The Singers of Nevya (26 page)

Sira laid aside the
filhata
and went to the door.

The corridor outside her room had grown bright and warm with the overflow of heat from Sira’s playing. Two women were seated on the floor, leaning against the outside wall of Sira’s room, basking in the warmth. Each had a heavily-wrapped baby in her arms, infants with running noses and cheeks reddened with cold or fever—Sira was not sure she knew the difference.

The younger of the women, painfully thin, with wispy yellow hair, had her eyes closed. Her head lolled against the wall.

The other was trying to shush her child, the one who had cried. She turned her face up to Sira when the door opened. She looked dull and ill, but her face was defiant.

“Sorry to disturb you,” said the woman. “But it’s warmer here. My baby’s sick.”

The woman lifted the child to her shoulder, crooning. It was clear even to Sira that the mother was more ill than her baby. Sira shuddered slightly, as if in pain, and folded her arms around herself.

“It is all right,” she said in a low voice. “You have not disturbed me.”

As she returned to her room and closed the door, she reflected that she had not been truthful. The sight of them, sick and cold and hopeless, disturbed her deeply. She felt helpless. She felt trapped.

What is it?
Theo sent.

There are two women out there, with their babies. They are sick, all of them.
Sira lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture.

Theo went to the door himself and looked out. After a moment he stepped into the corridor, softly closing the door behind him. Sira heard him murmur to the women, and their soft answers. There were shuffling sounds as they got up from the stone floor and moved away. When she went to the door and opened it again, they were gone, and Theo with them.

*

Not knowing where else to work, Theo led the sick women to the Cantoris. At least in the Cantoris, where he and Jon had labored with their
filla
that morning, there was some warmth and light. He did not bother with the dais, however, but asked the women to make themselves as comfortable as they could on the wooden benches.

The younger woman, with thin fair hair, was very ill indeed, Theo discovered. He took his
filla
from inside his tunic, and played in
Doryu
, the third mode. As he attuned his mind to hers, his own body began to ache with her fever. He experienced with her the effort it took for her to hold her baby. Her arms trembled with weakness, and he felt her great fear that she would die and leave her baby behind. It was painful, but he could not shield himself and still heal her.

He continued in the third mode, searching with his psi for the hottest spot in her body, the source of the illness. It was her throat, he thought, and probably the same for her baby. He played until he was exhausted, trying to cool her, switching to
Iridu
to try to soothe the pain of her throat and her muscles. He did the same for her child, and it was somewhat easier, as there was no wall of emotion to be breached.

The other woman was not so ill, but worn and tired from caring for her friend and for her own infant. Theo did what he could for her, and at length both women stretched out on the benches, drowsing, with their children beside them. Theo frowned down at them as he stood to stretch his stiff muscles.

“You’re good at healing, Singer,” came Pol’s rough voice from the back of the Cantoris.

Theo looked up at him and shrugged. “I can only do so much.”

“Why is that?” Pol challenged. Theo walked to the back of the room so his voice would not disturb the women.

He spoke softly, looking directly down into Pol’s eyes. “Your House is in awful condition,” he said. “It’s cold, the food is bad, the walls are damp, so your people are sick.”

It was Pol’s turn to shrug. “What can I do about that?” he asked. “We brought you, and Singer Jon. Summers are better here. It’s our destiny to suffer until the Ship comes.”

Theo made a sound of pure disgust. Pol turned his small fierce eyes back to the women resting on the benches. “They understand that,” he said. “They have always lived this way.” He looked up at Theo again. “We have a song, you know, that used to say we will wait a hundred summers for the Ship. Now we sing that we will wait a thousand summers for the Ship.”

“I have been to nearly every House on the Continent,” Theo said. “No other House believes as you do. You’re sacrificing your people for a foolish fable.”

Pol pursed his lips, then said, “It’s no fable. All Observatory knows it.” He went to the doors of the Cantoris and stood there, looking out into the shadowy hall. “Shall I send someone to fetch these women?”

Theo nodded. “Yes. I’ll wait.”

“Others will want your help when they hear.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I am only one Singer.”

Pol disappeared through the doors, and Theo went back to watch over the sleeping women. The older one was breathing easily, her baby resting quietly beside her. The younger woman, her wisps of pale hair awry, was sleeping, but her breath rattled in her chest, and her infant whimpered in its sleep. Theo picked up the baby, careful not to disturb its mother. He held the little one close to his chest. It was hot, its skin dry and marked with rashes.

“Poor little one,” he murmured to it, putting his cheek to its fringe of hair. “I’m sorry, baby. Fables are not much good to you, are they?” As he waited, he sang bits of a lullaby he had heard long ago. He could not remember where he had learned it. In another lifetime, perhaps.

L
ITTLE ONE, LOST ONE,

S
WEET ONE, SLEEPY ONE,

T
HE
S
HIP WILL CARRY YOU HOME.

He held the baby until a Housewoman came and, smiling gently at him, took the infant into her own arms. Theo went slowly and wearily down the dark, cold corridors to his own room, and collapsed on his cot. He closed his eyes against the feeble light, and saw in his mind Pol’s fierce unyielding gaze. Sira is right, he thought. These people are not sane.

Chapter Twenty-four

It became a ceremony at the morning meal for Sira to sit long over her tea while Pol rested his elbows on the table in the center of the great room and watched her. She did not look at him, but she felt the intensity of his gaze as he waited, willing her to give in. Sira had the advantage in this strange conflict, because she had nothing whatever to do, and Pol had more responsibilities than one man could reasonably carry. And so each morning she sat, stubbornly, staring at the carved wood of the table or looking out through the thick windows at the surrounding treeless peaks, until Pol was forced to leave the great room to resume his duties.

As Sira waited, she endured the inadequate efforts of Jon and Theo in the Cantoris across the hall. The air in Observatory brightened slowly as they worked. Her own inactivity stifled and irritated her, and she used those feelings to fuel her resentment and strengthen her resolve.

Sira? We are finished.

Guilt assailed her as she looked up to see Theo in the doorway. He had lost weight, and his shock of blonde hair seemed less vigorous. Her own hair was still short, but she knew her skin was dry. There were blotchy patches on her arms and legs.

Coming
, she sent quickly, and got up. Several Housewomen and men were still moving about the great room, clearing the long tables.

“Singer?” said a Housewoman to Theo. “Can I get you some tea? Some food?”

“Thank you, Netta,” he said, smiling at her. “I could take some tea to my room.”

“I’ll bring it right away,” she said, and bustled off.

Do you know all their names?
Sira sent.

I am learning them.
Theo leaned wearily against the doorjamb.

I know hardly any.

He managed a smile for her, too.
Well, I am not a Cantor. Only an old itinerant.

I do not understand.

Theo’s smile faded.
I know. But itinerants live among the people, not separated.

Do Cantors and Cantrixes not live among the people?

Theo shook his head. The Housewoman brought his tea, and he carried it in his hand as he and Sira moved down the corridor.

“I must speak aloud, Sira,” he said. “I’m tired this morning. It’s hard to send.”

She nodded, and he went on to answer her question. “Everything in a Cantor’s life separates him from the unGifted. He is taken from his family—”

“Not taken!”

Theo shrugged, and his smile was tired. “All right, given up by his family. He grows up at Conservatory, then goes to a Cantoris where he is never touched by a single person, where he is spoken to only by his title, where he never mates or has children . . .”

Sira drew breath to interrupt again, but thought better of it. Theo was saying something important. She pressed her lips together, and listened.

“Tell me, Cantrix,” Theo said. “What friends did you have at Bariken?”

“My senior was my friend.”

“No others?”

“Well, there was—” A painful pause ensued. “There was Rollie,” Sira finished bitterly. “She was killed.”

“Did you spend time with Rollie? Have tea together?”

“Only outside. She was a rider.”

Theo nodded in sympathy. “This is the way with Cantors and Cantrixes. They have only themselves for company. They neither know nor understand the people they work with.”

“Serve,” Sira said flatly.

Theo ventured to touch her shoulder. “Yes, of course. Serve.” He reached into his tunic and pulled out a bit of shining metal on a thong around his neck. “This belonged to my mother, and her father before that, and generations of Singers past remembering. They also served, and served well.”

Sira did not know how to answer him. They reached her room, and she went in ahead of him. He slumped on her cot.
Itinerants
, he sent,
live with the people. Among them. And . . .

Sira did not catch the last thought, and raised her eyebrows. He continued aloud, “And know them, what’s important to them, what they care about.”

Theo closed his eyes, and Sira watched him. His skin, too, suffered from the bad food and the constant cold of this place. Sira had not thought about how much she liked his appearance until this moment, as she saw that his brown cheeks were less smooth, the lines around his eyes and mouth deeper, and not so much from laughter now.

She put her hand on his, though he did not have the
filhata
in his hands. She liked touching him, feeling the hardness of his hands and arms, the warmth of his skin. She had not thought about that, either.
Rest,
she sent to him gently.
Rest, my friend. I will teach you later.

He smiled without opening his eyes, and Sira drew a fur over his lap. She left the room, closing the door as softly as possible as she went out.

She had seen very little of Observatory. Suddenly, she felt impelled to see it all, to understand why Theo would allow himself to be used this way. Seized with purpose, she strode down the corridor. She would start, she thought, in the place that had been her favorite, both at Conservatory and at Bariken: the nursery gardens. She did not even know for sure where they were, but the release from inactivity felt good to her. She walked faster.

This House, she soon learned, was laid out much as other Houses. The gardens were in the back, protected between the two long wings of apartments and workrooms. Sira marveled at the phenomenon of a House, built untold centuries ago far above the other Houses of the Continent. She wondered if even the Watchers themselves understood its mysteries.

She peered into the nursery. The gardens of Observatory were not inviting. Sunshine filtered through the glass roof, but it was weak, diluted. There were shadows in the corners, and the plants languished in the cold. The miracle, Sira thought, was that Observatory had any vegetables at all. There was a faint scent of offal, and Sira suspected the waste drop was too close to the House. Perhaps they had no choice.

A gardener saw her and came forward. Sira did not even recognize his face. She withdrew quickly, feeling she had no place here.

She had no desire to see the abattoir, and as far as she knew, there was no manufactory at Observatory. There were only the kitchens and the family apartments to see. More slowly now, thoughtfully, Sira walked through the corridors, listening for sounds of family life. The halls were quieter than at Bariken, but she was sure Observatory housed considerably fewer people. She heard one or two children laughing, and at least one crying, before she reached the kitchens.

Several Housewomen were there, huddled together at a small table. The air was still warm from the preparation of the morning meal, but Sira saw that even the radiant heat from the ovens could not banish the ubiquitous mold that crept across the walls. She stopped in the doorway, struck by the attitude of the women.

One of them Sira recognized as the older woman who had been outside her apartment on the day of Theo’s first lesson. She was weeping, silently and steadily. Two other Housewomen held her hands and leaned close to her, nodding rhythmically to her sobs, in the manner of an often-observed ritual. Helplessly, Sira watched them, struck with a sense of foreboding.

“Excuse me,” she said.

A woman she had not noticed, gray-haired, aproned, came from behind some wooden tubs of grain. “Yes,” she said, her hands on her hips. She had an air of being in charge.

“What has happened?” Sira asked, dreading and yet needing to know. “Why is this woman crying?”

The woman eyed her as if wondering whether she deserved an answer. At last she said, “Her friend has died, her friend Liva. And her baby with her.”

Sira’s heart sank like a stone cast into the Frozen Sea. She did not know the name, but she knew with a terrible certainty who Liva must have been. She remembered the two women sitting on the floor outside her apartment to take in the lavish excess of her
quiru
, apologizing for having disturbed her. O Spirit, she thought. I am so sorry.

The woman’s weeping went on, silent, inexorable. The gray-haired Housewoman said without expression, “Do you want something?”