Meri

by Bohnhoff, Maya Kaathryn

  “Hold very still,” she said, and slipped herself swiftly into a meditation. The Heal Tell duan followed immediately, and she intoned the words, unconcerned with who might hear them. In a moment she knew there were no broken bones, but the girl was weak and needed both food and drink. Poultices, too, she decided. Strong ones. There was a fever that would have to be broken.

  She pulled her hands away with an effort and got to her feet. “I’m going to get you some food and water,” she told Gwynet and pushed back out into the store. The little old woman eyed her with something more than suspicion when she reappeared to forage for supplies.

  “What was that I heerd, girl? Why was ye singin’ like tha’?”

  Meredydd didn’t answer her.

  “Tha’ was Wicke work, weren’t it? Ye was singin’ up spirits and demons, weren’t ye?” The woman was working herself into a frenzy. “Ye’re goin’ after my Ruhf, ain’t ye? Ain’t ye? Ye’re plottin’ inyx against ’im. Oh, God, I know it. I know it! She’s a Wicke too, tha’ little one, in’t she? I told tha’ boy. I told him he shouldn’t take ’er in here, regardless. Speak to me, creature! Don’t be plottin’ in silence.”

  “I’m not plotting anything,” said Meredydd at last, her arms full of provisions. “I’m here for Gwynet. And if your son stays where he is, nothing need happen to him.” She didn’t know what prompted her to add that, but it seemed to silence the old woman.

  Meredydd slipped back into the nether regions of the store with her booty and spent several minutes feeding and watering Gwynet and caring for her comfort. The water, bread and cheese alone, were enough to bring some semblance of life back into the girl, but Meredydd knew she needed more than that. She needed poultices. She spent additional time making some of those with water and tea leaves, placing them on the worst of Gwynet’s wounds. Then she let herself back into a Weaver’s meditation and sent some of her own energies through the poultices. Finally, she sang a Sleep duan.

  With Gwynet resting quietly, Meredydd slipped back out into the store. The stoveside chair was empty. Ruhf’s mother was nowhere to be seen.

  Terrified all over again, Meredydd dashed through the front doors, out onto the walkway and up the street toward Hadder’s place. She did not meet Ruhf or his mama on the way and prayed they would still be within when she got there.

  They were, and it appeared that the old woman had just arrived, for she hovered crookedly over her son, filling his ear with something. As if he felt Meredydd’s eyes on him, he looked up toward the door and froze, an expression that was half rage and half terror on his face.

  “It’s her!” cried a pale voice from near the hearth. “The Wicke!”

  The Cirke-master! Meredydd faced him across the long room, her reason for being in Blaec-del flooding back into her brain. She had nearly forgotten. He would have it with him, she knew, tucked up under his voluminous robes. If she could just force him to produce it.

  At his table near the end of the bar, Ruhf Airdsgainne had come to his feet. “I’m thinkin’ there’s only one way to treat a Wicke,” he said.

  “Stopper your face, Ruhf,” said Hadder. She stood behind the bar, calmly washing mugs. “I doubt it’s a good idea for you to boast of a thinking brain while the Cirke-master’s here to witness the lie.”

  Ruhf glowered at the house-mistress and pressed his hammy fists into the table top. “The girl’s Wicke. My ma just now heard her runeweaving inyx over Gwynet.”

  “From what I hear, Gwynet might need some weaving done in her direction,” countered Hadder quietly. “Meredydd told me how you chased them out of the glen.”

  Ruhf’s glare took on an element of bemusement, as if he wasn’t sure how to take Hadder’s odd mood. “And what care you?” he asked finally. “Cirke-master’s right. Girl’s Wicke. Needs takin’ care of.”

  “Oh, there’s a good many things in this town that need taking care of, I vow. But Meredydd, here, is not one of them.” She looked at him finally, her eyes coming to roost on his face with an almost audible snap.

  Against the table’s eroded top, his fists pumped like misshapen hearts. “You partial to her for some reason, Hadder?”

  “She’s bewitched!” interjected the Cirke-master, reaching beneath his robe.

  “And you’re besotted,” Hadder snapped, setting a pair of mugs down with a loud bang.

  Ruhf jumped and Meredydd tensed, her eyes scampering wildly back and forth between the three other players in the scene.

  Hadder continued to heckle the little cleirach. “You and your idiotic Wicke-hunt. You’ve pored over those old tomes and listened to those hoary legends for so long you eat, sleep and breathe superstition. That little girl is no more a Wicke than I am.”

  There was a muffled chuckle from around the room at that and one patron started to say, “Well, tha’ we always reckoned—”

  Hadder’s black scowl silenced him. “Sit down, Ruhf,” she said, “and finish your drinking. You, too, cleirach.”

  Ruhf’s mother all but howled at that. “Hadder don’ know aught! I was there not ten minute back. This heathen crept into my son’s store an’ made free with the place as if she owned it. Stealin’ stuff from the shelves for tha’ wee vermin he keeps. Then she went back there an started singin’ them Wicke songs, chantin’ and carryin’ on like a Dark Sister. I heerd it, I tell you.”

  There was silence in the room but for the crackle of a newly laid fire and the collective breathing of what Meredydd suddenly realized was about twenty people. It was darkening to evening, and the wayhouse was quite full of patrons. And every one of them was, at this moment, staring full at Meredydd-a-Lagan.

  Some instinct prompted her to use that to advantage and so she made her eyes big and round and frightened and turned them to the Cirke-master, raising a hand to her amulet and rubbing it as if in fear.

  He smiled a cold, oily smile. “She admitted to me she used crystals and knew medicinals,” he said. “And see how she fondles that talisman she wears? Ah, but she know’s it’s no match for the Star of the Sea. She’s afraid.”

  Meredydd brought her backbone straight enough to crack. “I am not,” she said, and made her voice wobble just a bit. She made a feint toward the front door. The Cirke-master and Ruhf moved at the same time, twitching toward her. She feinted again as if contemplating escape.

  “So she knows medicinals,” said Hadder sanely, her elbows resting casually along the bar. “I’d be glad of that if I were you. I am glad of it. She’s done great wonders for my Flann.”

  Ruhf’s head jerked toward her, suspicion crowding into his eyes.

  Hadder smiled. “Great wonders.”

  The Cirke-master, impatient with their banter, moved a few steps toward Meredydd, his hand still beneath his robes. “Here girl,” he whispered. “Here, I’ve something for you.”

  “Flann’s brain-fevered,” snarled Ruhf. “Stupid girl an’ her damn magic buck.”

  “Brain-fevered, is it?” Hadder came upright. “She’s no more brain-fevered than I am, Ruhf Airdgainne. She’s scared spitless of you, that’s all. Did you really think I was stupid enough to believe that Tell of hers? I knew it was you who fathered that child. But I thought the girl was willing since she was too scared to say otherwise. I know better now.”

  Ruhf stared at her for a moment in shocked silence, his jaw clamping and unclamping. In that moment, the Cirke-master pulled the star-crystal from beneath his robes and held it out before him like a shield. Light struck it from every angle, shattering into myriad tiny shards of dancing color.

  Meredydd gasped and held up her hands as if to ward it off. The Cirke-master took another step toward her; he was still half a room away; and Ruhf Airdsgainne roared with every ounce of sound in his large body.

  “Flann told?” he shrieked, rage flushing from every pore.

  Hadder laughed. “Flann? No, Ruhf. For all she is to me, she’s still a coward and probably always will be.”

  “Then it was you!” He thrust his finger at Meredy
dd. “It was that damned Wicke! By God, I’ll have your blood!” He shoved aside his table as if it weighed nothing at all and started toward her.

  Hadder moved too then, rushing down the bar toward the door, haranguing the big man as she went. “Leave off, Ruhf, or I’ll have your blood! You’ll not harm the cailin in my house, nor will you remove her from it.”

  He froze, meeting the woman eye to eye across the counter. The cleirach, too, had stopped, peering at the two, his trembling hand still outstretched with Meredydd’s jewel in it. She stared at the crystal, licking her lips, wishing she knew how to strip it from his hand without having to cross the room to get it. The Wisdom amulet lay, inert, beneath her hand and nothing came to mind.

  “Well then,” growled Ruhf, “if I’m not to harm your pet Wicke, I shall see to my own.” He turned his face to Meredydd. “Hear tha’, Dark Sister? I’m goin’ home to my little Gwynet. Do ye think she’ll be pleased t’ see me?”

  The light of the crystal failed, leaving her in sudden, soul-chilling darkness. Her entire body shook with rage and terror.

  She felt black inside, empty.

  “Leave her alone!” she cried, and felt as if she could shoot fire at him. “Leave her alone or I’ll—”

  “Ye’ll what, Wicke?” He took one step toward her, then another. “What can ye do to me tha’ ye wouldn’t already have done if ye could, eh? Oh, I believe ye can sing and dance and lay on herbs. But I don’t think ye can lay a finger or an inyx on ol’ Ruhf.”

  Meredydd quailed, knowing he was right. Even in self-defense, a Weaver of Runes was bound by certain laws and precepts. A violent inyx was not something she would cast, nor was it, in all truth, something she had ever learned at the feet of Osraed Bevol.

  With a last, longing glance at the crystal in the Cirke-master’s trembling hand, Meredydd turned and fled the wayhouse.

  She heard a roar from Ruhf and a wild screech from Hadder and nothing after that but the pounding of her own feet on the slats of the walkway.

  She did not mean to collide with Ruhf’s untidy piles of goods or knock them all down into the narrow aisle of his shop, but she did. She did not mean to tear the heavy, dust-riddled blanket from the lintel of the inner doorway, but she did.

  She scrambled into Gwynet’s closet, calling her name, and fell to the floor beside her. She shook the girl until she got a questioning moan, then grasped her around the shoulders and pulled her to her unsteady feet.

  “Come Gwynet! Come! It’s Ruhf! Ruhf’s coming!”

  Something of her urgency penetrated the other girl’s drowsy fog and she gasped and stiffened.

  “Can you walk?” asked Meredydd.

  “Aye! I’ll try.”

  And try she did. Meredydd half-carried her out into the narrow corridor behind the store, dragging much of her sorry bedding with her. Propping Gwynet against the wall, she felt for the back door. She found it immediately and threw up the latch, forcing the door open on its rusty hinges. It groaned mightily, but she ignored that and thrust Gwynet outside. Only now did she disentangle herself from the bedding, leaving it lumped before the door with a tail of blanket stuck between door jamb and latch. Then, with her arm around the smaller girl, she headed southeast into the woods.

  She thought she heard the clamor of a small mob and the thudding of boots on boards as they slipped beneath a tall fern and turned due south, but she could not be sure and she had no intention of achieving any certainty. It was twilight now, and she dragged Gwynet back the way she had come alone that morning, up the long, misty slope to the trail.

  It was an odd sort of phenomenon, Meredydd thought, that Gwynet only seemed heavy or unwieldy when she thought about her. As long as she kept her mind on where she was putting her feet, or on picking landmarks out of the near-darkness she felt the burden hardly at all. Still, she was aware that they both needed strength, and so, she murmured an Infusion duan beneath her breath, regulating her breathing and the rhythms of her body, content that by so doing, she was regulating Gwynet’s as well.

  She lost track of the distance and duration of the journey. She only knew that one long step took her from tree cover to clearing and left her staring at a familiar, watery glen. There was a fire and, before the fire, a boy who stood and came to the water’s edge.

  Shaking with relief, Meredydd paused to listen down the trail. There was no sound but the nightbirds calling to each other in the trees and the light passing of tiny creatures below them in the brush and the little smack-smack sound of fish leaping in the darkened pool. The moon had not yet risen.

  “What have you got, Meredydd?” asked Skeet from over the water.

  “A friend,” she answered, almost in a whisper. She turned her attention to Gwynet then, and found the girl was close to unconscious. “Help me, Skeet. Help me get her across the pool.”

  There was a narrow, rock strewn fall that aided with that, and Meredydd was able to hand Gwynet over to Skeet and then cross, herself, getting only a bit wet and minding that very little. At the fire she blanketed the younger girl and tried to get water down her throat with little success. She was high with fever and her wounds looked even more grievous in the firelight.

  “She’s been hard used,” said Skeet soberly. “Wherever did you find her, mistress?”

  “In a village. A horrid, dark village with little light in it. Poor souls,” she added.

  “Ah. Then you’ve completed the Gwenwyvar’s task?”

  Meredydd blushed so hot she thought surely Skeet could see her face glow in the dark. “No. I shall have to return and try again. I found the jewel, but I couldn’t bring it back.”

  She closed her eyes and could still see the crystal winking at her from just too far away while Ruhf Airdsgainne roared and moved inexorably toward her—toward Gwynet.

  But had it really been too far? she wondered. If she had trusted the Meri, trusted the First Being to aid her, might she have been able to get the jewel and rescue Gwynet as well?

  The blush bled from her face, leaving it feeling cold and whipped. Had she once again failed by disobedience? Had she now failed even more horribly through lack of faith?

  The moon chose that moment to show its face above the trees and out on the pool a white wisp of ether curled and molded itself to a certain shape and a name was whispered across the sparkling waters. Mere-dydd....

  She came to her feet. “Gwenwyvar?”

  A-aye....

  She moved to stand at the edge of the pool and waited.

  What have you brought me, Meredydd? Have you brought me a jewel of great value?

  Meredydd swallowed painfully. “No, mistress. I have not.”

  What have you brought me, Meredydd?

  “I have brought a little girl. From the village.” She took a deep breath and rushed on. “Her name is Gwynet and she’s been beaten very badly. She’s very ill, mistress. Can you help her?”

  Can you help her? returned the curl of mist.

  “I’ve tried. I did a Healweave and tried some cold poultices, but I had to carry her so far from the village....”

  Bring her to the water.

  Meredydd obeyed, for once, immediately, moving back to the fire and lifting the limp Gwynet from the grass. The child seemed to weigh no more than a leaf. At the water’s edge she stopped and waited, once more, for instruction.

  The water is healing. Do you believe?

  Do I believe? thought Meredydd and answered from her own certainty. “Yes, mistress.”

  Give the girl into the water. Give her to me.

  Meredydd allowed the cold, dark pool only a momentary glance, but she had to own a fleeting doubt and knew it would haunt her. Then, she tightened her grip on Gwynet and stepped from the shore. The water was as chill as it looked, but as Meredydd moved out to hip’s depth, it seemed to warm. Steam continued to rise from it in great, silvery wisps until a host of wraiths looked on.

  Into the water.

  Meredydd set her teeth and lowered her limp burden beneath the
ripples.

  What have you brought me, Meredydd? asked the Gwenwyvar’s wind-sough voice.

  “A-a girl,” answered Meredydd, puzzled at the repetition of the question.

  Why have you brought her here?

  “She would have died. I had to bring her.”

  You saw no choice?

  Meredydd gritted her teeth against all her doubts and fears. You could have been more obedient, they said. You could have had more faith.

  “No, mistress. I saw no choice.”

  What have you brought here, Meredydd? the Gwenwyvar asked again.

  Meredydd felt the hot tears well up from the depths of her heart and overflow her eyes. “A little girl.”

  No...a jewel of great virtue.

  It took Meredydd a heart-still moment to realize her arms were empty. Not even Gwynet’s dirty rags remained in her grasp.

  It was as if she had melted away into the water, leaving behind only a sigh.

  Suddenly bereft, Meredydd gave vent to a cry of anguish and disbelief. “Gwynet! No!” Her arms thrashed at the water, searching. Perhaps she had been so rapt in the Gwenwyvar she had allowed the girl to slip from her grasp. Perhaps—

  “Meredydd. Here.” It was man’s voice, soft and sweet and very familiar. It penetrated the sound of her cries and her splashing and stilled her.

  Trembling, sobbing, she turned back to the shore. Osraed Bevol stood there, looking neither old nor tired. Beside him on the shore was a young girl—a pale haired, pale eyed creature with skin the color of moonlight and a gamin smile that—

  “Gwynet?” But no, it couldn’t be, because she was healed of every cut and bruise and her long hair lifted, shining and clean into the gleaming mist.

  The Osraed Bevol smiled. “Yes, Meredydd—Gwynet. A jewel of great value—of great virtue.”

  “Then, it wasn’t the crystal—from the Cirke window?”

  The Osraed shook his head. “Meredydd, think. Feel with the heart you were given. You understand. Let yourself understand.”

  Meredydd found she did understand. “The jewel was the virtue. In a foul and dark place, Gwynet’s purity was the jewel.” How right it seemed. How dull of her not to have seen it.