Taminy (9 page)

It
was then that Wyth realized Adken was not alone in the dining room doorway.
Silhouetted there were at least five other individuals who must have been
dining with his mother. That lady was beside herself with excitement. And, as
the wicks glow brightened the entry way, Wyth found himself surrounded by
family and friends. He was overwhelmed once again.

Deluged
in their expressions of delight and amazement. It took him a moment to realize
that he was being overwhelmed by more than the mere expression of those things.
Deep inside, a door had opened, allowing their emotions to walk through his
soul.

Agape,
he stood, fielding this one’s awe and that one’s astonishment that someone they
knew could have possibly seen the Meri. His eldest sister’s jealousy cut
through all, tormenting him; her pledge-bond’s amazement was tinged with
disbelief. Neither of them, he realized, had expected him to come home an
Osraed. As for his mother ...He looked at her beaming face with its glittering
eyes and marveled at how pride and grief could dwell together behind that
facade. He had won her an honor; he had lost his family an heir.

“Oh,
do come join us, dear Wyth!” she gushed, tugging at his arm. “Do tell us all
about it.”

“Yes,
indeed,” agreed one of the male guests—the Eiric of Cinfhaolaidh. “It’d be a
rare experience to hear of a Pilgrimage from the lips of the newly chosen! Was
it near as magical as they say, or is that all myth?”

Wyth’s
sister, Brann, laughed brittlely. “Myth, I’d wager. What of it, Wyth? What’s
the Meri like?”

Gazing
around at the circle of expectant faces, Wyth was torn. For several of his
mother’s guests this was a matter of faith, for others it was merely a matter
of entertainment.

“Come
Wyth,” said his sister, her eyes over-bright. “Come, boast to us of your
exploits along the Pilgrim’s path.”

Rousing
from what must seem to all like a stupor, Wyth smiled at her, ignoring the acid
in her voice. “I’ve nothing to boast of, Brann,” he said. “But I would gladly
answer your questions were I not so weary. I give the Pilgrim’s Tell with
Lealbhallain-mac-Mercer next Cirke-dag at Halig-liath.”

“What?
You’d make us wait? How terribly rude.”

“I’m
merely tired, Brann. Please, return to your supper. I crave rest more than food
right now.”

Brann,
on her betrothed’s arm, laughed and tossed black curls. “Yes, do sleep, Wyth.
You look that ragged. Perhaps you’ll be up for it tomorrow and can tell us all
at breakfast. I suppose the rest of you will have to be content with seeing the
Kiss.” She bobbed her head toward the others, then drew her pledge-bond away,
jealousy passing as she began to consider what advantage might come to the
sister of an Osraed.

The
other guests followed.

Wyth
felt his spirit sag, pulling his shoulders and the corners of his wide mouth
down with it.

“Well.”
The Moireach, his mother, still stood beside him. “I am disappointed that you
couldn’t be persuaded to give a special Tell to our dear friends. But I suppose
if you’re that tired ...” She shrugged, her eyes searching his face with an odd
mixture of hope and reproach.

“Thank
you, for being so understanding, mother. I’ll no doubt see you in the morning.”
And by then I’ll have decided how much
not to tell you.

Hefting
his pack, he started for the stairs, wondering at how heavy it suddenly seemed.

Adken
was at his side in an instant. “Do let me carry that for you, Master. Are you
hungry? Shall I bring you up a tray? I’d be most happy if you’d allow me that.
Oh, and some hot tea. That’ll be wanted, I’m sure. Nothing like hot tea to
soothe the wearies. Oh, it’s good to see you, Master, and none too soon. We
knew you’d make it this time, the wife and I. Surely we did. Said some special
prayers at Cirke, too. Oh, it’s a great day, it is. A great day! Those who didn’t
believe, sir, they’ll swallow a bitter pill, indeed.”

A
great day, thought Wyth, as Adken prattled on about their faith in him. It was
a real faith, the new Osraed marveled. He could put out mental fingers and
touch it, hold it, feel the strength and weight of it. A great day, yes. But
still, a day he wished, desperately, would end.

Alone
in his room, he lit a candle and sat on the bed to meditate. He did not think
about how different he felt from the last time he’d sat in this room. He did
not think about how different his homecoming had been from the way he’d
imagined it.

He
did not ponder his time with Osraed Bevol in the dark aislinn chamber. Instead,
he stared at the dancing flame and tried to meditate upon the Meri. In a moment
he was all chagrin. How could he meditate upon Her without thinking about Her,
without feeling about Her what he now felt. Love. Love entangled with love. He
loved the Meri and he loved Meredydd, who had become the Meri. And now they
refused to be separated. They could not be separated. Or, if they could, he did
not know how. He thought of Her and felt the rise of more than spiritual
devotion.

No
wonder the gleaming face had seemed familiar. My God, how could he have not
known who faced him in that trembling water?

How
could he have kissed her lips—Her lips!—and not known at once, that She was
Meredydd?
The lover and the Beloved have
become one in Thee.
What a unique truth that verse now held for one Wyth
Arundel. It was his last conscious thought before he slept, falling over into
the down mattress and giving up his exhaustion in prayer as he gave up prayer
in exhaustion.

He
woke some hours later, feeling as if someone had summoned him to consciousness.
The candle had burned nearly in half. He extinguished it entirely. He felt it
then, as he settled himself into the warm, close darkness. He felt the tears of
the woman in the suite of rooms above. Tears, not of thanks-giving, nor of
motherly loss, nor of swelling pride. There were selfish tears, tinted red by a
sense of martyrdom. How great was her sacrifice, how ungrateful his pursuit of
the spiritual, when she had struggled to give him everything material.

Sadness
brushed over him like a veil of spider-silk—clinging, but lightly—and he
marveled with a strange, detached awe. How had he lived in this house for
eighteen years and never known how much bitterness it contained?

Fire is not seen in wood,

yet by some power it comes to light as fire.

In such a way the Spirit of the Universe and
in man

is revealed by the power of Its Word.

— Prayers and Meditations of Osraed Ochan

The breeze was from the high passes of the Gyldan-baenn
this evening, and carried in its perfect cool a tang of pine and heath. Summer
waned quickly, evening by evening, welcoming the long autumn. Wyth welcomed it
too, as part of the experience he was about to embrace. Standing upon the ageless
battlements of Halig-liath, he inhaled the fragrances that eddied up from the
great courtyard below—smells of baps baked only minutes ago and trundled up the
road from Nairne, and sweet porridges and stews, and meats turning slowly over
pits of blazing rock. There were sounds to be drunk, as well, of laughter,
song, the tuning of pipes, the shouts of neighbor to neighbor from stall to
stall.

Halig-liath
had sprouted this day a great village bazaar; ringed round in the shadow of the
massive walls were the booths and wagons of Nairne’s merchants, craftsmen and
artisans, all preparing to take part in the celebration of the Pilgrim’s Tell.
For when the ceremonials were over and the rituals fulfilled, the celebrants
would flood the courtyard to eat and drink, dance and sing and tell stories
through the night.

Did I ever believe this day would be mine
?
Wyth caressed the horizon with his eyes, drinking in the deep greens, the winy
reds and violets, growing intoxicated and flushed.

He
jumped when someone tapped his arm. A small third year Prentice he recognized
from his Dream Tell class bobbed awfully at his elbow, eyes drawn to his
forehead. The boy blinked repeatedly, ducking his head in reverence.

“Osraed
Wyth, it’s time,” he said. “The pipers are ready and your robes are laid out.”

Wyth
smiled and nodded, giving the worn parapet a loving pat. Ruanaidhe’s Leap they
called this spot. It was a point of tragic history, but Wyth could not find it
in himself to feel tragic. Tonight, his own history would be forever woven into
the stones of Halig-liath.

He
followed the Prentice down from the wall and back across the cobbled yard,
wending behind kiosks and wagons to the Academy’s rounded central structure.
Glowing orbs lit the hallways with warm gilded light; musicians gathered in
noisy knots here and there and gave him glances eloquent with amazement.

They’re more excited than I am
, he
thought, and wondered at that. He had in the last hours welcomed into himself a
great and alien contentment. He savored it, yet knew it to be momentary. He
wondered if it would last the night.

Osraed
Calach and Lealbhallain (
Osraed
Lealbhallain, by the Kiss!) awaited him in a small annex to Halig-liath’s
sanctum. One paced, the other smiled contentedly.

“Ah,
there you are, Wyth!” Calach’s smile expanded to embrace him in warm welcome,
while his Prentice-companion scurried to fetch his robe. Like Leal’s, it was a
deep, ruddy gold.

Beautiful
, he thought.
Beautiful, but faded-looking compared to-

“Will
this night never end?” Lealbhallain ceased his pacing and stood, worrying his
prayer chain, eyes on a window of frosted and colored glass through which he
could see nothing but patterns of fitful light.

Calach
laughed. “Dear boy, it’s barely begun.”

“Why
beg it end?” asked Wyth, shrugging into his robe. “Isn’t this the night of
nights? Isn’t this to be savored? Remembered?”

Leal’s
hands flung upward, flying from his voluminous sleeves like flushed birds. “It’s
only a doorway, Osraed Wyth. A passing point.” He speared his fellow Chosen
with zealous eyes. “I long to be through the door, past the point, on my way to
Creiddylad.”

“Ah,
yes.” Calach nodded approvingly, bustling to straighten Wyth’s white stole and
arrange the links of his prayer chain upon it. “An arduous mission you have drawn,
Leal, if I read news from Creiddylad right. I admire your zeal for it.”

“It’s
not zeal,” said Leal oddly, turning the pendant crystal of his chain in one
hand. He glanced back at the window. “It’s fear.”

Calach
made a quick and nearly indiscernible gesture to the attending Prentice to take
up his slate and bluestick. “Fear of what?” he asked, while Wyth could only
stand idly by, his mouth open. A sudden, prickling awareness told him another
Presence had slipped into the room; Lealbhallain was touching the Meri.

“Disintegration,”
Leal answered then added, “The hand that caresses keeps what it holds; the hand
that seizes, crushes what it hopes to mold.”

They
waited silently, all of them, while the Prentice’s bluestick skittered over its
slate, recording Leal’s words.

Leal
shook himself and stared full into Wyth’s face. Amazement. The smile started
tentatively and spread to his entire body, freckle by freckle.

Only puppies smile so
, thought Wyth,
then chided himself for the inane thought.

Before
he knew what was happening, they were in the hall again and stepping in
measured time to the courtyard.

oOo

Awash
in a swirl of sights and sounds and smells she’d never before experienced,
Gwynet clung to Taminy’s hand and tried to drink everything in. When she
thought her eyes could get no wider and her senses could not absorb one more
fragrance or sound, the bells of Halig-liath began to peal and sing in a great,
iron-throated chorus.

She
cried out, but the sound of her small voice was lost as it left her lips,
swallowed in the deep, bright music. The air shivered with it, and all around
her, people began to hurry to places about the courtyard’s vast, open center.

Taminy
tugged at her hand and bent to peer down into her flushed face, her own all but
concealed by the cowl of her shawl and the bright scarf tied over her forehead.
“Shall we find a place to watch, Gwyn?” she asked and Gwynet could only nod.

The
place Taminy chose was away from the pressing throng of villagers, halfway up a
worn flight of stone steps that mounted to the walk along the inside of the
high outer wall. From this vantage point, Gwynet’s eyes could scoop up their
share of wonders.

The
bells ceased their lusty duan now, and a new, alien sound rose in its wake.
From a stone arch across the yard and halfway down Halig-liath’s massive flank,
pipers appeared, two abreast, stepping in time to the deep, hollow rhythm of
unseen drums.

Gwynet
all but held her breath as piper after piper emerged from the archway to parade
down the center of the court. They were escorted, in their turn, by other
musicians, playing fiddle, drum and pat-a-pat, rib-stick and tambourine.

Gwynet
had never in her life heard such a sound. It was like the keening of wind in
the tall pines. It was like the march of thunder across the hills and the music
of rain on leaf and stone. And the melody was at once joyful and sad and
spritely and grand.

It
took her a moment to realize the tune was playing closer at hand, as well. She
glanced up at Taminy, who sang along in a clear voice, adding words to the
music, her eyes glinting from the shadow of her cowl.

Caught
in this, the older girl lowered her eyes and laughed. “I once was certain as
certain could be that they’d play this song for me when I came home from the
Sea. That I’d step to the piper’s duan with the Meri’s Kiss on my brow. How
strange life is.” She laughed again and stroked Gwynet’s hair. “Listen well,
Gwynet-a-Gled. That may be your tune someday, and your dance.”