Meri (7 page)

“Yes. I can see that it must be there, because the tree is
the evident result of it.”

“Believe, anwyl, that such a subtle and invisible essence is
the Spirit of the Universe. That is Reality. That is what men of religion call
God—the First Being from which grew this all.” His arms made a sweeping,
all-encompassing azure gesture. “The essence of the tree finds expression in
the tree. The Unseen finds expression in the visible Universe.” He studied her
a moment then said, “Home, now. Your old Scir-loc is hungry.”

Meredydd gasped, knowing he had heard the rumors. “I didn’t
call him that! Brys-a-Lach tricked me into saying it because he knew Osraed
Ealad-hach was standing right behind me.”

Bevol chuckled. “And told me all about it.” The chuckle
easily became a laugh. “Ah, such an impertinent, impudent Prentice I have
raised. I am a discredit to my station.”

“He didn’t say
that
! Oh,
Master, I am so sorry!”

“What have you to be sorry about? You didn’t do anything to
apologize for except allow Brys to vex you...twice in one day. You allowed him
to distract you, anwyl. I saw the way you were in class this afternoon. You
heard half of what I said, you mixed your powders poorly, you mumbled your inyx
and you forgot half the words to a duan you had memorized a month ago.”

Meredydd now mumbled an apology for all of that, feeling his
eyes on her, only half-filled with humor.

“Master,” she said, when they were winding down the wooded
slope behind Gled Manor, “Last night I joked about manipulating Wyth’s dreams.
I have to allow, I did think of it half-seriously. Did I do that? Did I put
that dream into Wyth’s head?”

Bevol made a wry mouth. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps dreams float above us in a great pool
and we merely reach up and take them out. Perhaps we both selected the same
dream.”

Bevol nodded, his eyes now on the gate to their large back
garden. “Perhaps you did,” he said.

When they came through the back door into the kitchen, Skeet
was waiting for them with a bowl of water clutched in his hands and a sour expression
on his face.

“What is this?” he asked, sloshing the water at them. “Why
is it left here where poor Skeet can get into it?”

The Osraed Bevol’s white brows fluttered to perch beneath
his broad-brimmed hat. “Why, whatever is ailing ‘poor Skeet?’”

“I find this bowl of water and take a sip and — gack! — it’s
all salt, it is!”

Bevol turned to Meredydd. “Do you see salt in that water,
anwyl?”

She put down her satchel of books and took the bowl from
Skeet’s hands, glancing into it. “No, Master. I see no salt.”

“But didn’t you put salt into the bowl only this morning?”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“Well then, perhaps you should take it out again.”

The smile deepened. “But I can’t, Master. It’s dissolved
into the water. I can’t even see it.”

“I can surely taste it,” Skeet interjected.

“Can you taste it, Meredydd?” asked Bevol.

She touched her fingertip to the water, then put it into her
mouth. She nodded, grimacing. “Yes, very much so.”

“It is salty?”

“Yes.”

“And what do you see?”

“I see only water.”

The Osraed Bevol nodded. “And is the reality that there is
only water in that bowl?”

“The illusion is that there is only water. The reality is
that there is salt in the water; salt that cannot be seen but which can
certainly be tasted.” She glanced at Skeet, but quickly turned away again so as
not to laugh and wound his immense pride.

Osraed Bevol chuckled and slapped Skeet resoundingly on the
back. “When one brings the right senses to bear, anwyl, one can taste a good
many subtleties in life.”

If you seek the brave, look to those who forgive.

If you seek the heroic, look to those who can return love
for
hatred
.

— The Corah, Book II
Verses 50, 51

The next day at Halig-liath was torture for Meredydd. It
seemed to her that there was no one who did not stare at her—no one who did not
smirk or whisper or snicker when she walked the halls. Osraed Ealad-hach said
nothing of that embarrassing scene in the concourse, but he was more acid than
usual. Her new Dream Tell instructor, the young Osraed Ladmann, treated her coolly—virtually
ignoring her in class—and no one but Lealbhallain seemed to be inclined to talk
to her. Even Osraed Bevol seemed odd during the afternoon Craft class. He was
too quiet, his eyes lacked their usual waggish glint and he, like everyone
else, seemed to be watching her.

And then, there were the whispers. She told herself she wasn’t
going to let herself overhear them this time, that she was going to walk
straight past the doorway they issued from without listening. But, of course,
that was impossible.

“Naw, Brys ain’t here today. That Meredydd, she’s a’ fault.”

That was yesterday’s mumbler. She could see him now,
reflected in the polished, faceted panes of the classroom door, surrounded by a
group of five other boys. Scandy-a-Caol was his name—son of Nairne’s newest and
most prosperous collier. Though raised up-country in the town of Eada, he was
late of the Cyne’s capitol, Creiddylad, which the histories called “Jewel of
the Sea,” and he rarely let any of his classmates forget that he had lived in
such a superior place in terms of size, population and culture. All had heard
about grandeur of their former home—a house that even required the attentions
of an actual
servant
.

Meredydd had no doubt that when he went down-coast to visit
his mother’s family there, he regaled them with tales of Caraid-land’s
spiritual center and used his tuition at Halig-liath to impress. Scandy was,
above all else, a tale-bearer, and just now he was bearing the Tale of
Meredydd, Wicke of Gled Manor.

“How do you figure?” asked one of his current audience.

Scandy squinted up one eye and leaned into the group. “She
threw an inyx on him, sure as water’s wet.”

“Go ride a pig!” protested someone. “What ails him?”

“It’s his tongue, it is. All numb-like. His throat makes
sounds, but his tongue just flops between his teeth like a dying fish. He can’t
use it for naught.”

The audience was impressed. They made appreciative noises
and vowed not to do anything to anger Meredydd-a-Lagan.

“Aye, that Meredydd be Wicke, sure as Colfre is Cyne,” said
Scandy awfully, and Meredydd, chilled to the bone, fled to her class.

She had thought it. She remembered thinking it—a stray
thought, only:
May you forget how to use your
tongue, Brys-a-Lach
. Just that. But if she had really done this thing,
how did she now go about undoing it?

She was almost physically ill when the day was over, her
stomach tied in a myriad knots. Her one consolation was that she no longer had
to do Aelder Prentice Wyth’s last reading assignment. It was small consolation
when she felt her life was

suddenly out of her control—as if all the progress she had
made at Halig-liath, her reputation as a good student and conscientious
Prentice—all was being undone in a matter of days.

She had always had good marks, her teachers had liked her,
thought her precocious and bright. Until now. Now, she began to wonder if she
would even pass Osraed approval for Pilgrimage.

She was in her Medicaments class when Osraed Calach came
with a summons. She was to come with him immediately. She knew what that meant—an
appearance before the Academy Council. Fear wound its coils around her heart.
Dear God, would they really accuse her of practicing Wicke, of casting inyx on
Brys?

Fending off the prying eyes of her classmates, she tried,
with her own, to grasp the Osraed Calach’s and seize his thoughts. But he would
not look at her. He escorted her, silently, down the near-empty corridors
toward the concourse.

When she could no longer stand the nerve-twisting whisper of
their feet, the solemn flutter of his robes, she asked, “What have I done?”

He glanced at her, then, and she thought she saw a spark of
sympathy before he snatched his eyes away. “Perhaps you have done nothing, if
you must ask,” he said.

They traversed the long, broad
central gallery with its upswept arches and came, at last, to the Osraed’s
Council

Chamber. Inside, Osraed Bevol awaited her, seated at a long,
polished table of heavy, dark reddish wood. Seated beside him was the Osraed
Ealad-hach, while a woman she recognized but couldn’t name sat in a high-backed
chair at one end of the council table. That the woman disliked her, she was
immediately aware. Dark eyes hurled darts of venom at her from beneath a hat
made up of rich folds of colorful cloth.

Calach led Meredydd to the center of the chamber and left
her there, facing the long table. He went swiftly to his own seat beside the
other two Osraed.

Meredydd stood, mute, before them. A patina of lucent color
from the tall stained-crystal windows spread itself over her like a web of
light, pinning her to the floor. She brought herself stubbornly upright,
forcing her head up and shoulders back. She would not quail. She had done
nothing wrong. Leal would swear she had not called the Osraed Ealad-hach “Scir-loc,”
that she had done nothing intentional to rag Aelder Prentice Wyth. She would
simply deny that she had done anything to make Brys-a-Lach lose his voice.

The silence continued, eating its way into her resolve. She
felt sweat trickle slowly down her back. Still, no one spoke; the woman in the
rainbow hat poked at her with angry glances.

Ealad-hach was the only one of the three Osraed who would
look at her and his gaze did nothing to promote ease. Calach was fidgeting with
his sleeves and her own Master, Bevol, was evidently immersed in meditation.

I will scream
, she
thought.
I will demand to know why I am here. I
will cry. I will run. I will hide
.

The silent scrutiny ended suddenly when the Osraed Bevol
sighed audibly and said, “Please, brothers, what are we waiting for? Aelder
Prentice Wyth will be in class for several minutes yet and we’re serving no one
by sitting here behaving as if Meredydd did not exist. My Prentice should know
why her studies have been interrupted.”

Ealad-hach’s eyes skittered sideways to the woman in the
high-backed chair. “Very well, I will explain to Prentice Meredydd the
circumstances which caused her to be summoned here.”

He moved his eyes to her—rigid, icy. “You are accused,
cailin, of attempting to seduce Aelder Prentice Wyth, ostensibly to procure
higher marks from him.”

Seduce! Meredydd was not even sure she understood what the
word meant. Cold to the core, all she could do was stare at the Osraed through
the veil of calico dust motes that swelled around her and attempt to move lips,
tongue and diaphragm all at once.

It was difficult, but she did just manage to whisper, “I don’t
understand.”

“Listen to her!” cried the seated woman. “Listen to her
voice! It’s the voice of a siren! Have you any doubt?”

Meredydd turned her startled gaze to the woman’s lurid face
and recoiled from the hatred displayed there.

“Please—” began the Osraed Bevol, but Ealad-hach cut him
off.

“How do you answer this accusation, cailin?”

Meredydd swung back to face him. “I answer that I don’t
understand the charge, Osraed. What am I supposed to have done?”

“Liar!” cried the woman. “You know what you’ve done! You
have distracted my son from his spiritual pursuits, shattered his meditation.”
She stood and faced the panel of Osraed. “Wyth was to be eligible for
Pilgrimage this Solstice. This is his last chance at that—his last chance to
see the Meri and pass Her approval. This creature threatens his hope of ever
becoming Osraed.”

“I threaten no one!” protested Meredydd. She turned
beseeching eyes on her own Master. “Please, Master! I’ve done nothing wrong! I thought
Aelder Prentice Wyth despised me!”

Ealad-hach cut her off with a
scathing glare. “You will allow Moireach Arundel to state her complaint,
Prentice Meredydd, and you will not interrupt her.”

Meredydd fell silent, lowering her face into the shadow of
her hair, trying to hide her fear and outrage.

“A moment,” said the Osraed Bevol, quietly. “Moireach
Arundel, on what do you base your complaint against my Prentice?”

“On
what
? On my son’s
behavior—distracted, morose. He writes her name in his journals, he dreams her
dreams—or so he tells me. He’s been arriving home late these past weeks,
telling me this or that at Halig-liath has held him. But it’s not Halig-liath
that holds him, Osraed. It is
that
wanton.
He’s been following her home. Standing in the grove before Gled Manor, waiting
to see her in the window where she studies, waiting for her to come out.”

Bevol’s eyes, narrowed, picked at her. “Who told you this,
Moireach Arundel?”

“I’ve heard the talk in Nairne—the talk the boys bring home
with them. It much excites them, little as they understand the danger in it.”

“And Wyth told you about the dream?”

“Yes. I asked him what it meant; he wouldn’t answer me. He
could see how it had distressed me. But I
know
,
Osraed Bevol. I
know
what it means. It
means
she
has bewitched him.” Her finger
pointed, graceful, arrogant in ringstone dazzle.

Meredydd raised her eyes to Moireach Arundel’s face then—met
her eye to eye through the shaft of swirling motes—golden, blue, crimson.
Hatred flashed there, brighter than the gems on her fingers. A hatred Meredydd
was suddenly convicted was born of fear.

“Is this what happens when tradition is shattered?” asked
the Osraed Ealad-hach rhetorically. “The Art is strong, carried on by men of
honor and purity of purpose. But when a girl appears within these sanctified
walls....” He glanced askew at Bevol. “History should have warned you, brother.
A female is not fit for the Divine Art, not fit to tread the Path to the Sea.
Thoughts of earth and fire boil in their breasts and cloud their minds. Water,
Bevol, water is pure until it comes in contact with earth or fire. Then it is
sullied or boils away.”