The Singers of Nevya (58 page)

Sira shed her furs with relief, and rubbed her itchy face with her fingers.
There is no need to thank me. But I am fearful for you.

Isbel avoided her eyes.
I have made a great mistake
, she confessed.
But I will not make it again.

Sira looked down at her friend, and reached to tuck a strand of Isbel’s hair into the thick coil that shone against her dark tunic. They were the same age, she and Isbel, but she felt infinitely older.
Perhaps it will be all right, Isbel. You are not the first Singer in Nevya’s history to . . . to make this particular mistake.

Isbel looked up, and Sira frowned at the hollowness of her eyes.
You are being kind to me,
Isbel sent.
But you did not give in to this temptation. You were strong enough. I was not.

I did not have to work with Cantor Ovan.

And I do,
Isbel responded.
I still do. I must somehow find my Gift again.

Isbel said nothing about Kai, but Sira put a hand to her own breast, feeling the ache of Isbel’s loss.
You will recover in time
, she sent gently, and hoped it was true.

Isbel’s Housewoman knocked on the outer door of the apartment before she put her head around the door. “Would the Cantrixes like something to eat?” Yula asked in a tentative voice. “Or would you prefer to bathe first?”

“A bath, I think,” Sira said. She sent to Isbel,
Let us talk, about everything. Let us have no secrets. Together we can get through this time.

Isbel tried to smile, but her lips trembled. Sira commanded, “Yula, see that the
ubanyix
is empty for us. We need privacy.”

Yula’s eyes grew round, and her mouth fell open. She disappeared without an answer.

Isbel sent,
Now you have frightened her.

Sorry. But she is easily frightened, is she not?
She and Isbel walked slowly on their way to the
ubanyix
, giving Yula time to herd out any Housewomen who might be there. Several people passed them, bowing to Isbel, staring from the corners of their eyes at Sira.

Sira was glad to shed her tunic and trousers, dropping them at her feet. The water felt delicious, and she slid beneath its surface, eager for its warmth to soothe her travel-weary muscles. She looked up as Isbel, slower than she, folded her own clothes neatly on a shelf, and turned to the bath.

Sira caught back the exclamation that rose to her lips. Reflexively, her shielding sprang up. In shock, she closed her eyes.

Unaware, Isbel stepped down into the water, and leaned her head back against the scrolled edge of the tub.
I have been so tired. I have wondered if perhaps I am ill.

Sira opened her eyes.
If you are, I will do what I can to help.

I just do not know.
Isbel pulled her hair out of its binding, and it fell around her in deep glossy waves. Her face had grown thinner, and her eyes were enormous, darkly green in the light of the
quiru
. Sira marveled at her friend’s innocence. Despite everything, Isbel did not understand. She lacked Sira’s experience of living with ordinary House members. Isbel was like one of Lamdon’s nursery flowers, delicate and fragile. Sira feared that when she understood what had happened to her, she would crumble like one of those flowers left lying in the cold.

They took a long time in the bath. Sira was not eager for the moment of revelation. Isbel washed her hair and Sira helped her bind it again. Her own short locks were already dry by the time they walked together back to Isbel’s rooms. Yula was waiting for them, bowing nervously behind a tray of tea and nutbread. The moment the two Singers were seated, she escaped, leaving them to their meal.

Sira ate with the healthy appetite of the itinerant, and drank two cups of tea. Isbel took a slice of nutbread, but Sira saw her taste it only once.
Are you not eating well, my friend?

Isbel set down the bread.
At times I have good appetite. But lately I am sometimes not able to eat at all. I think it is just that I am so unhappy.

Sira pushed the tray of food aside, and went to kneel beside Isbel. She took her friend’s white hand between her own two brown ones.

Isbel, I have seen this . . . illness . . . before, at Observatory. I can help you feel better, but I cannot restore your Gift.

Isbel sat very still. Only her eyes moved, following Sira’s. She did not appear to breathe. With all the gentleness she could muster, Sira went on.
My dear friend. You are with child.

When Isbel did not react, she sent again,
You are pregnant.

Sira was poised ready to put her arms around Isbel, to steady her, or hold her if she grew faint, but it was not necessary. A light began to grow in Isbel’s eyes, and a healthy color to bloom in her cheeks. Her breast moved with a sudden deep breath, and her other hand came up to grip Sira’s.

“Are you sure?” she asked aloud.

Sira pulled one hand free to touch the swell of Isbel’s stomach where it arched under her tunic. She spoke aloud, as Isbel had, knowing Isbel’s days of sending and listening would be coming to an end. “I saw you in the
ubanyix
. I am only surprised you did not yet see it yourself.”

Isbel dimpled. “I have been so unhappy, Sira, that I saw nothing but my misery. But now—it is out of my control, is it not? There is nothing more I can do!”

Sira stood, releasing Isbel’s hands. She went back to her chair and sat gazing at Isbel’s glowing face. It was true. There was nothing now to be done. Had it been she . . . But Isbel seemed only relieved. And what of the Cantoris?

“Kai will be delighted, and Cantor Ovan will be furious,” Isbel murmured. Her dimples faded. “Conservatory will have to send another Singer.”

“It may be that Conservatory has no other Singer to send,” Sira told her.

Isbel’s eyes met hers, and they both understood in an instant what that would mean. A great weariness washed over Sira. She closed her eyes, and shielded her feelings from Isbel. I will deal with this somehow, she thought. Somehow. But, O Spirit . . . is there no end to it?

Zakri followed the House members into Amric’s Cantoris the next morning. He took his seat among the working Housemen and women, his blue tunic blending with the crowd of red and green and blue around him. On the forward benches he saw the somber colors of the ruling class, Magister Edrus and his mate seated with their children, Housekeeper Cael on the opposite side of the aisle. Everyone rose as Cantrix Isbel and Cantor Ovan came in, and stepped up onto the dais. They bowed to the assembly, and the House members bowed in return, sitting when the Singers did.

Cantor Ovan’s voice was ugly. It grated on the ear and had almost no resonance despite the ample size and good hard surfaces of the Cantoris. His musical ideas weren’t much better, his melodies unimaginative, his rhythms unpredictable. Singer Iban made better music on his
filla
than this dried-up stick of a Cantor made with voice and
filhata
both.

But Cantrix Isbel—now there was a voice. Zakri liked its pretty vibrato and the lovely ring it had in the high register. She was limited, of course, by having to blend with her senior. Zakri would have liked to hear her sing all by herself. He wished he could shut out Ovan’s abrasive tone and hear only Isbel.

He followed at a respectful distance as the
quirunha
progressed, and he recognized the other presence as soon as it appeared. It was such a strong and distinctive Gift that it was beyond comprehension that Cantor Ovan did not know it was there. She was not even in the room, yet her presence was a powerful undercurrent to the stream of energy flowing out from the dais, borne by the music, powered by the Gift.

Zakri held back carefully so as not to be detected. He listened, and observed, and he saw that it was Sira, and Sira working virtually alone, who performed the
quirunha
. Isbel was almost a passive presence in the synergy of music and psi. Ovan’s strength was ragged, unreliable, with such gaps and weaknesses that only Sira’s strength could have compensated. And despite everything, the room grew brighter, and the warmth reached to every corner of the House, the nursery gardens, the stables, and the tannery. The snow on the roof of the House began to melt and run, dripping onto the cobblestones outside. Zakri saw how carefully Sira worked, how she hid behind Isbel, protecting her. Poor Isbel! It must be awful for her to be forced to work with such a one as Ovan.

When the
quirunha
was complete, and the assembly rose to chant the ending prayer, Zakri saw the gleam of tears in Cantrix Isbel’s eyes, and he felt the strength of her gratitude.

He sent to Sira,
Well done!

She did not answer. He knew she wanted to avoid detection, but he doubted Ovan would hear in any case. He did not appear at all sensitive.

Cantrix Isbel looked better today. Her color was higher, her eyes less hollow. She looked around the Cantoris as if searching for someone, and he followed her gaze.

In the farthest corner stood a tall man, perhaps two summers older than Zakri himself. He had an open face, and he wore his hair short, curling around his ears. His eyes and Cantrix Isbel’s met above the heads of the assembly.

Zakri was sure Sira would not know if he eavesdropped. Shamelessly, he opened his mind to hear the communication between Isbel and this man. There was nothing to hear. They were not sending to one another, though their eyes spoke as clearly as if they had been.

Zakri shielded himself once again. Something was afoot here. A Cantrix and, by the look of him, a Houseman. He could ask Sira, but probably she would not tell him anything. He would just have to find out for himself. Amric was proving to be a very interesting place!

Chapter Twenty-eight

As Isbel’s body bloomed and grew, her Gift withered. She looked and sounded better than ever, but her psi was distracted, diluted by the work of her body. She could hear still, but increasingly her sending was weak. Sira found it harder and harder to sustain her in the
quirunha
at any distance. Secluded in Isbel’s apartment, she bent over her
filhata
as she worked, and the perspiration ran down her body. She grew tired, taking hours to recover after each
quirunha
. It seemed, too, that the harder she worked, the less Ovan did.

On a day when the snow fell so heavily that it blotted out the pale sunlight, the
quirunha
began with a fragmented melody from Cantor Ovan, and Isbel took it up on her own
filhata
immediately, hardly waiting for Ovan to finish his first exposition. She filled out the music with harmony and a steady rhythm. But Ovan’s psi was as weak as the winter sunlight, and Sira was left virtually alone. She asked the Spirit for strength, and extended her psi as strongly as she could, no longer trying to disguise what she was doing. The
quirunha
mattered more.

She struggled. The gardens and the tannery seemed almost beyond her reach. She concentrated until her forehead burned with the effort. Her psi pulled strength from every part of her being, but still it was not enough.

As she reached toward the tannery, her fingers beginning to tire on the
filhata
strings, she was surprised to find the air there already bright and warm. In the nursery gardens it was the same. As her
quiru
swelled, it seemed to meet other
quiru
coming in from the outer edges of the House, sister circles of heat and light that rolled to meet her. She drew a deep, relieved breath, and her face relaxed. She let her psi contract, and she listened from a distance as Ovan and Isbel concluded the
quirunha
. When they were finished, she broke the contact and leaned back in her chair, utterly spent.

Good work, Singer!
she heard.

And good work from you, Singer Zakri. I thank you for your help.

His sending was full of energy.
It was my great pleasure! Let us do it again tomorrow!

Sira smiled in spite of her weariness. Yes, she thought, they could do it again tomorrow, if they did it together. But it would be better to face the scandal now, and declare it. There would be less strain if she were to step openly onto the dais and serve as Cantrix. There was risk in it, risk to them all, but less than there would be in maintaining this deception. And there was no way to protect Isbel from the storm of accusation that loomed ahead. Sira could only hope that when the storm broke, Kai could shelter his beloved from its fierceness.

They gathered in Isbel’s apartment at Sira’s request. She looked around at them, wishing she could find a different answer in their faces, but knowing nothing could change what must happen now. Kai hovered over Isbel while Zakri hung back, watching everything with wide eyes. Isbel sat near the window, her hair glowing a lovely near-red in the combined light of the
quiru
and the winter sun. Her cheeks curved and dimpled once again, and her eyes were bright when she turned them up to Kai.

Kai alone was completely delighted with Isbel’s pregnancy. For him it meant a reprieve from suffering, and he was blithely indifferent about the loss to the Cantoris. “Let Conservatory send someone else,” he said to Sira. “We didn’t intend this, but the Spirit has sent us a babe, and there’s nothing to be done now but be mated properly.”

“Houseman, have you thought how your House will react to such a mating? Isbel is Cantrix here!”

The hunter stood straight, his head up and his jawline hard. “It doesn’t matter now. What would you have me do? Turn away from my child, or its mother? I won’t, no matter how they all carry on!”

Sira sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. She felt drained in body and mind,

The new life growing under Isbel’s heart, sent by the Spirit or not, had determined Sira’s path. She saw only one way out of their troubles, but she was loath to follow it.

“Can we not go on this way for a bit longer?” Isbel asked.

Sira felt a pressure in her chest. Isbel did not understand the effort required to perform the
quirunha
at such a distance without being detected. And she did not want to tell her, to add to her feelings of guilt. It would not ease her own burden to add to Isbel’s. She answered as mildly as she could. “For a bit longer we can go on. But soon . . .”