Taminy (26 page)

“Ah,
well then ...” murmured Brys and shuffled more.

“But
you will ask me again?” Taminy suggested, making her voice bright.

“Oh,
aye!” He smiled. “I will.” He muttered of errands for Osraed Faer-wald and led
his devotees away. Out of earshot, they dug elbows into each other’s ribs and
laughed, while Taminy made haste to the shop of Marnie-o-Loom.

Terris
was there—alone, this time. His Gram and Da were out to Arundel, he said,
looking over some wool.

Taminy
pulled from her pocket a little jar of ointment and a bit of carved and
polished wood. “These are for your Gram,” she told him. “I noticed her hands
were a bit knotted and I thought she might try this salve on them.”

“And
this?” Terris asked, holding up the misshapen dowel.

“That’s
a sort of amulet. After putting the ointment on her hand, she should take up
the wood and rub it until the tingle from the ointment wears off. Then she
should salve the other hand and rub the wood with it.”

Terris
was more than doubtful of this, he was clearly discomfited and, when she turned
to leave, he stopped her, coming from behind his cutting table to put himself
between her and the door. “I’ve words to say to you, Taminy-a-Gled,” he told
her dramatically. “And I’d be pleased if you’d listen.”

She
paused and gazed at him.
What form shall
the speech take today? Will you warn me off Wicke Craft or warn me off your
Gram or warn me off myself?

“It
worries me,” he said, waving the amulet at her, “to see someone like you
flirting, mad-hearted, with these Wickish things.”

“Wickish
things?” she repeated. “An herbal balm and a rubbing stick?”

“That’s
just the toenail of the beast, Taminy. I know. I’ve heard my Gram’s tales. And
while I’d be mostly inclined to give them air, I’ve heard tell from others,
too, about your paerie pool and your ways with animals and the things you’re
teaching Gwynet.”

“Gwynet
is a Prentice. She’s supposed to learn those things.”

“From
her Osraed. You’re no Osraed.”

Taminy
lowered her eyes, her face flushing for reasons Terris could never appreciate. “That
is certainly true.”

“Then
you’ve no business teaching her the Art.”

“And
is it your business to tell me so?”

Terris
put out his hands then, and took her shoulders and met her eye for eye. “You’re
a fine cailin, Taminy-a-Gled. As lovely and fair and fine a cailin as I’ve ever
seen in Nairne or beyond—and I’ve been as far abroad as Lin-liath,” he added,
begging her to be impressed. “And you’ve a temper of matching fairness from
what I’ve seen. It worries me sick to think of you dabbling in unseemly
matters.”

So,
he would protect her from herself—a noble gesture. She smiled. “You’re sweet,
Terris,” she said. “And I’m flattered you’re so concerned, but there’s naught
unseemly about my matters or my ways or the things I’m teaching Gwynet. You
worry yourself needlessly. Now, please give your Gram that ointment. Her
fingers are paining her more than she lets show.”

She
tried to disengage herself, but Terris wasn’t finished. He clung to her
tenaciously, bent, she realized, on making himself understood.

“Don’t
think me a nosy-body, Taminy. Or a meddler. It’s just that ... well, I-I’ve
been all but smitten since you first came in here—with you, I mean—smitten with
you. If I wasn’t, I’m sure I’d’ve kept my mouth shut.”

Seized
by a sudden tension, Taminy jerked her head toward the front of the shop. Aine
and Doireann stood framed in the open doorway, one with hands on hips and fire
in her eyes, the other with hands clutched, squirrel-like, upon her breast.

“Well,
I should think,” snapped Aine, “that one of these days, you’ll learn to keep
your mouth shut. At least in places you might be overheard.”

Doireann’s
mouth, open, added nothing to that as Aine backed out of the store, reaching
out at the last moment to grasp her elbow and drag her into the street.

“Not
all truths were meant for utterance,” Taminy murmured, paraphrasing the Corah.

“Aye,”
Terris agreed, “but that one was. I don’t care that they heard it. It won’t
change how I feel.”

“Terris,
you hardly know me-”

“I
know you’re different,” he said earnestly. “I know you’re like no cailin I’ve
ever known.”

“Aye,
and so what do you want me to do, the first time you’ve serious words for me?
You want me to change. You want me to behave another way. Think another way.
Ponder that, Terris. You like me being different, but you want to take the
things that make me different away. Now, I thank you for your kind concern, but
it will not change me or the things I do.”

She
left him standing, stunned, in the middle of his family’s shop, and prayed only
that he’d not withhold her medicines from his grandmother.

oOo

Osraed
Lealbhallain swept a grimy wrist across his forehead and succeeded in doing
nothing more than grinding filthy sweat into his skin. His face and forehead
itched abominably, but there was little he could do just now but scratch it.
The huge kitchen of the Creiddlylad Care House was too hot, kept that way by an
eternally roaring fire. There was only one other usable fireplace on this
level. It was at the other end of the long children’s ward and it, too, burned
night and day in an attempt to keep the sea-damp chill from the bones of the
ward’s inmates.

Leal
scratched at his forehead and looked doubtfully at the last bundle of herbs he
had extracted from the larger bale beside him on the floor. “How is it these
supplies come to you in this condition?” he asked the dour Aelder Prentice
working across the table from him.

The
young man shrugged and flung a limp, beetle-infested flower head into the
refuse bin. “What other condition might they be in ... Osraed Lealbhallain?” he
added.

“Well,
the herbs and roots might be washed, the buds might be healthy, instead of
diseased and dried out. The foodstuffs might not be half-rotted or desiccated
or worm-eaten or” —he held up an apple with a very distinct bite removed— “sampled.”

The
Aelder Prentice’s mouth twitched. “Osraed, these aren’t so much foodstuffs as
they are refuse. If it falls off the cart, or gets crushed at the bottom of the
wagon, it comes to us. Merchants aren’t likely to give their best to them.” He
jerked his head toward the ward. The gesture was timed perfectly to coincide with
a wild bleat of pain and fear from that dismal place.

Lealbhallain
cringed, feeling as if someone had dug a fork into his ribs. He tried to
concentrate on the herbs. “How long has it been like this?”

The
Aelder Prentice looked at him strangely. “Always. As long as I’ve been here,
anyway. You’d have to ask Osraed Fhada about before that.”

“How
long have you been here?”

“Three
Solstices past.” The youth’s eyes shifted aside, glancing off the crystal
hanging from Leal’s prayer chain.

Leal
felt sudden recognition. Of course, he should have made the connection; Aelder
Buach had been Prentice Buach-an-Ochmer three Seasons ago at Halig-liath. A
most promising student, according to all accounts, yet the Meri had twice
passed him over. And now, he was here—a weary drudge, up to his armpits in
grime and unhappiness.

“Well,
three years is plainly too long for this to continue. I must be intended to
remedy the situation.” Leal realized how arrogant that sounded as the words
left his mouth. “There was a time,” he went on, quickly, “when the Merchants
cut their best from the very top to send to the Care House.”

Buach’s
brow knit. “Why ever would they do that?”

Leal
was at a loss to know how to answer. He was framing a set of words when another
shriek of agony from the ward tore through his head. He clutched his side.

“It
would be a hardship for them, after all,” Aelder Buach said, as if he’d heard
nothing. “Market tariffs being what they are.”

“Market
tariffs?” Leal glanced uneasily toward the ward’s rumbling archway. Torchlight
flickered eerily across the floors, making him imagine that ghostly snakes
crawled there.

Buach
nodded, reaching down from his stool to toss another bale of weedy-looking
dried flowers onto the table. “To sell their wares in the Cyne’s Market.”

“They
have to pay to bring their wares to market? Why?”

Buach
shrugged. “Cyne Colfre needs the revenue for the work going on at Mertuile. For
the Cirke, too.”

“The
Cirke?”

“Cyne’s
Cirke. He’s adding to the Sanctuary and rebuilding the altar. And there’s to be
statues.”

“Statues?”
repeated Lealbhallain, beginning to feel like a mynah-bird.

Buach’s
lips twisted wryly. “A fine artist is our Cyne,” he said, “as you’ve seen.”

Leal
nodded and reached out to grab a handful of stems. His ribs erupted with sudden
pain, forcing a cry from his lips and all but toppling him from his rickety
stool. Buach stared, his mouth open, but before he could say anything, the
lanky silhouette of Osraed Fhada appeared in the kitchen archway. His leonine
head tilted toward Lealbhallain, firelight haloing the shock of gold-red hair.

“Pardon,
Osraed,” he said, tugging at his prayer chain, “but are you well-practiced at
the Healweave?”

Leal
blinked and straightened, rubbing his rib cage. “Yes, sir.”

“Could
I presume upon you to assist us?” Fhada made an uncertain gesture in the
direction of the ward.

Leal’s
agreement was immediate. He followed Fhada from the kitchen, through the
pitiful, over-full ward into a cluster of chambers that served as a clinic. In
one of these rooms, attended by an Aelder Prentice and an aging Osraed, a small
boy lay atop a table, surrounded by blood-soaked rags.

“What
happened to him?” Leal asked, feeling, again, the gouging in his side.

“We
think he was in a fight,” said Fhada. “He came in with the wagon of provisions.
The jagger found him on the edge of the Marketplace.”

Leal
didn’t comment that the Osraed was charitable to call what they had received
from that wagon “provisions,” though he thought it. He moved to the table and
shifted aside the wads of rag. The wound was horrid. Rag-edged and oozing, it
looked as though a powerful set of jaws had taken a bite out of the boy’s
flesh.

Leal’s
bowels trembled in a fit of weakness and his own flesh took fire. Swallowing
bile, he glanced up at the child’s face. It was pale, and dark, frantic eyes
stood out in it like red-rimmed coals.

“You’ve
cleaned the wound thoroughly?” Leal asked, and the attending Osraed nodded. “I’ll
need to wash my hands—could you bring hot water?” He looked to the Aelder
Prentice. The boy hesitated. Leal lowered his voice, attempting to sound less
like a squeaky adolescent. “In the kitchen, over the fire, there’s a pot-” He
added a mental shove.

The
youth nodded and scrambled through the door. While he was gone, Leal tried to
survey the wound without touching it, holding, on a tight rein, the anger that
had begun to roil in his breast.

“Osraed
Fhada,” he said finally, because he found silence impossible, “conditions here
are wretched. No, worse than that, they’re unbearable. This clinic is
ill-provisioned and filthy, you can’t afford hot tap water—and the pipes are
too pitted, if you could—you can’t afford proper medicines, what passes for
food here, is barely that, you’re understaffed, and the staff you’ve got, if I
may say so, sir, is uninspired.”

Fhada’s
angular face reddened. “Yes, you may say so. It’s only true. No one wants to
serve here.”

“But
the lack of funds—how is it this Care House is so poor when Ochanshrine is so
near by?”

The
Aelder Prentice reentered the room, then, with the pot of water and some fresh
rags, and Fhada’s eyes followed him momentarily before he answered.

“It
is precisely because Ochanshrine is so near by that we find ourselves in these
circumstances, Osraed Lealbhallain—or at least in part. The Cyne has
determined, along with his Privy Council, that the Shrine and Abbis need repair
and redesign. They are, in his words, ‘relics.’ They do not ‘show well.’ That
is where the preponderance of the Osraed monies go these days—to the refitting
of the Shrine and the Abbis.”

Leal
finished scrubbing his hands and dried them before he moved back to the table.
The child, watching him, whimpered.

“Who
makes these decisions—about the funding?”

Fhada
shrugged. “I know I don’t. The Cyne, the Council, the Chancellor. He has
signatory authority.”

“Over
Osraed funds? Why? How? Why are you not in charge of your own monies?”

“Some
years ago, the Osraed committee in charge of our financial matters was accused
of mismanagement.” Fhada glanced at the elder Osraed, who merely grunted. “Much
was being spent here, then.”

There
was a wealth of sad irony in those words. Leal knew he must pursue the subject
further with Fhada. Now, however ...He laid gentle hands on the little boy’s
forehead and closed his mind to the others. “What’s your name?” he asked the
child.

“Leny.”
The answer was a raw whisper.

“Leny,
I’m Osraed Leal. I’m going to take the pain away and help your wound heal.”

“Please,”
said Leny. He shivered convulsively in his own sweat.

Leal
didn’t ask himself if he really could perform the Weave. He simply decided he
must perform it. Meredydd had told him once that he had a Healer’s hands. He
chose, now, to believe her. He chose, also, to believe that the Meri would aid
him, whatever he had to do.

He
withdrew his rune crystal from its pouch and cupped it in his hands. Before his
eyes it glowed gently, but enough. He could feel it through his palms, through
his fingertips. Holding the crystal in one hand, he laid the other, once again,
on Leny’s head and began a painblock inyx. Beneath the fingers of his left hand
he felt the boy’s frenetic energy calm, his trembling subside. When the small
body had completely relaxed, he moved his free hand to the wound.