Meri (11 page)

Heart in her throat, skirts gripped in white-knuckled hands,
Meredydd tottered down from the hill, eyes tight on the spot where their bodies
had lain, where there was now only fresh grass and tiny blue flowers. She
crossed the yard, wind cooling her flaming cheeks, and went through the broken
doorway into the house. It was only a foundation now, cracking and
disintegrating, inhabited only by wild things and wild grasses. Vines overgrew
the chimney, moss over-laid the crumbling walls.

She looked. She searched. She lost herself in the tiniest
details. Perhaps this year her maturing eyes would find what they had never
found before—a clue to the why and the who of the death of Lagan.

Her ears snatched a sound out of the unquiet air and she
raised her head, gazing around to the four corners. To the west, the hillside
swam in wheat; northward, the Bebhinn rushed over its bed of shattered rock,
fresh from its rift with the Halig-tyne; to the east and south, the Tyne Road
was empty of anything but several sheep that had crossed the long bridge from
Arundel.

She watched them for a moment as they dipped their heads to
drink of the Holy River’s slow stream, going back at last to cropping Lagan’s
grass.

The river captured her for a moment. It was a stately river,
circumspect, mannerly and genteel. It whispered, giggled, perhaps, but never
kicked up its heels in laughter and song like its daughter, the melodious,
spirited Bebhinn.

Meredydd shook her head, ending the reverie. That must have
been what she heard—just the sheep crossing the bridge—tiny, sharp hooves on
wood and stone. She sighed and left the house to pick some wild flowers at the
forge. They grew well there in the ashy soil. She was on her way to the graves
with some wild roses when she saw in the wet earth near the well, something that
had not been there when she arrived—hoof prints.

She puzzled. They were well-shod hooves, but not large. The
prints deep. An average horse—a larger than average man. The puzzlement slipped
through unease toward fear and she froze, flowers in hand, staring at the
prints. When the horse snorted directly behind her, she leapt up and away,
landing with her face toward the intruder. She squinted up into the gleaming
sky. It was Aelder Prentice Wyth who slid from the fine leather saddle. He
looped reins around the carved wooden pommel with its gilt edging and faced her
across her parents’ grave.

She stared. He stared. Then he mumbled.

“What?” she asked. “What did you say?”

He took a deep breath and watched his family’s sheep
approach the ruined walls of Lagan and said, “I said, I’m most truly sorry,
Meredydd, for all that’s happened. I heard Osraed Bevol say you’d be no more at
Halig-liath and I can only believe that it’s my fault. Mine and my mother’s.”

“I’m leaving Halig-liath to go on Pilgrimage,” she said,
clutching her flowers to her breast. “Next week, at Solstice. Osraed Bevol
thinks that’s best. He believes only my acceptance by the Meri will win me
acceptance in Nairne.”

“Pilgrimage? Already? But you’re only fifteen!”

“Nearly sixteen. I’m eligible to go and Osraed Bevol must
think I’m ready or he wouldn’t suggest it.”

“But...do you want to go?”

She thought about that momentarily. Thought about it for the
first time, really. Did she want to go? Wasn’t she afraid of going—afraid of
finding out what qualities she possessed or failed to possess? Was she so
confident of her success? Did she need to be?

“Yes,” she said. “I do want to go. I’ve studied most of my
life to go. I’ve dreamed about it, longed for it.”

That much was true. She had dreamed—daydreamed mostly—before
she understood the full meaning of Pilgrimage, before she understood it had
nothing to do with glory and celebrity and adventure. Now she merely dreamed.

“Dreamed,” repeated Wyth, nodding. A grimace tugged his wide
mouth awry. “We both dreamed. Although my dreams are more nightmares.
Pilgrimages that fail, mostly. Pilgrimages that end in my rejection, in my
death. Sometimes I die of old age, waiting and waiting for Something that will
never come. Sometimes I never even make it to the Sea. I wonder why—why did the
Meri reject me? What do I lack when I love Her so? Is it...because of my
father?”

Meredydd shook her head with sudden impatience and stooped
to lay her flowers on the grave. “A father’s sins are visited on his son only
if the son allows them to be. If you are lacking something, the lack is yours,
you didn’t inherit it. And if it’s yours, you can remedy it.”

“He took his own life, Meredydd.”

“Aye. So don’t allow him to take yours, as well.”

He almost smiled. “Such good counsel.”

She glanced at him sharply and was surprised to find him
sincere. She made a gesture of denial.

Aelder Wyth glanced at the ground between his booted feet. “I
lied to you about my dream. The horse never took me to Lin-liath. It took me to
Gled Manor. To your house.”

Meredydd flushed with embarrassment and glanced about,
seeking an avenue of escape.

“You
have
seduced me,
Meredydd, although unwittingly. No matter where I send my thoughts, they return
always to you. In class, I know, I act as if I had the wisdom and authority of
an Osraed. I don’t have anything like that wisdom. And I shouldn’t have the
authority I’ve been given—not over you. Not when I only abuse it.”

He took a sudden step over the graves, meeting her face to
face and startling her into a tiny retreat. He caught her hands to keep her
from fleeing further.

“You should teach
me
,
Meredydd. I should be your Prentice.”

She disentangled her hands and took another step away. “Don’t
say this! You’re misguided, Aelder Wyth. You squander your attentions on me—”

“No, not squander. Listen to me, Meredydd. I have a fine
estate. I’m an Eiric already, at eighteen. But Arundel is too big, by far, for
my mother and sisters and myself. It will be mine alone when the sisters marry.
When I come back from Pilgrimage, Meredydd, if the Meri has me, if you will—”

Meredydd’s heart clenched into a tiny, terrified knot. “No,
Wyth!”

“Why not?”

“I’m only fifteen.”

He laughed. “Nearly sixteen, you told me.”

“And what of my own Pilgrimage? If the Meri has me, I’ll
have so much to do. So much work. And She might bid me go out of Caraid-land to
do that work.”

“You don’t have to go.”

“Disobey the Meri?”

“I mean, you don’t have to go on Pilgrimage. You could marry
me at Solstice, instead.”

“I
will
go on
Pilgrimage, Wyth Arundel.”

“Yes, yes. Aye. All right.” He waved her anger back with
placating hands. “If you wish so much to go, then go, of course. And when you
return, I will let you continue your studies.”

“
Let
me! You could have
no choice!”

“Of course, I could have a
choice. A husband—”

“I have no husband. I’ll not have you as one.”

His distress was evident. “Why not?”

“Good God, Wyth! How could I marry someone who would stand
there and speak of
permitting
me to do the
Meri’s will?”

“I take it back. All that I said. I’m wrong. Of course, the
will of the Meri is paramount.”

“Wyth, I don’t
love
you!
I don’t know what love is, yet. My parents had it. Osraed Bevol and Aelwyn
Meara had it, may God bless her soul. But I’ve too small a vessel for so deep a
thing as that. And what I do have is full of the Meri. She fills my cup, Wyth.
There’s no room in it for you.”

“But She’s a spirit. I’m a man. The filling is different.”

A man at eighteen. So serious—gangly, over-tall body drawn
severely upright, deep set eyes so somber, lips so tight. A man.

Meredydd laughed. “Oh, Aelder Wyth, I hope when we’ve both
visited the Sea we’ll understand what a man is—or a woman, for that matter.
Now, take your sheep along home, please. They’re eating my roses.” She started
to turn away.

“My roses, you mean.”

She swung back. “What?”

“
My
roses. Lagan is mine
now. Has been this last five years—part of Arundel.”

She gaped at him. “By what right—?”

“By mart forfeit. After...after the fire, you’d gone with
Osraed Bevol. He never claimed the land as your guardian—”

“So your family did? But five
years—”

“Mother said it was needed. Our pasturage had got so worn we
needed extra for the increased herds. And if we held Lagan the hands could take
them through direct on the Tyne Road to the market in Creiddylad—not have to
take the long way around to catch the road above the palisades. Father had
started the claim but... well, mother did it on his behest, or mine, I suppose.
You weren’t of an age to lay claim yourself.”

“But so
soon
. They’d
just been buried.”

“Aye. But Osraed Bevol could have contested our claim for
you. It was a surprise he didn’t, really. After all, you’d need a dowry.” He
glanced away from her, shrugging. “But then, he wasn’t your blood kin, not even
your legal guardian then, I think. I really don’t know what happened, Meredydd.
I was just a boy, after all.”

“You hold Lagan.” Meredydd shook her head.

“I’ll give it to you,” he said, slipping closer to her. “I’ll
build you a house here. A house with a thousand rose bushes.”

She waved him to silence, her inner turmoil taking all her
attention. All these years she’d assumed Lagan was just as it had been—home.
But the family of Lagan no longer existed. Her home no longer existed.

“Then I’ve been trespassing.”

“No! You couldn’t be a trespasser here.”

“But your mother—”

“She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know a good many things. She
thinks you’re some sort of...Dark Sister and she thinks you’ve runewoven to
make me lust for you. She thought you knew Lagan was part of Arundel and were
scheming to get it back. She doesn’t know what I know, Meredydd—that you’re an
angel and innocent of deceit and that I love you.”

“Please, Aelder Wyth, stop saying those things. I’m no
angel. I’m hopelessly flawed in ways you can’t begin to imagine. I have to go.”
She turned.

He reached for her. “You hate me. Because of Lagan. Because
of my mother’s foolish accusations. Because of my stupid bungling—”

“I don’t hate you, Wyth. I don’t,” she assured him and tried
to put the whole force of herself behind her eyes. “But neither do I love you.
And don’t tell me I could learn,” she added when he opened his mouth to
protest. “I have far too much to learn already.”

She made good her escape this time, or nearly so, for he
mounted his horse and followed her up the hill.

“Let me ride you home,” he said, his horse prancing beside
her.

She kept on, not even looking at him. “No, Wyth. I have
thoughts I need to order and exile. And your mother might see us and God knows
what she might think.”

That brought him up short. He reined in his mount at the top
of the hill and glanced furtively around. Then he watched her trudge away from
him through the tall wheat, over and away toward Gled Manor.

“I
will
see you again,
Meredydd,” he called. “I won’t give up.”

She stopped halfway down the hill, Nairne-side, and turned
on him. “It’s the Meri you should be making that promise too, Wyth Arundel. And
see that you keep it!”

Back she swung and marched away, skirts trailing, hair
streaming, leaving him alone atop the hill.

Transformation takes place in one’s mind.

Therefore the mind must be kept pure, for what one
thinks, he becomes.

— The Corah
Book II, Verses 3,4

The Sun had shifted outside the window and fallen across
the pages of her book, making reading difficult. She rubbed her suddenly
burning eyes and started to move away from the gleaming wash of sunlight. She
was startled when the Osraed Bevol dropped a large, blue crystal down upon the
open pages. Caught in the shaft of white light, it sprayed vivid azure rain
across the pristine paper, drenching it.

Meredydd gasped at the beauty of it.

“Now,” said Osraed Bevol, “tell me about the crystal in my
hand.”

She turned and looked at him questioningly. He held his
knotted fist before him, closed and impenetrable.

“But, Master, how can I tell you about what I cannot see?”

“I have told you, I have, in my hand, a crystal.”

“But I can’t see it,” she repeated.

He pointed with his other hand at the book on her desk. “What
is that?”

She glanced at the blue glory. “A crystal.”

“Tell me about crystal.”

She did as she was told, studying the glittering gem as it
sat upon the book. “It is gleaming, glittering. It takes the light of the Sun
and refracts it and spits it in all directions. It is beautiful, colorful,
vivid.”

“Is that all?”

“Well...”

“Pick it up.”

She did as commanded and discovered the crystal was cool to
the touch even though it had been sitting in the direct Sun. She felt of it
with her fingers, caressing the facets; she tapped it with her fingernails.

“It is cool,” she told him. “And hard and has sharp planes
and angles.” She held it up to her eye and gazed through it at the sunny garden
outside. She saw a myriad gardens. “It changes the world one looks at through
it. It multiplies the world.”

“And does this describe what I hold in my hand, as well?”

Her eyes pried at his expression, trying to divine what
point he was making with her. “Well,” she said, “if what you hold in your hand
is a crystal, I suppose it might.... Well, yes, of course it does. Except that
it might be a different color, or perhaps it has no color at all.”

The Osraed smiled and set the second crystal next to the
first. It was a completely clear gem, but when the Sun struck it, the white
light shattered into a myriad of colored shards, strewn with the azure ones
across the pages of Meredydd’s book.