SanClare Black (The Prince of Sorrows) (8 page)

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CHAPTER FIVE

Michael stood alone in the center of a small, wood-paneled room, biting his lip and clutching his pack. Nanna Tierna had left the room with Abbess Ethene, an older lady whose room this apparently was.

He was too nervous to sit down in one of the two prettily needlepoint
-cushioned chairs which sat on his side of the older lady’s desk, but he was also too nervous to do anything but stand where he’d been left. He nearly jumped out of his skin when something brushed against his ankles, but when he looked down, he discovered only a very small, long-haired gray cat. It purred at him and rubbed again, and he knelt to pet it.

Her
, he thought, knowing, as he always knew such things, that this was indeed a she-cat. She blinked wisely at him and then miaowed, ordering him to continue petting her.

In one of the books he
’d read at the hospital, there had been a cat named Cyra. “Should I call you Cyra? Would you like that?” Her purr grew louder, and he laughed, scratching at her ears with enthusiasm.

Nanna
Tierna was right—this place won’t be bad. I’ve already made a friend.

Cyra had
just wandered away, and Michael had climbed back to his feet when the women returned.

Abbess Ethene
seemed very surprised to find him still standing. “You may sit, my dear.” Her voice was soft and clear, but her accent was quite different from Nanna Tierna’s.

He bobbed his head in acknowledgement of her statement and perched on the edge of the nearest chair.
The abbess smiled. Michael realized with a small start of surprise that he’d misjudged her age. She couldn’t have been that much older than Nanna Tierna, but she carried herself differently, her manners more formal, her face less prone to smiling. Though smaller than Tierna, she exuded calm and self-possession, her presence taking up more space than her body. A bun bound her hair back too tightly in a style unflattering to her narrow face. It also made her sharp nose seem more prominent. Michael’s fingers itched to draw her.

“
He’s an endearing child, Whiltierna. But that hair—”

Nanna Tierna fluttered.
“Healer Tineson thinks he might be Reinra. They may have left him behind after their last trading voyage. Or perhaps something happened, and they didn’t know he’d survived it. His memory, you know. Who knows how long he was wandering before he was found.”

The abbess frowned at this.
“But it’ll be moons and moons before they come back. If he is Reinra, what are we to do with him? They’re the strangest folk I’ve ever seen.”

“
And they don’t cut their hair,” Tierna agreed. “So Healer Tineson thought it best to leave the boy’s hair alone. Just in case we can reunite him.”

“
If the Healer thinks it best. Still, we shall have to do something to downplay it. Tie it back or something. The other boys will tease.”

Michael
followed this exchange idly, having heard the healer’s theory before. It didn’t spark any twinges of memory, and he mostly dismissed it as something which would be irrelevant until the mysterious Reinra could be consulted which, as Abbess Ethene had just said, would be moons and moons.

He stifled a sigh and wondered how much longer the two women were going to talk about him.
After so much time at the hospital, he was more than used to being discussed rather than addressed. The first few times it had happened, he’d felt a dim sense of outrage, but this had subsided quickly. They’d all dismissed him as a foreigner who couldn’t speak their language, but that hadn’t been true for long. His ability to read had sped up his understanding considerably, though his speech continued to be a bit stilted.

Ethene
sighed, resigned. “Well, he’s polite and very patient. I will say that for him.”

“
Yes, and he’s very observant. He’s learning more and more words every day—he reads! And he has a goddess-given gift for art. I was hoping a tutor could be arranged.”

“
We shall have to see about that,” the abbess replied. “Perhaps some of the other children could also benefit from lessons.”

She noticed Tierna
’s disappointment—which was so strong Michael felt it from across the room—and shook her head. “Whiltierna, I did not say no. We are not exactly in a position to train up artists and authors, you know. Training and experience which will ready them for apprenticeships is the most practical. Even with the best training in the world, there’s no guarantee anyone could ever make a living as an artist.”

“
He is so talented, Abbess Ethene,” Tierna said fiercely. “Please, let me ask my family if they could help. If someone of their acquaintance might donate an hour or two every quarter-moon, he could learn so much! And it needn’t interfere with his chores and other lessons.”

After a long moment,
Ethene nodded. “You may ask. But if any other children show similar promise, this philanthropist must be willing to share his or her time with them also.”

“
Of course, Abbess. Thank you!” Tierna exclaimed.

“
And now it is past time we should introduce this young man to his new home.” Ethene stood up and walked around the desk, and Michael stood up quickly and made a small bow. “Quite the gentleman, isn’t he?” she commented.

Ethene
introduced herself to him, returning the bow, and explained that he’d now be under her care at JhaPel Orphanage.

“
There are many other children here, and I’m sure you’ll make friends with them. It’s just before midday meal now, so we’ll go to the dining hall, and I’ll introduce you to the other boys with whom you’ll be sharing a dormitory.”

Whiltierna knelt down to his eye-level.
“Michael, I have to go back to Landsend Charity now. I’ll see you at Holy Prayers every quarter-moon, and I promise I’ll visit you. Bring you new pencils and paper, all right?”

“
Thank you.” He blinked as his vision blurred with unshed tears. He wouldn’t cry and embarrass her in front of Abbess Ethene. “For everything.”

“
I just wanted to say—about your name. It was my cousin’s name. He died about a year ago, and you remind me a little of him. So that makes us almost family. All right?”

Michael
nodded, feeling very honored by this.

“
It’s a good name.” Tierna caught him in a crushing hug. “And he was done with it. It’s bad luck to name people after the living, but it’s good luck to keep a good name alive.”

And she was gone.
Abbess Ethene smiled at him and placed a guiding hand on his shoulder. He caught only the faintest impression of sympathy at her touch. She was not as easily read as most people were, but he liked that. It made it easier to pretend his dangerous abilities away.

“
Come this way, dear.”

The dining hall was
a short walk down a wide corridor, half-open to a neatly-groomed courtyard, and Michael could hear the growing roar of a large number of young voices.

He froze for a moment in the door, staring at the sea of
children and nannas. Most of the children were standing in a queue holding thin wooden trays though a few of them had made it through and were seated in growing clusters at the long trestle tables which filled up the enormous, high-ceilinged space. Ethene escorted Michael up to the head of the line where she stepped in front of a boy almost as tall as she was, picked a tray from the large stack standing just in front of the row of nannas waiting to serve the children their meals, and explained to Michael how the food queue worked.

“
Now, you must never do what we just did,” she said as they passed down the line collecting soup, bread, a medium-sized, reddish-pink fruit Michael didn’t recognize, and a mug of water. “When you reach the dining hall, you must stand at the end of the line no matter how long it may be. Only a nanna is allowed to squeeze in ahead of everyone who’s patiently waited.”

The other children
’s minds were much noisier than Nanna Tierna’s had ever been. The hospital had been a bit noisy, but he’d been far enough away from the other patients to avoid feeling and hearing more than a sort of background mutter. Here the other children surrounded him, bumped into him, brushed past him, and were all but unavoidable.

Ethene
didn’t seem to notice the chaos but it overwhelmed Michael, and he felt no appetite for the contents of the tray he now carried as he followed Ethene through the maze of tables.

They reached the particular table she sought, and
Ethene turned to take the tray from him again. “This is Michael,” she announced to the three boys as she set the tray down beside one of them and motioned for Michael to sit. “He’s going to be your new roommate, and I want you all to help him adjust to things here. He isn’t from Camarat, so he won’t necessarily understand you straight away. I expect you to be patient with him. He’s had a very difficult time recently, and I’m counting on you boys to make him feel at home.”

The boys muttered their acceptance of this charge and all of them smiled tentatively in
Michael’s direction. Another boy came up to the table at that moment and everyone called out his name as if he’d just returned from the wars.

“
Pol!” They all began to talk at once, each one eager to tell their apparent ringleader about the new boy.

Ethene
didn’t seem troubled by this, and she leaned down to say a final word to Michael before abandoning him to his fate. “If you have any trouble at all, tell any one of the nannas I’ve said they’re to bring you straight to see me, all right?”

Michael
nodded and said, “Yes, Abbess Ethene. Thank you.”

Everyone stopped talking for a few moments, unsure of how to proceed now that there was a new, mysterious boy to consider.
Michael looked around at his new roommates with wide, dark golden eyes. Their thoughts were as easy to read as if they spoke aloud.

His eyes are beautiful, too,
the newcomer thought. But aloud, all he said was, “Hi. I’m Pol.” Michael wondered how he would draw the soft brown color of this boy’s skin or capture the friendly, dark eyes. His hair curled messily around his face, framing an infectious grin.

“
My name is Michael,” Michael replied with a small nod and a smaller, answering smile. The thoughts all piled up together, with someone thinking his accent was lovely and someone else thinking how sad it was that he looked so unwell and a third someone thinking that someone named Telyr would need to be watched-out for. Michael couldn’t sort out what thoughts matched which boy. Except for Pol.

“
What’s in your bag?” one of the boys asked, leaning over Michael’s shoulder to try and get a look. He turned to see a shock of bright orange hair over a face so covered in freckles, the pale skin between them seemed to glow white.

“
His name’s Ned, by the way.” Pol gave the redhead a reproving look, but the boy’s only reply was an indifferent shrug.

“
These are my drawings,” Michael pushed his tray to one side and pulled the booklet Nanna Tierna had given him out of the pack he’d been holding on his lap. It was far too fine for an orphan like him, but Tierna had not seemed to notice this, and Michael loved it, considering it a piece of art all by itself. It consisted of two wafer-thin but sturdy pieces of highly polished wood with maybe a hundred sheets of heavy paper sandwiched between them, and the whole thing was bound together on one end by two thin leather straps. Michael flipped the booklet open.

“
It’s Nanna Tierna!” Ned’s eyes widened in surprise.

“
You know her?” Michael asked, pleased.

Pol reached across the table to turn the booklet a little so he could have a better look
. Michael sensed the sharp edge of his surprise at how perfect a likeness it was.

“
Yes.” Pol belatedly answered Michael’s question when Ned failed to. “If we ever have to go to hospital, Nanna Tierna looks after us. She lives here, you know, but she spends most of her time at Landsend. She does always come with the healers for inspections when they want to make sure we’re not secretly diseased.”

Michael
’s new roommates crowded around him then, all trying to see the picture. They pressed against him, the contact making their thoughts even clearer than they’d been before. Michael bit his lip, fighting back nausea. The thoughts were too loud, too many, but this was his new life. He’d have to find some way to cope with it.

When Pol
moved to turn the page, a new voice called, “Wait!” and Michael sensed the other boy just then realized that their table had become the center of what seemed to be the entire dining hall’s attention. Boys and girls of all different ages crowded close around the table, all trying to see Michael’s drawing.

I can
’t take this,
Michael thought, and he untied the straps binding the booklet together and took the picture out so it could be handed around. This led to something of a melee, and the noise level in the hall—already quite high—rose noticeably, but the epicenter of the crowd shifted away.