Only miles now! she thought. Only miles to the shore, to the sand, to the Sea, to the Meri.
When she had been old enough to understand the Pilgrimage, when she realized that it would be her destiny, she had first asked Osraed Bevol about his own journey. How long had he waited? How had the Meri come? What did She look like? She had learned, then, that he had waited a full day and half the next night. And that, when the night was darkest, the water had been suffused with light—sinuous, undulating light. And the light had coalesced, become too bright to be borne, too glorious to look upon. And then, She had come. Out of the glorious waves. Gleaming. Refulgent. Jewel-like. Sun-like.
Bevol had called Her beautiful, but could not or would not, describe Her. She was not human, he said. She was Eibhilin—Divine, Angelic. She could not be described in human terms. She was embodied light. She was Light with eyes like emeralds.
Meredydd had read the Book of Pilgrimages and the old commentaries and journals written by the Fathers of the Osraed—the first ones to be called by the Meri. They had seemed like dim fiction to her until then. Osraed Bevol had rendered them suddenly vivid and real.
“But Master,” she had said, “the Journal of Osraed Morfinn says Her eyes are silver—like the face of a cloud.”
“They were like emeralds,” Bevol repeated. “Emeralds. I will never forget.”
Meredydd set one unworthy foot before the other and prayed she would be blessed enough to see those eyes herself—whether they were silver or emerald mattered not at all.
o0o
“Meredydd!” Wyth Arundel sat up with a start, his heart pounding like a woodpecker in his chest, his face feeling frostbitten. He had dreamed of her again as he had done each night of her Pilgrimage, as he had done whenever, as now, he dozed over his studies.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Fiery light filtered into the room from the window before his worktable and set his books and papers and crystals ablaze. Ah, and they might as well burn for all the good they did him. He could think of little besides Meredydd and the Meri and he thought of them both in guilty turns.
Most of his thoughts were prayers—prayers that the Meri would show mercy to a well-meaning cailin, prayers that Meredydd’s purity of heart or sincerity or honesty would incline that Being to mercy. He prayed much and studied little, spending an inordinate amount of time imagining he was feeling Meredydd’s moods and was privy to her emotions.
Just now, he felt a peculiar fluttering hope. It stood in stark contrast to the abject despair he’d experienced at times over the last several days, to the terror he’d fled from in last night’s dream. He wanted to believe it was what she was feeling just now, watching the sun set over the Western Sea.
He watched the ruddy glow, himself, as it receded from his room, then rose to light the lamps.
Chapter 12
Know that the worlds of the Spirit are countless and infinite. No man can number them, no man can encompass them, but only the Spirit of the Universe, which men call God.
What a wonder is your dreaming state! The thing you see tonight in dreams is experienced in the waking world only with the passage of time. If the world of your dream and the world of your waking were the same world, then that which occurred in the dream must also occur in this waking world at the same moment.
This cannot be, and it follows that the world in which you wake is separate from the aislinn world in which you dream. Indeed, this aislinn world has no beginning and no end.
Now, where is this world? It is true to say that this world is within yourself and is wrapped up in the cloak of your existence. It is also true to say that your spirit, transcending the limitations of physical sleep, has slipped from this contingent world and has passed to a place which lies hidden in the innermost reality of this world.
Is not the creation of God infinite? There are more worlds than this one. Meditate on this that you might discover the aim of God, the Spirit of this infinite Universe.
— The Corah, Book I
Verses 34-38
The Sun was sinking behind them when at last they reached the low line of bluffs that gave onto the beach. They had been traveling in the deepening shade of the forest, nibbling on twists of bread and jerky as they went. Beside them the Bebhinn played a constant and constantly variable song—notes of liquid crystal cascading over rocks, gliding through narrow channels, spiraling and eddying in momentary pools. Bird-flutes added their woodwind piping to the chorus and the wind soughed high in the trees, counterpoint to the river.
At the rim of the bluff the trees simply stopped, opening onto an overpowering vista. Meredydd gasped. To the south, the Bebhinn plunged to the beach, her frothy column falling, bride-white into the arms of her lover. Ruddy gold light from the dying Sun washed over the trysting place, turning the Sea to wine. The river shed its bridal veils and flowed over the marshes to receive the wedding cup.
“It’s endless!” breathed Meredydd. Her eyes scanned the horizon, seeking some break in the dark, featureless plain of violet water.
“Everything on Earth has an end,” commented Skeet.
She glanced at him sharply.
He grinned up at her, his teeth and eye-whites gleaming in the deepening twilight. “Tha’s what Master Bevol says.”
Meredydd nodded, then sent her attention back to the beach. “How do we get down?”
After some exploration, they found a rocky path that followed the cascade of white water down the scarp. It was difficult to navigate in the near darkness, but at last they set foot on the sand.
Meredydd stood, quivering, her heart beating against her ribs like a captive bird. Now she must find her own spot in the sand from which to focus her meditation—her Pilgrim’s Post at which she would await the Meri.
“I’ll build a fire,” Skeet told her, pragmatic as ever. As Weard, it was his duty to be pragmatic. “Then you should eat, mistress.”
Skeet had, Meredydd thought, as she went through the motions of gathering dry driftwood, an amusingly irritating and endearing way of issuing orders obsequiously. She couldn’t recall having ever disobeyed or contradicted him—his own occasional and inconsistent care to call her “mistress” not withstanding. When the fire roared up from its sheltered pit, spilling uncertain light over the sand, Meredydd sat cross-legged beside it in the lea of a shoulder-high tussock of grass and ate the food Skeet provided. She ate in silence, then took up her waterbag and, wrapping her cloak about her shoulders against the chill of the night sea air, she began to walk toward the water.
Just above where the sand glistened with wetness, she turned north and scanned the beach. The moon had risen and scattered its ethereal radiance over every grain and pebble—gold to copper to silver.
She had only gone a few yards down along the wet-line when she found the Spot. Situated between two grass-crowned tussocks, the sandy seat presented the aspect of a draperied sack chair. She took up her position there at once, wind-sheltered by the tussocks, and tried not to sleep.
For the first hour she kept her eyes on the water, praying, hoping to see a gleam of white upon the water that was not the reflected moon. But no, she thought, the radiance of the Meri would be beneath the water, in it.
She recalled the description given in the Book of Pilgrimages by Osraed Ben-muir. Like milk, he said. The waters of the ocean were so permeated with white light as to look like fresh milk.
Osraed Bevol and others had corroborated that description, but added that the milk had a greenish tinge. She closed her already burning eyes and opened them again, hoping for a change in the cast of the water. But it was still merely an ocean—vast, dark, beautiful, mysterious, alight with moon-weave and wave-glow.
She looked around her after that, realizing there was no need to stare so intently at the waves. She was not likely to miss the coming of the Meri. Instead she checked the position of the moon and stars to gauge the time of night; she watched Skeet at his fire up the beach; she let her eyes stray across the line of trees atop t
he bluffs. Several times she came near to sleep, but kept herself awake by singing simple Cirke lays. During that exercise she recalled more of her readings from the Book of Pilgrimages. The Meri, it was recorded, had only once been seen during the first twelve hours of a Pilgrim’s watch.
Don’t be discouraged, anwyl. Don’t ever be discouraged.
“Yes, Osraed Bevol,” she heard herself say. She blinked drowsily. Where had her thoughts been? Had Skeet said something to her? He must have, for the Osraed wasn’t here.
She frowned. What was that red glow on the water? That wasn’t right. The Meri’s radiance was pale, luminous. This was...this was....
Sunrise.
Chilled to the heart, Meredydd sat bolt upright. She had slumped sideways, her head finding a pillow on one sandy tussock.
She had slept. Tears welled up into her eyes before she could contain them. Another failure. Another—
“Mistress?”
She looked up to find Skeet perched on her left hand hillock, her breakfast in his hands.
“Skeet.” She rubbed at her eyes with the sleeve of her tunic.
“I’ve brought you some food. Some bread and berries.”
“I slept, Skeet. I slept.” She made no attempt to keep the anguish out of her voice.
Skeet frowned and gave her a long, hard look. She waited, silently aching, to hear his condemnation. He put the food down before her on the hem of her cloak.
“Meredydd,” he said. “Why must you always heap ashes on your head? Why must you always say you’ve failed before you’ve even finished your task? In what have you failed? So, you slept. Then, you must have needed sleep. Now you need food. Eat.” And he was gone, heading back over the low dunes toward his smoldering fire.
In what had she failed?
She chewed slowly on the now tasteless portion Skeet had furnished her and pondered that imponderable. She cringed mentally from approach. In what way had she not failed? She had been an unruly child, sweet natured, but wild-willed and stubborn. Her mother had called her “spirited;” her father said she would try the patience of a saint. He always smiled when he said that...at least, more often than not. But he was right.
She wished Osraed Bevol was here now so she could ask him, “Did I try your patience, Master?”
Nonsense. She knew the answer to that. Of course she did, and often. The way she would always ask the same question five times in different ways as if she expected a different answer each time, the way she insisted on reading every word of every reference book herself—as if she didn’t trust the accounts of her Master or teachers. Her stubbornness, her lack of unquestioning obedience—that would have tried anyone’s patience.
Well, she had tried to remedy that. Tried so very hard, because it was disobedience, after all, that had put her in Bevol’s care.
“Go straight home, Meredydd.” She heard the words as clearly as if her mother stood before her and spoke them. Dear God, she wished her mother could stand before her—could say anything to her.
She shivered and glanced about. She could see no more than four or five feet in any direction. The ocean fog was in, lying woolen upon the shivering sand. She could almost make her mother appear, an angel in pale blue amid the silver-grey of the mist. She was beautiful in pale blue. It was her favorite color. It favored her eyes. Meredydd’s eyes were dark like her father’s—nearly the burgundy of wine. She was always torn between pride at that and longing that they be like her mother’s—pale and clear and sweet.
“Go straight home, Meredydd.” The blue-dress angel was firm, but smiling. She stood in the bright sun of the Cirke-yard, a light shawl about her shoulders, her hair ruddy-gold. “There’ll be dumplings for dinner.”
“Yes, marmie,” Meredydd said, but she would disobey. She knew she would disobey even as she lifted her face for her mother’s kiss and skipped away into the mellow summer afternoon.
In what had she failed?
She had failed to obey. She had failed to be there when the killers came. Her very existence spoke more eloquently of failure than any words she could say.
“Yes, marmie.”
Chilled to the marrow, small and shrinking, Meredydd hugged herself for warmth. And then, she thought. And then I disobeyed Osraed Bevol.
How often had she gone there—to Lagan—when she knew he didn’t wish her to? How long had she spent there raking through ashes, burrowing under rubble, looking for a clue? How long had she spent in Nairne, at Cirke, everywhere she went, ears pricked like a hearth cat’s for a breath of the murderers’ names?
And she had failed to discover that until—
Why did you not tell me before? she asked, and all the reasons spoke sharply, clearly. She could even understand them.
Wyth Arundel had planted the suspicion in her mind, Osraed Bevol had only confirmed it—or nearly so. That he had confirmed it now—was that merely a coincidence, or was it one more test of her worthiness, one more test she was failing? She could not be the forgiving, long-suffering saint she wanted to be—not with this horrible, dark anger dwelling inside her. It cast its long shadow over the silver-bright mist, turning it to dark gloom.
She conjured a child’s memory of Rowan Arundel, towering (all men are giants to a little girl), big-boned and broad. Wyth took more after his mother. He’d visited the forge, of course; everyone about Nairne visited her father’s forge. It was a fine, grand forge and Meredydd wished she’d been a boy so she might be expected to grow up and work it at her father’s side.
But she was a girl. Had her father ever regretted that? If he had, he never let it show. He let her watch him as he hammered and shaped the fire-bright iron into horse shoes or wheel rims or ornate, decorative shapes. He would even give her little tasks to do for him—ferrying bits of iron, holding his files when he did a shoeing. He’d done some andirons and a fender for Arundel, she recalled.
She’d had occasion to be in the forge when Rowan Arundel came there. Hadn’t there been a time when she might have divined the shape events would take? Hadn’t there been a certain burden between the Smythe-a-Lagan and the Eiric of Arundel—something of more import than an argument over the price of andirons?
o0o
“Are you certain,” asked Arundel, “that’s your final word?
It could be worth a fair piece to you.”
His back was to the door of the forge; he did not see her there with her little bucket of apple peelings (a favor for her father’s four-legged clients).
“I know what it’s worth,” said Father. “Tha’s naught to me. But you may have th’easement.”
Arundel’s neck grew bright red and Meredydd wondered what “easement” was that it made him so fired.
“That’s charity,” he said.
“’Tis a virtue worth cultivating,” Father returned and smote the iron bar he worked a stiff blow. Sparks leapt.
Meredydd loved the sound of that—metal on metal. It was music to her. But not so, apparently to Eiric Rowan Arundel, who made a forceful, futile gesture with one great arm and said, “Is that your last word, smythe?”
Her father looked up then, and blinked at his visitor through the sweat that covered his face in a glistening mask. His cheeks were ruddy, glowing, near bright as his forge. “Aye. And take it as tha’ this time, Arundel. Ye’ve heard it often enough.” He looked back to his work.
“You’re not a local, or—”
Her father’s face came back up again, glowing brighter, eyes glittering. “Or what, sir? Or I’d know the place of a smythe before a well-landed Eiric? Well, forgive me, sir. Pardon me, sir. But I couldn’a love this place more if I’d been birthed here. You’ve my last word, sir, but if ye’re not a-feared of a little neighborly charity, th’easement’s yours.”
“I’m not a-feared of anything,” said Arundel, “or anyone.”
He nearly tripped over Meredydd in his haste to leave.
She hopped aside and held up her bucket of peelings for her father’s inspection. “Will t
here be horses today, tada?”
He never answered her. He turned to look at her, his handsome, beloved, sweat-polished face set in a smile, and faded to grey.
“Tada, no!”
o0o
Meredydd found her arms held open to billowing mists. She wailed aloud, anguished at the suddenness of loss, feeling as if a great hole had been carved in her breast, in her life. How many times must she lose them? How many nights must be spent reliving it, one way or another? How long must her heart sift through the ashes of dead Lagan and come up with nothing but pain?
Her sorrow shifted violently toward rage. How dare Rowan Arundel balk at charity, yet countenance murder? How dare he then die before she could have her revenge on him?
Tears flowing furiously, she shifted her position in the sand, pulling her cloak more closely about her shivering body.
She had passed by Wyth Arundel every day, rubbed shoulders with him at Cirke, said a polite daeges-eage to his mother at market; she had studied under him, endured his coldness and finally his cruelty, never even suspecting that he was the son of her family’s murderer. Ah, but if she had known—
What? What would you have done, Meredydd the Avenger—pulled out a dagger and slit his throat? Found a Dark Sister and borrowed a curse to smite him with? What could you have done, faint-heart?
“I could have told him.”
She sat very still, inside and out, pondering that—tears stoppered. Yes, that would have been revenge enough. The boy was already burdened by his father’s suicide, by a weakness he feared he might have inherited. Rumor was, he’d taken up the quest for Osraed-hood because of his father’s sin. It was his atonement.
He’d all but groveled at her feet that day at Lagan. Ah, and what more perfect place! If she had only known then what she knew now, what a different scene that would have been.
o0o
“Your father killed my parents. Killed them to get their land for his stupid, hungry sheep. Killed them so he could get more animals to market at Creiddylad—so he wouldn’t have to take them along the highroad south.” Her voice was hoarse, raspy—the voice of a harpy, the voice of vengeance.
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