Bhotta's Tears: Book Two of the Black Bead Chronicles (14 page)

“Why is the Blackwind Pack here? I was not aware that they had been accepted as your apprentices. Did you know that they have an underage tag-along? How could you let a seven-year-old wander around your yard unsupervised? This seven-year-old, in particular. She is Mora’s whelp. Who knows how much harm she could have caused,” Sybille said, acidly.

Vinara blanched and pressed her lips together. Cheobawn waited for the drover to defend herself but Vinara bowed her head, choosing silence instead. Hayrald rose abruptly to his feet and stepped away to stand at Sybille’s back. With a tone and a look, Sybille had somehow transformed herself from his wife and Packmate into a witch of the High Coven, someone he, as First Prime, would neither challenge nor disobey.

“I understand your concern, Mother,” Vinara said. “I will check Dancer myself before you take her out on patrol.”

“What reassurance do I have that this will not happen again? Do you need assistance in your post? The High Council can find an elder with the necessary experience to assign as your second.”

Vinara’s head snapped up, her eyes full of shock.

“Would you judge me? Must I request a tribunal to state my case?” Vinara said tightly.

The ambient was becoming painfully brittle. Cheobawn wanted to be anywhere but here. She sank into the dark place in her core to play with the double spirals. If she did it just right, a warm bubble formed just outside her body. She smiled, pleased. She rose very carefully, juggling the need to control her muscles and her breathing while staying focused on the inward and outward pushing.

She stepped silently and carefully over the flagstones until she found herself, unaccountably, standing in front of Sigrid. She considered the young man for a moment, watching his calm face as he watched the rising tension between Vinara and Sybille. He did not look down. Was he ignoring her on purpose? She pressed carefully outward and inward, extending her bubble until it slid around Sigrid and gathered him in.

Sigrid jerked, a startled look on his face as he looked down at her, seemingly seeing her for the first time.

“How did you …”

“I must apologize to you,” she said. Her words flowed out on a long breath, that she might still hold the bubble while she talked. She breathed in, balancing the inward breath against the outward one. Talking and warding at the same time was difficult.
She could feel a sheen of sweat forming on her body. “It was not meant as insult,” she said on the next breaths, “that we intruded on your time with Vinara.”
 

Sigrid’s eyes flashed around the stable yard and then met her eyes again. Cheobawn could not tell what he saw. She was too busy pushing. The effort was making her blind to more than just the ambient. Her vision had narrowed down into a curious tunnel effect.

“I do not understand what you are doing, Little Mother. One moment you were sitting on the mounting block, the next you are standing here. No. Wait. I remember a dream … you got up and walked over to me. Gah! That does not make any sense. Have you learned to bend time, Little Mother?”

“I am hiding,” she said simply. “Tell Tam I have gone home.” Cheobawn took back the bubble, settling it again, just on the edge of her body before she walked, sliding her feet along the stone one step at a time as she head towards the South Gate. It took every conscious part of her mind. Had she been walking along a balance beam over an abyss, she would not have had to work harder.

The gate nearly stymied her. Could one ward a mindless thing? Did she even want to ward the security system? She needed to be seen to be allowed entrance. Cheobawn breathed out slowly around her confusion. There was no help for it. She eased her bubble around the gate kiosk and placed her palm on the pressure plate. Looking up into the lens of the camera on the com unit, she waited for it to recognize her hand print.

“Where’s the rest of your Pack, Little Mother?” Bindle’s voice asked from the speaker set above the pressure plate.

“Vinara has thrown me out of the stables. I upset the fenelk,” Cheobawn said. This was not a total lie. She waited.

“You are out on a group tag. You will just have to wait until they finish,” Brindle said. Cheobawn made a show of looking over her shoulder and biting her lip. She even managed to make her lip tremble a bit.

“OK. I will just go tell Sybille,” she said uncertainly.

“Urgh! Don’t do that,” he said hastily. There was a long silence from the other side of the gate. “Alright. Get in here.” The gate swung open. Cheobawn scampered through, the bubble in her mind collapsing. She turned to watch the stable yard disappear behind the rapidly closing gates. Vinara and Sybille had stopped arguing. Hayrald was looking around, his eyes hunting for something lost. Megan was looking at the gate. Tam followed his Alpha Ear’s gaze, a puzzled look on his face. Cheobawn smiled and waved at them just as the doors snicked shut.

The biggest question of the moment was whether Sybille or Vinara would come carrying tales of her misbehavior to Mora. That was almost a certainty. But would it be now or later? Was she about to endure the attention of the High Council for the second time in under a double handful of days? For the first time in her life, Cheobawn felt she had a defensible position. Her actions had been logical, the results productive. What did one do in this instance? Perhaps being the first one to present a case before the person who would judge you might give you an advantage in a dispute.

She turned towards Bindle. He was writing something on a white slip of paper. When he was done, he hung it over the yellow token that represented her Pack.

“What did you write?” Cheobawn asked, curious. “Are you going to be in trouble for breaking the rules?”

“It says a little Black Bead who cannot seem to keep her nose clean broke ranks with her Pack and abandoned them,” Brindle said sternly. “Tell me you have not set Vinara into an uproar. You will be banned for life from the stables, mark my words.”

Cheobawn was curiously untroubled by Brindle’s reference to her omeh or her well deserved scolding. “Vinara? It is Sybille whose rage you feel pounding through the panels of that gate. She is … very scary.”

Brindle snorted, trying not to smile.

“Truer words, Little Mother, truer words.”

“If Hayrald asks, I have gone looking for Mora,” she said.

“Oh, and Brindle?”

“What?”

“Thank you. You are very kind.”

“Pfft,” Brindle snorted, waving her on. Cheobawn smiled and scampered away.

Chapter Twelve

C
heobawn’s bemused state of mind lasted all the way up the South Avenue and across the central plaza to her apartment. The Coven, out of sheer necessity, occupied the upper floors of the apartment building closest to the infirmity. A small garden buffered the front of the building from the busy thoroughfares. The business offices of the High Mother took up the ground floor but Mora’s office was upstairs inside the family quarters.
 

Cheobawn went around the side of the building and took the private stairway up to the second floor. With every step she became more and more convinced that she was doing something right, for once. The black bead in her omeh seemed less a burden and more a statement of fact. She was different. There was no getting around that. But she was tired of people telling her she needed to feel ashamed of who she was. Perhaps Good Luck and Bad Luck were just the same thing, like spirals of ambient, traveling in opposite directions, balancing each other out.

She stepped into the vestibule, closing the door behind her with a loud, satisfying thump before veering off the hallway into the kitchen. Seersha, one of Mora’s secretaries, was arranging biscuits on a plate. A tea tray, already set with tea cups, spoons, and a small honey pot stood at the ready. Seersha looked up with a look of distaste. She was a very orderly person and Cheobawn, to her mind, was a mess that was forever needing to be cleaned up.

“I have to talk to Mora,” Cheobawn said without preamble. “Can I take the tea tray in to her?”

“No,” Seersha said firmly. “You always slosh the water and make the biscuits soggy.”

Cheobawn had done that just once, when she was five. She sighed.

The biscuits reminded her that lunch had been hours ago. She started opening the tins on the kitchen counter until she found one full of cheese crackers. She grabbed a handful and popped a few into her mouth.

“Dinner bell is in an hour. Can you not wait?”

“Mmmph,” said Cheobawn, shaking her head.

Seersha grabbed a napkin off the tea tray and shoved it into Cheobawn’s free hand. “Don’t talk with your mouth full and try not to make a mess,” she said with a sigh in resignation.

Cheobawn smiled at her from around her crackers and headed down the hall towards Mora’s office.

“She is busy!” Seersha called after her, her hands busy with pouring hot water into the teapot. “Don’t just barge in.”

Cheobawn swallowed. Pivoting on one toe, she walked backwards down the hall for a pace or two.

“You are bringing her tea. She must stop, at least for a moment, to drink it. What better time than this?” She had learned, growing up, if she waited for a time to be convenient for Mora, that time would never happen. One just learned to find the times that annoyed the least.

Cheobawn knocked and waited.

“Come,” called Mora. Cheobawn opened the door and walked in, leaving the door ajar behind her. Mora looked up from her study of the reports on her comscreen and looked pointedly at the door.

“Seersha will be here in a minute with your tea. I caused a fight between Vinara and Sybille. Hayrald may be upset with me, also,” she began, the litany of her offenses growing in her mind as she thought about them. She sat down in one of the stiff backed chairs in front of Mora’s desk and crammed another couple of crackers in her mouth. Mora stared at her, her face inscrutable. After she swallowed Cheobawn added the most exciting part of her recital. “I think Sybille’s Dancer has adopted me into her herd. Did you know they are not nearly as stupid as fenelk? Has Menolly ever dreamwalked in the stables? I think she would find it very instructive.”

Mora pressed her fingertips to her temples. Seersha scowled down at Cheobawn as she edged through the door with her full tea tray.

“You’ve done it again, haven’t you? Why can’t you have simple problems like other little girls?” Seersha asked. “Do you have a headache, First Mother? Shall I make a tisane?”

Cheobawn ignored Seersha, her eyes on her Mother. Seersha’s words caused a cross look to flashed for a moment upon her mother’s face. It was a fleeting glimpse into the workings of her mother’s mind. Cheobawn felt almost privileged, as if she and Mora had shared something intimate. Cheobawn smiled. Mora returned her look, her face once more porcelain smooth. Seersha saw none of this exchange as she set the tray on the little tea table at Mora’s side.

“That will be all, Seersha. Close the door on your way out. We are not to be disturbed.” Mora said evenly. “Inform
Sybille, Vinara, and Hayrald that I require their presence before the day is through.”

Seersha scowled down at Cheobawn, suspicious of this turn of events.

Cheobawn smiled back, pasting a wide-eyed look on innocence on her face.

The secretary humphed in annoyance and left.

Mora poured two cups of tea, adding honey and a small slice of the candied rind of the bitterfruit. She placed a cup in front of her truedaughter, remaining silent while she waited for Seersha to close the door. Cheobawn polished off the last of the crackers, wiped her greasy fingers on the napkin and picked up the tea cup. As the door snicked shut Cheobawn remembered the most damning offense of all.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. Vinara let Blackwind Pack audit the lesson she had prepared for the Ramhorn Pack. I know they are preparing for the Meetpoint run. It was not intended, on anyone’s part, to go against your advice about the Lowlander subject. If we offend, it was in innocence. Is there a name for a force in nature that takes you to the place you least want to be no matter how hard you wish otherwise?”

“More than coincidence and less than fate? Yes, it’s called Cheobawn,” Mora said in resignation. “What is a Dancer?”

“One of Sybille’s bennelk. Her mount while she is on patrol.”

“Ah, I see,” Mora said but Cheobawn did not think she actually did.

“Sigrid accused me of bending time but I don’t think that is right. I think the brain can be tricked into not seeing. Like a bhotta mind trap but the exact opposite. Did you know bennelk had that skill?”

“Yes and no. If it pleases you, I shall call for a recalibration of their psi levels at the next Convocation of Mothers. Would you be opposed to discussing any of this with Amabel and Menolly?”

Cheobawn blinked in surprise. Her mother was being almost nice.

Chapter Thirteen

She spent the rest of the week closeted in meetings, explaining the double spirals, first to all the Mothers in the High Council and then to the meditation and psi skill teachers. She tried to describe in words what the Herd Mother had taught her but ended up running her fingers through her curls in frustration. The Mothers understood the concept well enough. It was the actual process that stymied them. Menolly filled her mind with dreamsmoke and dreamwalked the stables but came back perplexed. The bennelk, invisible to her questing mind, seemed bent on warding her intrusions. Without the testimony of the people who had been standing in the stable yard when she had walked out of their minds, they would have surely thought her story a child’s fantasy. Sigrid was forced to tell his story again and again, every word dissected and questioned.

Oddly enough it was Brigit who had the least problem with the double spiral. She just snorted in amusement as she nodded her head.

“Magic does that, when you get it right. I knew you would find your own magic eventually.”

Amabel had thrown up her hands, exasperated with her wife’s fancies but Mora had smiled a smile that made her face go soft. Cheobawn thought that Mora might believe in magic more if Amabel were not around.