She immediately wished she had not. The inside of her right forearm was a mess of torn, bloody cloth and flesh, and a large sliver the size of her little finger protruded from just below her elbow joint. Sudden awareness brought on an equally sudden stab of white-hot agony and vertigo. Meredydd came as close to swooning as she ever had. Before she could even begin to exert control over her senses, the young man scooped her from the deck and carried her to the house. She could hear the others scurrying behind as they left the cacophony of the mill.
In the cottage, he deposited her gently on a wooden gate-backed settle amid a clutter of home-quilt pillows. The young woman set down her child and went into a flurry of activity—drawing water from a huge bucket and putting it in a pot over her kitchen fire, grabbing a swatch of linen rags from a basket.
Already her husband, or so Meredydd assumed him to be, was holding out Meredydd’s lacerated arm, picking away bits of torn cloth and inspecting the damage.
Meredydd already knew it was severe. She had gotten her senses under control, finally, and began a silent runeweave to block the pain. She breathed deeply, evenly, feeling the agony ebb from roar to throb. She willed her body to relax, a calming duan murmuring in her mind’s ear—restoring her rhythm. Every living thing had a rhythm. At times like this it could be lost, replaced with chaos. She restored it, breath by breath by breath.
The young woman came to her with warm water and rags and began to sluice the blood from the wounds so the fragments of wood could be more clearly seen. There were several large ones and they had caused some deep lacerations. Around those was a field of raw, abraded flesh, oozing protective fluid.
The young man made a hissing sound between his teeth. “Ah, dear. Those will have to come out.”
Meredydd nodded, taking another deep breath. “Do you have any root tea and fennel?”
“Aye, we have that.”
“For a poultice after,” Meredydd said, and tried a smile. “After we get them out.”
Frowning the man bent his dark head over her arm. “I’ll have to use a knife, I’m a-feared.”
Deep breath. “Yes, of course.”
He glanced at her face. “You’re uncommon brave, cailin. Even I would be wanting to cry if that were my arm.”
She smiled again, shakily. Concentrate. “Salt water would be the worst possible thing for it.”
“I’ll get the knife.” He rose and headed for the kitchen.
His wife took his place while Skeet settled next to her, his face intent. The little boy hovered in the middle of the comfortable little parlor, looking awestruck and uncertain.
“My name is Meredydd,” she said. Breathe in peace; breathe out song. “This is Skeet. We’re from Nairne.”
The woman’s eyes grew big and round. “All the way from Nairne! I’m Meghan-a-Galchobar and that’s my husband, Owein, and my son, Taidgh. I’ve family in Nairne. An aunt and uncle. He’s a jagger—the name’s Pyt.”
“I know them,” said Meredydd. Breath in peace; breathe out song.
“Where are you bound, then?”
“To the Sea—to the end of the Bebhinn.”
Meghan frowned. “There’s naught there but a fisherman’s shack, and that’s a near ruin.” She moved aside to let her husband in, but kept a firm hold on Meredydd’s wrist.
“I’m...I’m a Prentice,” Meredydd said, “from Halig-liath. I’m on my Pilgrimage.” She waited for some scandalized or disbelieving reaction.
She got neither. They merely glanced at each other, eyes wide and then Meghan smiled. Meredydd sensed in the other girl a wave of excitement. It made her own face glow warmly.
“Well,” said Owein softly, “I shall be most careful of you, mistress.” He bent, again, over her arm.
Her concentration was blinded by the flash of light on his blade. She stared at it, tried to pull her eyes from it.
Failing that, she reached up her free and to rub the amulet. It was gone.
Cold-still, she was. Lost. And the knife blade hovered over her skin like a long, hungry tooth. Her concentration shattered, scattered, she groped after it, desperate. She felt Skeet grasp her left hand, moved her eyes to follow the gesture. Their interlaced fingers became the focus of her runeweave; she grappled and rewon her rhythm, replayed the duan: Breathe in peace; breathe out song. Breathe in; breathe out.
She went to the Sanctum at Nairne. The great grey-brown walls, shored up by logs thick as a man’s body, were broken here and there by fine examples of the glazier’s art. It was afternoon and the light from the high-set stained glass tumbled into the long stone nave and draped over and around her, glorious. She stood beneath her favorite window—the one that showed the Eibhilin Being, represented only by golden and white rays of light, rising from the blue depths of a glazen sea to face a hooded figure in crimson. It was her favorite window, not because it depicted the Meri or a Pilgrim’s greatest desire, but because when she stood in the tumbled blue and red and golden light, her plain chestnut hair took on every color.
If she moved here it was all blue; here, and it was golden. Ah, but red. She’d always fancied it red. Red was the most glorious, vibrant color. No one could ignore someone with red hair. Heads would always turn. Red hair was always noticed.
Hair the color of sunset, of dawn, of blood—
No, that was wrong—bad path. Breathe in healing; breathe out song. Golden hair—yes, she’d have loved that. Meghan’s hair was gold. Gold was the color of the Wisdom she had lost...must have fallen into the river. Lost.
No, stop this. Breathe in healing; breathe out song.
Blue. She’d always stood longest under the blue panel because it was the most unnatural. It was harder to imagine herself (or anyone else) with shiny blue hair. Hair the color of Healing. She could certainly use that amulet now. Why hadn’t she chosen it? Should she have chosen it? Would Osraed Bevol be with her now if she had chosen it?
She was suddenly and intensely aware of the total silence and stillness of the room. She pulled her eyes into focus. Beside her, Skeet smiled his knowing smile, while Owein and his wife stared at her mutely, exchanging significant glances. The little boy, Taidgh, continued to hover timidly in the background, scuffing his foot against the stone floor.
Meredydd dared to glance down at her arm. It was clean, bloodless and empty of slivers and debris. The wounds, bleeding and raw only moments ago, were now pinkly white as if the blood had been damned internally, as if they had already begun to heal. Indeed, they had. She smiled. It was the best she’d ever done. She wished Osraed Bevol could have seen—could have known—how well she’d learned that lesson.
“Is the lady all right?”
Meredydd raised her eyes to the child’s anxious face. “I’m very all right. Thank you, Taidgh.”
“Oh no, thank you, mistress, for periling yourself to save our boy.” Meghan gripped Meredydd’s hand tightly. Her own was shaking. “You must be the Meri’s own angel, sure. If there’s any way we could repay you—”
“Please, call me Meredydd. And you have repaid me. You took care of my arm.”
“Beg pardon, mistress—Meredydd,” said Owein, rising at last from the floor, “but your arm very near took care of itself. And if you hadn’t been about rescuing our son’t would’ve needed no caring for at all. Now, what can we do for you?”
“Well,” said Skeet tentatively, “we are in need of a place to bide the night.”
A frown slipped over Owein’s handsome face, then he smiled and nodded. “Done. And, of course, you’ll join us for our meals.”
“Only,” said Meredydd, “if we can help prepare them.”
“But your arm—” began Meghan.
“Will be fine as soon as I can bind a poultice on it.”
Meghan nearly jumped to her feet, her hands fluttering before her. “What do you want for that? I’ll fetch it.”
“Some valerian, I think, and some yarrow and wintergreen.”
“Yarrow and wintergreen I know. There’s some abo
ut the henhouse. But valerian....”
“Allheal,” offered Skeet.
“Ah! That I keep on hand. What need I do?”
“I’ll do it,” said Skeet. “Just show me to your henhouse.”
Under Meredydd’s careful scrutiny, Skeet fire-dried the yarrow and wintergreen and soaked both with the valerian. She had him make a tea from the latter to make certain her sleep that night was deep and restful. She enfolded the poultice ingredients in a rag, then, and had Skeet bind it around her arm.
“Such knowledge!” said Meghan over a supper of fish stew and baps. “Is that the sort of learning you get at the Holy Fortress?”
Meredydd nodded, noting how nervous the other girl seemed—how nervous they both seemed. She prayed they would not suddenly rise up and begin calling her a Wicke.
“But I thought,” said Owein, his eyes meeting his wife’s, “that Halig-liath was for the teaching of religious matters.”
“Well, it is that. But, as the Osraed Bevol constantly reminds me, we are creatures of matter and form here, as well as spirit, and we must tread our spiritual path with practical feet. He says nothing falls outside the Divine Art, not really. We make the distinction—it’s not a natural one.”
“Then did you learn there...not to feel pain and how to heal yourself of wounds like that?” Owein’s eyes grasped her face so hard, it felt as if fingers dug into her chin. “Those slivers were all but buried in your arm, yet you didn’t even whimper when I cut them out. More than that, you didn’t bleed. What are you, that you don’t bleed?”
There, it was out. The quivering uncertainty she had felt since he tended her arm was finally in plain sight. Things that didn’t bleed, that didn’t cry when in pain, that healed themselves while you looked on—those things were either very good or very evil. Their smiles had said all afternoon they thought her a saint, but beneath the gratitude lurked the fear that she was something else. And poor Owein—this moment he was ready to run from her screaming or fall to his knees and worship her. She felt the loss of the amulet keenly at that moment.
What did he fear to hear, hope to hear, need to hear?
“I am a Prentice, Owein-a-Galchobar. A Prentice from Halig-liath. I am privileged, in my fifteenth year, to be allowed to go on Pilgrimage. And you’ve been kind enough to help me along with my journey. I’m very grateful.” She smiled, hoping her sincerity would not be lost in his trepidation.
After a moment of thought, he returned the smile, then glanced at his wife. She answered with a quizzical glance of her own before scrutinizing Meredydd.
“And is it magic that you do, Prentice Meredydd?” she asked.
“It is...a discipline,” Meredydd answered carefully, “of the Divine Art. It is much like any other art—weaving or cooking or painting pictures or milling flour.”
“But, more than that, surely!” exclaimed Owein. “It takes no great years of study to be a miller. I left school after my first middle year to work here. And I’ll never speak to the Meri. I’ll never even catch glimpse of her. You must be a saint to see the Meri.”
“Well, I haven’t seen her yet,” said Meredydd. “I only hope I will. I’ve only dreamed of it—prayed for it. It’s the Meri who chooses to be seen, after all. It’s not due to any greatness of mine—or any other Pilgrim’s. I simply study the Art and learn runeweave and pray I’m worthy.”
“The Meri couldn’t refuse anyone so kind and brave as you,” said Meghan, and Meredydd colored and glanced aside. She struck Skeet’s gaze and found that disconcerting as well.
Kind and brave—was she either of those things? Hadn’t her response to Taidgh’s peril been instinctual rather than thought out?
She lay awake long hours before the Galchobar fire, turning that in her mind. She’d been pleased with herself for mastering the Painhold and the Healweave, but she hadn’t mastered them cleanly, she hadn’t struggled them into perfection, she had merely diverted herself while the Healing duan played on her outbound breath. She should have been thinking holy thoughts, not frivolous ones. Blue hair! Dear God, how childish! She’d gone into the Sanctum for holy meditation, only to be distracted by girlish fancy.
She squirmed unhappily on her thick, fleece mattress and prayed she would do better in future. When at last she slept, her dream was no more than a litany composed of seven words: Let nothing distract you from your goal.
Chapter 11
When a man speaks, he cannot breathe: he sacrifices breath to speech.
And when a man breathes, he cannot speak: he sacrifices speech to breath.
These two never-ending sacrifices a man makes whether he wakes or sleeps.
— The Corah
Book I, Verses 20-22
By morning, Meredydd’s arm was well-healed. She was pleased about that, but afraid it might further disturb her hosts. She removed the poultice and dressed in a clean, long-sleeved sous-shirt, covering it from sight.
She and Skeet breakfasted early with the Galchobar family, then said their good-byes. Little Taidgh was a-jitter with all the excitement and offered Meredydd and Skeet both fond hugs and kisses and childish “thank yous.” They were well-provisioned with food and drink, too, as they set off downstream. Meredydd’s one regret was the loss of the Wisdom amulet.
“You did well without,” Skeet observed when she had felt at her collar and sighed for perhaps the twentieth time. “You’d think it was a lifelong companion, Meredydd, instead of something you’d had only a day or two.”
“It was special to me,” she argued. “It made me feel my head was on true instead of skew. I needed it last night with them looking at me that way—thinking I was some sort of Wicke.”
“They didn’t think you a Wicke. And you did fine without.”
“But what might I have done with, Skeet? I can’t help but wonder that. They were afraid of me, Skeet. I don’t want anyone to be afraid of me. It goes against every principle an Osraed stands for. ‘An Osraed’s aim must be to open the hearts, fill the stomachs, calm the minds, brace the bones and so clarify the thoughts and meet the needs that no sly meddler could touch those he has touched.’”
“Oh, and you did none of that, eh?”
“I frightened them. Do you think they would have been frightened of Master Bevol?” She shook her head. “Oh, Skeet, if only I could have divined what he would have said and done. His words are like the waters of a blessed spring—clear and clean and cleansing. I sweat on my words and tarnish them before they even come out of my mouth.”
“Ah, is that what you’re after, then? To have Bevol’s words pop out of your mouth? What about your words and your thoughts, Meredydd-a-Lagan? You’re not Bevol, you’re yourself. The Osraed’s done his Pilgrim walk.”
“My words! My thoughts! By God, Skeet, don’t make me laugh. I’ve told you, mine are unworthy. I’ll never have a tenth part of the knowledge our Master has. I’ll never have a hundredth part of the love and patience, the charity or the Art. And if I had them, I doubt I’d know how to use them, because that would take wisdom.”
“Well, you did the Gwenwyvar’s task. You brought her what she asked for.”
“Aye! Without knowing it. That wasn’t wisdom, Skeet. It was...luck. Or maybe it was the amulet.”
“Now you know what the Maister says of that. An amulet is only a magnifier. You did with what you had within you.”
“Without the knowledge of what I was doing.”
“And yet,” said Skeet. “And yet you keep on down this path, putting one unworthy foot before the other. Struggling on as if you were so sure, so sure. If snow came down thick as wool on a ewe’s back, still you’d walk. And if Sun beat down hotter than heaven’s breath, still you’d walk. And if rain fell ’til it covered this whole forest, you’d swim. Why would you do that, I wonder, if you’re so sure of your failure?”
She glanced at him, startled, wondering if this was the same Skeet she’d set out with, or if there was now some enigmatic stranger wearing Skeet’s body. Startled, too, beca
use she really couldn’t answer the question and had to think, hard, about it.
Why, indeed? Why keep on, as he said, one unworthy foot after another, if she was certain to fail—to fall short, to be less than she must be?
“I suppose I keep on because the Osraed Bevol expects me to. Because in giving up, I’d be failing him. I can control that, at least. But as to the Meri, there I can only hope for mercy instead of justice. By justice, I’ve failed already. By mercy, well...only the Meri knows.”
“Are ye so bad, Bad Meredydd?” asked Skeet, his voice soft, soothing.
“No. No, I’m not bad. I’m just not perfect.”
“Well, neither was our Master Bevol, I wager, when his unworthy feet went down his Path one after t’other.”
She was shocked at that observation and was getting ready to tell him that when she heard, behind them, the unmistakable rhythm of a horse in full flight. As it neared, the cadence resolved into a concert of stone-clatter and water splash punctuated by the guttural blows of horse and man.
Meredydd swung about, indecisive. Should she hide or simply stand aside? For a moment she vividly recalled her dream—the black horse that swept her back to Lagan and away from her goal.
She froze, suspended, lingering, eyes straining down the riverside for the first glimpse of the horse. In a heartbeat, it thrust through the veiling foliage.
It was not a black horse, it was a blood bay with night-black points, and it carried a rider.
Meredydd squinted, then frowned. “That’s Owein-a-Galchobar!”
He had begun to shout at them now, whipping his horse with a frenzied criss-cross motion over the shoulders. Meredydd thought of an Altar Prentice with a censer—swinging it this way and that, spreading the scents of devotion.
Owein reined the lathered, wild-eyed animal to a stop, causing it to hop, skidding for several feet, digging great troughs in the soft river bank trail with its hooves. He dismounted before it stopped moving and came to take Meredydd by the shoulders.
“Please! Please! You must come!” he said and his voice was broken and raspy. “It’s Taidgh! He’s hurt or sick—I don’t know which. Please, you must come!”
Meri Page 20
