The Singers of Nevya (34 page)

She turned back to the waiting Housemen and women, but she did not see them now. She saw the days and weeks and months of her life stretching out before her, building into long years of work and loneliness, of youth come and gone, of friends never seen again.

O Spirit, she wondered. How will I bear it?

Chapter Three

Kai lived with his family in a crowded apartment on the first level. Their rooms were too near the waste drop and the tannery, and too far from the great room, but they were big enough for the entire family to be together. Kai’s older brothers and a younger sister were already hardworking House members like himself. His parents had two more boys still to raise, but they wanted all their children at home until they should mate and move into their own apartments.

“Kai,” his brother Rho said. “Kai, I’m talking to you! Six Stars, where’s your ears, Houseman?”

Kai had been staring blankly at the wall before him. He blinked and shook his head. “Sorry, Rho. What is it?”

“I asked if you want to come to the
ubanyor
. I’m ready now.”

Kai rubbed his eyes hard to push away the thoughts that had distracted him. They were thoughts he shouldn’t be thinking anyway. “I’m coming. Just a minute.” He reached into an overfull cupboard for a fresh tunic and followed Rho out of the apartment, dodging the game of stone-and-bone his two youngest brothers had spread on the floor.

In the corridor, the smell of the tanning vats was heavy in the air. Rho sniffed and wrinkled his nose. “Smells strong,” he said, and grinned. “They’re working on the carcasses we brought in yesterday. We gave them plenty to do!”

“So we did,” Kai answered. “The whole House must smell of it.”

With their father and two other hunters, Rho and Tam and Kai had made a large kill just north of Deception Pass. Even their itinerant Singer’s
hruss
had been heavily loaded with
caeru
when they rode home. There would be an abundance of meat for the tables in the great room, and the bones and pelts would keep many Housemen and women busy for some time.

Kai wondered if the odor of the tanning vats would reach the new Cantrix in her upper-level apartment. Perhaps she even knew of the hunting trip, and the riches they had brought back for their House. He tried to imagine her exclaiming over the size and value of their kill, her green eyes bright with admiration at his skill and courage. He couldn’t picture it. More likely, he told himself, the Gifted gave no thought to the necessities of life beyond those they themselves provided. And in truth, why should they?

He looked around at the strong yellow light of the
quiru
. He knew when he stepped into the water of the
ubanyor
that it would be hot and soothing, and that it would be so because one of the Gifted–those untouchable, unapproachable creatures–had warmed it. They simply played one of their secret melodies on the little
filla
until the steam rose from the water and the leafy herbs swirled on its surface. Why should such a person—a person who could bring light to the darkness and heat to cold air and water—why should anyone with such power trouble themselves with questions of food or furs or tools?

The
ubanyor
was crowded with Housemen, and the brothers saw that even the Housekeeper Cael lounged at one end. Kai and Rho greeted several friends as they dropped their soiled clothing in an untidy pile and stood their boots against the wall. They lowered themselves with grunts of pleasure into the steamy water, and Rho ducked his head under its surface.

“Now this is living,” he said, sputtering water from his mouth and nose. He reached into a carved niche for a cake of the smooth brown soap made in Amric’s own abattoir.

Kai rubbed his face with wet hands and looked around the
ubanyor
. “By the spirit,” he muttered to his brother. “Look who bathes with the Housemen!”

Rho followed Kai’s nod to the other end of the great ironwood tub, and saw Cantor Ovan, his body slight and pale compared with their own husky ones, sitting apart from the other bathers. “So he does,” said Rho in a low tone, “and so we have a nice hot bath today.” He stretched his strong arms luxuriously. “I may spend the whole morning here.”

But Kai turned away from the sight of the Cantor’s narrow face and disdainful expression. His brother caught the movement and elbowed him. “What is it now, Kai? Have you taken a dislike to the Gifted?”

Kai shook his head. “Only that one,” he muttered.

Rho leaned closer. “What is it?” he whispered. “Come on, tell me. What could a Cantor have done to Kai the hunter?”

Kai shook his head again. “Never mind.” But Rho was having none of that. He prodded him again, laughing, insisting. Kai looked back at the Cantor, sitting alone and silent in the water, in the company but not of it.

“I attended the
quirunha
,” he said quietly. “Her first
quirunha
. And Cantoris hours.”

“Whose first? Oh, you mean the new Cantrix? The little one we brought here?”

“Who else, furbrain?” Kai laughed a little, but then his mouth tightened as he remembered. “He was cruel to her.”

“How do you know?” Rho asked. “Are you Gifted, now, that you can hear them talk with their minds the way they do?”

Kai made a noise of disgust. “No! By the Spirit, I hear enough with my ears, and I see with my eyes. He made it as hard as he could for her, this poor girl just out of Conservatory.”

Rho shook more water from his hair and leaned back against the edge of the tub. “Brother,” he said weightily, as if he had much more than one summer above Kai’s four. “That is not a girl you’re talking about. That’s a full Cantrix, Conservatory-trained. Such a person doesn’t need Kai v’Amric to fight her battles.”

Kai tipped back his head to drench his hair, kept short like that of all those who earned their living out of doors, and began to soap it furiously. “Maybe not,” he muttered. “But I’m here if she does.”

*

When Cantoris hours ended, and Isbel stood to leave, she saw that a Housewoman with a very young child waited beyond the ironwood benches. Cantor Ovan saw her too, and sighed. Isbel wished she could chide him as he so often chided her. It was not the Housewoman’s fault that Cantoris hours had been long this morning. The woman came forward slowly, reluctantly. The child dragged its feet beside her.

Was she afraid? Isbel wondered. She looked into the woman’s face, and the glowing face of her little daughter, and she knew immediately that it was not fear that slowed the woman’s steps. It was grief.

“Cantor Ovan,” the Housewoman said, with a careful bow.

“Yes?” he asked impatiently. “Who are you?”

Again Isbel wished she could admonish him. He did not even know his House members’ names unless they lived on the upper level. The Housewoman, however, apparently saw nothing untoward. She caressed her child’s hand in a nervous gesture, and avoided Ovan’s eyes.

“I’m Brnwen, Cantor. Cantrix,” she added, with a hasty bow in Isbel’s direction.

Isbel gave her as warm a smile as she dared with her senior sitting so stiffly beside her. “Hello, Brnwen,” she murmured. Brnwen seemed surprised by the greeting, and was still.

“What is it, Housewoman?” Cantor Ovan said. “We are very busy, you know.”

“Oh,” Brnwen said with a start. The look of suffering in her pale face intensified. “It’s my daughter,” she whispered.

“What is wrong with her?”

Brnwen looked up then, and the pain in her eyes made Isbel press a hand to her own breast in sympathy, though she knew even that small response would bring Ovan’s criticism. There was a moment of tense silence before the woman blurted, “She’s Gifted,” in an ugly tone. It was as if the words had to be thrust out of her, forced out against great resistance.

Just so, Isbel thought, it must have been to give birth to the child, and now the mother must make a second great effort.

Cantor Ovan turned to the little girl and eyed her. “That is hardly something wrong, Housewoman. If it is true.”

Brnwen dropped her head again, holding her daughter’s hand so tightly the little girl whimpered.

“In any case, it will be for us to decide,” Ovan went on. “Leave her here with us. We will need to test her.”

Brnwen looked up, horrified. “Leave her? Oh, Cantor, please. Can’t I stay? She was born only two years before last summer. She’s never been away from me, even for a moment.”

Ovan tutted sharply. “If she is Gifted, she will have to go away from you, will she not?”

Tears spilled over Brnwen’s cheeks, and the child began to sob too. Ovan made an exasperated noise. “You see? How can we test her with this going on?”

“Excuse me, Cantor Ovan,” Isbel interjected, rising quickly so he would not prevent her. “I believe I am rather good with children. I will test her, and I do not mind her mother’s presence in the least.”

Her senior looked at her narrowly, and Isbel thought he might object simply on principle. But the sounds and aromas of the mid-day meal beginning in the great room wafted through the doors, and he nodded. “All right,” he said aloud, then sent,
Are you sure you can test her? Be wary of her mother’s ambition. There must be no mistake.

Isbel only nodded, keeping her thoughts pressed low. Behind her shielding she was appalled that he would think this unhappy woman had brought her daughter to them out of ambition. She looked at Brnwen’s wet cheeks and at the way she knelt to circle her daughter with her arm as she dried her tears on the little girl’s soft curls. The honor that would come to Brnwen and her mate for producing a Gifted child would hardly allay the pain the mother would feel when her child left her.

Children at Conservatory grew away from their parents. Each summer brought family visits, but the students dreaded them. By the time the five years between summers had passed, parents and children were strangers to each other. The students were accustomed by then to the intimacy of sending their thoughts to other Gifted ones. Conversing aloud was a burden and a hindrance. There was never anything to say, in any case. The visits ended uncomfortably, bewildered parents standing apart from their children, the young Singers eager to say goodbye and return to their dormitory.

Brnwen was right to grieve. When her little one went to Conservatory, she would no longer be Brnwen’s daughter, but Nevya’s. It was a terrible sacrifice.

It was nevertheless a necessary one. Isbel stepped down from the dais to stand close to the mother and daughter. Cantor Ovan left the Cantoris, looking back over his shoulder as he walked down the aisle between the benches. Isbel smiled reassuringly at Brnwen, and at the child, but she waited for the doors to close behind her senior.

“Now, Brnwen,” she said gently. “I know this is hard for you. If your little one is Gifted . . . What is her name?”

“She’s called Trisa,” Brnwen said, rising, not releasing the child’s hand.

“Ah. If your Trisa is truly Gifted, she may be feeling all your emotions, your fear and your sadness.” Isbel looked down at the child. Though her rosy cheeks were still marked by tears, she looked back at Isbel with eyes bright with curiosity. “Trisa is four, then?” Isbel asked.

Brnwen lifted her shoulders. “We always count summers. She was born before last summer, so she has one.”

“Five years between summers,” Isbel said. “Last summer was two years ago.” She knelt by Trisa and gazed into her clear blue eyes. “Hello, Trisa.”

“Hello,” the child answered in a high, sweet voice.

Isbel looked up at Brnwen. “I am going to talk to Trisa without speech. If you will be patient for a moment . . . I am going to take her hand from you. It helps in the testing if I can touch her, just her hand.”

Brnwen’s eyes filled with fresh tears. Her misery caused a physical sensation in Isbel’s own breast. Trisa began to sob again.

Isbel rose from her knees and sat down on the edge of the dais. She waited quietly for Brnwen to regain control, and for Trisa, who had buried her face in her mother’s trouser leg, to stop crying. It took some minutes for mother and daughter to compose themselves. Isbel sat still, trying to shield herself, but intensely aware of their emotions.

At last Brnwen, with dragging steps, led the little girl to Isbel. She held out the tiny hand, releasing it at the last moment so her own fingers would not touch Isbel’s.

Isbel held the child’s fingertips with a gentle pressure, and Trisa gazed up at her with interest. Brnwen stepped back to sit on one of the benches, watching.

“Trisa,” Isbel said. “Will you close your eyes, please?”

The girl looked at her mother and received a nod. She closed her eyes obediently, her long lashes lying against her cheeks like the thin shadows of softwood trees against the snow.

Trisa
, Isbel sent.
Can you hear me?

There was a blurred, but definite, response from the child.

If you can
, Isbel went on,
please nod your head.
She sent a mental picture of a nod.

Trisa nodded her head—once, twice, three times—with her eyes still closed.

Thank you, Trisa,
Isbel sent.
You may open your eyes now.

The little girl opened her eyes to stare in wonder at Isbel. “Good,” she piped. “I like it.”

Brnwen came to stand behind her daughter. “She is Gifted, isn’t she, Cantrix?”

“Yes. How did you know, Housewoman?”

Brnwen put her hands on the little curly head. “Whatever I feel, she feels. If I decide to go to the
ubanyix
, she waits by the door. If I’m tired, she wants to lie down.”

“You have still some time before she is called, Brnwen,” Isbel said. “You will see her every summer afterward, too, if you wish to go to Conservatory.”

The Housewoman’s eyes were bleak and knowing. Isbel knew she had given Brnwen little comfort, but there was none to offer. She watched them leave, the child reaching up to hold her mother’s arm as if the four-year-old could soothe the adult. They moved as one person with two parts.

How sad, Isbel mused, that the Gift should be both a blessing and a curse. I cannot imagine life without it, and this Housewoman cannot imagine what it is to have it. Trisa will leave her, and make a new family at Conservatory. She will feel the pain of separation in her turn, when she leaves Conservatory to enter the Cantoris. It is hard, this life. But if we did not do our duty, what would happen to our people?