Meredydd was stunned to silence. A snaking tendril of thought sought to label this a test. But a test of what? If her task in Blaec-del was a test of discernment—which she had passed in some way she didn’t quite understand—then was this, finally, a test of obedience?
Let nothing distract you....
“What happened?”
“He was playing with the ducks in the yard when he just fell to the ground. He could barely breathe; he couldn’t move. He could only say ‘Hurts! Hurts!’ He couldn’t even tell us where.”
Terror and anguish poured from Owein-a-Galchobar’s eyes in a deep, true, urgent stream. Meredydd did not doubt for a moment that Owein believed his son to be on the verge of death. She glanced at Skeet, but his eyes were completely opaque.
Let nothing distract you....
She shook her head savagely. “Of course. Of course I’ll help—if I can.”
Owein smiled, relief flooding his features. He pulled the horse over and mounted, then reached down for Meredydd. She glanced, again, at Skeet.
“I’ll follow,” he said. “Ye g’on with Owein.”
She was swept from the ground then, onto the horse’s back, and clung there, squirrel-like, as the beast pounded back upstream—back the way she had come.
What had seemed like endless miles to Meredydd on foot, turned out to be only five or six. In fifteen minutes, Meredydd was dismounted at the mill and being led into the cottage by the anxious father.
Little Taidgh lay upon the settle which had served as Meredydd’s sick bed the day before. His eyes were closed, but beneath the lids, they fluttered like hummingbirds in flight. His breath came in shallow pants and his clammy, pallid skin sweated a cold, feverless sweat.
Sinking to her knees beside the settle, Meredydd took Meghan’s place at her son’s side.
“Please,” Meghan whispered. “You must help him, mistress.”
“I may need hot water for herbs,” Meredydd told her.
“Yes. Yes, it’s on. What can we do?”
“Sit quietly and if I ask for something—”
“I’ll get it at once, mistress.” Meghan’s head bobbed acquiescently.
Meredydd did not stop to amend her use of the title, but rolled up her sleeves and settled back on her heels, eyes closed, head up, turning inward down her own inner path. She murmured the Healer’s duan she had practiced so often and used with nothing more urgent than cuts and bruises and head-aches at risk.
Well, yes, there had been challenge in Flann’s child-bearing sickness and more in Gwynet’s abused body—but this.... She could feel Meghan and Owein’s eyes on her, expecting miracles, expecting magic.
She must ignore them. They must not exist here. Here there was only Taidgh and Meredydd and the blue Healing power she must tap into. Forcing her concentration deeper, she reached out inside herself, to every warm, dark corner, and drew her energies up and out to curl like smoke in her mind and flow like vapor to her fingertips. Then, she opened the Door, calling on something above herself and beyond herself—calling on the Healing woven into the fabric of the Universe.
The melody of the duan rose. And as it rose, Meredydd reached out her hands and wrapped the child’s damp head with her fingers. She heard Meghan gasp, but ignored the sound, keeping her attention firmly on Taidgh. The activity in the small body was frenzied, frantic. It’s natural rhythms were disturbed, distorted, racing hither and yon, tumbling out of cadence. He was frightened—a tiny cowering presence within his own being—wondering why it was so hard to breathe, why his heart hurt so and pounded so.
Meredydd let one hand move down the boy’s trembling form to his chest. She laid it, palm down, over his heart. The poor thing hopped like a wild little rabbit, its meter stuttering and irregular. She continued the movement of her right hand, checking his lungs, his bowels, his limbs. All were clear of distress—all but his heart, tripping dangerously over itself, and much too fast.
She broke from the duan. “Meghan,” she said quietly, her voice still wreathed in the melody, “have you any foxglove?”
She could almost feel the blood drain from the woman’s face. “Foxglove? Oh, mistress, I don’t know what you mean!”
“Foxglove,” repeated Meredydd and pictured the plant vividly in her own mind. “Spike stem, flowers like bells or thimbles.”
Meghan nodded rapidly. “Wicke’s Thimbles! Yes! You need the flowers? The leaves?”
“Just the flowers.”
Meghan scrambled to her feet.
“For now,” murmured Meredydd, “I’d like him to have some allheal tea.” She opened her eyes. “Owein, could you—?”
“Aye, right away.”
He bolted for the kitchen and Meghan out the kitchen door, leaving Meredydd to continue with her ministrations. The Heal Tell was only half the Healweave. The other half was the healing itself. She put her hands over Taidgh’s heart and settled back into the melody of the Weaver’s duan. Again, she collected her own resources, then opened that mysterious Door above, using the duan to call blue healing down out of another realm, another world—down through the crown of her head, down to her heart, out to her fingertips. Under her palms, the little heart quieted, steadied.
The tea was ready in minutes, steeped strong and smelling of bark and earth. It wasn’t a pleasant beverage, but it had the property of sending the drinker into a deep, refreshing sleep.
By the time Meghan was back with the foxglove, Taidgh’s eyes had ceased their frantic movement and his breathing was deep and relaxed. Meredydd took the foxglove from her as she sank to the floor beside her son and asked Owein for a mortar and pestle.
They had them—a crude set of stone—but they were sufficient for the task of pulping the thimble-like flowers and forcing them to give up their healing essences. In the end, after twenty minutes of grinding, Meredydd had about ten spoonsful of purplish liquid which she then boiled, adding water and a little honey.
The resulting elixir she poured into a small earthen jar and carried to the family parlor.
Meghan eyed the liquid a little doubtfully as Meredydd poured some into a spoon.
“Must he have this? He’s peaceful enough now.”
“As long as he’s asleep, yes. But when the allheal wears off, he’ll be little better off than before. You see, his heart has a bit of a—a problem keeping the correct beat. When he gets over-excited, its rhythm doesn’t play right. It skips here and there, flutters like a little bird. He gets dizzy then, and faint and scared and that makes him have trouble breathing. The essence of the foxglove flower will calm the heart and help it keep its rhythm.” She administered the elixir, which Taidgh, tasting only the sweetness of honey, swallowed with a dreamer’s smile.
“You must try to keep him calm, Meghan,” Meredydd told her. “The scare he had when his heart began to flutter is what caused him to panic and breathe hysterically. If it happens again, talk to him, sing to him, calm him down and give him a spoonful of this elixir.”
Meghan’s eyes expanded, doubling in size. “You could tell all that from the laying on of your hands?”
“It’s called Heal Tell,” Meredydd explained. “All Prentices strive to master it.”
“And do they all glow like that?”
Meredydd blinked at her. “Glow?”
“Aye, mistress. When you laid your hands out on him you glowed with a fire the color of a harvest moon, and the glow passed down your arms and into Taidgh. I’ve never seen anything like it. Do all Prentices do that?”
Meredydd was at a loss. She hadn’t realized she produced any physical manifestations. Osraed Bevol had never mentioned any, although she knew he projected an aura of sorts when he performed a runeweave. She had always assumed that was something bestowed on him by the Meri.
“I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “I suppose, if I do, they must also.”
“It was beautiful.” Meghan smiled beatifically and grasped Meredydd’s hands, still wrapped about the jar of elixir. “You’re a saint
to help us so. You’ve saved our boy twice now. I thank you with all my heart, Meredydd.” And she threw her arms around the Prentice’s neck.
In close embrace, Meredydd realized the full depth of Meghan-a-Galchobar’s gratitude and she knew a purer heart would be difficult to find anywhere in Caraid-land. Meghan was a jewel—the sort of jewel the Gwenwyvar would cherish. It made her failure to keep to the Path easier to bear, while fanning the embers of a peculiar sense of envy. Meghan might have better fortune seeking the Meri than she.
Skeet arrived just after noon, limping and dragging both their packs, looking completely done in. Meredydd had assured herself that Taidgh-a-Galchobar was fine, his natural bodily rhythms solid and sure and even. She spoke of leaving once the boy had awakened, but Skeet gave her a look that all but wrung tears out of her and Meghan and Owein begged them to stay another night.
Meredydd was on the verge of declining, when Skeet said plaintively, “Mistress, if we g’on now, I’ll ne’er make it. I’m sheer worn out and I’ve hurt my knee. Please, mistress, let’s stay.” His eyes were sober and pleading.
She chafed inwardly. She had already spent too much time here. Had already failed to pass the obviously critical test of obedience and perseverance. What hope had she of seeing the Meri now? She had let herself be distracted from her goal and now she might as well go home to Nairne in defeat.
But how could she not be distracted? she asked the ether. How could she not respond to the Galchobar’s need—make some effort to heal Taidgh? His life was in danger—could that be of less importance than her personal quest? Did callousness go hand in hand with Osraed-hood? Or did kindness cancel out disobedience?
Skeet continued to regard her solemnly, waiting for her decision.
“You could stay here and I could go on alone.”
Skeet was scandalized. “Mistress! Ye’d hae me break faith wi’ Osraed Bevol? I promised him, by solemn oath, that I would stand by you as Weard, that I’d not let you out of my sight. Ye cannot mean t’ ask me to break my oath.”
Meredydd lowered her eyes and fidgeted with the sash of her tunic. “I have already broken my own oath to Osraed Bevol. I will not be the cause of you breaking yours as well.” She raised her head and smiled at their hosts. “We’ll stay. Thank you for your kindness.”
Meghan and Owein exchanged pleased glances. “You honor our home, Mistress Meredydd,” Owein told her. “It is you who do us the kindness.”
o0o
She dreamed. She dreamed of a Meredydd-a-Lagan who had not yielded to the imperative need of a sick child. A Meredydd who had not become distracted, who had gone on, secure in the honor of her pledge, to the Sea. She dreamed of an Owein-a-Galchobar who had gone home empty-handed to a dismal mill cottage on the Bebhinn. She dreamed of a Taidgh-a-Galchobar who died, his weak little heart over-excited by his near fall from the millhouse and the chasing of ducks.
She awoke, exhausted and confused, under the dark blanket of early morning. Unable to sleep, she stoked the fire and moved to sit in the deep window casement that overlooked the mill and the rushing Bebhinn. The ethereal, phosphor glow of the water’s fleecy spume drew her into a meditative state, so she prayed and contemplated the dark outside the window and the luminescence of the whitewater and meditated, trying to find commune with her own spirit.
Meghan woke her sometime after dawn. The cottage was redolent with the fragrance of cinnamon-nutmeg baps baking in the brick oven and tea on the fire. The sizzle of cooking eggs teased her ears and made her hungry. She stretched stiff limbs and ruefully rubbed the spot on her forehead that had leaned long against the windowpane.
“You didn’t sleep well,” accused Meghan with mock severity. “You should have taken some of your own medicine. There was plenty of the allheal tea left.”
Meredydd smiled sleepily. “It was all right, really. I needed the time for my meditation.”
“There she is!” cried a piping voice. “There’s my Wicke Lady!” Taidgh bounced across the parlor and up into the window embrasure to throw his arms around Meredydd’s neck.
His mother gaped at him, her face going first red with embarrassment, then white with fear. The fear spoke first.
“Taidgh! Don’t bounce so! And don’t call the Prentice Meredydd that. She’s going to be an Osraed, not a Wicke. God’s pardon—why would you say such a thing?”
“B’cause she used Wicky Thimbles to better my heart,” he said ingenuously. “She’s my Wicke Lady.”
Meghan glanced at Meredydd. “No, Taidgh, you mustn’t”
“It’s all right, really,” Meredydd assured her. “He means nothing wicked by it.” She smiled warmly at Taidgh, who was admiring her braid. “I will gladly be your Wicke Lady, Taidgh.”
He grinned, gap-tooth, and kissed her cheek.
The good-byes were more difficult this time, and Meredydd, feeling at once full and bereft of the strong, warm sense of family, promised to return if and when God allowed. Then, she and Skeet were sea-bound once again—revictualed and even reclothed, they headed southwest along the Bebhinn.
The journey to the Sea was uneventful and pleasant, but for Meredydd’s nagging conviction that her goal was now completely out of reach. They spoke little; she kept that conviction and all other feelings to herself. At least she meant to. But as they climbed the bank to detour what Meredydd hoped would be the last canyon-cleft hill before they sighted the Sea, Skeet broke the silence.
“What are you thinking, Meredydd?”
“I am not thinking at all,” she said. “I only walk...and feel.”
“What are you feeling then?”
“I feel empty. I feel as if I have failed already.”
“And who have you failed?”
“Osraed Bevol, Halig-liath, Mam Lufu, the Gwenwyvar, the Meri, God, myself.”
“Such a list! You didn’t fail Gwynet. You didn’t fail Taidgh-a-Galchobar. You didn’t fail me. Are you so sure you failed all those others?”
Meredydd made a swiping motion at the balmy air. “I promised Osraed Bevol and the Gwenwyvar that I wouldn’t be distracted from my goal. And yet—”
“Ah. Your goal.”
His voice had such an odd inflection that she glanced at him sharply. He was gazing at the path before them, setting one foot before the other, studiously.
“How grand a goal could it be if it caused you to fail that little boy?” he asked. “You’ve wondered that, haven’t you?”
Her ire rose to a red-cheeked defense. “It’s the goal I was purposed to pursue.”
“To get to the Sea at all cost?”
“To be accepted as Osraed! To be a tool in the Meri’s hands.
To become like my Master, Bevol.”
Skeet’s eyes swung over to meet hers, slyly, a little coal-ember demon lurking in them. “To be like Bevol, eh?”
Her own eyes were riveted to his. He is telling me something. He is telling me....
She stopped walking and stared at him. “The Osraed Bevol would have done the same thing—that’s what you mean, isn’t it? He would have gone back to help the boy.”
Skeet shrugged. “I’m sure I don’t know. Do you think tha’s what he’d’ve done?”
Meredydd grimaced, but her heart began to lift as if it had found wings and an updraft. “You do know. That’s exactly what he would have done. And he would also have waited for you to be able to travel; he wouldn’t have left you behind or caused you to break a promise.”
Skeet looked aside, poking the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue. “Well, what might it mean, then—all that about ‘let nothing distract you?’ Was that a riddle, d’ ye think?”
“A riddle—yes, perhaps a riddle.” She began walking again, slowly. “My goal isn’t getting to the Sea, I know that. It’s becoming like Osraed Bevol. Becoming wise and pure and mighty with kindness and love. My obsession with getting to the Sea—that’s the distraction.”
She shook her head and laughed, feeling numb and giddy and light. “By God,
Skeet, if you could have known what I felt when I heard Owein’s horse behind us—the visions I was having. It was like a dream I had. A dream that was given to tell me how obsessed I had become with avenging Lagan. That horse always carried me home—home to the ruin. To my dead family.”
“Owein took you to a living family,” observed Skeet. “And you brought Gwynet into one.” He scratched his cheek and sighed. “Must be another riddle.”
“What digs about the ashes of a dead village?”
“Huh?” Skeet grunted.
“What digs about the ashes of a dead village? It’s a third year riddle from school. I’ve never really understood it until now.”
Skeet glanced at her sideways. “What’s the answer, then?”
“The human heart, always seeking to live in the past.”
“Ah,” said Skeet and smiled. “Wise Meredydd.”
“Silly Meredydd!”
“Well, so, the Meri may come take a look at you after all.”
“Why should She? I didn’t help Taidgh-a-Galchobar because I was striving for nobility or purity or kindness or anything. I just did it out of-of habit. Because it was there to be done. Because I couldn’t stand the thought of the poor little thing—What?”
Skeet had begun to laugh. He laughed—at her—loudly and profusely. In a matter of strides, he was completely out of control and past hearing her protests.
They trudged on, side by side, Meredydd silent, Skeet still chuckling, until they rejoined the Bebhinn at the far side of the hill it sundered. From that point, the land fell away—a carpet of mostly deciduous forest and patches of green velvet sward and meadow. Beyond the emerald stole, glistened the azure of the Western Sea, an imposing, distant gem.
Meredydd’s heart turned over in her chest. It was within sight, within scent. She inhaled deeply of the balmy sea air, wafted to her on the landward breezes. The tang of brine mingled pleasantly with the pungent perfume of cedar.
Essence of Pilgrimage, Meredydd thought. If one could only bottle it....
The path grew rougher now, sloping downward to the low sea cliffs. The two slid down along a rocky defile, winding their way carefully among the boulders and brush to the lower forest.
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