Taminy (32 page)

“I
heard Her Voice.”

“Ah!
That sweet Voice. How did She sound?”

“Determined,”
said Leal, without thinking.

“Determined?
How so?”

Leal
shook his head. “She simply did. And it wasn’t sound, exactly. She bid me rise
and go forward and was determined that I do so.”

The
Abbod nodded, leaning back in his chair till Leal feared he would become wedged
there. He chastised himself for the impious thought.

“Did
it occur to you, for even a moment, to question this determined instruction?”

“No,
Abbod, it did not.”

“Really,
Osraed? Not for one moment?” He smiled as an old man might smile at the antics
of his grandchild.

“No,
sir.”

“Ah,
but what if it had not been the Meri’s voice?”

“It
was. I’ve never heard another like it.”

“Never?”

Leal
shook his head.

“Nothing
else has ever whispered in your heart? Not fear or zeal or anger, perhaps?”

“Yes.
Of course they have. But not like this.”

Osraed
Ladhar considered that for a moment, his eyes taking slices out of the stone
floor instead of Leal’s face. “Some time ago,” he said at length, “this young
man here-” —he gestured at Fhada— “came to me with some concerns raised by an
experience similar to yours. He heard a voice—a beautiful, determined
voice—that prodded him to act rashly. He, too, was certain the voice was that
of his Beloved. But we advised him to be cautious, to question the voice, to
hold out against it until he was certain of it. This, he did, and finally the
voice subsided, ceased to plague him with its ... determined demands. As we
advised him, we advise you.”

Leal
glanced at Fhada. The man’s face had no more color than the dust-caked,
light-washed glass behind him and his eyes were as bleak. Ladhar is wringing
out his soul. Anger whispered to Leal, then; he had no trouble recognizing the
voice. He silenced it and returned his attention to the Abbod.

“I
don’t want the Voice to subside. I have no doubt that it’s the Meri’s. No one
has ever spoken to me as She does. I did what She desired.”

“She
expressed no such desire to me, or to Fhada, who was with you.”

Osraed
Fhada turned to gaze out the window. Ladhar’s eyes followed him, falcon quick,
then returned to Leal.

“Abbod,”
Leal said, “when you came here after your Pilgrimage, did you have a mission—a
calling?”

“Of
course. I was called to Ochanshrine. To take part in its administration and to
serve the Abbod.”

“Then,
you made no changes in its running?”

The
Abbod’s brows crested. “Of course, I made changes. I oversaw the addition of
the High Reliquary and re-instituted the Registry of Stones. I brought fine
artists and craftsmen to Ochanshrine to be trained up as Cleirachs. A regular
program, mind you, not haphazard like before, when most of our Cleirachs were
failed Prentices who didn’t want to return to the family stead.”

“Those
are fine accomplishments,” Leal complimented him. “Wonderful ideas. Were they
yours or, perhaps, Cyne Ciarda’s?”

A
red flush crept over the Abbod’s face. “They were given me by the Meri.”

“And
not to your Abbod? Not to one of the more experienced Osraed?”

“No.”
Ladhar fingered the links of his prayer chain. “I was fresh from Pilgrimage. It
was part of my mission—to improve the Abbis as a repository of spiritual
artifacts and a retreat for the Osraed, to increase its ability to produce
well-taught Cleirachs for the schools.”

Lealbhallain
nodded. “As my mission is to see to the welfare of the citizens of
Creiddylad—most especially, its children.”

“A
broad purpose, but one which has nothing to do with what the Cyne does in his
Cirke.”

“Osraed
Ladhar, it’s not his Cirke. It’s God’s Cirke, the Meri’s Cirke. And what the
Cyne does before the citizens of Creiddylad, what he says to them about his
relationship with their God affects their welfare at its most elemental
level—the spiritual.”

Ladhar’s
eyes moved to Fhada’s back. The younger man stiffened, as if sensing that
touch. “Still, none of the changes I made at the Meri’s behest publicly
embarrassed my Cyne.”

“Might
they not have embarrassed your Abbod, who would have expected such insights to
come to him?”

The
fatty wattles beneath the Abbod’s ample jowls shivered. “Do you deliberately
misunderstand me, young man? You have embarrassed the Cyne of Caraid-land.”

“Is
that what he thinks?”

“He’s
not sure what to think.”

He
had spoken to the Cyne, then. Leal inclined his head, trying not to shake. “If
I have embarrassed the Cyne, I will apologize to him. I didn’t mean to
embarrass him. Not at all. But he was implying a relationship with the Meri-”

“That
you couldn’t abide?” suggested Ladhar.

“That
She
couldn’t abide.”

Abbod
Ladhar studied Lealbhallain through diamond-bright eyes. Studied him until he
felt all the flesh had been flayed from his face. Then the old man gathered
himself and rose, slipping easily out of the chair and back into his fatherly
smile.

“Well,
I must go, young firebrand. Come, both of you, and walk me to my coach.”

They
did as bidden, passing through the corridors of the Care House in relative
silence. They passed by newly repaired fireplaces with freshly cleaned
chimneys; Ladhar remarked on them and on the well-lit halls and clean floors.
When they reached the outer courtyard, the Abbod paused to regard a dray that
had pulled up before the kitchen entrance to offload goods from the Cyne’s
Market.

“Well,
Osraed Lealbhallain,” he said. “You have made a good beginning to the
fulfillment of your mission here. It seems you have reminded Cyne Colfre of his
duty to the poor and cautioned him to kindness. What a rain of bounty you’ve
precipitated! What a pity if it should cease and all this be lost.”

Fhada
spoke for the first time. “You caution him to fear the Cyne? To bend to the
Cyne’s whims?”

Ladhar
shot him a slivered glance. “I would not so caution him. It is the Meri’s wrath
we must fear—God’s approval we must obtain. I am concerned only that all the
good you have wrought here in the Meri’s name might be lost. If the Cyne’s
whims, as you call them, are foiled, they may suffer most who have the least.”

His
gaze strayed back to the dray, dragging Fhada’s and Lealbhallain’s with it.
There, several older orphans and a man with one arm helped the jaeger unload
goods. All were smiling over the Cyne’s largesse, dreaming, no doubt, of the
meals to come.

The
Abbod turned then, clambered aboard his coach and was borne away. Fhada and
Leal watched him through the gates.

“Damn
him,” said Fhada. “
Damn
him.”

Shivering,
Leal returned to the Care House. He spent the rest of the day thinking about
Ladhar’s visit without thinking about it. It sat in his conscience where his
soul could see it. Sat there without moving, captured in that last tableau: the
three of them there in the court, watching the delivery of the Cyne’s bounty.

Wrong,
though, Leal thought. Wrong. The food and goods arriving by royal dray were not
gifts, they were duty. It was the joint occupation of Cyne and Osraed to care
for the Caraidin, and in the long history of Caraid-land, it had been the Cyne
who supplied the means while the Osraed provided the way. Leal knew, as Abbod
Ladhar implicitly suggested he forget, that Cyne Colfre of the House Malcuim
would not be on his throne today were it not for the Meri and Her chosen
representatives. It was the first Osraed, Ochan, who gave Malcuim the wisdom
necessary to establish his House as the House from which Caraidin Cynes arose.
Another history there might have been if Ochan-a-Coille had not staggered to
the Cyne’s threshold six centuries ago and warned him that the Houses Claeg and
Feich were engaged in covert rebellion.

Still,
there was a point to what the Abbod said. Leal’s mission here was to see to the
welfare of the citizenry of Creiddylad—especially the poor. The Meri had
impressed that upon him, that and the need for change. He had made a good
start, coercing Colfre to be more open-handed. True, he hadn’t convinced the
Cyne to give control of the Osraed funds back into their own hands, but that
could come if ... if he didn’t lose the ground he had won.

In
the Meri’s name, Ladhar had said. The good you have wrought in the Meri’s name.
Lost. Because you could not abide ...

Had
the voice in the Sanctuary been his own? Had he been motivated by simple
jealousy, unable to tolerate the Cyne’s communion with his Beloved?

Feeling
wretched and confused, Leal secluded himself in his chambers. He meditated
himself to calm, then took out his crystal and slipped into his aislinn
chamber. The chamber, like all those at Care House, was make-shift, little more
than a cylindrical closet built up with screens of wood. Leal sat cross-legged
on the floor of his, while the crystal, Bliss, lay at center atop a carved
wooden stand. Incense burned, home incense that carried scents of Nairne—the
pines, the river, the wildflowers and spices. He breathed deeply and let his
mind flow to the crystal.

He
did not ask to see visions—he wanted only certitude—it was visions he got. The
crystal lit and spoke. In the ancient aislinn tongue, it poured pictures into
the darkened place, pictures that passed like storm-driven clouds. There was a
huge room—the Assembly Hall at Mertuile—filled with people and anger and fear
and tense silence. There were flashes of fire that became torches and light
globes carried high in the hands of people who laughed and cried and reached
out in joyous celebration to a figure standing high above them upon a gleaming
dais. The people gazed up at the dais and its occupants.

Leal
tried to see them, to determine who they were, but the image eluded him, subtly
altering itself. The people still chanted, but their laughter shattered into
barks of rage, fingers curled into fists, faces twisted, hideous. The Hall
trembled with their rage. They became a sea of faces, a teeming ocean of souls,
their emotions like a myriad waves in a crossing sea. There was thunder.

No,
Leal realized, there was someone pounding on his door.

“Coming!”
he managed to croak, and withdrew himself from the aislinn realm. The crystal
sucked in its light and its darkness and his visions, folding them up again
into silent facets.

The
young girl at the door bobbed an awed curtsey, her eyes on Leal’s face. “All
pardon, Osraed Leal,” she said in a loud whisper, “but you bid me tell you when
Aelder Buach returned from the docks. He’s in Refectory, Osraed.”

“Of
course, Fris. Thank you.” He smiled at her and she returned the smile before
dropping another curtsey and scurrying away.

Buach
was indeed in the Refectory, tucking away an impressive amount of vegetable
stew. He nodded at Leal as the younger boy slid onto the stool opposite him, a
bowl of stew and a spoon in hand.

“How
are things along the riverfront?” asked Leal after downing several bites of
stew.

Buach
gave him a watery smile. “Is there mail, do you mean? As it happens, Osraed,
there is.” He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small folio of hide and
cloth packets. “Here.”

He
held one out to Leal, who took it eagerly. The packet was from his family and
contained letters from each of them, the longest appearing to be from his
sister, Orna. Grateful, Leal thanked Buach and laid the letters on the table.

“You
did some care calls today, did you?”

“Aye.
A few. It was a clothing run, mostly. To the families down under Farbridge.
Autumn comes early down there.”

“And
did you visit your family while you were there?”

Buach’s
father owned a shop just above Farbridge and his entire family had been in the
Cyne’s Cirke last Cirke-dag. He often paid them a visit when out on care calls
in the area, but his wary expression said he wasn’t sure why the Osraed had
brought it up.

“Only
after I’d done my dues,” he said.

“Did
you talk to them at all about the happenings Cirke-dag?”

Buach
tried to hide his grin behind a chunk of bread. “You mean when you came head on
into Cyne Colfre’s ceremony?”

Leal
swallowed. “Yes. I couldn’t help but wonder what people are saying about it. I
knew your family was there ...”

Buach
studied his stew-sodden bread. “Tongues are flapping, Osraed. I can tell you
that. No one I’ve spoken to can agree altogether on what it meant, though. Now
my Gran’da says you busted the Cyne pure and simple—showed him who’s charged by
the Spirit in Caraid-land. My elder brother, on the other hand, says you were
doing no such thing; that you were confirming the Cyne’s right to speak for the
Meri.”

“How
does he figure that?”

Buach
shrugged. “You said only the Meri’s Chosen spoke for Her. Since the Cyne
claimed to speak for Her, he must be Chosen.”

Had
he said that? The words came back to him:
The
Meri speaks through Her Chosen. The Meri is known through the counsel of the
divine. No man among you knows the changes I have wrought.

“I
believe I said no man could know what the Cyne claimed to know.”

“Oh,
aye. Which, in my brother’s frail brain means that since the Cyne claimed to
know it, he’s no mere man.”

“You
don’t agree.”

Buach
made a rude noise. “If the Cyne’s divine, I’m the Gwenwyvar. I say with my Gran’da.
You busted him.”

While
Buach’s new admiration was preferable to his sullen disinterest, his words did
little to reassure Leal. He didn’t know which extreme was worse—to have it thought
he’d humiliated the Cyne, or to have it thought he’d accorded him divinity. He
prayed those were just extremes and turned to the reading of his letters.