Taminy (23 page)

Taminy’s
smile didn’t twitch. “Why, that’s fine.”

Iseabal
stood awkwardly for a moment, then glanced over her shoulder. “I’m helping
mother just now.”

“Perhaps
she’ll let me help, too,” Taminy said, and stepped up onto the verandah.

Iseabal
nodded and led into the house where she presented her mother with the basket of
herbs and introduced Taminy.

The
Mistress of Nairne Cirke greeted her daughter’s friend with smiling interest. “Taminy,
it’s good to meet you, at last. Iseabal speaks highly of you.” She peeked at
the herbs in their net bags. “Ah, fresh rosemary and basil. I can use this
tonight.”

“I
thought they’d do well for rock hens,” Taminy said.

“Now,
how did you know we were having rock hens for supper?”

“Oh,
I must have mentioned it,” said Iseabal quickly. “Um, mama, may I-may I ...
show Taminy my room?”

“Come
to think of it, when did you have time to run to Gled and invite Taminy down?
You’ve been here all afternoon.”

Iseabal
glanced at Taminy out of the corner of her eye. She couldn’t lie. She just couldn’t.
And she especially couldn’t ask Taminy to lie with her. “I didn’t, mama. I was
going to go after helping you chop the vegetables.”

“Well
then, how-?”

“I
just dropped by, Mistress,” Taminy said.

“Oh,
well then, you’ll need to let Osraed Bevol know you’ll be staying.”

“Oh,
he knows, Mistress.” Taminy smiled disarmingly. “He’s an Osraed, after all. I
reckon there’s little I do he doesn’t know of in his way.”

Iseabal’s
mother returned the smile, if warily. “Of course.”

Aine
appeared as the Sun dipped to the treetops, and announced that Doireann had
been unable to come. Iseabal thought there was some smugness in that
pronouncement. And no wonder—Aine would now be in the powerful position of
getting to dispense gossip to the deprived Doireann.

Supper
was an amiable enough event, though Iseabal thought her father seemed
distracted and a little morose. She watched Aine like a hawk during the meal,
afraid that at any moment the other girl would blurt out that Taminy was a
Wicke. She didn’t, though. She only seemed to be very interested in everything
Taminy had to say. Especially the answers she gave to the Cirkemistress’s
motherly questions—questions Iseabal knew the answers to, but had not revealed,
though for what reason, she couldn’t have said.

“And
how did you come to be in Osraed Bevol’s care, child?”

The
Cirkemaster rallied at last from his thoughtful bog and sought to make
conversation. “I’d heard he found you upon his return from Meredydd’s ...
journey.”

“It
may be said he found me,” Taminy replied. “Though it may also be said that I
found him. On the Sea shore, as it happened.”

“Ah,
you’re from the Seawode, then. Storm, is it—or Mercut?”

“Neither,
Osraed. I ... I’m from Nairne-way by birth, but became displaced.”

“Your
family moved?”

“Aye,
to Creiddylad, eventually. My father served at Ochanshrine.”

“Oh,
yes. Iseabal mentioned that your father was a Cirkemaster. What was his name?
Perhaps I know him.”

“Pardon,
sir, but that is doubtful. He was not originally from Nairne, you see, but from
Cuinn Holding.”

The
Osraed Saxan frowned. “Cuinn Holding ... that’s well north of here.”

Taminy
nodded. “Yes, sir. North and east. Above the fork of the Halig and Ead.”

“And
where are your parents now, child?” asked the Mistress of Nairne Cirke. “Are
you orphaned?”

“Yes,
Mistress. They’ve both died to this world. So, I came to be with Osraed Bevol,
who is my mentor and guardian. I tutor young Gwynet in reading and such. She
has a great deal of catch-up to play to come level with the other first years.”

The
Cirkemistress shook her head and gave her husband a significant look. “Ah, I
can’t say I agree with the sending of young cailin up to Halig-liath. The child
should be in the Cirke School where she can get a good, practical education.
Don’t you agree, Saxan?”

The
Osraed raised his head and gazed down the table at his wife, his eyes glancing
off the faces of the three cailin in between. “Well, Ardis ... this morning I
would have agreed, and said that you echoed my sentiments exactly. But what I
heard this afternoon foils both our arguments. At today’s meeting of the Osraed
Body, Osraed Wyth told us that cailin must now be admitted to Halig-liath for
full training in the Divine Art.”

Iseabal
felt as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs and her body given an
extra squeeze for good measure.

“Full
training?” Ardis-a-Nairnecirke’s voice was airless, as if she’d suffered a
similar fate. “What-whatever for?”

Osraed
Saxan spread long, tapered fingers. “Whatever else for? That they may take the
Pilgrim’s Walk and become Osraed.”

Iseabal
darted a glance at Aine. The other girl’s hazel eyes were as big as sorchas and
her mouth was slightly agape. Beside her, Taminy looked on with calm interest.

“But
that’s absurd!... Isn’t it? Can he mean that? To train our daughters to
Runeweave and cast inyx?”

“He
means,” Saxan said, “what he says—that our daughters be entitled to the same
education we give our sons, and to exercise the same talents.”

“But
they can’t exercise what they don’t have.”

Saxan
studied his fingertips. “Meredydd-a-Lagan would seem to have had the Gift.
Taminy tells us Bevol’s Gwynet may have it.”

Iseabal
was fairly holding her breath now, her eyes flickering between her father and
Aine and Taminy. Would Aine speak? Would Aine tell all that Taminy could fetch
birds from the trees?

“How
can you countenance such a change, Saxan? How can the Osraed? In six hundred
years-”

“Yes,
yes, I know. In six hundred years—and five—there have been no sanctioned female
Prentices at Halig-liath. Well, none except Meredydd-a-Lagan, and she was
barely tolerated.” He shook his head. “Understand, Ardis—we have no choice.
Wyth is the Meri’s elect. We cannot argue with either Her selection or Her
directives.” He turned his gaze to the three girls sitting along the sides of
the long table. “What do you think?” he asked them. “You, Aine—would you go to
Halig-liath?”

Aine’s
face blazed in sudden color. “Me, sir? Never!”

“And
why not?”

“Well,
it’s not proper, sir. I’m a Lorimer’s daughter; I’m expected to pick up a piece
of the trade. My father’s not taught me the making of bits and harnesses to
have me scrap all and become a Prentice.”

“But
you’ve brothers to take the trade, Aine. And neither of them has ever shown a
bit of interest in a divine education. What about you?”

“No,
sir. I am too old and I’ve no Gift, thank God. If I did, I’d hide it as deep as
I could.”

“But
I’ve just told you, Osraed Wyth has brought us the Meri’s own word. She has
enabled you.”

Aine
was adamant. “I have a gift for only the Lorimer’s art, Master Saxan. I fancy I
throw a buck stitch better than either of my brothers.”

Saxan
pursed his lips, his eyes shifting to the opposite side of the table. “Taminy?
What do you say? Would you go to Halig-liath?”

“Well,
sir, to be honest, my education has been so complete, I feel as if I have
already been. Halig-liath is not for me, now. But I believe it is the highest
calling for others. Our Gwynet has a real Gift. It only makes sense that she
should learn the handling of it.”

Iseabal
flinched as her father, nodding, moved his eyes to her. “Isha, would you wish
to go to Halig-liath?”

She
stared at her lap. “I ... surely I’ve no Gift.”

Nonsense
, someone murmured. Iseabal
thought it was Taminy, but no one else seemed to have heard her. It came to her
then, as clearly as if she relived it—her hands cupped around the crystal,
Ileane, the warmth permeating her palms, the light inspiring her eyes. She
blushed a deep rose.

“What
if it was shown that you did have a Gift?” Saxan leaned forward in his chair.

“Saxan,
stop this,” pleaded his Mistress. “You’re asking your daughter to entertain
heretical thoughts. Imagine our Iseabal weaving Runes and-”

“Osraed
Wyth has said those thoughts are not heretical.” The Osraed’s eyes never left
his daughter’s face. “Come, Isha, tell me. If you could go to Halig-liath ...?”

Iseabal
raised her eyes and looked down the table at her father. “I would, papa.”

“Iseabal!”
Her mother was gaping at her, clearly horrified. “How can you say that so
calmly? How can you have had such desires and I not know it?”

“I
didn’t know, either,” murmured Iseabal.

“Dear
God, child, what inspires you to such a thought—that you have a Gift?”

Face
blazing, fingers twisting tortuously in her lap, Iseabal shook her head mutely.
She saw Aine glance across the table at Taminy.
I know
, her eyes said, and she opened her mouth to say it aloud.

“It’s
my doing,” Iseabal said quickly. “It’s my thought—no one put it into my head.”

Her
father raised his hand to forestall his wife’s retort. “What makes you think
you may have a Gift, Isha?”

Taminy
spoke, then. “She has a Gift, Osraed Saxan. I’ve seen the evidence of it. Seen
it and felt it.”

Iseabal’s
mother uttered a cry of complete disbelief. “What evidence? What evidence could
you have seen—or understood? These things are for the Osraed, not for children.”

Osraed
Saxan rose from the table, then, and left the room, leaving his wife and young
guests in unanswered turmoil.

“What
is it, Saxan?” his wife cried. “Where are you going? What is the girl talking
about?”

She
had risen and trailed her husband as far as the gracefully arched doorway to
the central hall when he reappeared from the room opposite, carrying something
in his hands. Ardis-a-Nairnecirke glanced at his face as he passed her, then,
hand over her mouth, followed him silently back to the table.

Iseabal’s
eyes were on the thing in his hands—a wooden box carved with Runes. She knew it
had a green velvet lining, and she knew what nested in that green velvet
lining. She had spent hours in childhood staring at it. Now, her father opened
the box and held it out to her. The egg-sized crystal in its verdant glen
winked and sparkled and played with the light of candle and globe.

“Take
it,” he said. “Hold it in your hands.”

The
crystal swam out of focus. Iseabal blinked and raised her eyes to her father’s,
trying to read them—to read him. She could not. With trembling hands, she
lifted the crystal from its bed and cupped it. She held it before her face,
barely aware that the lights in the room were dimming; that her father called
them down, hand raised, fingers flexed as if pulling light from the room. She
kept her eyes on the crystal, quivering, aware only of it and of a warm
presence at her shoulder.

Taminy.
Taminy watched her. Smiled on her.

She
heard her mother gasp, saw Aine rise slowly from her chair. In her hands the
crystal, Perahta, threw forth a sudden pulse of warm light—light that kissed
her face and heated her palms. Forgetful of everything but the crystal, blind
to everything but its light, deaf to her mother’s sobs and her father’s
murmured prayer, Iseabal smiled.

oOo

She
stood with her back to the room and wondered at how autumn seemed to be
creeping up on them early this year. Already there was a sharpness to evenings,
and mornings were reluctant to shed their chill. Saxan had set a fire which now
rustled in the grate across the room, but she did not feel warm. Outside their
bedroom window, the Cirkeyard was all black and silver-white, there was no
warmth in the moonlight that lay, gauzy and snow-like, over gravestone and
runepost.

The
dead slept or lived elsewhere, unbothered by today’s revelations. They had no
reason to care that Ardis-a-Nairnecirke’s conceptions of right and wrong had
been challenged and toppled by the words of an eighteen-year-old youth.

And
her daughter—she’d raised her well, she’d thought, with a sense of propriety.
No, it was more than a matter of propriety, this. There were deeper issues.
Iseabal, hankering to Weave! When had it begun? Mustn’t it have to do with
Bevol and his freakish wards?

“I’ve
seen the evidence,” that strange girl had said.

Iseabal
had the Gift. Such evidence she could have seen only if she possessed that Gift
herself. Only if she new exactly what to look for. Only if she was- Ardis
couldn’t allow herself to even think the word. Iseabal would have to be kept
from her, of course. Then the odd attraction would fade.

“Well,
Ardis?”

Her
back went up straight at the sound of his voice. She strove to make it relax. “Well,
what, Saxan?”

“What
do you think of our Iseabal going up to Halig-liath in the fall?”

As
if he was discussing her taking a jaunt to Tuine! “I think it shall not happen.”

She
heard the whisper of cloth as he shrugged or gestured. “And why not? She wants
to go.”

“There
is no reason. It’s unwarranted.”

“Unwarranted?
Ardis, she has the Gift.”

“I
won’t believe it. That girl of Bevol’s only makes her think she has a Gift.”

His
breath rode out on a sigh. “Ardis, Ardis, dear, you saw with your own eyes how
the crystal behaved in her hands.”

“It
was Bevol’s girl. I should have known better than to let her befriend someone
from that household. I should have known that any child Osraed Bevol brought to
Nairne must be dyed to the same hue as Meredydd-a-Lagan. We were foolish enough
to think a friendship with Iseabal would bleach that stain. I made the same
mistake with this one. It’s the dark of the dye that spreads, not the whiteness
of the pure cloth.”

Behind
her, Saxan moved further into the room. “Ardis, you haven’t listened. There is
no stain. It’s all right for Taminy to be gifted. It’s acceptable for Iseabal,
as well.”