Oron stamped her staff three times again and sat down, and it seemed the formalities were over. The talk began again, rising loudly, and people reached for fruit and bread. Cadvan and Saliman were deep in conversation about affairs to the south, and Maerad felt reluctant to interrupt.
"Are you Maerad of Pellinor?"
"Yes." Maerad turned and faced a small, dark-haired woman with blue eyes.
"I thought you must be, when you came in with Cadvan," said the woman. "I am Helgar, here from Ettinor for the Meet. Forgive my forwardness: I heard of your adventures from Silvia. I must say, you don't look like you've been scrambling over the mountains."
"That's thanks to Silvia," said Maerad. "Where's Ettinor?"
"A week's ride west, and more," she said. "I come with tidings, and to seek counsel, like most here, I think. We live in difficult times. All news, these days, seems to be bad news."
"Yes," said Maerad. Again she felt her lack of knowledge keenly; she had been so cut off from the world, she knew nothing. "What news do you bring?"
"You'll hear at the Council," said Helgar, turning the question. "But tell me about yourself. That's more interesting."
"Oh, I don't think so," said Maerad. "Why is everyone interested in me? I don't know anything. I don't know anything about Meets. What do Bards do?"
Helgar shrugged. "We talk, mainly."
"Yes, but about what?"
"Matters of the Light. What affects the Balance. Matters of policy that affect the Schools. That kind of thing."
"But what is the Balance?" Maerad was beginning to feel a little frustrated with Helgar, whose eyes, she noticed, flickered past her shoulder, as if she were only half listening. She was evasive in a different way from Cadvan, and something in Maerad bristled with distrust, although she couldn't have said why.
Helgar cross-examined Maerad about her adventures, but Maerad answered warily, saying as little as possible about herself and nothing at all about Cadvan. She had noticed that Cadvan swiftly checked her interlocutor, before returning to his huddle with Saliman. Despite this, the dinner passed pleasantly enough. At last, when Maerad thought she could not, to save her life, eat another thing, the plates were removed. Then to her surprise Cadvan stood and strode to the dais, amid clapping.
"Cadvan is accounted a great singer," said Helgar. "I have not heard him, myself. Still, I'm surprised he has first place." But Cadvan was speaking.
"By your leave, tonight I sing a lay of the ancient days, in the first years of the lost kingdom of Lirion, when the Ice Witch yet troubled the world: Mercan's Quest." He struck a chord and began to chant.
"A strange choice," whispered Helgar as Cadvan began, but Maerad sat spellbound. She didn't know the lay, which told the story of Mercan's long search for his love Tirian, stolen by the minions of the Ice Witch. She was found in the snow halls of the north and brought home, but Tirian's heart had become a splinter of ice, and she spoke no more. Mercan's despair broke his heart, and when she saw that he was dying, Tirian's heart melted with pity. She wept, and a tear fell on Mercan's face; his eyes opened and life returned to him, and the frost melted in the land, and blossoms leaped to the starved trees, and the long winter was broken. Cadvan's voice rose and fell, and as Maerad listened she saw visions of a fair city, of ships setting sail from a white harbor under a cold sky bright with stars, and the harsh shores of a far country. The music fell in Maerad's mind like a sweet rain, and she sighed with happiness, as if she were the damp earth sighing out the joy of spring. Then the singing stopped and there was clapping, and Maerad blinked, released from the spell, and found to her surprise that her eyelashes were wet with tears.
The Bards were calling for more, and Cadvan looked at Maerad and beckoned. She shook her head, appalled, but Cadvan insisted, and at last, pushed on by Saliman, she reluctantly picked up her lyre and walked to the dais. She stared blindly out on the crowd and swallowed. Cadvan looked to her for timing and then struck the chords for The Lay of Andomian and Beruldh that they had sung together, years ago it seemed, in the glade of Irihel. Maerad responded automatically with the antiphon. As soon as the first notes rang out, her nerves disappeared; in the sanctuary of music, she could be herself without fear. They sang only the ballad that introduced the story, and then left the dais amid cheers.
"Leave them hungry, eh?" said Cadvan as they made their way back to their seats. "And you acquitted yourself charmingly. You have, I might say, an individual style. I expect it will be all the rage in Innail now, given the response."
"You were horrible to get me to come up there," said Maerad hotly. "I wanted the floor to swallow me up."
"Now you have done your duty by your hosts, and need worry no further," said Cadvan, unperturbed. "And you have proved yourself to be a true Bard of Pellinor. It will be hard to dispute that now."
When she reached her seat, Saliman was still clapping. "Where is this cot?" he said. "I must get some lessons there."
Helgar, Maerad noticed, had left her chair and was talking to some people farther away. As Maerad glanced at her, she turned away. Saliman noticed. "Your friend distrusts Southerners," he said.
"Oh," said Maerad. "Why?"
"There are not many like me so far north, so I am a curiosity." Saliman spoke lightly, but Maerad saw a hardness in his eyes and a curl in his lip. "And these are distrustful days."
"Take no notice," said Cadvan. "I saw Helgar was pummeling you hard for information. You did well, I thought, under such impertinence."
"She said she was a friend of Silvia's," Maerad said.
"That's using the term loosely," said Cadvan. "I think she was not happy that you sang so well and pleased so many"
"Do you know her?" asked Maerad.
"Let us say there is a history between us. But you are looking a little pale. This will go on all night, but I dare not keep you up late, or Silvia will have my hide."
And indeed, Silvia was coming to their table, her eyes shining. "Well done, Maerad!" she said. "I am proud of you: your playing honored this hall. Are you tired? You look pale."
Maerad admitted that she was tired, and Cadvan led her out of the hall. It took some time: people were smiling and wishing to talk to both her and Cadvan; but Cadvan politely refused to be caught in conversation. When they reached her chamber, Cadvan said, "I know I made no mistake, bringing you here. You did me honor tonight." He kissed her on the cheek, and Maerad, uncertain how to respond, bowed awkwardly and then slipped hurriedly through her door. She put her lyre carefully on the chest, threw off all her clothes, undid her hair, and fell gratefully into bed.
Despite her tiredness, she didn't fall asleep immediately; her head buzzed with wine and the excitement of the evening. She stared up at the ceiling, and images flickered randomly before her mind's eye: Cadvan singing on the dais, and Helgar's displeasure at Maerad's own playing, and Silvia's pearl-sewn dress, and the soft, lovely bloom of the tapers glancing off the pillars of that beautiful hall. . . but above all, Saliman's dark face, angered by Helgar's rudeness. Maerad's skin prickled with some innate animal wariness when she thought of Helgar. "Not all Bards are to be trusted," Cadvan had told her, and now she thought she knew what he meant.
VIII
THE COUNCIL OF INNAIL
THE next day Maerad rose late after a deep sleep. For the first time since she had escaped Gilman's Cot, she woke without fear of the slave bell. She stretched luxuriously in bed, identifying the sounds that floated through her window: the low murmur of people walking through the courtyard and the chatter of some children playing a skipping game right outside her room, the chuckle of birds, a dog barking, and instruments tuning downstairs. Her belly felt much better; the cramps were still there, but well within bearable limits. Throwing on her robe, she padded down the corridor to the bathroom, where she spent a happy hour splashing around with the oils and unguents she found there. On the way back to her room she met Cadvan in the corridor.
"You smell like you've raided the perfumed gardens of Il Ar
unedh," he said, grinning. "I was just looking for you. There is a Council this afternoon, at the mid-bell, and you are expected to attend. A High Council, I might add, with only those of the Circles admitted. You should be honored."
"Why do I have to go?" asked Maerad. "I can't tell anybody anything; I don't know anything."
"That's not quite true," said Cadvan. "For one thing, you are a survivor of Pellinor: that is great news among Bards in itself. And if you are to learn the Arts, you must become a Minor Bard. That will be little more than a formality."
"A Minor Bard?"
"It should have happened when you were about seven— it's automatic for anyone with the signs of a Bard," Cadvan said. "But also, given your particular circumstances, the Bards must decide how you should best be taught the ways of the Light."
"It all sounds very complicated," said Maerad subduedly. She quailed inside when Cadvan mentioned things like the Knowing; it seemed like a great cloud over her head, obscure but threatening.
"It is and it isn't," Cadvan answered. "And it's not frightening at all, so stop looking like a rabbit. What is important is that the correct decisions are made now. Normally you would have just been instated as a Minor Bard by the Circle of Innail, which is only six Bards, including Malgorn and Silvia; but this time you're going to be grilled by Bards from about ten Schools. So you can count yourself unlucky there! But for now, it's almost lunchtime, and you should eat," he added. "And then I'll show you the School—that is, if your health permits. You look rosy enough this morning, at any rate."
She quelled the suspicion that Cadvan was making light of the Council to take the edge off her anxiety. She dressed, and after they had eaten he showed her the School. He told her that all the oldest Schools, like Innail, were built along the same design. Innail was laid out like a wheel: at the hub was the Circle of Lanorgrim, and from this radiated four major roads, which were linked by circular roads that were the main thoroughfares. The Circle of Lanorgrim was flanked by the finest buildings in the School. On one side was the Great Hall, and to its left stood a huge library where Maerad saw calligraphers at work, and solemn black-cloaked librarians, the Keepers of the Books, who were held in high honor in the town. To its right was the House of Music, where the Mentors lived and the older children and advanced musicians studied. Opposite the Great Hall itself stood a tall house that Cadvan told her was Oron's dwelling, and the place where the Council was to be held that afternoon.
The senior Bards and their families and students lived in houses like Malgorn and Silvia's, close to the inner circle. Cadvan told her that about two hundred Bards, including students, lived in Innail. "The number of Bards varies from School to School," he explained. "And so too, the number of those who make up the Circles that govern them: in some places six, in some places nine; in some places there are even two Circles, an Inner, or First, Circle and an Outer, or Second, Circle. Here in Innail there is only one Circle of six Bards."
"Then what do the other Bards do?" asked Maerad, fascinated.
"They all do the work of the School," said Cadvan. "Teaching, writing, making, singing, growing. . . there are so many ways of being a Bard! So that too varies from School to School, depending on the people they live among. Innail, you might have guessed already, is especially famed for its herblore and its cuisine, which are held in high esteem here; but much else goes on besides, in the governance of the Fesse. There is not, in all Annar and the Seven Kingdoms, one School that is the same as another. One day, I hope, you will visit them all and see for yourself. Only this they have in common, or should: that they hold the Balance, and keep to the Light."
They walked now toward the outer rim of the School, where there were hundreds more halls and houses. Here lived the many people who were not Bards but made their living from the School or traded in the town, and there also were the crafters: ironsmiths and saddlers and woodcarvers and masons and jewelers. They visited a big complex of stables, for Bards were much traveled and many kept at least one horse, and Maerad breathed in the smell with a sharp, surprising pang of nostalgia for her former life: despite her drudgery, she had enjoyed tending the beasts.
Innail was full of trees; its houses were set in pleasant gardens, and there were many little squares, sometimes no larger than a room. You could round a corner and there, unexpectedly, was a little fountain or perhaps a statue and stone bench set on a little square of daisied grass, or an ancient lintel, carved in the semblance of a beautiful woman or a strange sprite or a horse, or the image of Lanorgrim leaping out from a window of colored glass that threw back the sunlight in red or blue or gold. Maerad looked and looked, as if her eyes were starving: every street revealed a new marvel. But although Innail seemed busy and prosperous, she noticed that many houses were shuttered and empty.
"That is the way of so many Schools nowadays," said Cadvan, when she asked why this was so. "There are fewer and fewer Bards. Innail is still a great School, and well loved by the valley men, but it is not what it was in its heyday. In some places it's the Bards' fault: they have become arrogant and distant, and despise the people among whom they live, and no longer care as they should for the life of the land. But elsewhere there are other forces at work that blacken the names of Bards and the arts of Barding, sowing lies to plant suspicion where once was trust, and hatred where once was love. To all our loss."
Maerad, overwhelmed by the beauty of what she was seeing, couldn't imagine how one could hate the ways of the Bards. "It's only ignorance, though, of what Bards do," she said.
"Yes, often," said Cadvan. "That and forgetfulness. It is harder than you think to combat such things, particularly in such times, when malice grows apace and even the Bards are divided. But such is our lot."
When Maerad entered the Council Hall at Oron's house that afternoon, she flinched as if from a blow; she felt that she had walked into a brilliant blaze of light. It seemed that the room was brightly glowing and humming with a strange music, although she saw no light and heard no sound. Some deeper awareness in her mind prickled to alertness. A contested energy, she thought swiftly, as if many different minds strove in opposing directions to no avail.
She blinked and surveyed the room.
At least three dozen solemn Bards were seated at a round wooden table in a hall of austere loveliness, vaulted with a fan of fluted stone that soared over unadorned white walls. The only sign of luxury was a rich red carpet underneath the table, woven with stylized images of horses running over wide fields. The table itself seemed very ancient, carved of dark wood buffed to a high polish. It bore shapely glass decanters of water and goblets and a huge silver centerpiece of a horse rearing, but nothing else. A fire burned in a hearth on one wall, keeping back the chill of the early year.
The Bards looked as if they had already been conferring for some time. When Maerad and Cadvan entered, the entire table turned and looked at them, and Oron stood up. Maerad's stomach lurched with nerves. She turned to Cadvan for reassurance, but he just smiled at her gravely, neither friendly nor unfriendly. She swallowed and let him guide her to a high-backed chair. She stood waiting behind it, hoping that no one could see that her knees were shaking.
"Welcome to this Council, Cadvan of Lirigon and Maerad," said Oron. She introduced the people around the table, most of whom Cadvan seemed to know already. They nodded as their names were spoken, but said nothing. Maerad tried to keep track of them, but there were so many she forgot all of them almost instantly, although she saw Silvia and Malgorn to her right. Helgar, dressed in blue robes, who was a few seats to her left, flashed her a glance of such undiluted malevolence that Maerad was visibly taken aback. Next to her was a man with a long nose whose face Maerad instantly decided she didn't like. Saliman, sitting nearly opposite, smiled warmly. At last they sat down, but Oron remained standing.
"Out of courtesy to Maerad, who has not come into the Speech, we will use now the tongue of Annar," Oron said, with a slight nod to Maerad. "We've been discussing many things this day," she co
ntinued, "many of dark and troubling import, and it is pleasant to at last turn our consideration to something that might be thought of as good news. Here is one who claims to have survived the sack of Pellinor, the first and perhaps so far the most grievous of our losses. One Maerad, daughter of Milana, who, perhaps, some of you remember."
There was a murmur around the table. Some looked at Maerad with lively interest, some with open scepticism.
"It was said none survived," said Helgar sharply. "Why have we heard no news before of this? Can we be sure that this woman is who she says she is?"
"Perhaps Maerad can tell her story herself," said Oron unexpectedly, and she sat down.
There was an uncomfortable pause as Maerad looked down at the table as if she could find some help there. Her mind was completely blank. Cadvan cleared his throat and was clearly about to speak for her when Maerad stood up, almost knocking her chair over in her haste.
"I am Maerad," she said, "as you have already heard."
She paused again. She clenched her hands to stop them from shaking.
"When I was little, I lived with my mother and father in a place like this. I remember it, but not very well. My mother was called Milana and my father was called Dorn. But then men came with swords, and they burned my home and killed my father, and they took me away with my mother. We went to be slaves in Gilman's Cot, near the Landrost in the mountains. My mother died there. I was a slave until Cadvan came there seven days ago and freed me and brought me here."
She stopped, and there was an expectant pause, as if all the Bards expected her to say more. Someone sniggered, but Maerad didn't look up to see who it was.
"Cadvan says I am a Bard and that I have the Gift, but I don't know if that is true," she said at last. "I just wanted to be free from Gilman. I was going to die there, in that place. But now that I'm here I don't know what I want. To be a Bard, maybe. Like my mother."
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