, then, you’ve already met, haven’t you?” He patted her shoulder and moved off with Skeet under his right elbow.
Meredydd followed them with her eyes, wondering how it had escaped her notice that Osraed Bevol was growing old. She had thought of him as young when he took her in seven years past. His hair had been the color of a copper kettle then, and the snow that now streaked it, a mere flurry.
She struggled to recall her dream. In a moment it came to her, sharp, clear, in focus. A little cottage on the southwest outskirts of town, off the path the villagers trod, avoided by all except when an emergency arose. Then there would be clandestine visits and whispered pleas and secret compensation for secret work. Meredydd moved forward on tentative feet, amazed that her recollection held a depth of detail and certainty she was sure had been lacking in the original dream. And she was certain.
Once she cleared the village on its far side, she saw, on her left, a fern-draped slope—short, sunny and completely familiar.
She had never seen it before.
She hesitated a moment under the still chill shade of the broad-armed fir, then left the path and crossed the green slope to the sparser cover of grove of alder. The cottage was at the center of the grove. It was little more than a bundle of white-washed twigs, really, with a thatched roof and wood-slat trim. A curl of aromatic smoke rose from the stone chimney, spreading itself into a blanket that covered roof and yard.
“Not grand,” said a reedy voice from nowhere, “but it do me.”
Meredydd didn’t jump out of her skin, but might have. An iron-haired, silver-eyed woman stepped out from behind a crape myrtle, a bundle of straw perched on one muscular shoulder.
“I be Mam Lufu. Who be you, Pilgrim?”
Meredydd bowed her head, respectfully. “Daeges-eage, Mam Lufu. I’m Meredydd-a-Lagan, a Pilgrim from Halig-liath.”
The woman laughed. “So circum-respect! You’d be an Osraed-baby, sure enuft. Well, daeges-eage to you, Pilgrim Meredydd. Come in and tell me about your journey.”
Entering Mam Lufu’s cottage was like entering another world. The atmosphere was close and warm and copper-dim with firelight. The air within was as aromatic as the air without and redolent with the tangy perfume of incense and spices.
Rising from the crouch she’d been forced to adopt to enter the door, Meredydd stopped statue still. Through the bundles and nets of herbs and vegetables and grasses that hung from and over the beams of the low conical ceiling, she could see an open area that the cottage exterior failed to even hint at.
“Bigger on the in than on the out, eh?” chuckled Mam Lufu. “That’s what ye was thinkin’, ain’t?”
Meredydd nodded and followed her hostess into the nether room, ducking baskets and drying grasses and reeds that gave off the scent of faded spring marshes and rosemary. This part of the house was roughly round and possessed one deep window on its eastern wall, cut, misshapen, at an odd angle.
Of course, Meredydd realized, the room was hollowed out of the hillside, though that was almost impossible to tell from without.
“Things are sometimes not as they seem,” said Mam Lufu and sat herself down in a rough rocking chair facing the window. “Now then, what’cher Pilgrim’s purpose, today, cailin?”
Meredydd looked at the woman curiously and spoke her thoughts before she could stop them from escaping. “You don’t s
eem surprised to see a female Pilgrim.”
“Nawp. Not surprised.”
“Everyone else thinks it’s a scandal or sacrilegious or just plain wrong.”
“Everyone’s entitled to some thinkin’, I guess.”
“Why aren’t you surprised?”
“’Spected it. S’time again.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Nearly hunnerd year ago, there’s another one just like. Time again.”
Meredydd perched in the window embrasure, the scent of moist earth rich in her nostrils. “Did you know her?” She asked the question without really thinking of what it implied. Mam Lufu looked to be about in her middle age, iron grey hair, aside. She was amazed when the woman nodded.
“She come to me. We passed by each other, you might say.”
“On her Pilgrimage?”
“Aye. Long ago, that was.”
“Did she come here for an amulet?”
“Amulet?”
“That’s what I’ve been sent here for—an amulet. Was that what she came for—Taminy?”
“Everyone comes here for differ’nt things, child.” She rapped her chest with a loose fist. “Inner things. Spirit things.”
“My Master, Osraed Bevol, told me she walked into the sea and drowned.”
Mam Lufu gave her a sharp glance. “He said that, did he? That she walked into the sea? Well, s’true.”
“I’ve heard that was her punishment for trying to be an Osraed when it was an unnatural desire for a woman.”
“Ah? Who said that?”
“Osraed Ealad-hach...others.”
“Well, a lot o’ bodies say that.”
“What do you say?”
Mam Lufu cocked a bright, silvery eye in her direction. “S’that importful, d’ye think?”
It was important to Meredydd, suddenly, and she said as much.
Mam Lufu leaned forward, her chair creaking in mild protest. “Ye’re shiv’rin’ in fear of the same fate, ain’t ye? Well, don’t. Every soul’s fate’s differ’nt. May be by only a hair’s breadth, but so. I’ll tell you the God’s own truth: Taminy-a-Cuinn deserved her fate. And you’ll deserve yours.” She nodded her head emphatically. “Read the tales, child. Listen to the tales. Has Bevol ever told you the story of the Lover and the Wakemen?”
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