The Gift (49 page)

“Cadvan!” he said. “What on earth are you doing here? You keep close counsel; you didn’t tell me you were coming this way. We could have traveled together. And Maerad too? And who’s this?”

Cadvan swayed in the doorway. “Well met, Saliman,” he said quietly. “I thought you might be here.” He staggered across the room and fell into a deeply cushioned chair by the fire. Maerad saw that he was shaking badly.

“And very much the worse for wear, I see,” said Saliman, swiftly covering his shock at his friend’s state. “You’re white as a sheet. Who punched you in the eye? Not to mention those whipstings. Let me get you a drink!” He raised his eyebrow at Nelac, who nodded, and went across to a sideboard on which there were several glass decanters. “Laradhel, perhaps?”

Cadvan nodded. Saliman poured a glass of the golden liquor, then looked across at Maerad and Hem, and poured another two.

“Sit down, sit down,” said Nelac. Maerad and Hem were still standing uncertainly in the doorway. Maerad, with Hem sticking close behind her, walked to a sofa against the painted wall and sat straight as a bolt on the very edge. Saliman gave her the glass, and she sipped, looking sideways at Hem, who at first spluttered wildly and then drained the entire glass. A glow of warmth ran through her body, and she began to relax a little.

“That’s a little better,” said Nelac. He looked at Maerad. “Did I hear aright?” he said. “Cadvan said you were Maerad and Cai of Pellinor? Brother and sister, I guess?”

“Brother?” said Saliman, staring at Hem, who stared boldly back.

“Yes, my brother,” said Maerad. She still had a feeling of unreality in so claiming him.

Nelac shook his head in amazement. “Pellinor! Though now that I look, I can guess who your mother was, Maerad. Surely she was Milana of the First Circle? You’re alike as two peas. I didn’t know Dorn so well, but Cai takes after him. You both have your father’s eyes.”

Hem wriggled, in discomfort or pleasure, Maerad couldn’t tell. “My name’s Hem,” he said abruptly, and then gulped nervously, as if he thought he’d be clouted for speaking.

Nelac lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. Instead he looked across at Cadvan, who was staring into the fire and didn’t appear to be listening. Maerad followed his gaze, beginning to feel alarmed. She had never seen Cadvan like this before. Even when his wounds were stitched at the inn, and in his agony she had thought him at the extremity of his endurance, he hadn’t seemed so wraithlike, so gray. He looked deathly. Nelac seemed to share her concern; he went over to Cadvan and knelt before him. Cadvan looked up heavily.

“What has happened to you, my friend?” Nelac asked gently. He cupped his hand under Cadvan’s chin and looked straight into his eyes. To Maerad, Cadvan suddenly seemed ten years old, a child in pain pleading wordlessly for relief, and she flinched at the sight. She had no idea until then of the extent of Cadvan’s suffering: over the past four days he had been grimmer than usual, but she had put it down to the whiplashes and weariness. What she perceived now was his wounded mind, broken in the battle on the downs. She realized with a rush of distress that he had been in constant anguish ever since, and she had never guessed.

“It was a wight,” Cadvan said hoarsely. “A wight of the Abyss, Nelac. It struck me down. There was nothing I could do.”

Maerad heard the sharp intake of Saliman’s breath. “A wight!” He looked at Maerad and Hem, marveling. “How is it that you’re still alive?”

Cadvan waved his hand. “Maerad . . . ,” he mumbled. Nelac, who seemed deeply worried, looked up sharply.

“No time for questions,” he said. “They can be answered later.”

Nelac put his hand on Cadvan’s brow, and, as Maerad watched in wonder, she saw a silver radiance gather around him, growing in intensity. He shut his eyes. After a short time, Nelac’s hand was brighter than anything else in the room, and the Bard himself seemed to be a form of sheer incandescence, a being of air and light rather than flesh. Very far away, or very deep in her mind, Maerad could hear an ethereal music; she thought it was like bells or pure voices, but it was really like nothing she had ever heard before. Cadvan’s eyelids fluttered closed, and a deep peace flooded into his face.

Hem was sitting beside Maerad with his mouth open, his glass forgotten in his hand. They watched, entranced, for an immeasurable span of time; and then Nelac breathed out and drew his hand away from Cadvan’s brow, and the radiant music softened and dimmed and disappeared.

Sighing, Cadvan opened his eyes and leaned back in his chair, gazing at the ceiling. Nelac stood up slowly, and Maerad realized properly for the first time that he was an old man; how old she couldn’t guess. He suddenly looked intensely weary. He poured himself some laradhel and sat down again without speaking.

“What was that?” Hem’s voice squeaked with astonishment and alarm, and Maerad jumped. “What did he do?”

Nelac looked up at Hem, amused despite his evident tiredness, but it was Saliman who answered.

“Young Hem, you have just seen the greatest healer in Annar and the Seven Kingdoms exercise his full powers. Take note! It is a rare sight. And something for a young Bard to aspire to. An old Bard too,” he said, lifting his glass toward Nelac.

“Will Cadvan be all right now?” Maerad asked in a small voice. She still felt cold with distress: why hadn’t she noticed how ill he was? She wondered again at Cadvan’s powers of endurance; he had led them all that way.

Nelac sighed. “Yes,” he said. “It was almost too late. Even another few hours and perhaps not even I could have helped him. I had to go deep to heal him. But yes, he will be all right now. For the rest, he just needs sleep.” He looked at Hem and Maerad. “I would say that you two do, as well. Maerad, I don’t know what has happened. I see already it is a cruel story. For the moment we’ll leave that be; we can talk tomorrow. Perhaps you would like a bath, and dinner, and a long sleep?”

“A bath!” Maerad was overwhelmed with a sudden physical longing. “That would be so lovely! I haven’t had a bath since . . . since Innail.”

There was a knock on the door, and Brin, Nelac’s housemaster, entered. “The chambers are prepared, Master Nelac,” he said.

“Good!” said Nelac, standing up. “Then you shall have a bath straightaway, if you wish, young Maerad. And you too, Hem.”

“A bath?” said Hem, looking alarmed again. “What’s a bath?”

“Or not, as the case may be,” said Nelac, smiling with great gentleness. He seemed to find Hem very amusing. “It’s not compulsory, if, perhaps, advisable. Saliman, could you take these young people upstairs? I need to sit for a while. Cadvan can go up later, when he’s ready.”

Maerad took her pack from the hallway, and then Saliman led them up several flights of stairs to their guest chambers. She blinked as they walked through the dimly lit corridors. Nelac’s house was big and grand, the ceilings high enough to be lost in shadow, and everywhere, carved into the lintels of doors and windows, were runes and symbols: ancient charms, Saliman told them, for the prosperity and wisdom of those who dwelt there. It was sparsely but richly furnished, and Maerad saw often the glint of gold or a bright tapestry, or they would turn on a landing and confront an exquisite statue glimmering whitely through the shadows. They passed many doors through which they could hear the murmur of conversation, or the tuning of instruments, or a lone voice practicing scales; and often they passed people on the stairs, Nelac’s students, she supposed, some of whom turned and stared at their wild state. Maerad wondered how many people lived there. She began to understand what Silvia had meant by calling Innail a “humble house”; privately she thought she preferred Silvia’s friendly abode to this grandeur, which she thought cold and gloomy.

“So, Hem of Pellinor, or Cai of Pellinor . . . what really
is
your name?” said Saliman as they walked along.

“Hem,” said Hem firmly. “It’s Hem.”

“Did Cadvan find you too? What is going on here?”

Maerad didn’t know how to answer, wondering what Cadvan would want her to say, and Saliman glanced at her and laughed. “It’s all right, Maerad, don’t feel you have to tell me anything. I’ll find out from Cadvan later. But I can’t get over it!
Two
from Pellinor!”

“And where are
you
from?” demanded Hem rudely. “Not from around here, I’ll bet.”

Saliman seemed to find Hem as amusing as Nelac did. “No, Hem. I’m from Turbansk, to the south.”

“The south!” Hem’s face brightened with wonder. “Are you really from the south?”

Saliman’s mouth twitched. “Indeed I am. From the land of pomegranates and monkeys and oranges bigger than your head!”

This seemed to temporarily silence Hem, whose eyes were now as big as saucers. They went on without speaking until they came to another wide corridor. Saliman opened the first door and poked his head in. “This looks like your room, Maerad. Make yourself at home.”

Maerad’s chamber was bigger and higher than her room at Innail, with white stone walls draped with plain blue hangings. The stone floor was warmed by an intricately patterned crimson carpet. A curtained bed was let into the wall, and by the window was a cushioned window seat, on which were laid a rich red dress and other clothes. A fire crackled comfortably in a small grate.

“The bathroom’s down the hallway,” explained Saliman. Maerad walked in the door and turned to thank him, but he was already farther down the hall, showing Hem his room. Hem was now chatting away freely; he seemed to like Saliman, or at least was not as awed by him as he was by Nelac. Maerad shut the door quietly, put down her pack, and sat motionless on the window seat. Her hair fell over her face, still damp from the storm, and she flicked it back, watching the rain beat on the black window pane. She would have a bath and change, but first she had to unpack.

She took out her possessions, leaning her lyre against the chest and placing the small cat and the reed flute on the mantel. As she lifted the flute, the ring wrought of golden lilies flashed in the firelight, and she thought of Ardina, who in her different guises of Elidhu and Queen, had given her both gifts, rustic flute and exquisite ring. She wondered, for the first time, what they might mean. Ardina, she felt sure, had very little to do with the Light; but she was most certainly not evil. She was somehow outside these human laws — free and strange and dangerous — and yet she called Maerad her kin. Feeling unsettled by her thoughts, and too tired to follow them, Maerad put Dernhil’s book on a small table, next to a lily-shaped lamp that sat there. For a second she gazed at it sadly, suddenly vividly reminded of Dernhil’s serious face, bent over his desk, writing something. Saddened, she turned back to her unpacking. She didn’t know what to do with her fighting gear, but when she looked into the chest, she saw there was plenty of room to stow it. The chest contained more soft, warm raiment like that she had worn at Innail, and the wood smelled sweet, imbuing the clothes with its scent.

She took the crimson dress, which was made of a fine, very soft wool, from the window seat and hurried down the hallway to find the bathroom. No one was there, and she drew a hot bath, pouring generous amounts of oil into the water, and lowered herself in with a feeling of bliss. For a while she allowed herself simply to relax, emptying her mind of everything except the sheer pleasure of the warm water. She thought she had better not dawdle and, long before she was ready, dragged herself out, dressed in the crimson robe, and returned to her room.

With the tempest raging outside it seemed very cosy and welcoming. After the punishing ride of the past few days she didn’t feel like moving at all; she sat by the fire and listened to the storm hurling fistfuls of rain against the window, lighting up its blackness with white flashes of lightning. At last she was at Norloch, but she felt too tired to think, or even to feel any sense of triumph; more than anything else, she felt a strange, persistent unease. Norloch was grand and noble, and that daunted her; on the other hand, she liked Nelac very much. Why, then, this feeling of doubt?

Saliman led Maerad and a yawning Hem downstairs to Nelac’s dining room, where food was set out on a table. Hem was now wearing a plain jerkin of dyed blue wool and blue breeches of heavy cotton, instead of the ragged garments in which he had arrived, but they were too big for him, and he still went barefoot. Clearly he had not bathed.

“We’ll have to get you clothes that fit, eh, Hem? And some shoes,” said Saliman, inspecting him. Hem looked up, surprised; he was pleased enough to be dressed warmly, and Maerad had the impression that he had never owned any shoes. “And I shall introduce you to a bath, as well.”

“Not for me,” said Hem, shaking his head vigorously. “I’m fine as I am.”

“You’re probably quite a different color under that dirt,” Maerad said reflectively.

“Yes, white as the driven snow,” said Saliman mock seriously. “His hair is probably blond.”

Hem hunched his shoulders and walked on ahead without answering. Maerad looked laughingly across at Saliman. “You’ve a challenging task ahead, if you really want to clean him up,” she said.

“I am undaunted,” said Saliman, throwing back his head heroically. “Not even Hem cows Saliman of Turbansk!”

Cadvan was not at dinner; Nelac said he had gone to bed. Maerad was very hungry, but black waves of exhaustion kept breaking over her; she felt that if she didn’t lie down soon, she would simply pass out at the table. Hem ate ravenously, and he couldn’t hide his look of disbelief when he was offered a second helping. When he tentatively asked for more and wasn’t refused, his incredulity became comical. He consumed, Maerad thought, an unfeasible amount of food: he would probably be sick. He ate at least four times the amount Maerad did, in the time it took her to finish a single plate.

While they ate, neither Saliman nor Nelac asked them about their adventures. Saliman told them tales of his homeland; his strong, slender musician’s hands sketched pictures in the air, his teeth flashing white as he laughed. Hem sat enraptured, chewing noisily, his head full of images of golden-roofed towers and fruit markets and silk stalls and strange, exotic animals. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Saliman, and when the Bard intercepted his stares and smiled he blushed furiously and looked around the room instead.