Robin McKinley (21 page)

“Yes. Nara is the commonest woman’s name in Willowlands, because it was her name.”

“Yes. In sixty years I hope the commonest woman’s name is Mirasol.”

Mirasol smiled, tiredly. And Nara’s Master was as friendly and approachable as a puppy or your grandmother, compared to the one we have now, and most of his Circle is united only in their aversion to him. What would you think of Horuld as a Master? What would Silla think? What would the mothers of your babies think? “Send me your wounds and burns and stomach-aches then.”

But it was Kenti who brought two little packets from Catu—“this one’s for if you’re lying awake thinking, and this one’s if you’re just too tired to sleep”—plus two loaves of bread and a big jar of potted meat. “I asked Catu—she didn’t think it would be—she thought it would be—

she told me these were to help you sleep, that you were working too hard, and I said I didn’t think you were eating properly, I know it’s easy not to when you’re too busy, but even honey isn’t enough by itself….” Her voice trailed away and she looked at Mirasol anxiously.

Mirasol reached out and took the parcels. “It’s very kind of you, thank you,” she said.

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Very little money changed hands among the small folk of a demesne; some duty was paid in coin, but most of the economy was based on barter and exchange. The Chalice, like the other members of the Circle, received a stipend for the work she did (disbursed by the Grand Seneschal), and unless there was some very complex ritual involved, ordinary demesne folk were not expected to pay for help from a Circle member. (Given her book-and-paper habit, Mirasol was glad she had honey and beeswax to sell.) But popular Circle members tended to have very well-stocked larders and very well-maintained properties, or known and frequently augmented collections of things on display at the House. Nara had collected wood carvings; there was a dormouse in linden wood in the Yellow Room which had belonged to her that Mirasol was absurdly fond of. Occasionally she took her books and papers to the Yellow Room and when she did she always lifted the dormouse down from its shelf to sit on her work-table.

Mirasol’s hands shook a little as she cradled the parcels. “How is Tis?”

Kenti laughed with an easiness that told Mirasol what she wanted to know. “She’s absolutely fine. Except she gives the stove a wide berth—which is no bad thing. She’s with her cousins today, so that I could get some things done.” She hesitated. “I—I told Danel and my sister what you said about the Master—about him healing your hand. I—I hope you don’t mind.”

“On the contrary,” Mirasol said sincerely, and her heart sang within her.

“It is hard to—to—tolike him,” Kenti said, obviously finding words with difficulty, “although I know it’s notliking a Master needs from his people. Danel says his horses aren’t always shying at ghosts any more—any more nor horses always shy at ghosts—especially the young ’uns, and that that’ll be the Master taking hold like a proper Master, and the earthlines quietening under him, and never mind what he looks like. But those red eyes—I can’t—what does he see with those red eyes?”

“He sees warmth,” said Mirasol. “When he looks into a tree where a bird sits singing, where you and I could not see it hidden behind the leaves, he will see the outline of its warmth.”

“But they—But he—”

“You get used to it,” Mirasol said.

Kenti looked at her sidelong. “There’s a story that you spent the day with the Heir. That you…favour him.”

Theday, thought Mirasol miserably. She took a deep breath and said, “I—I feel that the Heir’s connection with the demesne is—is not as strong as it might be. If he is Heir, then he must be bound here—for the Master’s sake. Binding is the Chalice’s work. But we have a Master—a good Master. Whatever colour his eyes are. The Heir is only the Heir.”

Kenti’s face was wearing that hopeful, thoughtful look again when she left, the look she had worn when Mirasol had told her about the Master healing her hand. Mirasol hoped Kenti would ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html tell the story of why the Chalice had spent time with the Heir too—and hoped that her sister was a chatterbox. She could not tell—or guess—how much or how little her mistake with the Heir might have contributed to any new restlessness among the demesne’s folk. She heard other reverberations of both her behaviour and the Grand Seneschal’s commentary on it. When she could—since few people asked her as directly as Kenti had, as if healing her daughter’s arm had somehow made the Chalice accessible—she said she had mistaken the Heir’s purpose in consulting her; that she had wished not to embarrass him by revealing his shortcomings. It was the nearest she could come to the Seneschal’s suggestion that she insinuate the Heir was unworthy or unfit. She was afraid that her real revulsion would be exposed if she spoke too near it.

She had, by now, learnt enough to be Chalice when she wished not to be questioned further, and mostly she was as saddened as she was relieved when it worked. She told Selim the truth about that day: that she’d been stupid because she didn’t know any better. She even managed to make Selim laugh by describing her consternation when she looked up and saw the Grand Seneschal standing in the library door. But the laugh stopped too soon and worry took its place. Selim was no fool, and she knew the danger the demesne was in; she was of another old family, and the land spoke in her blood too. Mirasol thought, if there were enough of the old families, perhaps we could drive the Heir away. Perhaps there is a better candidate for Heir right here in Willowlands, disguised as a houndsman or a small woodskeeper…. But what if it is not that Horuld is a poor tool in the hand of the Overlord which might snap from pressure; what if it is that this is the way it is, having an outblood Heir? That the true blood repels it, like iron filings from a magnet?

“Tell it around,” said Mirasol. “Please. The Seneschal warned me what was happening—and Kenti asked me in so many words if I favoured the Heir.”

“I will,” Selim said grimly. “I may leave out the part about your being stupid.”

Mirasol recognised the joke, and laughed.

“I worry about you, Mirasol,” said Selim. “I am happy to trust you with my life—remember the night we saved Cag’s barn from burning down?—but it seems to me that you’ve been thrown in quicksand and told to learn to swim. And the Master—”

“The Master is learning,” said Mirasol quickly. “Remember Danel’s horses.”

“The land and the beasts may be learning to listen to him,” said Selim. “I am not so sure about the people. Would the story of you favouring the Heir have flown so quickly if they weren’t hoping it was true?”

Once Mirasol was so tired that she fell asleep sitting on one of the stone chairs outside her cottage, on an afternoon that was just warm enough to permit the chilly folly of sitting outdoors in the sunlight for a few moments. She had brought another book from the House library back ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html with her to read, but her mind kept turning in spirals very like the ones she trickled from the lip of a Chalice cup. She only closed her eyes for a moment, her face turned up toward the sun, thinking that she could smell the mead and the herbs she had chosen that day for a field where the cattle would not stay…at least there had been no more cracks in the earth…Faine’s wife had bought honey from her for the first time a few weeks ago, and said that Daisy’s calf was a fine strong heifer…here by her cottage she could always smell mead and herbs…when she woke it was twilight, and her nose was cold, but she was warmly covered by a blanket of bees.

She did not see the Master alone again, although he looked into her face with a directness no other member of the Circle did when he accepted the cup she raised to his lips.

When the Overlord came she hated him. It was a shock like a blow; much worse than when she had met the Heir. She hated him so much that she trembled with it, and clutched the welcome cup to her as if it were a crutch to hold her upright. If there had not been a tradition that the Chalice’s hand should not touch the hand of whomever she offered a cup, she would have invented the tradition on the spot.

The Overlord touched the hands or the foreheads of the others of the Circle…all except the Master, who was tucked into his deep cloak and long sleeves again, although he wore the chain, collar and belt of the Mastership of Willowlands, as he must to greet his Overlord. The hierarchy between an Overlord and a Master acknowledged the superiority of the Overlord; but it would still have been a discourtesy—even an impertinence—for the Overlord to demonstrate his authority over a Master on the Master’s own lands. Perhaps it was only Mirasol’s attitude that made her feel that she could see the Overlord’s hands twitch in a longing to do so.

Deager had accompanied the Overlord, which was standard conduct for an Overlord visiting a demesne; but he had also brought the Heir with him. Probably this was no more than the correct form also. But she took it as an indication of his desires in the matter of the immediate future of Willowlands; and she was sure she read it in the Grand Seneschal’s face that he believed the same. But then the Grand Seneschal always looked bleak and disapproving. Mirasol tried to remember if he had looked so before the seven years of the previous Master’s disastrous dominion; but she had been the daughter of a beekeeper and a small woodskeeper then, and had not noticed such things.

The cumbersomely elaborate ceremonial greeting took place in the Hall of Summoning. Then the Housefolk brought food and drink to the outer hall and flung open the double front doors, and the pattern relaxed into groups of people talking to each other; but it was a formal meeting still, with the Chalice present, holding her cup. Mirasol had wondered if the Chalice, when it chose its next bearer, took into account the effect of irregular meals on human beings. While the Chalice held her cup to a meeting, she could not touch food or drink. Mirasol’s mother had been one of those who ate when she had time, and didn’t think about it if she didn’t; Mirasol’s father had ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html been one who had to have his meals generous and on time or he grew short-tempered and clumsy. Fortunately Mirasol took after her mother, but some days it was harder to miss meals than other days. Today she was hungry.

Sometimes there was a moment while a Chalice-held assembly regrouped that she could snatch a mouthful, and there was such a moment on this occasion. The Overlord was to be taken on a tour around the demesne, and the horses and carriages that would carry him and his entourage took a little while to bring together. Mirasol set the goblet down with a smack that made its contents slosh (of the Chalice vessels available she’d learnt very quickly to have a preference, when she could, for the ones with deeper bowls, against inadvertent splashes) and pounced on the nearest platter. She therefore didn’t see what happened; she was only aware that something had when there was a shout followed by an angry clamour.

She didn’t remember dropping the fishcake she was eating, nor snatching up her goblet on her way to the door; not that there was anything she could do. At that moment she thought agonizedly that if the Chalice had still been present it might not have happened…but she guessed, with a sickening lurch in her stomach, even before the shouting had died down and the disputers had moved to face one another like battle lines being drawn that what had happened was not an accident.

The Master stood inscrutably, nearly invisible in his cloak and hood; she looked for him first, and so saw the red of his eyes flicker as she ran through the door. Perhaps he had been looking for her, or perhaps he was only calmly waiting for the audience to gather. She was not even first out the door, though far from last, and the others made way for her, because she was Chalice.

She paused with an effort at the top of the steps and came down slowly, her hands correctly on the base and stem of the goblet, trying to train her face to the frigid expressionlessness on the Grand Seneschal’s face. The Grand Seneschal stood at the Master’s elbow; the Overlord and his agent—and the Heir—stood opposed. The half dozen servitors who had come with them stood immediately behind them; the folk of the demesne, Mirasol was dismayed to see, including most of the other members of the Circle, were collecting at a little distance from their Master. The Prelate, Keepfast and Sunbrightener had disappeared.

She finished walking slowly down the steps and took her place at the Master’s other elbow. She could not then see where—or who—anyone who might also take the Master’s part stood; she heard feet behind them, but her pulse was thudding in her ears and she could not hear if the footsteps stopped or went on. She made a point, difficult as it was, to look directly at both Horuld and the Overlord. She thought Horuld looked at her worriedly, and the Overlord, briefly, narrowed his eyes when he looked back at her. A hot rush of fury stiffened her; even had she preferred the Heir, what Chalice would leave her Master’s side? It was bad enough that the rest of the Circle stayed at a distance, but the first, crucial bond in any demesne was between Master and Chalice. For just a moment she thought of the Chalice before her, who had died in the pavilion fire, and wondered if she had been less willing than the tale of her made out to abet her Master’s schemes and indulgences. If the Chalice is not strong enough to lead or redirect an ill-choosing Master into ways better for the demesne, what then can she do? To leave her Master would always be worse for the demesne she is sworn to cherish and protect than to stay with him.

ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Her mind paused, and grasped that thought, like a Chalice grasping her goblet. And what if a Chalice can see disaster coming, and there is nothing,nothing she can do to stop it?