Taminy (10 page)

Her
hand measured the two long rows of musicians that now formed a euphonious
avenue down the center of the Great Court, ending before the broad steps that
mounted to the Osraed Gallery.

Gwynet
turned her eyes to that path and imagined that what Taminy said might be
true—that she might someday be accepted by the Meri. She took the idea into her
heart. Taminy had come from the Meri’s Sea, she reasoned. Taminy must possess
the Meri’s wisdom. She didn’t understand all she’d heard of Eibhilin Beings and
transformations or all she’d seen on a beach not that long ago, but she did
understand that Taminy-a-Cuinn was like no one else in the worlds of Blaec-del
or Nairne.

She
watched and listened with fascination as the pipers and drummers and fiddlers
faced each other down the court and began a new melody. From the stone arch
came Prentices carrying glowing orbs of liquid flame mounted on tall, finely
carved poles. There were six of them, and in their midst were the new
Osraed—Wyth, the Tall and Spare; Lealbhallain, the Small and Freckled. The two
walked together, down the avenue of song, in step with their escort. At the end
of their walk, they mounted to the Osraed Gallery and were greeted by the men
who had been their masters and were now their peers.

The
crowd below Gwynet’s perch burst into noisy celebration. Grown men capered like
boys; old women twirled like maidens on a dancing green, their bright skirts
and panel coats sailing about them on the air. Osraed Bevol took some time to
quiet them; Gwynet thought he must be enjoying the sight of all those souls
acting out childways, swarmed by bright light. But at last they did hush, their
attention soaring to the glowing Gallery where Osraed, new and old, collected.

Now
Gwynet’s ears were stormed by silence, for every man, woman, child and babe
within the hallowed walls hushed to stone stillness. It seemed they must even
have ceased to breathe and so did Gwynet.

“At
dawn,” the Osraed Bevol said, and his voice rang clear as the bells, “we walked
with the Spirit of the Universe.”

All
heard the words, even Gwynet high on her stair. The drummers punctuated them
with a beat that rolled off the stone walls like a single clap of thunder. The
silence after shivered in the air.

Again,
Bevol spoke. “We heard the Words of Creation from the Spirit’s own Mouth and we
listened and understood.”

Again,
the drums sounded.

“The
Spirit also listened. It heard the desire of its creation and the wants of man
and woman, and It gave them their desire.”

The
drums spat thunder.

“What
was their desire?” Bevol asked.

Below
him, the crowd answered in one voice. “Knowledge!”

The
drums rolled.

“And
pleased, the Spirit gave them knowledge, which they used to bring them other
things. And knowledge became a spirit to them, and the people asked that spirit
for providence.”

The
drums uttered a single word.

“What
did they ask of Knowledge?”

The
crowed cried: “Give-us-land. Give-us-commerce. Give-us-power!”

The
drums issued a long roll.

“And
the people gathered those things and set them up as spirits and asked happiness
of them and joy of them and wealth of them. And surrounded by these, their made
spirits, they could no longer hear the Voice of the Spirit of All.”

The
drums beat a swift measure of staccato notes, while the crowd wailed a high,
ululating cry as if singing for the war-dead. Gwynet had not heard that sound
before, though she had heard of it from those who had lost loved ones to the
sea missions of the Cynes Ciarda and Colfre. It made her shiver all the way to
the marrow of her bones and pray for it to stop.

When
it did stop, Bevol spoke again. “The Spirit of the Universe looked upon Its
silent creation and said, ‘My lovers no longer hear My Voice and they no longer
call Me Beloved. But I shall be patient. For someday they will call upon Me.’”

The
drums spoke their turn.

“And
when the people at last tired of praying to their made spirits for things they
had no power to give, when they longed, at last, for their God, they cried out
to It and listened for reply, but no longer did their hearts speak the same
pure tongue they had spoken at Dawn. They could not hear their God, and the
Universe was silent to them.”

As
silent as it was now, Gwynet thought, for not a person in all that vast
assemblage stirred, not a mallet fell, not a pipe sang.

“And
out of the silence,” said Bevol, “was born the Meri—the Spirit of the Spirit of
the Universe, Gate between God and Man, Bridge between Heaven and Earth. And
God brought Her forth from the Sea to touch man and teach him again to hear the
Voice that speaks in the heart of all things.”

There
was a great celebratory roar then, from throats and drums and pipes alike, and
the little old Osraed, Calach (the Sweet, Gwynet called him), came forward to
give the Tell of the First Pilgrimage.

Gwynet
knew this part—by heart, she was pleased to discover—and followed along,
mouthing the words as Calach told the tale of Ochan-a-Coille and the First
Weaving. In the swell of light and soft pipe-song, she could see the young boy
wandering storm-lost along the rocky cliffs below the mouth of the Halig-tyne,
longing for sight of the Castle Mertuile. She felt his terror as he fell into
the sea cave, shared his awe when a strange light revealed that the walls of
the cave were studded with crystals and that glittering shards lay scattered
like frost upon the rocky floor. Her heart hammered fiercely when the boy took,
in his own hands, a blue-white crystal of such clarity and beauty that he was
all but blinded by the light that pulsed through it. She cried out aloud with
mixed terror and wonder when an Eibhilin Being lifted Itself from the sea pool
in the cavern’s deep heart and glided to meet Ochan where he stood, crystal in
hand, in the star-littered shallows.

Ochan,
just fifteen, left the Sea Cave with the Meri’s duan singing in his heart and
the knowledge of the Runeweave filling his mind to overflowing. Her Kiss glowed
upon his brow, Her mission in his soul. He carried his crystal, Osmaer, to the
stronghold of Cyne Malcuim and there gave the first Pilgrim’s Tell.

Osraed
Calach’s sweet voice rang off on the breeze and the crowd remained silent.
Gwynet felt her cheeks. They were hot, surely putting out as much light as the
myriad light-bowls on their tall stands. She told herself, secretly, it was her
future she listened to as first Lealbhallain, then Wyth came forward to give
his Tell. The people of Nairne applauded the wonderful tales with every ounce
of exuberance they possessed. By the time Wyth retired from the Gallery’s
balustrade, every man, woman and child was bubbling over with the spirit of
celebration. It only remained for Ealad-hach to bless them and dismiss them to
the Tell Fest.

He
came forward to do so, raised his hands high, opened his mouth wide and was
pressed to silence by a great commotion at the foot of the Gallery stair. The
crowd there gabbled and milled, the musicians parted, and a slight figure in a
tapestry riot of color scurried up the steps toward the landing.

“Osraed!”
The voice was as strident as the colors its owner wore. A white hand thrust out
of the raucous folds of fabric and pointed heavenward. “Osraed, hear me!” The
figure tottered to a point just below where an incredulous Ealad-hach gaped,
then turned and addressed the gathering.

“Hearken
all, to old Marnie! Hear what I say! These boys are not the only home-comers
here. Ask the Osraed Bevol and he may tell you of another.”

A
clutter of murmurs, hisses and guffaws spilled through the crowd and Osraed
Ealad-hach at last lowered his arms. “What are you saying, old woman? Speak
clearly.”

“Ah,
clearly, is it? I’ll tell you clearly what I saw. Me, Marnie-o-Loom! In the
garden at Gled Manor.”

Gwynet
felt Taminy stiffen and clutch the hand she held. The older girl made a hissing
sound through her teeth. “Ah,” she breathed, “so yours are the curious eyes,
old one. Sharp, they are.”

Marnie’s
audience heckled her now—gently, tolerantly—and begged her down.

“Leave
off, Marnie!” cried Niall Backstere. “Let us get to Fest and I’ll give you the
fattest cream bonny in my stall.”

“Aye,
and hot, honeyed cider,” added the Spenser.

“I
saw the girl, I tell you.” Marnie folded her hands before her, smug-meek.

“What
girl?” shouted one man.

“Aw,
she’s drunk!” cried another.

“No,
just crazy.”

“I’m
neither drunk nor crazy,” Marnie retorted, pose shifting to the defensive. “Nor
am I blind. The night Osraed Bevol came in from Meredydd-a-Lagan’s Pilgrimage,
he had with him a boy, a little girl, and a young woman. The same young woman I
saw in his garden not a day past. Meredydd-a-Lagan doesn’t lie in the Sea. She
hides at Gled Manor!”

In
the uproar that followed, Marnie-o-Loom fed and flourished; turning her flushed
face and glittering eyes upward to the Gallery she devoured her reward.

It
was Ealad-hach who turned to Osraed Bevol and asked, “Is there any truth to
what she says?” And the citizens of Nairne, catching, one by one, the scent of
suspense, quieted to hear the answer.

Bevol
smiled. “There is a grain of truth to it.” The admission fattened Marnie’s
grin. “I did,” he continued, when the crowd had hushed again, “bring home to
Nairne a boy. That was Skeet. You all know Skeet. And I brought home a little
girl—Gwynet, whom you also know. And ...” He gazed around with gleaming eyes
until he found Taminy and Gwynet on their stone perch. The smile deepened. “And
I brought home with me a young woman.”

Again,
Marnie reaped her pandemonium, her own gap-tooth smile growing to cover half
her face.

“But
it was not Meredydd-a-Lagan.”

Disappointment.
Gwynet felt it the way one feels river rheum or salt tang. It swelled from the
crowd like a midnight mist, and she could only wonder at its cause. Had they
loved Meredydd-a-Lagan so? Or was it only the sport they missed of scandal
close to home? Looking at Marnie, she could almost imagine the Mam of her
once-guardian, Ruhf Airdsgainne, gossip-tongued and mugging—holding out some
sinful morsel while the bored dwellers in Blaec-del snapped after it. Could
these people from the clean, proud streets of Nairne be at all like those
people?

“He
lies!” accused Marnie as if the words had been perched on her lips. She let
them fly again. “He lies!”

Bevol’s
expression lost its good humor in a breath. “I do not lie, weaver-woman. The
girl at Gled Manor is not my Prentice Meredydd.”

“Who
then?” asked Ealad-hach and, “Come,” said Calach, “stop teasing us and let us
meet this young woman.”

“Yes,”
agreed Marnie, nodding vigorously. “If it’s not Meredydd, prove it. Show her to
us.”

Bevol
turned to his peers. The Osraed on the Gallery nodded as a man. He returned the
nod and looked to where Gwynet and Taminy sat hunkered against the wall. Taminy
rose and, drawing Gwynet after her, left the stone steps and crossed to the
Gallery. The throng parted before them, eyes probing and curious, eyes hungry
and willing to be scandalized. Gwynet glanced up once or twice, then thought
better of it.

They
passed Marnie on the Great Stair and Taminy paused to greet her eye to eye. “Your
sight is sharp, Marnie-o-Loom,” Taminy told her, “but your sense of color is
failing. Meredydd’s eyes are brown.”

They
continued on then, while the old gossip sputtered like a guttering flame,
reaching the end of the climb. There, in the Osraed Gallery, with every wakeful
eye of Nairne and the surrounding Gyldan-holt watching, Taminy turned to the
Court, dropped her cowl and pulled off her scarf. Wheat-pale hair covered her
shoulders in a flood and made banners in the light breeze. But among all the
people, only Osraed Ealad-hach and Marnie-o-Loom showed anything more than mild
surprise.

oOo

It
was a deep irony, she thought, that once—dear God, a hundred years ago—she had
dreamed of standing upon this great stone platform and of opening her mouth to
sing the Meri’s duan. But she would give no Tell tonight to ears unwilling and
unready to hear it. Osraed Bevol spoke instead, giving a name that rippled
quickly across a sea of lips and was gone: Taminy. Only Taminy. Like Gwynet, a
refugee found in the course of Meredydd’s Pilgrimage.

The
crowd, relieved to be able to laugh at Marnie’s red-faced discomfiture and
eager to be celebrating, accepted it and went about their business.

So
, she thought.
So, I’m to be allowed to fade back and away.

But
she wasn’t, quite. The white-haired old Osraed’s eyes bored awl-like and the
tall young one’s shyly prodded. She glanced from one to the other, then hurried
down the steps and into the teeming courtyard where mothers weighed her and
sons admired her and daughters feigned indifference. She was dancing before she
knew it, marveling at how little the steps had changed.

It
was during a break in the dancing, as she searched for Skeet and Gwynet near a
stall selling hot, sweet cider, that she saw the tall young Osraed again,
standing gawpishly to one side and trying not to stare too rudely. He moved
toward her when their eyes met, his face a patchwork of bemusement and
uncertainty. He stopped before her, opened his mouth to speak, then glanced
away.

She
took pity. “You’d be Wyth,” she said and drew his eyes back.

“How
do you know me?”

She
smiled. “Oh, someone must have mentioned you ... pointed you out.”

A
moment passed, filled only with eddies of babble and song from the happy mob.
Wyth glanced down at his hands, clasped over his crystal pendant. He let go of
the crystal and put his hands behind him.