“The mind can think all thoughts,” Meredydd finished with him. “Corah, Book One, verse Twenty. But how does the conscious spirit know of the existence of the Spirit of the Universe when It cannot be seen?”
Osraed Bevol stopped in the middle of the sloping path and pointed off to the side. “Bring me a pine cone from that tree.”
There were only the dried and brittle husks of cones lying about the foot of the tree so Meredydd ducked beneath the low-hanging boughs and plucked a fresh one from the first cluster she could reach. She returned to the path and held the golden little cone out to him.
“Break it.”
She hesitated only a moment, then easily crushed the little thing in her hands, exposing its interior. She looked to Bevol for comment.
“What do you see in it?”
“Very small nuts, Master. Pine kernels.”
“Break one of them, anwyl.”
She did that, biting with her fingernails into the tough, pulpy husk, splitting the pine nut in twain.
“What do you see in it?” asked Bevol.
“Nothing at all, Master.”
“Anwyl, from that unseen essence of the seed that you hold in your fingers comes this tall pine tree. Do you see that essence?”
“No, Master.”
“But you know it is there.”
“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.”
Chapter 3
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.”
“It seems to me,” said Bevol mildly, “that Meredydd is not the one whose mind is clouded. If Aelder Wyth has reacted to her in this way, how is it her fault?”
“She is fire!” protested Ealad-hach. “And like fire, she burns, bright and fair and fetching. The fire enchants the moths; the moths are enticed to their own destruction.”
Bevol shrugged, the corners of his mouth turning upward.
“And is that the fault of the flame? The intelligent man uses flame as a light to guide his footsteps, as a beacon to call the lost to safety, as a spark with which to start his fire and warm his soul.”
Calach nodded, pursing his full lips. But Ealad-hach ignored the remark.
“Perhaps,
brother, if you remove this cailin from Halig-liath now, history will not repeat itself.”
The words enticed Meredydd even as they chilled her. What had history to do with her and in what way was she repeating it?
The remark brought to mind something Ealad-hach had said in class about a cailin going as a Prentice from Halig-liath. Curiosity pushing her fear aside, she might even have asked, but the door behind her opened and light from the outer hall fanned across the gleaming floor. Meredydd felt the coursing of dread up her spine and knew the late-comer was Wyth.
He approached slowly, quietly, treading upon the polished stone as if it was as slippery as it only looked, circling wide to Meredydd’s right—away from his mother. He bowed respectfully to the Osraed.
“Mother,” he said, almost whispering the word. “Mother, what are you doing here?”
Moireach Arundel glanced from her son to the Osraed Ealad-hach. “I am here to see that you become an Osraed instead of a fool. Here is my son, Osraed Ealad-hach. Ask him if what I’ve said is not true.”
“You mother charges that Prentice Meredydd is distracting you from your calling,” said the Osraed. “That you are... enamored of her. Is this true?”
Aelder Prentice Wyth’s face was the color of a hen’s egg and gleamed damply in the broad shaft of dappled light he shared with Meredydd.
“I...” he said, then his mouth worked for a moment in silence. He glanced wildly at her out of the corner of his eye, then dropped his gaze to the floor between his feet. “I’m...”
He stopped, took a deep breath and tried again. “My feelings for—that is, my feelings about the Prentice are...very strong. I don’t know if enamored—”
“You see!” said Moireach Arundel. “See how he stumbles and stutters? She has clearly bewitched him.”
“What?” Wyth looked so startled, Meredydd nearly laughed aloud—might have if she was not grimly aware of where she was and why.
“Your mother charges, specifically, that Prentice Meredydd has attempted to seduce you with an eye on higher marks in your class. That you, only yesterday, expelled her from your class—”
Ealad-hach sent Moireach Arundel a significant glance. “—would seem to support the idea that the cailin’s presence... disturbs you.”
Meri Page 5
