Strands of Starlight (11 page)

“She's such a mite of a girl,” said Andrew as they approached the trees. “No bigger than Charity. I remember thinking that when I found her on the road. And the thought of someone mistreating Charity like that . . . well . . .”

The carpenter was a quiet, gentle man, but Kay noticed that his lips were pressed together, his fists clenched.

“That time's long past,” said the priest. “No one is mistreating Charity–or Miriam–now.”

“I don't understand it,” said the carpenter. “I just don't. Poor Miriam. I wish her well.”

“We all do,” said Kay. “How is Charity? How are her studies?”

“Oh,” said Andrew with a laugh, “she's fine. And since Roxanne took her on, she's been better than fine. She's growing up, looking like the lovely woman I know she'll be. She's like a butterfly: always cheering people up wherever she goes. But she can't tell me much about her studies. It's all secret. Only witches can know, and I've no desire to become a witch.”

“I can see why,” said Kay seriously. “After all, you're almost an Elf already.”

The two men looked at each other and laughed. “Hardly,” said Andrew. “Although Varden did say it could rub off. Look at Roxanne. For that matter, look at Charity.” His eyes twinkled. “Or yourself, Kay.”

They approached a small house that was nearly hidden among the first ranks of trees. The facade had been carefully carved to look like a part of the forest, and it was difficult to tell where Malvern left off and the house began.

A dark-haired woman opened the door before Kay had a chance to knock. “Come in an' be welcome,” she said. “David's waiting. Varden's already here.”

“Elves are always so prompt,” said Kay.

“How are Ma and Da?” said the woman.

“Fine, Charlotte, though we nearly lost a brother this morning.” In a few words, Kay told his sister of the incident at the forge.

“Why, bless her,” said Charlotte. “I knew she had a good streak in her a league wide. Mick's all right then?”

“Good as a new nail. He ate a pound of meat and a loaf of bread to settle his nerves . . . so he said.” Kay chuckled. “And now he's back at work.”

“I should go an' visit Miriam,” said Charlotte. “To thank her.”

Kay shrugged. “It might be best to wait.”

Charlotte nodded. “I understand. Go on into the shop, then. I'll have some beer for you all in a jiffy.”

Kay and Andrew went through the house and into David's workroom. The carver and Varden were standing in front of two large, canvas-draped panels, chatting.

David was a thin man with a sharp nose. “Hello, hello,” he said when he saw the new arrivals. “I'm very glad you could come.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Normally, I don't show anybody my work until it's finished, but I think you'll all enjoy this.” He paused, considered, and added: “Or be dreadfully offended. I'm not sure which.”

Charlotte bustled in with the beer. She handed out the mugs, took one herself, and sat down on a bench to watch.

David began untying the ropes that held the canvas in place on the panels. “You all remember Jaques Alban and how he wanted me to carve a crucifix for the church—“

Kay spoke up from behind his beer. “It's come to my attention, David, my son, that we still have only a blank wooden cross over the altar.”

David paused. “And when the roof beams finally fall in, we'll still have only a blank wooden cross.” He spoke lightly, but the memory obviously pained him. Kay quickly apologized.

“Never mind,” said the carver, waving his hand as if to chase off an annoying fly. He pulled several knots loose. “But that's why we have a statue of the Lady in the church instead. Kay asked me, though, as a favor, if I might carve some panels to go behind the altar. And as a favor, I agreed. Providing, of course, that I chose the subject matter.”

“Being very naive and foolish,” said Kay, who was starting to worry, “I assumed David would carve something edifying. From the lives of the saints, or something like that.”

“Well,” said David. “Something like that.” He reached back to his belt, pulled out a knife, and sawed through the bindings. “Anyway, since I wound up working for the Church after all, I decided to commemorate the first attempt.” He climbed up a ladder to the top of the panels, cut the last knot, and held the canvas with his hands. “The final finishing will take a little while, but I wanted to get some opinions.” They were all waiting. David shrugged a little. “Well, here it is.”

He dropped the canvas.

Varden smiled. Kay put his hand to his mouth. Andrew laughed.

“Are you really taller than Varden?” said Andrew. “Or is that vanity?”

“I made them stand back-to-back,” said Charlotte. “David's taller.”

“How about Alban?” Andrew pointed.

“Oh,” said David. “I don't really remember how tall he was. So I guessed. Varden and I were
both
taller than him when Varden was through, though.”

Kay still had his hand over his mouth. He was not sure what to say.

“Kay?” David sounded worried.

Kay dropped his had after a while. “They're . . . lovely,” he said. “It will take some getting used to. And it'll remind me to watch my step.”

“I meant no offense.”

“None taken.” Kay stepped a little closer, looked at the first, then at the second panel.

“Varden?”

The Elf was smiling. “Your style has changed since that day. Did you know that, David? I do not think any of your folk could carve as you do now.”

David blushed. “I can't take any credit for that. I mean . . . after all, when . . . when She's touched you like that. . . .” His voice trailed off, and he looked sheepish. “Do you like it?”

“It is beautiful,” said the Elf. “Is it appropriate, though, for a church? What do you say, Kay?”

Kay shrugged. He felt outnumbered. Sometimes he wished that his God were not so exclusive and demanding. “I can't say that it's inappropriate,” he said truthfully. “And if people laugh during my sermons now, I can blame it on the panels.”

David sighed. “Good. You'll have these by Yule. I don't want to rush them.”

Kay was examining one part of the second panel. Gently, hesitantly, he reached out and touched one figure in particular. Sometimes he wished . . .

“Varden.” The Elf came to him. Kay indicated the figure, set off from the rest of the scene by a field of stars. “Is that really what She looks like?”

The Elf was silent for a while. “To David. Everyone sees Her a little differently, Kay.”

“Is there any chance . . .” Kay faltered, felt his face grow hot. “I mean . . . could I . . .?”

Varden understood. “Someday, my friend.”

***

Andrew stayed to visit with David and Charlotte. Varden and Kay walked toward the village together. “I heard what you said about Miriam,” said the Elf.

“About her healing Michael? I must say I was glad.”

“For Michael?”

“For both. I didn't want to lose my brother. And . . . as for Miriam . . .”

“Has she been a trial to you?” Varden spoke quietly, understandingly.

Kay shrugged. “I do the best I can, Varden.”

“You do very well. You are a credit to your race and to your priesthood.”

“She might be improving.”

“She might,” said the Elf. “But then again, she probably is not. Is that not what you mean, Kay?”

The priest shoved his hands into his sleeves. “Are you reading my mind, Varden?”

“The tone of your voice tells me of your doubts.” Varden glanced at him, eyes flashing.

Kay rubbed at his beardless cheeks. Varden always talked about healing and helping, but what could one do when someone was so firmly set against both? “I worry, Varden. I lose sleep at night. There's so much anger and rage and despair in her that I wonder sometimes if I'm going to go to her room some morning and find that she's hanged herself.”

“I do not think you need to worry about that, my friend,” said Varden. “She is too determined to survive at all costs, if only out of spite. But despair, anger, rage: all of those can combine, as we both know, to produce a life that is much, much worse than any death.”

“Like the Leather Woman.”

“Think of it.”

“I try not to. I was only fourteen at the time, but I still remember Da's hands. I can't imagine the amount of hate that must have gone into her spell in order to do that.”

“But, my friend, consider her now.”

Kay stopped in the middle of the field, almost frightened. “What are you saying?”

Varden folded his arms. The light in his eyes was troubled. “When I healed Miriam, I linked with her. I felt as she felt, knew what she knew, was raped along with her.”

Kay waited.

“Roxanne has taught me a great deal,” said the Elf. “My people know compassion. I have learned pity. I do not know if that is a good thing. But I saw something else when I healed Miriam: she is on some kind of path. She has something to do, and she cannot do it out of despair or anger.”

“What does she have to do?”

“I do not know, Kay. I can see only so far.”

Kay exploded. “Varden, what you're talking about is madness.”

Varden eyed him. “At present, my friend, I am not talking about anything. We must wait and see what Miriam does.”

Kay heard a shout and turned to see Charity running toward them, skirts flying, hair loose and streaming. She was laughing.

He sighed. A butterfly.

If Kay noticed that Miriam of a sudden grew quieter and more thoughtful, he did not say anything, and she was glad of that. She needed time to think slowly, to put together snatches of information, to acquire more.

Jaques Alban.

There were a thousand fates that could have befallen him. He could have become lost in the forest. He could have decided—and Miriam would have sympathized with him—that Saint Brigid was simply too much to handle and fled. He might even have been murdered by a villager who had reached the limits of his tolerance. But there was also that one other possibility: that the Elves had indeed intervened, that Jaques Alban was no more because he now rooted among the ferns and wild turnips of Malvern Forest, transformed by inhuman energies into a pig.

Where before her anger had been a hot cloud in her brain, it was now a focused lance of fire aimed directly at the heart of the man who had raped her, fueled by an almost mad hope that—

She hardly wanted to think it, much less utter it. It was too fragile. It might scatter like leaves before the wind, or disperse like smoke. Before she put it into words, she had to be absolutely certain.

Varden worried her. That first evening when, newly healed, she had awakened in bed, his words to her had been of reconciliation to her fate. Her only link with the Elves, her only chance at success, Varden would probably oppose her plan. But he had said that he had touched her mind, had linked with her, had himself lived through her violation. Surely that meant something. Surely that would be some leverage for her, a flaw in that seemingly impenetrable tranquility in which he wrapped himself.

He came tot he priest's house one morning, looking for her; and he found her in the stable tending Esau. The little pony had not seen much traveling in the last six weeks, but he seemed content to be made much of by the village children who took him for rides out to the forest and back.

“Blessings upon you this day,” said the Elf. “How is the good beast?”

Miriam looked up from brushing Esau's shaggy red coat. “Good morning,” she said. “He's well.” It occurred to her that she should be more polite to Varden, if only because he had healed her—not to mention her ulterior motives. She attempted a smile, but it came out crooked.

The Elf did not appear to notice. “Good.” He stood just inside the door of the stable, waiting.

“I'm . . . I'll be done here in a minute, Varden. Did you want something?”

“Will you walk with me today, my lady?”

My lady
. The title made her eyes narrow. In the course of her life, she had been
child, girl, wench, healer, bitch,
occasionally
mistress,
but never
my lady
. “Where?”

“Into the forest. I would that you see something this day.”

“What's today?”

“Beltaine,” said the Elf. “Or so Roxanne would call it. My people call it something else.”

Esau snorted as though to tell her that she had not finished brushing him and he was feeling lopsided. “Roxanne mentioned that you two are lovers,” she said as she went back to work. “Is that true?”

Varden lifted an eyebrow at the change in subject. “It is, Miriam. That is well-known in the village.”

“But it's not well-known that she's a witch.”

“That is so.”

“What would happen if people found out?”

“Possibly some might fear,” he said. “I daresay, though, that if Saint Brigid can accustom herself to Elves—and to healers—she can also accept a witch.” His starlit eyes were on her. She wondered how far Alban had pushed the Elves.

“Well,” she said, “I don't think that will happen.”

“Nor do I.”

She finished up Esau with several broad strokes. “I'll come with you. Let me clean up.”

Varden bowed slightly and stood aside as she went into the house. In her room, she poured water from pitcher to basin and washed off the horsey smell of the stables. As she dried herself, she looked at the pole near the bed where the two gowns that Roxanne had made for her were hanging. The witch had finished them a week ago, but Miriam had not yet worn either. She was about to pass them by again, but after hesitating, she took one down and pulled it on.

It was the deep green of dark forest leaves, and Roxanne had woven a trim of meadow flowers into the hems. It fit her perfectly, even flattered her, and it reminded her of Charity's clothing. But Charity was bright: pure colors and vivid flowers. Miriam was subdued, the colors muted. Charity was the butterfly, Miriam the moth.

She wondered for a moment what bright, elven flame was luring her, and to what end.

Varden was waiting at the front door. He bowed and offered his arm, and she took it. Together they went through the town and out across the fields to the forest, but Miriam stopped at the edge of the wood, eyeing the shadows beneath the leaves.