The Singers of Nevya (19 page)

Isbel blushed again. Maestro Nikei was approaching, and she covered her mouth with her hand, but her eyes still sparkled with laughter as Nikei reached them.

They both bowed to the Cantor. Theo had to follow Nikei for his daily session in the Cantoris, and he left pretty Isbel smiling after him.

Theo met Sira again at last one morning in the nursery gardens. He was strolling among the flats of plants and seedlings that lay cosseted in yellow
quiru
light. He found her alone, bending over a tray of herbs to breathe in their fragrance. She turned with a flash of irritation when she heard him behind her.

She checked her reaction when she recognized him. She bowed slightly. “Hello, Singer. I am glad to see you recovering,” she said gravely.

Theo flashed his lopsided grin. “I’m fine, thanks. Enjoying my convalescence.” He was not quite as tall as she, but he thought she could not weigh half what he did. “And you, Cantrix Sira?” he asked. “Have you recovered?”

Her answer avoided his real question. “My wounds were not so serious as yours. They are almost healed.” Absently, she traced her scarred eyebrow with a long forefinger. Its darkness would be forever marked by a slash of white.

“You know, Cantrix,” Theo said in a light tone, “I’ve been an itinerant for three summers, and I’ve never had an experience like that one! Even when I accidentally came too close to the Watchers, they didn’t try to kill me.” He chuckled and shrugged. “Although they did shoot at me. But it takes time to heal . . . in many ways.”

Sira turned to him, her back straight and the angles of her face hard. “Singer,” she said harshly. “It is over. I do not think of it.”

Theo lifted his eyebrows. “Good for you,” he said mildly. He hooked a little ironwood bench forward with his foot and settled onto it, adjusting his bandages and resting his shoulders against the back. It occurred to him that perhaps he should leave her be, but an impulse, an intuition, drove him on. “So that means you’re ready to go back?”

“No!” Sira said sharply, then stopped, visibly controlling herself.

Theo watched her tense face. “Another Cantoris, then? Probably a good idea. After all, as the saying goes, the
ferrel
builds more than one nest.”

“My plans are not yet made, Singer.” Sira bowed again, clearly meaning to end their conversation. “I am sorry you were injured helping me, and if I may help you in turn, please ask.” She turned away with an air of finality.

“It seems to me, now that I think of it,” Theo went on comfortably, as if she had not tried to dismiss him, “that I heard a rumor you refused another Cantoris.”

Sira thumped her fist on a nearby table, making the seed flats jump. “I swear, a Singer cannot take a breath but what the whole Continent knows it!” Her flash of anger made the air around her glitter.

“Oh, I think your term is too general,” Theo said. “It’s just Cantors and Cantrixes whose every breath is of interest to Nevya.”

Sira looked at him over her shoulder. “I do not understand.”

Theo shook his head. “Sorry, Cantrix. Forget that.”

Sira stood still for a moment, gazing out into the humid air of the nursery gardens. Then, as if she had forgotten all about Theo, she strode away, leaving him alone.

Sira was healing, although not in the way Mkel hoped she would. She had spent many hours in the nursery gardens, breathing in the damp earthy air and thinking, while the gardeners watched from a distance. She tried not to notice, but she was aware her story had spread throughout Conservatory. Everywhere she went the House members looked at her with sympathy. She doubted they would be sympathetic if they knew the whole story, the truth.

Stabbing Wil had been bad enough. But in her dreams she felt that flash of psi, over and over, that had destroyed Trude’s mind. Often she woke, shaking in the dark, to wish hopelessly that Maestra Lu were there. Sira pondered all that had happened, and her resolve hardened like a pond at the end of summer as it gradually freezes from the top down.

Isbel came to her room one afternoon.
Sira. We should talk.

Sira shook her head. “There is nothing to talk about.”

Open to me, my friend.

“I cannot,” Sira said. “I am no longer the person I was when I lived here.”

“You are to me,” Isbel said stoutly. “I want to help you find yourself again.”

“That person is gone,” Sira said. “We can never walk back in the same footsteps.”

“That sounds like something the Singer Theo would say.”

“Theo? Have you been talking to him?” Sira leaned wearily against a wall. “I think I have never met anyone with so much conversation.”

“Yes. He is so funny. And he has such blue eyes, like a summer sky. We all like him.”

Sira hardly heard her. “Isbel,” she asked abruptly, “can you come and bathe?”

“Yes, of course. We can—”

“And do you have a sharp knife in your room?”

Isbel frowned. “I have the knife I use for cutting
filhata
strings. It was sharpened last week in the abattoir. But why?”

“Bring it, please,” Sira said.

Isbel obediently went away to her room to fetch the knife, carrying it back carefully wrapped in a bit of leather. She followed Sira to the
ubanyix
. They walked together much as they had when they were students, the pretty plump girl and her tall, solemn friend.

In the
ubanyix
, the girls shed their tunics and trousers and immersed themselves in the warm water. Sira unbound her hair and ducked her head below the surface for a moment. When the thick mass of her hair was soaked, she knelt on the bottom of the tub with her back to Isbel. “Please cut it for me.”

Isbel gave a gasp of dismay. “But Sira, why? Why cut your beautiful hair?” She held the knife awkwardly in her hand, as if she wished she had not brought it.

“Where I am going I do not want it,” Sira said. She leaned back slightly, so that her hair hung directly in front of Isbel.

“But, Sira . . . Cantrix . . . where are you going?”

“Away. And I am not a Cantrix anymore, Isbel. I am just a Singer.”

The odd tableau held for a long moment before Isbel, helpless before the force of Sira’s determination, took the heavy wet hair in her hand. She began to cut, tentatively at first, and then, when Sira remonstrated, more strongly. Sira reached over her shoulder to catch the long strands as they fell. When it was finished, Sira put her hand to her head, marveling at the lightness of it. Her fingers slipped easily through her cropped locks, and she felt free.

Theo was almost sorry one morning to realize that there was no longer any pain or stiffness in his wound. He stretched his shoulders and arms, feeling soft and lazy from weeks of easy living. He had enjoyed every day of his recuperation, hearing the
quirunha
daily in the best Cantoris on the Continent, watching the single-minded discipline of the students. The students had come to treat him as one of their own, and he thought he would always look back on this time as one of the best of his life, a shining interval of community with these chosen ones.

He had not seen Sira at the
quirunha
, nor at any other House functions. He assumed she must be having her meals in her room. Since their encounter in the nursery gardens, he had heard nothing of her, so he was startled to find her at his door one morning.

He bowed courteously, trying to hide his surprise at her cropped hair.

“May I speak with you, Singer?” she asked.

“At any time, Cantrix. Could you call me Theo, do you think?”

“Will you call me Sira, then?”

He grinned at her. “Probably not. You’re a Cantrix, after all.”

“Perhaps I shall go on calling you Singer,” Sira said, with a flash from her dark eyes. She stepped past him into his room.

Chuckling, Theo pulled forward the single chair for her to sit on, and seated himself on his cot. He waited for her to speak.

“I have questions for you,” she said. Her young face was intent. The short hair, brushed away from her cheekbones, relieved the sharp angles of her face. Theo liked the way it looked.

“I prefer that no one know I have asked these questions,” Sira went on.

“Go ahead,” Theo answered cheerfully. “I’m as quiet as a
caeru
in a snowstorm.”

Unsmiling, Sira said, “I want to know everything about being an itinerant Singer.”

Theo found himself without words for once. He searched her face for her meaning, and she looked away, down at her linked hands. “Singer. Theo. You are the only one I can ask.”

Theo sighed. “Cantrix Sira. The life of an itinerant is not easy. Constant exposure, loneliness, hard work. I don’t want to brag—” he grinned, “—but we’re a tough bunch.”

“I will not be a Cantrix anymore. I want to choose my own way.”

Theo said, “There is nothing I would like better than to give you whatever you need, Cantrix—I mean to say, Sira,” he amended. “But I know this business. It would waste your Gift.

“You have something others would give a great deal to have, your Conservatory education. You have a place where you belong, people who care about everything you do.”

“People who wish to control everything I do,” Sira said bitterly.

“Believe me. You must not throw away these advantages. It would be wrong for me to teach you the itinerant’s trade. And if I did, it would require practical lessons, not just talk.”

“Take me with you, then, when you leave. I will be your apprentice.”

“Sira. You belong here, not out there in the mountains and forests. I can’t be the means of taking you away from those who need you. I can’t bear that responsibility.”

Sira sat still for a moment before she nodded acquiescence. She avoided his eyes as she said, “Thank you just the same.” She stood and bowed. “I will consider further. And I appreciate your keeping our discussion private.”

Theo stood, too, and moved to the door to open it. “Let me help you in some other way.”

She shook her head. “I do not know what that would be, Singer.” He held up an admonishing finger, and the ghost of a smile turned up her lips. “Theo.”

He bowed. “Sira . . . give yourself time.”

She did not answer, but walked away in silence. He watched her narrow back moving down the corridor. Such intensity, he thought. Perhaps that is what my Gift lacks.

*

Sira soon learned it was not easy to prepare all by herself. She had no metal, as Cantors and Cantrixes never had need of it, but she needed to obtain provisions and equipment, which were as essential as information. She had never cooked for herself. She had never saddled
hruss
. But, determined on her course, she visited the kitchens and the stables and the storehouse, begging supplies.

The Housemen and women knew her, of course, and the dramatic tale of her survival in Ogre Pass had spread throughout Conservatory. The people in charge of the things she wanted were inclined to be indulgent with her. They looked curiously at her short hair, but she was a full Cantrix, and they asked no questions. Slowly her small room began to fill with the things she needed–a knife, a cooking pot, a bowl and cup, some grain and dried meat, a small cache of softwood. She started to worry that everything would not fit into a saddlepack.

The problems of
hruss
and saddle plagued her the most. As inexperienced as she was in matters of trade, she knew these were valuable, and that such metal as there was often was spent on them. All she had of great value was her
filhata
, given to her by Conservatory before her first
quirunha
. It had been sent back to her from Bariken, and now she offered it to the man in charge of Conservatory’s stables.

Erc was a paternal man. “Cantrix Sira, you don’t need to part with your
filhata
. Magister Mkel would be glad to give you
hruss
and tack if you need to ride somewhere.”

“No. I cannot ask him. And I do not wish you to ask him, please, Erc. I am not going on Conservatory business.”

“What other business does a Cantrix have?”

“I do not think I need to explain,” Sira said as sternly as she knew how.

Erc was abashed, and Sira regretted the necessity of being brusque. He said, “Of course, Cantrix. But we can lend you the
hruss
and saddle, and you will return it when you can.”

“Thank you, Erc, but no. I much prefer to pay for it.”

Erc’s genial face creased with worry, but he pressed her no further. Awkwardly, he accepted her
filhata
, encased in its fine wrapping, and after showing her a saddle and saddlepack, took her to the stalls to choose a
hruss
. Sira did her best to look knowledgeable, but the
hruss
all looked the same to her. She accepted the first one Erc recommended, a comparatively small animal with shaggy chin and fetlocks.

“When will you want it ready, Cantrix?” he asked.

When she opened her mouth to answer, Sira realized that this was an important moment, the final step of her going. Her voice trembled ever so slightly. “Tomorrow morning, please.”

Erc bowed deeply in acknowledgment. “It will be saddled and fed.”

Sira bowed in return and set off for her room, empty saddlepack thrown over her shoulder. I will be ready, too, she told herself. Ready to live my own life.

Chapter Seventeen

Theo approached Magister Mkel at the morning meal. Cathrin was at Mkel’s left, overseeing the meal from their table in the center of the great room. Most of the students, teachers, and visitors were present, crowding the room with more than three hundred people. Theo waited as a messenger spoke in a low tone to the Magister, who looked grave.

When the messenger departed, Theo bowed. “Good morning, Cathrin. Magister, I’m afraid I’ve enjoyed the hospitality of Conservatory long enough.”

“Oh, please don’t speak of leaving so soon, Singer,” said Cathrin warmly. “I’ve enjoyed your stories so much.”

“You’re a patient listener,” Theo said with a grin. “But I can’t work up enough pain in my wound to justify this holiday any longer.”

“Are you quite sure, Singer?” asked Mkel. He looked distracted, his eyes straying after the messenger as he wended his way through the tables. Theo followed his gaze, wondering what the news had been.