Ashes Under Uricon (The Change Book 1) (11 page)

“You claim to know Eluned’s ‘moods’?”

“I’ve lived with her long enough. Why shouldn’t I know her moods?”

“She is your tutor. Your adviser. Your guardian. Does that give you the right to know her as a person?”

I raised my voice. “You cannot live with someone for four years and not know them as a person, can you? Maybe
you
can.” I looked at Mererid. “But then I obviously don’t have your discipline, do I?”

“Don’t be impertinent,” Mererid hissed.

Matthew put his hand over hers, but she withdrew it. He smiled at me. “Do you need to know someone ‘as a person’, as you put it?”

“How else am I to know them? We’re not robots, are we? The Apostles say that we must acknowledge our humanity and our divinity and rejoice in them.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the others. Taid, for the first time, raised his head and looked at me.

The Scottish Professor raised his hand. Matthew nodded. “Are you telling us that you believe everything that the so-called Apostles say?”

“I don’t think that’s particularly important at this juncture, Campbell,” Matthew said. “Returning to Eluned. How would you describe your relationship with her?”

“As you just said. She is my tutor. My adviser. My guardian. Sometimes my gaoler. I would also like to think that she might be my friend. Sometimes.”

“Are you in need of a friend?”

“In this place? Yes, I am. Stuck with all you old people. I only see you when we’re eating. And most of the time you talk in strange languages that I don’t understand. Eluned is the only person who is near to me. I have to think she is my friend. Sometimes.” My voice quavered.

“Do you think that Eluned fulfils the role of a friend to you?”

“She’s all I have. I thought Taid was my friend before we came here. Now I hardly ever see him.”

“Explain to us how you see Eluned as your friend.”

I sighed and slumped lower in my chair. “Am I wrong to think of her as a friend? Is that what you’re getting at? Am I supposed to have learned discipline while I’ve been here? So that I can exist without any other person? Like you lot seem to. Most of the time.”

“Just answer Matthew’s question, please,” Mererid said.

“No,” I was now shouting. “Why should I? Yes, Eluned is my friend. She is the only one anywhere near my age. I spend all day and all night in her company. There are things about her that I don’t understand but I put those aside. I wake up every morning with her. I see her naked when she washes. She sees me naked when I wash. I see her naked when she goes to bed. She sees me naked when I go to bed. Who else but a friend would be that close? Not even Taid has seen me naked. Have you, Taid?”

He did not look up, but replaced the cap on his pen and put it down.

“We must stop there,” Matthew said, closing his folder. “Thank you, Non. We will speak again tomorrow.”

“Perhaps,” Mererid said.

“You may leave now. Return to Eluned’s room.”

I stood up and burst into tears. With my hand across my face I stumbled to the door and ran back to my room.

Eluned was sitting passively at the table, reading her book. “It will be difficult,” she said.

Before long, we went to have breakfast, later than usual. No one acknowledged what had just happened in the library. The Professors ate and argued in their usual way. Only Taid was a little more subdued than normal, but he said nothing to me.

The rest of the day passed as every other day. We read together. We walked in the field, admiring the young lambs that had appeared lately. We ate our meals. We went to bed. It took me some time to fall asleep as my mind churned through what had happened in the library.

The following morning I was awake earlier than usual, even before Eluned. I washed and dressed before she awoke, anticipating a knock on the door as had happened the day before. Eventually Eluned stirred. She looked at me from her bed, surprised to see me already dressed. Saying nothing she washed and dressed. When she was ready she unlocked the door and led me into the dining room, where we ate breakfast as usual. Again the day passed.

For a whole week, I rose early, ready to be called again to the library. The call did not come. I tried to question Eluned about this, but she simply repeated, “It will be difficult,” and moved on. I began to wonder if I had somehow failed. Failed what, I had no idea, but if I had been subjected to some kind of trial, then I had failed. As the days passed that was increasingly how I felt. I was ignored at meal times, apart from the usual greetings on entry to the dining room. I believed I had perhaps been given one chance at whatever it was they were expecting of me, but my temper had got the better of me, and now that chance was gone. Perhaps for ever.

Exactly one week later, the knock came again. When I heard it, I was immediately relieved. I turned to Eluned and smiled. She looked at me with rather a sad face. “Remember. It will be difficult, Non.” She rarely used my name. She unlocked the door and again Taid came in.

“Try not to lose your temper, cariad,” he said. His voice bore a strong hint of sadness. “I know how difficult this is for you, but you must keep calm. As I have always told you.”

“I hardly see you these days, Taid,” I said.

“It is for the best. You must believe that. You will soon discover why. Eluned, you will remain here until called for.”

Eluned nodded slightly. We turned and left the room.

My second time in the library was strangely different to the first. For a start, the layout was different. The shelves full of books had not changed, nor had the bronze heads on their plinths. Nor indeed had the long table that filled the room. But this time the Professors were ranged on chairs on the window side of the table. My chair was opposite them, Taid was sitting on the end nearest the door. In the centre, directly facing me, when I had taken my seat, was the Cornish woman, Cordelia, with the other women to her right, Mererid right at the end, while next to her was Aidan, the Irish man, with the other men to his left, Matthew at that end.

Cordelia started with “Good morning, Non.” Rather more friendly than Matthew had been.

I was about to reply in what I thought was Cornish, but thought better of it and said, “Good morning, Cordelia.” I looked at the others in turn and nodded to each of them. Each one nodded in return, except Matthew and Mererid, who did not even bother to look up.

“You need to understand, my dear,” Cordelia continued, “that we have to ask you many questions, some of them perhaps rather personal, some that are rather searching, indeed some that you may find difficult. We need, however, for you to understand that these questions must be asked of you before you are fully nineteen years old. Is that clear?”

Mererid tutted loudly. I looked at her, but she did not move her head. I looked at Taid. He was sitting with his pen in his hand, but he had not yet removed the cap.

“I understand,” I said. “Am I allowed to ask you a question?”

Aidan spoke. His accent seemed less pronounced than usual. “Not at this juncture, young lady. If you answer all our questions, I am sure that any question you may wish to ask now will be answered in time.”

I nodded.

“Then, we may proceed,” Cordelia said, opening her folder.

I glanced at Taid. He unscrewed the cap from his pen.

Mererid spoke, in a dramatically quiet voice, the words drawn out. “If you cannot remain temperate, then you will be removed. From this room. And from this house. Let me make that clear.” She raised her head and looked directly at me.

I returned her stare, but said nothing.

“Yes, yes, Mererid,” Cordelia said, briskly. “I am sure that the girl knows that.”

“Why should she?” Matthew spoke from the other end, his head also bowed to the table.

“All that matters is that she answers our questions,” Cordelia replied. “I am sure that she learned something from her last visit. Did you not, Non?”

“I think so,” I said. I was trying hard to keep my voice level, but strong. It seemed that Matthew and Mererid were perhaps not happy that I had been given this ‘second chance’ – if that is what it was. They must have been over-ruled by the others and were angry at the loss of control.

“Let us proceed,” Matthew hissed.

Cordelia put her hand to her mouth and coughed. “To return to our previous line of questioning. You believe that Eluned is your friend, yes?”

“I do.”

“Could you perhaps explain what you understand by friendship?”

“Without reference to what you have been taught outside this house, please,” Aidan added.

“To be close to someone. To see her every day. To eat, sleep and work with her. I would find it difficult to understand a friendship not developing in those circumstances.”

“You were very upset,” Aidan said, “when you were asked the same question before. Could you explain why?”

“The question seemed threatening. I am sorry that I lost my temper. It is not something I had considered before Matthew asked me.”

“You had not thought about your relationship with Eluned. Is that what you are saying?” The questioning returned to Cordelia.

“Not really. No. It just was. I had no need to think about it.”

Matthew lifted his head, but with a wave of her hand, Cordelia silenced him. “You mentioned the fact that you had seen her naked. Was this of any significance to you?”

“Not particularly. It just seemed odd that you could be that close to someone and yet not be considered to be a friend.”

“So her being naked was not a mark of friendship?”

“Well, yes. Yes, it was. But only one. I don’t see it as a particularly significant thing, I’m sorry.” I squeezed my knees together under my shift. It was going to be hard to maintain my placid exterior. I kept thinking of Eluned’s words, “It will be difficult”, and this calmed me.

“Are you concerned that you have seen her naked?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. I only mentioned it as one thing among many that seemed to me to indicate that Eluned was my friend.”

“Does it concern you that she has seen you naked?”

“Not in the least. Not any more. It may have done right at the beginning. Now I don’t even think about it, to be honest.”

“And yet you raised it when questioned. Could you explain why you did so?”

“I was being asked about my relationship with Eluned. Something, I repeat, that I had never thought about. I was annoyed, for which I now apologise. I had to think of the things that friendship meant to me when I had never thought about the subject. I believe friendship is important. Aidan does not wish me to say why that is, but I still believe it is.”

“So your nakedness and her nakedness were not your main reasons for believing that Eluned was your friend?”

“Not at all. The fact that I mentioned it was something that popped up in my head when asked. There is no other significance.”

Campbell, the Scot, raised his hand, as he had done before. “Could we perhaps leave this line of questioning, Cordelia?”

The others nodded. “Yes, yes of course,” Cordelia said. “I was merely trying to … Well, we must move on, mustn’t we?” She smiled at me. “Would you like to tell us what you have learned in your time here?”

I smiled back at her. Her manner was much more soothing than Matthew’s. “That’s another big question,” I laughed. There was no response. “I have learned many things. How to read Eluned’s book, for one thing. I know it now almost as well as she does. I have whole passages by heart. Not quite the whole book yet, but I’m getting there. I have learned several greetings in the languages that you all speak, although I must confess that I do still mix them up. For which, again, I apologise.”

“No apology necessary,” Aidan said. Mererid tutted loudly.

I carried on. “I think I have learned most about the world outside this house. The field. The sheep and the lambs that inhabit it. The woods. The small animals that live there. How it changes as the seasons change. The leaves always wither and die, but they always return each year. According to Eluned it is the work of the ‘Domina’ as she calls it. Calls her. The lake. Perhaps most of all the lake. I love how its surface changes as the weather changes. Last year it even froze over in the winter. I wanted to step out on it, but Eluned would not allow it.”

“All these things you believe you have learned.” Cordelia’s words interrupted my reverie.

“I have experienced them, yes. If that is learning, then, yes, I have learned. It is not what I understood as learning when I first came here. For fifteen years learning had meant reading The Bible, translating it, word by word, slowly at first, then more and more easily. It had meant struggling with my Ovidian. I had been expecting to start on my Mathematica. But of course I never did.”

My gaze came back to the room from the past into which it had wandered. I noticed that everyone was now looking at me, some shaking their heads.

“I am sorry,” I said. “I know Aidan told me – asked me – not to mention the past. It comes out. I spent more years of my life in that world than I have in this. Again, apologies.”

“You need not apologise for anything, Non,” Cordelia said. “Your answers are truthful and honest. We very much appreciate that.”

Mererid tutted. Louder than before. Taid looked up from his writing. “Do you have a problem with truth and honesty, Mererid?”

“Not in the least, Mr Beynon-James,” she said, markedly avoiding his first name. “I have yet to hear either truth or honesty in this room. When I do, I shall let you know.”

“You are becoming a bitter old woman, Mererid,” Taid said. “My grand-daughter has already achieved more, in the time that she has been with us, than most of us have achieved in a life time of doing what we think is important.”

“We must question her, nevertheless,” Matthew said.

“I do not argue with that,” Taid said, his voice still calm. “Let us simply remember that she is little more than a child yet. She has not experienced what we have. She is a child of the Change. They have created a powerful system and we can see the effect it has on its children. We must allow her time to respond to our world. That is all I am saying.”