Tallow (10 page)

It was only three days ago that Pillar had left and Katina had lifted the teapot off the table and placed it in Tallow's hand. 'Training starts now,' she'd said. 'Feel this and describe to me what you sense.'

Somewhat surprised, Tallow had done what she was told. She took the teapot in her hands and ran her fingers over the porcelain along the chipped spout.

'It's smooth – except for here.' Her fingers rested on the damage. 'There's a piece missing.'

Katina had burst out laughing. 'Not like that.
Feel
it. Open your heart and tell me what you feel. I know you've done it before, Tallow. You must have, to have survived this place. And anyway, Pillar's face is living proof. So do it again now. Do it for me.'

And she had.

With a deep breath, she'd rested her eyes on the teapot and, for the first time, really looked at it. The crazy glaze with the faded red, blue and ochre pattern expanded in her vision. She'd slowly felt herself sinking into the varnish, through the artwork on the exterior and into the very pores of the ceramic. Each fragment of sand took on a life of its own; like a colony of sponges, each had absorbed aspects of the life around it, holding it within like a buried treasure that she now proceeded to unearth.

As a dew-kissed flower shyly opens to the sun, so her mind had unfolded to the teapot. Not only had she felt the thoughts and emotions of all those who had touched the teapot, but images had accompanied the sensations. She'd seen and felt Quinn, her face bowed over the spout, her fingers splayed around the base as she spent long, miserable nights waiting for her husband to return. Slowly, the image had segued into an anxious Pillar, making a brew that would help sober his mother. And behind those strong images, others had battled to be seen, to be felt: a proud ceramicist, lifting his cooled creation from a quiet kiln; a greedy shopkeeper, rubbing it to keep the shine and wondering how many lire he could charge now that his careless nephew had chipped the spout. But soon, the images had been swallowed by another: once again, a lonely Pillar had emerged, swilling the tea while thoughts of love and a different sort of life teased him.

'Well?' Katina's question had broken her thoughts. 'What do you feel?'

Putting the teapot down with more care than before, Tallow had tried to find the words, but, somehow, she didn't feel right sharing what she'd sensed. No, more than sensed. Borne witness to. It didn't seem ... honorable.

She had shaken her head and shrugged. 'Just stuff.'

'Just stuff,' repeated Katina. She'd regarded Tallow carefully, her hands on her hips. 'You're not going to tell me, are you?'

Tallow shook her head.

Katina sighed. 'But you did feel something, didn't you?'

Tallow had raised her chin. 'Oh, yes. I felt something all right. It was as if it were alive.'

Katina had reached out and ruffled her hair. 'All right, then. Let's go and find things that aren't quite so personal for you to practise on. Maybe then you'll tell me what you sense. Until you do, I can't teach you how to extract or distil.'

After that, they'd gone down to the workshop and it had been easier. There'd still been some very personal memories locked in the things she was given but, as the hours passed, it had become easier to share. Katina was a good listener and Tallow wanted to learn. Fresh waxes, bits of wick, a broach, some render, even an apple core discarded on the fondamenta and the wooden heel of an old shoe Katina picked up from the calle that ran behind the house – Katina had made her read them all. The piece from the gondola had come two days later.

'What did you feel when you touched the wood from the gondola?' asked Pillar quietly. He was curious. Hearing Tallow speak was like being given insight into the type of place that Serenissima once had been, into what, if Katina had her way, it could be again. Was that what he wanted? His fingers tightened around the cross under his shirt. God forgive him, he wasn't sure.

Tallow gave him a small smile, grateful for the support. 'As I touched it, I knew the gondolier that had steered it through the canals of Serenissima. I was aware of his joy in the water, his love of singing and his knowledge of the canals.' As Tallow spoke, she forgot where she was and who she was speaking to and began to relive the memories held in the wood.

'Then, as I probed deeper, I sensed the disease that ate at his bones, the pain of his last years as he got in and out of the boat.' She winced in memory. 'Beyond the gondolier, I could feel every single passenger that had ever sailed on board. The emotions of lovers, the calculations of businessmen, even the joy or indifference of children.' Tallow became excited now. 'I even found someone full of guilt for a crime he was about to commit – a murder, and he was sure he wouldn't be caught. There were so many histories, so many lives – too many to remember.'

That wasn't true; but Tallow didn't want to admit that she could remember every last person, every last emotion.

She paused and took a deep breath. What she had said didn't do the experience justice, but for the moment it would suffice. How do you describe a love that makes your breath hurt and your heart ache with longing? How do you describe desire that makes your loins burn with white-hot heat and your throat grow tight? How do you describe despair that makes you want to destroy and break ... even yourself? Tallow couldn't, but she knew she could reproduce it, every last impression, every single sensation, if she had to. Everything she had experienced over the last few days had opened an entirely new world to her. She felt like an explorer in uncharted territory. It thrilled and awed her, but also instilled within her an awareness of the depth and breadth of human emotions. Understanding what they all meant and how to use them would take time, she respected that, but she also yearned to find out more, to feel and grow within herself.

A slight noise brought her back to the present. They were waiting for her to continue. 'Beyond the people, there was more. There was the tree that the gondola was carved from. But it was one of many in a mighty forest that grew close to the Limen. It had been touched by things that no living creature should have to endure. Its roots had struggled to survive in an environment that seeks only to nullify and render barren.' She looked around the room; she even had Quinn's attention. 'It wasn't a dead piece of wood, Pillar. It was alive in a way I never could have imagined, with a past, a present.'
And I know if I wanted it to have one, a future as well.

No-one said anything. Pillar tried to absorb what Tallow had just told him. It terrified and exhilarated him all at once. His little Tallow, his apprentice, an Estrattore. So much talent. So much power. No wonder, over three hundred years ago, that the Patriarch of the Church had been afraid.

Quinn's voice broke the silence. 'Well, I don't give a God's damn about any of this. I don't care about no tree, no gondola or a bit of bloody wood. Call it alchemy if you want. I know what it really is and I want to know how it can make
me
rich.'

Katina laughed. It was a bitter sound. 'We're getting to that. As Tallow was explaining, what she felt in the wood she was also recreating – not everything, just aspects of it. Don't ask me how; that's what Estrattore do. What they
have
to do, what they are born to do. To withhold that from them,
that's
unnatural. But once they reach adolescence, their ability has to be contained, controlled, and that takes time and training. Tallow has been given neither – and not through any fault of yours.'

Quinn huffed.

'But that is why Tallow was broadcasting her talent everywhere and that is why
you
were being placed in danger. Unable to distil specific objects or people, she aimlessly collected and distributed emotions – some, it appears, even being redistributed into the wax she moulded.'

Pillar looked over at Tallow. 'So that's what was wrong with your candles ... that's why they made us feel so strange. You'd distilled what you'd extracted from other things, from us, into the wax.'

'I didn't do it deliberately,' said Tallow quickly. 'I didn't mean to. But I know that's what must have happened. I'm so sorry,' she finished quietly.

'Fancy that.' Pillar shook his head. 'We wondered, me and Mamma, but we didn't know what was happening.'

'Wish we'd known,' grumbled Quinn. 'Cost us a fortune in wasted materials – in wasted years of training you to be a candlemaker.'

'Ah, perhaps not.' As one, Pillar and Quinn turned to Katina. 'This is where I think I can help you,' she said. 'None of your time in apprenticing Tallow or teaching her the art of candlemaking need be wasted.'

'What do you mean?' asked Pillar hopefully.

'I believe, that with a little bit more training and refining – and with your help, Pillar – we can teach Tallow to distil what she extracts
into
the candles –'

'No,' protested Quinn. 'Absolutely not! That was the problem in the first place! Francesca's milk soured, Giovanni complained about a sore throat – and that's when Tallow
didn't
mean to do it! What's going to happen when he's doing it all the time? We're certain to be caught. Do you want us all killed?'

'Listen to me.' Katina raised her voice, demanding attention. 'I'm not talking about the willy-nilly way Tallow was doing it before. I'm talking about skill – about careful selection and measured distillation of what Tallow extracts. Something needs to be done or she
will
be detected by soldiers, or worse, the others that seek her. Then all your threats will be meaningless, Quinn, and what you predict will come true. You'll be tried and convicted for not only hiding an Estrattore, but for treason as well. It will be a very public and painful death for all of us unless we do something about her talents and we do it
now.'

She softened her tone. 'It's your choice. Let her distil into the candles. It will be subtle; it will be refined. I'll make sure of it. And if we continue to be careful as you have been, then no-one, not the soldiers, not the padres – not even your God – need ever know.'

This time Pillar began to object. Katina held up her hand.

'Let me finish by painting a picture of what could be for you. Imagine lighting a candle in a room full of unhappiness only to find that as the wick burnt and the wax melted, the unhappiness disappeared. Imagine burning a candle where there was anger only to replace it with calm. What about turning hate into love? But in such an indefinite way that no-one knows what caused the change. Is that bad? Is that –' she paused for dramatic effect and looked straight at Quinn, '– really evil?' She didn't wait for a response but ploughed on, saving her most irresistible proposition for last. 'What if everyone suddenly desired to burn
your
candles and only your candles? What if they never wanted to buy from anybody else?'

Pillar's eyes lit up. 'You can do that?'

'No. But Tallow can. At least, she could if you allow her. It's up to you.' Katina nodded towards Pillar and then Quinn. 'Both of you.'

'It's wrong,' insisted Quinn. 'I don't care what you say, I'll always believe anything to do with the Estrattore is evil. The Church forbids it. They kill his kind.'

'That's true – now,' said Katina. 'Once, a few hundred years ago, when you worshipped different gods, that type of gift was respected.'

'It's against the law,' insisted Quinn.

'So are a lot of things – like wilfully hiding an Estrattore. But unlike that sin, this will make you a lot of money.'

Quinn sat still for a moment then she began rubbing her chin, sitting on the edge of her seat. Pillar fingered his hidden carving, his mind racing.

'A
lot
of money,' reminded Katina softly and rose to hang the kettle back over the fire.

Quinn drained her mug and then looked at Tallow carefully. Katina turned slowly and waited. Tallow held her breath.

'It would, wouldn't it?' said Quinn finally. She rocked back and forth in her chair. 'Are you sure people would only want
our
candles?'

'Yes.'

'And they wouldn't know why? They'd just buy them?'

'If we're careful.'

After what seemed like a very long time, Quinn held her mug out to Katina. 'I'm tired of this. Got any more in that container of yours?'

Katina grinned and, opening her flask, poured a generous amount into Quinn's mug. Quinn raised it to her. 'I think I might like you after all, Bond Rider. I think I might like you after all.'

Pillar had a dazed look on his face and Katina knew he was trying to picture the future she'd presented. Finally, he nodded. 'All right, if that's what Mamma wants.' His tone was uncertain.

The tension slowly left Katina's body. She'd done it. She'd convinced them to at least try her way. But she'd kept her mouth shut on her reservations. Tallow's powers were such that not only were they beyond Katina's limited realm of experience, they were nothing like she'd been warned to expect, either. She'd never seen or heard of talent like it. At least by encouraging Tallow to distil into the candles she could buy them both some time. She would return to the Limen as soon as she could to seek advice from the Elders, those who had known and studied Estrattore first-hand.

Most importantly, however, she'd given Tallow time to hone her skills and develop self-confidence. She was going to need both if she was ever going to be able to do what was required, let alone protect herself from the dark forces that sought to claim her.

Tallow was still standing in front of the fire, only this time she was staring into the flickering flames. Not
she,
Katina reminded herself.
He
... If she were to be safe, it had to be
he,
even in her thoughts.

Tallow's face, silver eyes hidden behind the spectacles, was inscrutable. Katina still could not believe that she'd found her – the child who was the stuff of legends. But looking at her ...
him
now – his thin arms and legs, his peculiar angular face, tumbling dark curls, his soft mouth and little white teeth – who would believe that such a diminutive person could hold so much power? Who could credit that within that tiny frame rested the hope of a new future? Katina knew she couldn't tell Tallow what else the legend said about him, what the Bond Riders wanted of him – not yet. She had to give the boy time to grow into his new identity and learn to feel comfortable with what was burgeoning inside him.