Taminy (46 page)

The
girl turned her great green eyes on the Cyne. “I’d like to help him, sire.”

Cyne
Colfre hesitated, eying up the crowd—hushed now, and intent. Then a smile broke
across his face; it seemed to Haesel the most beautiful smile she had ever seen
and it made her heart pound all the harder. He nodded, and the Lady Taminy
reached out her arms for Losgann. Haesel released him, her mouth open to
comfort his fear at being given up into the care of a stranger, but it seemed
he had no fear. His tears had evaporated and his eyes smiled at the beautiful
lady who took him up into her lap.

Haesel
held her breath and prayed and watched as the Wicke girl felt along her son’s
twisted leg from hip to ankle. Her pretty brow furrowed and Haesel all but
swallowed the hope that clogged her throat. But the girl’s expression cleared
and she laid her hands firmly on Losgann’s leg and began to sing in a clear,
loud voice, words that Haesel didn’t understand, but trembled at. They were icy
words, hot words, words that chilled and comforted. They made Haesel’s heart
trip over itself and stagger and freeze in her breast.

Then,
a billow of blue light, like nothing Haesel had ever seen, rolled down out of
nowhere and crowned the Wicke girl’s head and tumbled down her arms and washed
all over and around Losgann, whose mouth and eyes were wide open, carp-like. So
were the Cyne’s, Haesel noticed, and if it had occurred to her, she might have
laughed. But she could only stare at the Wicke and her son bathed in azure
light and pray harder and remember to breathe.

Haesel
wasn’t certain how much time had passed before the light faded. She still stared,
along with the silent crowd until she heard her son’s voice. “Oh!” he said. “Oh!
Oh, mama! Mama, my leg!”

He
kissed the Lady Taminy and gave her a tremendous hug before scrambling down
from the carriage and into his mother’s arms. Then, he walked all around her,
his body upright, limping only the tiniest bit. His left leg was straight.
Straight!

“He’ll
need to exercise it,” the Lady Taminy said, her voice like balm. “Some of the
muscles have grown weak.”

Haesel
turned to her with every ounce of her joy and gratitude pouring from her eyes. “Oh,
mam. Oh, mistress! How may I thank you? How may I repay you?”

The
girl reached out her hand and Haesel took it, squeezing it between her palms. “You
are thanking me now. And your joy repays me a hundred-fold.” She released
Haesel’s hand and straightened, and the crowd roared with approval.

And
it was done. While Losgann capered for the crowd, Haesel watched the Cyne’s
carriage pull off down toward the Saltbridge Crossing, feeling as if a part of
herself trailed after it. She didn’t try to stop the tears that covered her
cheeks, but merely thanked God silently and wondered at the Wicke’s touch,
still tingling in her palm. They called Wicke “Dark Sisters” in most places,
but Haesel knew that the Cyne’s Wicke was full of light.

oOo

Lealbhallain
sat uneasily on the padded bench and tried to concentrate on his devotions. It
was difficult and, in the end, he had to beg the Meri’s forgiveness for his
inattention. He glanced sideways at Osraed Fhada, wondering if he was similarly
troubled. Leal’s mind slipped, unbidden, back to yesterday’s session in Fhada’s
aislinn chamber when they had seen, not Bevol, but something Bevol surely
wanted them to see. That something had been the Cyne’s walk with Taminy atop
the battlements of Mertuile.

Leal
could see her now, flaxen hair in breeze-blown banners, waving at the people
far below the great walls. Smiling. He had been struck by a sense of
familiarity. A familiarity which had nothing to do with their brief meeting at
Tell Fest. Both he and Fhada had been overwhelmed by a frenzied need to meet
Taminy-a-Cuinn face to face. They were here now, at Ochanshrine, shifting
restlessly on their benches, because they knew she would be here and knew,
also, that Osraed Bevol must have some reason for giving them that knowledge.

Leal
tensed and felt an answering awareness in Fhada; Osraed Ladhar had entered the
Shrine in the company of a pair of Cleirachs and now lumbered down one sloping
aisle. They were speaking in murmurs and Leal knew a guilty desire to
eavesdrop. Ears sharp, he groped in his mind for an inyx he might Weave, but
before he could recall one, the Shrine’s solitude was shattered. The pounding
of feet in the outer corridor was accompanied by a hubbub of voices, the
loudest of which cried hoarsely for Abbod Ladhar.

Before
the Abbod could do more than turn and glower up the aisle, a middle-aged Osraed
appeared in the doorway at the receiving end of that dark gaze. His face was
bright red, save for the pinched brackets of white around his nostrils, and
shone with a heavy dew of sweat.

“Abbod!
Dear God-! Abbod!” He rushed down the aisle toward the elder Osraed, oblivious
to the commotion he caused in this sacred Place. “I’ve seen—oh, dear God, what
I’ve seen! The Cyne—the girl-!”

Abbod
Ladhar was a bulwark of stone. “Calm, Tarsuinn,” he said. “Calm! Tell us what
you’ve seen.”

“The
Cyne is coming,” stammered Osraed Tarsuinn, “and the girl is with him.”

“Yes,
Tarsuinn, I know this. I am to meet with them. The girl, as I’m sure you’ve
heard, is suspected of Wicke Craft by some members of the Osraed Council.”

Osraed
Tarsuinn let out a wild moan. “Oh, she’s more than suspect, Abbod! I’ve seen
it!”

Ladhar’s
face flamed. “You’ve seen what?”

“A
healing! Oh, dear Meri—such a healing! In the middle of the street a
sweep-woman stopped the Cyne’s carriage and thrust her crippled child at him,
begging healing of-of that girl! And she took the boy into her arms, at the
Cyne’s say-so-”

“The
girl did—this Taminy?”

Tarsuinn
nodded vigorously. “And she put her hands on him and pulled Blue Healing out of
the Beyond like it was in full flood. Oh, blinding, she was, blinding!”

“And
the boy?” asked Ladhar. “The cripple?”

“Whole
and fit and straight.”

“A
trick?”

“Oh,
I think not, Abbod. I fear not. I’ve seen the child before, in the streets, at
Care House. He was run down by a jagger’s dray, his left hip and leg mangled.”

Ladhar
scowled. “And no Osraed could help him?”

The
flustered Tarsuinn shrugged and dithered. “His mother took him to a physician
first, I’m told. By the time he went to Care House, he was beyond even Osraed
effort.”

Ladhar’s
pale eyes seemed to turn inward, then. “And this girl from Nairne heals him at
a touch ... .” The icy marbles snapped back to Tarsuinn’s face. “Using what
Runeweave?”

“Using
none I’ve ever heard. She spoke the old tongue—words I know only from long
hours in the library.”

Abbod
Ladhar’s broad face was set in inscrutable lines Leal couldn’t begin to
penetrate. “We must be sure,” he said. “We must know she is a Wicke. If she is
a Wicke she may be destroyed, or at least rendered harmless.”

“How,
Osraed?” asked the Cleirach nearest him. “Now may she be neutralized?”

“The
greatest evil is neutralized by the greatest good.”

Ladhar
glanced back over his shoulder at the Osmaer Crystal.

Following
his gaze, the Cleirach’s eyes lit with the radiance of pure zeal. A hard
radiance, it glittered like the points of false glory reflected from the Osmaer’s
dark facets. Fever-hot, it shivered like Sun on baked cobbles. Leal was amazed
to feel all that in one glance at a man he’d only just noticed.

The
Cleirach was nodding now, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Please, Holy One, may we
observe your audience with this Wicke?”

Ladhar
merely inclined his head and indicated the Cleirach and his companion should
seat themselves. This they did, while all others within earshot, politely, or
fearfully, removed themselves from the chamber. Leal, for his part, scrambled
to remember an invisibility Weave and began to run the duan through his mind.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Fhada’s lips were also moving
silently. And none too soon. With the air of someone announcing the dawn of
doom, an Aelder Prentice entered the Shrine and proclaimed the arrival of the
Cyne.

He
appeared with all the dignity befitting a Malcuim and, if he was smaller in
stature than his father or his father’s father, his silhouette, starkly filling
the doorway, didn’t show it. Then, a female figure appeared next to the Cyne.
Both stepped down into the artificial light of the Shrine and Leal held his
breath.

Abbod
Ladhar waited at the bottom of the aisle, his back to the Osmaer Crystal. His
fatherly smile, the expansive sweep of his arms, displayed nothing but welcome.
“Cyne Colfre,” he said, “you honor this Threshold. This is the young woman you
spoke to me about?”

Cyne
Colfre returned the smile. “Indeed, Abbod. This lovely child is Taminy-a-Cuinn.”

“This
lovely child,” repeated Ladhar, his smile not altering, “is accused of heresy
and practicing the Wicke Craft, if I am not mistaken.”

The
Cyne and Taminy continued to descend. “Wrongfully accused, I am convinced.”

Leal
stirred. That sound ...Like ... like singing. He heard Fhada gasp, saw his arm
out-thrust, toward the Shrine’s Heart. He tore his eyes from Taminy’s face and
followed Fhada’s gesture.

A
cry was lifted from his throat before he could stop it. “The Crystal!”

The
Crystal pulsed at its core with a light that increased in steady, rhythmic
increments—brighter, brighter. Fire traced its facets, jumped from point to
point, while the sound of singing—or was it wind-chimes?—shimmered in the
semi-darkness of the Holy Place.

Ladhar
turned as swiftly as his bulk allowed and stared at the brilliant thing. His
face, his eyes, glowed with astonishment—an astonishment which gave quick way
to triumph.

He
swung back to face the Cyne. “Let the Crystal decide if she is wrongly accused.”

He
doesn’t understand, Leal thought. He doesn’t see ...

He
didn’t see that Taminy-a-Cuinn’s face glowed the same brilliant gold as the
Stone she now gazed upon. He didn’t see that that face wore an expression, not
of fear or distress, but of pure joy. It was the face of a lover reunited with
her Beloved.

The
Cyne stopped halfway down the aisle, uncertain, but Taminy continued on, her
eyes on the Crystal, feeding back its glory. She raised her hands to it and
Ladhar sidled out of the way. The singing increased volume, a sound like a
chorus of flutes and pipes and voices wrapped in and around a fine spring
breeze and the Solstice peal of Cirke chimes. Eibhilin fire leapt from Stone to
cailin and embraced her, twining her in its golden arms, spangling the still
room with glory. It rose to the curved rafters, it painted the walls, it must
surely have poured from the windows.

Leal
forgot his invisibility Weave altogether and came to his feet, quaking. “Oh, it’s
true!” he said. “It’s true!” He looked up at Fhada, who had also risen; the
older Osraed’s eyes streamed tears that turned to honey in the Osmaer gleam. He
looked at the Cyne and saw a man frozen in disbelief. He looked at Osraed
Ladhar and his companion Cleirachs and saw men whose entire world had come
undone.

Abbod
Ladhar’s mouth was open and above the singing of the Stone, Leal heard his
voice raised in a shrill litany: “Away, demon! Take her away! Take the demon
away!”

The
Cleirach who had begged to stay rose from his seat and advanced on Taminy who,
oblivious within her now blinding cloak of Eibhilin gold, continued to caress
the Stone. Leal tried to cry out, to warn her, but his throat made only a wild
croak. The Cleirach lunged. There was a flash of light, a sizzle of sound, and
the man toppled backwards as if he’d collided with a solid wall.

A
new sound invaded the room. It took Leal a moment to realize, incredulously,
that it was laughter—the Cyne’s laughter. Colfre Malcuim came down the aisle to
the circular Shrine, circled to where Taminy could see him, and held out his
hand to her. She shivered like someone shaking off a dream, glanced about, then
took the proffered hand. The encompassing globe of Eibhilin light shattered
like so much ephemeral glass and showered, in a myriad tiny, gleaming, silent
shards to the floor. The golden aura faded, melted away into the flagged
stones, under the benches, out of the air.

But
Ochan’s great Crystal still throbbed with a rhythmic aurora, dimmer than
before, but still strong. It was like an echoed heartbeat, Leal thought, when
he could think. He didn’t need to ask whose.

Cyne
Colfre led her away then; before the Cleirach could rise from the floor; before
his companion could find the courage to move to his aid; before Ladhar, his
face convulsing in fits of disbelief and rage, could utter further
condemnation. Light left the Stone in a receding tide. When Taminy left, she
took the Light with her.

“My
God,” whispered Fhada. “What is she?”

Leal
barely heard him. He stared at the Osmaer Crystal and wondered only how he
might go and throw himself at her feet.

oOo

“I
am only saying, sire, that it might not have been wise to ...”

“To
push Ladhar’s chubby face into his own ineptitude?” Colfre smiled, enjoying the
memory of those fat jowls flapping like an empty bellows. God, had anyone ever
before rendered the man speechless?

He
postured, puffing out his stomach and cheeks. “‘Let the Crystal decide if she
is wrongly accused!’ Well, it damn well decided something!” He dropped the pose
and came back to sit on the couch across from his Durweard, his heart galloping
at the mere thought of what she had done. “I tell you, Daimhin, she held that
Stone in the palm of her hand. She controlled it! She made it sing! Sing! I
swear by the Malcuim line, I have never heard it sing, and neither had our
porcine Abbod.”