“No! No, it’s not true!”
“She does not disturb you?”
“She does, but—” He shifted nervously from one foot to the other. “But it’s not that. She’s never tried to-to seduce me. Please, believe that. I—” He turned his face toward the accused, causing a banner of red light to fall across it. “She has done nothing.”
“Then you deny that you are attracted to her?” asked Calach.
Moireach Arundel rose. “My son is accused of naught. He is not on trial here.”
“Moireach, no one is on trial here,” said the Osraed Bevol. “We merely wish to ascertain if there has been any breach of religious covenant or Academy regulations.”
“Practicing wicke-craft is a breach of religious covenant, is it not?”
“There has been no proof that wicke-craft has been practiced by either of these young people. Your son contests that there has been no wrong done.”
Moireach Arundel pointed at Meredydd. “She is a thief. She steals my son’s life. That is the wrong she has done.”
“No, mother! No. I. I have done wrong.” Wyth turned his face to the three Osraed behind their table. “I have abused my position as an Aelder at this Academy and I have abused Prentice Meredydd—humiliating her when I could, censuring her when I could not. I would have been pleased if she had tried to seduce me, but she didn’t.”
Meredydd gaped at him, not believing, for one moment, what she was hearing. His mother made a strangled mewing sound and Ealad-hach cleared his throat.
“Then you do admit,” he said, “that she has distracted you from your pursuit of the spiritual. That her presence has interfered with your preparations for Pilgrimage.”
“My passions have interfered with my pursuits, Osraed Ealad-hach.” He glanced warily at Meredydd then. “She tried to warn me. I didn’t want to hear it, so I ejected her from my Dream Tell class. She only told the truth.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Moireach Arundel. “But she spoke to him in dreams. Surely that is wicke-craft.”
“It is also a facet of the Divine Art, Moireach,” said Calach mildly.
“It was my dream,” said Wyth. “I gave it to her to interpret. It was stupid of me, I realize. She could hardly interpret it any other way but what she did. It wasn’t...flattering and I was angered and ashamed. It was I who misbehaved, not Meredydd.”
Meredydd glanced at the Osraed. Ealad-hach was frowning and seemed uncertain, Calach was looking bemused and Bevol was smiling. Cheered, Meredydd smiled, too.
Moireach Arundel shrieked. “Smug, vile creature! My son is ruined and she grins like a glutted cat!”
“Your son is hardly ruined, Moireach,” said Bevol reasonably. “In view of the circumstances, he has acted with honesty and courage to admit so much. I think perhaps, he should apologize for abusing his authority as an Aelder and apologize to Meredydd, as well, for whatever he feels merits apology.”
Moireach Arundel was livid. “Apologize? To her?”
Wyth ignored her. “I am sorry, Osraed. I accept your punishment—whatever it might be.”
“We will have to consult,” said Calach, glancing at his fellows.
“And what about her?” asked Moireach Arundel, waving a hand at Meredydd. “She is not guiltless.”
“Yes, she is,” said Wyth. “She has never encouraged me.”
“Her very presence encourages you! It isn’t natural, Osraed, for young men to hold such intimacy with the cailin. Especially not here, not in such a holy place. Halig-liath is sacred ground, intended for sacred pursuits, not earthly ones. Having her here encourages the pursuit of the flesh. The boys strive to catch her wanton eye rather than the eye of God; they seek her grace, not the grace of the Meri. She should be removed.”
“That is for us to decide, Moireach Arundel,” said Calach. “But we shall take your words under advisement.” He made a graceful gesture that pointed her to the door and she left in a sweep of burgundy robes.
“Aelder Prentice Wyth,” said Osraed Calach, “there have been rumors of your behavior with regard to Prentice Meredydd. Not all of which have reached your mother’s ears, I think. The rumors hint at a certain attachment to her person. Perhaps you should contemplate whether the goal of this attachment is an honorable one.”
The red blaze down Wyth’s elongated face deepened to crimson. “Yes, Osraed,” he mumbled.
“We must consult,” said Ealad-hach. “You are both excused.”
Meredydd fled the chamber as if a horde of snapping beasts had risen out of the floor in pursuit. She thought Wyth might have called to her, but she didn’t stop. Home she ran, burning up her humiliation before it burned her up.
o0o
“You must remove her, Bevol,” said Ealad-hach. He no longer sat, but paced the chamber, rubbing his hands as if the aging joints contained premonitions of inclement weather.
“Why? Because one Prentice has fallen in love with her? She is a lovable girl, Ealad.”
“That she is a girl is precisely the problem. She shouldn’t be here at all. She doesn’t belong here.”
“Nonsense. Her natural talents alone make her a candidate for Osraed-hood. Why else do you think I enrolled her at Halig-liath?”
“Ah, to raise my ire. You have always been a changer-up, Bevol.”
“And you have always been a Trad—don’t look so shocked at me, you old Scir-loc. Yes, and you deserve that appellation, too, by the Stone. The Cyne may be set upon it, but you, old fellow, are set in it. And in your ways.”
Ealad-hach bristled, notwithstanding the criticism was delivered with wry humor. “Someone has got to be set, here, Bevol, for you are like the wind.”
“It is my namesake.”
“More’s the pity. You blow this way and that and fail to see the danger in this situation. Your girl is talented, aye. I’ve seen that. But if you meant to do her a favor by encouraging her, you’ve erred grievously. If one of my daughters had shown such a nature, I’d have schooled her in how to tame it. For what is praiseworthy in a man is sinful in a woman.”
“Tradist nonsense,” observed Bevol.
“A rational view of the Scripture,” countered Ealad-hach.
“The Scripture does not once refer to the Prentice as ‘she.’”
“‘He’ is merely the common pronoun. Would you rather the Prentice be referred to as ‘it?’”
Ealad-hach pointed a long finger at Bevol. “This is not a humorous matter, brother. Your girl is drawing censure from every quarter. The Moireach Arundel is not the only parent who has expressed displeasure at Meredydd’s presence here.”
“And are we to be swayed by public opinion, then?” Osraed Calach, who had been watching the verbal duel in total silence, finally spoke up. “I had rather thought we were intended to shape it.”
Bevol nodded. “Your scriptural argument was much better.”
“Then I shall return to it. There is no scripture that makes a place for a woman in the Art.”
“And there is no scripture that denies her one.”
“Brother, a man with the Art is Osraed. A woman with the art is Wicke. It is as clear as that. Our histories show the evil that comes of allowing cailin to pursue those talents which, I grant you, they may perversely display from time to time. When the Wicke were driven from Creiddylad in the reign of Liusadhe, their wickedness, when set loose in the land, drove the Sea to a boil and the Meri to a change of aspect. Because of those embittered women, entire villages were lost to the waves and Creiddylad was swept by plague.”
“If you choose to interpret it that way....”
“In what other way can it be interpreted?” demanded Ealad-hach.
Bevol shrugged. “Perhaps the Meri was enraged with Cyne Liusadhe for expelling the Wicke in the first place and the plague occurred because they weren’t there to stop it.”
Ealad-hach fixed him with a baleful glare. “You come so close to blasphemy at times, Bevol, I wonder you ever became Osraed.”
“And you co
me so close to stagnation at times, I wonder you continue to be ambulatory. Meredydd stays.”
“She will cost us, Bevol.”
“She stays.”
“She is Wicke, Bevol. You know it.”
“She is a cailin. Sweetly rebellious, intelligent and strong. She has a good heart. She would make a splendid Osraed. You,” he added, pointing at Ealad-hach’s razor beak, “should be thankful we have her here at Halig-liath.”
Frustrated, Ealad-hach turned to Calach. “What do you think? Do you side with me or with Bevol?”
Calach’s pale brows crept beneath his fringe of straight colorless hair. “I don’t side with either of you. For the sake of Meredydd I would like to see her stay. Her tenure here will not be long; she’s of an age for Pilgrimage and she certainly passes on her marks. For the sake of Halig-liath...I would like to see this all laid to rest...amicably.”
Ealad-hach glared at Bevol. “She must go.”
Bevol merely studied him, wide-eyed. Then his eyes traveled around the room, stopping here or there as if distracted by a glint of light or a flash of color. “Well,” he said, finally, “there is one way for her to leave that I might agree with.”
“And that is?”
“Let her go on Pilgrimage at the Solstice.”
Ealad-hach ogled at him. “Have you so little love for your Prentice? You must realize what will happen to her.”
“Yes, she could see the Meri.”
“As Taminy-a-Cuinn saw the Meri? Do you wish her to share that unfortunate’s fate?”
Bevol smiled and smoothed his beard. “What do you know of Taminy-a-Cuinn’s fate? Only what you’ve read. Only what you’ve interpreted—just as you interpreted the tale of Cyne Liusadhe’s unhappy Wicke.”
“I did not interpret!”
“No, of course not. Come, Ealad, surely you see that the easiest way to settle this dispute is to send Meredydd on Pilgrimage.”
“Sacrilege.”
“Sense. Surely the best judge of what the Meri wants in an Osraed is the Meri, Herself.”
Ealad-hach paused in his pacing and favored his brother with a dour stare. Calach glanced back and forth between them, eyes narrowed, speculatively.
Finally, Ealad-hach nodded—once and curtly. Then he left the chamber in a swirl of green robes. Bevol, looking after him, smiled. So did Calach.
“Scoundrel,” he said, and left the room by another door.
o0o
Meredydd came down from her room to help Skeet prepare dinner. He didn’t ask why she had come home so early, or why she had run up the stairs as if daemons were in pursuit or why he had heard her crying. Skeet did not pry. But he did listen. When Osraed Bevol came home some time later and took Meredydd aside into the parlor, he hunkered on the staircase just beyond the door and pricked his ears. The information that went in to those ears would never find its way out, but it served his understanding.
“They want to dismiss me from Halig-liath, don’t they?” asked Meredydd. She turned it into a statement, feeling somehow that if she said it first, it would hurt less.
Bevol’s brows climbed. “They? ‘They’ are Ealad-hach, Calach and myself at this juncture. This is not yet a matter for the Cyne’s Council.”
He was teasing her, making the situation seem less threatening than she felt it. She tried to smile by way of thanks, but it was a weak effort.
“Meredydd, I will not lie to you and tell you that Ealad-hach is your ally. He is openly opposed to your presence at Halig-liath. I’m sorry about that. I honestly thought he had gotten used to you, but this last year or so things have... changed a bit.” He made a wry face and punctuated it with a glance that indicated where the changes lay. “Calach, on the other hand is quite sympathetic to you and I...well, my position is rather obvious. Ealad-hach has suggested that I am prejudiced in the matter and that it should therefore be brought up before the Osraed Body.”
“He hates me,” murmured Meredydd.
“He is a conservative, anwyl, opposed to the idea of females at Halig-liath on the basis of tradition. He always has been. I thought you might have swayed him a bit; you were such a winning child and sympathy for your...predicament was high.” He shrugged. “Evidently, he has swayed back again.”
“He thinks we’re evil,” observed Meredydd. “How can he believe that? He’s married. He has daughters of his own.”
Bevol smiled wryly. “Daughters who will never see the inside of Halig-liath. They will learn the domestic arts and marry and perhaps raise sons who will obtain that privilege. No, to Ealad-hach it is a matter of context. In the proper context, women are good and fine and noble. Outside of that context, they contribute to evil results.”
“It’s not my fault—”
“It is no one’s fault, anwyl. It is not even poor Wyth’s fault. He is attracted to you. There’s nothing wrong in that. He fought it valiantly. In fact, he fought it unreasonably. And he used the wrong weapons. Now, that was his fault. He should never have brought his own dreams to you. He should never have let his temper speak louder than his intelligence. But even at that, those are things he may be forgiven by those who must offer forgiveness.”
He gave her a significant look which, for the moment, she ignored. “Will the Meri reject him again because of this?”
“For possessing a young man’s heart? I think not. But I’m not the Meri. She will either accept or reject Wyth’s spiritual suit on the basis of his merits. It’s not for me to approve him.”
Meredydd found the patch of emerald velvet on her tunic suddenly very interesting. She rubbed it with the tip of one finger, barely aware of its texture. “So I am not to be dismissed?”
“Not at this juncture, although....”
Her eyes seized his face. “What, Master?”
Bevol cocked his head to one side. “Ealad-hach wishes to bring the matter of female Prentices in general and you, in particular, up before the Body so that all the Osraed in Caraid-land may have a voice.”
Meredydd swallowed convulsively at the thought of facing all of those men—young and old, austere and jovial—of standing under their scrutiny.
Bevol read her expression. “Does that frighten you?”
“Yes.”
“You could always withdraw. Ealad-hach is rather hoping that’s what you’ll do—leave Halig-liath of your own will.”
“Leave?” Meredydd rejected the idea with surge of anger. “I have been a good student at Halig-liath. I’ve spent six years of my life there, learning, growing. Halig-liath has been part of my home. It’s given me a purpose and a goal which I will not lay down simply because some people object to the form my body has taken. I love the Art, Master. You say I have a talent for it. I love the Meri and I want the right to seek Her approval, regardless of whether I have the approval of others. I have made a commitment, haven’t I? I’m covenanted, aren’t I? How can I not live up to that covenant?”
Bevol averted his eyes, studying the fire, now, instead of his Prentice’s flushed face. “You are a cailin. No one will think less of you if you withdraw.”
“I would think less of me! You would, too, Master. And the Meri—it’s Her grace I crave, not Ealad-hach’s, not Aelder Wyth’s, and certainly not his mother’s. If I withdraw, aren’t I admitting that what Ealad-hach believes is true—that cailin are somehow...inferior?” She shook her head emphatically, chestnut hair rippling with the motion. “I will not withdraw, Master. They will have to throw me out.”
Bevol pursed his lips, but not before she had seen the smile. “I suspected you might say something like that. So, I made a counter suggestion that, since the Meri is the ultimate authority on who should or should not be Osraed, She be consulted.”
“How can that be done? She has never treated the issue before now.”
“Solstice approaches quickly. It is possible that if the Prentices who go on Pilgrimage this Season are instructed to contemplate the admission of females to Halig-liath, the Meri may illumine them on the point. Of
course, there is a very easy way to settle the question of your own continuance.”
Meredydd licked suddenly dry lips. “And that is?”
“We could let the Meri decide your fate. You could take Pilgrimage this Season. In fact, I believe you could be the very first to leave at the Solstice.”
“But I’m not ready!” She felt her cheeks light up with sudden blood. “I’m not fit to be Osraed, Master Bevol. I’m failing in school; I’m the cause of discord; I manipulated an instructor’s dreams and benumbed a fellow Prentice’s tongue. I’m wicked. Impossibly wicked.”
There was such fevered passion in the claim that Osraed Bevol, overcome with the humor of the situation, laughed at her. “Oh, so wicked are you, anwyl! You’re so wicked and this blind old Osraed so dim-witty, that he can’t perceive the stain.”
She started and stared at him. “Oh no, Osraed Bevol! I didn’t mean to imply — I — There, you see? I’ve done it again. Blundered. Blathered.” She made futile little gestures with her hands.
“Nonetheless, wicked cailin. I think perhaps it is time for your testing and proving. I think we’ll walk Pilgrimage at Solstice.”
Meredydd quelled her initial panic and tried to consider the situation rationally. After all, what had she been training for these past six years? She smoothed the front of her tunic and cleared her throat. “And the other Osraed will agree with this?”
“Agree? Ealad-hach is most eager to see you go—and fail.”
A pang of fear, a bolt of ire, a twinge of unease. Fail! Fail, would she? And who was Ealad-hach to predict her failure?
He was one of the Meri’s chosen, that’s who he was. Someone who had passed Her test. Someone to whom She had imparted particular knowledge.
“Of course,” observed Bevol, watching her face, “Ealad-hach is a scientist. The ways of minerals are more clear to him than the ways of the human spirit.”
Meredydd didn’t even smile. “Solstice is only a week away.”
Osraed Bevol rose and stretched. “Aye, but dinner is right now, or my nose deceives me.” He ushered her out, glancing only idly at the empty spot on the stair that had held Skeet’s warm hams a moment earlier.
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