The Light of the Oracle (9 page)

Don't tell him. He'll find me and order me killed
. Bryn shuddered, and Kiran gripped her hand tightly before letting it go.

“The lighted thistledown—you say it moved in front of you?”

“ Yes.”

“If you ever see that light again, you must follow it. No matter where it leads.”

Goose bumps fanned over Bryn's back and down her arms.
I'm glad I didn't betray Selid to the Master Priest.

But what if Renchald knew she had concealed a dream from him; what if he brought her before him again and ordered her to reveal it? If she refused, would he send her back to Uste? Or worse, leave her in the desert to die?

Don't tell him. She'll never read my words.
Again the sorrowful whisper drifted through Bryn's mind.

On the morning of the summer solstice, the day of the Ceremony of Birds, Bryn woke as usual to Dawn shaking her shoulder. “Stars and luminaries, Bryn, get up—hurry!”

They had agreed to rise even earlier than normal, so they could finish scrubbing the latrines in time to take baths. Usually the bathing tubs would be filled only on Kelday afternoons. The Feathers would always take first turn; by the time the likes of Dawn and Bryn could bathe, the water was tepid and filmed with spent soap suds. But today, senior handmaids would draw the baths in the early morning. Several women were already busy filling large copper tubs with steaming water as Bryn and Dawn grabbed their scrub buckets and aprons.

Bryn began at one end of the line of latrines, Dawn at the other. They competed with each other to see who would reach the middle first. Bryn scrubbed as fast as she could, listening for the sounds of Dawn's brush scouring soapy boards.

They finished in good time to bathe before the
gong. They had the washroom to themselves; the senior handmaids had left full tubs steaming.

Bryn flung off her scrub-apron gleefully before washing her hands in a basin. She put aside her nightgown and stepped into a bath. A cake of soap lay in the small wire basket hanging from the tub. She rubbed suds through her hair, then dunked under the water's surface to rinse. When she popped her head out again, she and Dawn were no longer alone.

Clea stood at the side of her tub; Eloise beside Dawn's. Charis, Narda, and a few of the other Feathers gathered around.

“Eloise,” Clea said, “a rat has nearly drowned in this tub.”

“Rats should know enough not to spoil the baths for us,” Eloise answered.

“There are other baths ready, Eloise,” Dawn said, pointing. “And you've polluted more than your share,” she muttered.

Eloise's fist shot out, knocking Dawn's head against the edge of the copper tub. The metal rang like an eerie bell. A cloud of blood burst through the bathwater.

Dawn lifted her head, gripping the sides of the tub. Blood ran down her face from a gash at her hairline.

Yelling Dawn's name, Bryn sprang out of her bath, bare feet slipping on slick tiles. Pushing Clea and Eloise backward, she tried to reach Dawn.

Someone seized her feet, tumbling her into the bath with Dawn. A hand pushed against her head.

Sputtering, she fought. Another hand added its weight to the first, pressing heavily, forcing her face into the water. Bryn twisted, legs flailing. The hands against her head slipped. She snatched a desperate breath before more arms grabbed her shoulders and neck, shoving her violently down.

Her lungs burned, but she could not escape. She tried to stand, pressing her feet against the tub with all her might, but her legs were tangled uselessly with Dawn's. A black haze crept close. Just before it swept her away, the hands let go. Bryn burst through the surface of the water with a great gasp. Next to her, she heard Dawn coughing.

“What's this?” Nirene stood over the tub.

Bryn heard the Feathers' cloying voices telling Nirene that Bryn and Dawn had fought over the tubs; that they had both nearly drowned. Bryn tried to speak, but all that came out was a cough. Dawn's wound streamed blood and she took long, rasping breaths.

Nirene folded her arms, scowling at Bryn and Dawn. “ You have ruined one of the baths on the day of the solstice.”

“It's not true,” Bryn gasped. “We weren't fighting.”

Dawn rose from the bath. She snatched a towel for herself and threw one to Bryn. Head down, she wrapped herself, covering her bony, shivering frame. She took up another towel and held it to her head, glaring at Eloise and Clea.

Bryn hated getting out of the bath with others looking on. She pulled the towel closely around herself.

“Come with me,” Nirene ordered the two dripping handmaids.

“It isn't true,” Bryn said again, following Nirene into the hallway leading to the handmaids' hall.

“Don't waste your breath.” Dawn spoke grimly at her side. “Every Feather will swear to the same story.” Nirene's back ahead of them remained rigid while Dawn's words poured out. “The Temple can't risk
their
fathers being displeased.” Dawn slapped her long narrow feet against the stone floor. “If Clea or Eloise were to drown in a tub, it wouldn't be overlooked. But if Lord Errington's daughter takes a notion to drown
you
, well, you're nothing but a stonecutter's daughter.”

Nirene rounded on Dawn. “ You'd best watch your tongue. It seems you enjoy cleaning latrines. Very well, you will clean them until
next year's
fall equinox; Bryn will assist you. Now make yourselves ready for the Ceremony of Birds.”

She left them, the hem of her robe swinging briskly. Bryn gaped at her retreating back. “She punishes
us
for what they did?”

Dawn's teeth chattered as she pressed the towel to her head. “I'm sorry, Bryn. I should have kept quiet.”

Bryn put an arm around her. “I wouldn't know how to begin a day without scrubbing latrines. As for Clea, may she be chosen by a dung-beetle.”

In the handmaids' hall, Alyce and Jacinta took Bryn and Dawn in hand.

“Feathers?” Alyce asked, exclaiming at Dawn's
bloody towel and the bruises showing on Bryn's shoulders.

“Who else?” Dawn replied.

“At least it wasn't the Wings,” Bryn said, trying to cheer Dawn. The Wings were the male equivalent of the Feathers. Led by Gridley, they were just as insufferable as Clea and Eloise could be.

“Never mind,” Jacinta soothed, cooing like her choosing bird, her soft eyes full of sympathy. “We must get you ready for the ceremony.”

Jacinta's eye for beauty was respected. She knew how to arrange the folds of a ragged robe so that it somehow appeared more graceful; how to dress hair to bring out a handmaid's best features; how to walk with elegance even when wearing old shoes. Bryn sometimes wondered if the dove's secret gift might be involved in Jacinta's talent for bringing forth all that was lovely.

Alyce bound Dawn's head with cotton. Using lengths of white ribbon, Jacinta concealed the bandage. She braided Dawn's hair with more ribbons. “There. You look wonderful.” Turning her attention to Bryn, Jacinta cocked her head. “I wish your robe weren't so frayed, but as it can't be helped, we must make the best of your hair.” She wound blue ribbons through Bryn's hair, coiling it into a smooth knot at the back of her head. Just as she finished, a deep gong began to sound, its solemn tones reaching throughout the Temple.

“ Your first Ceremony of Birds,” Dawn said to Bryn.

“May you be chosen by a swan.”

A swan!
Bryn smiled at the thought. She'd be satisfied with any feather. “May the heron choose you, Dawn,” she whispered.

They emerged into a corridor thronged with handmaids and acolytes. Feathers fluttered by in satin robes and shining shoes. Members of the Wings strutted; they wore vests sewn from tapestry over their robes. Each tapestry depicted a bird. Bryn saw Gridley, his vest showing the bird that had chosen him—a peacock—its tail glowing with blue-green threads.

Outside, the sky shone like a polished turquoise. Bryn searched the horizon quickly, wondering if birds would be hovering, waiting for the ceremony to begin. She saw nothing, not even a stray drifting seed, for there was no wind.

Dawn guided her out to a clearing east of the pond where everyone was going. There, great stones ringed a large circle of scythe-cut grass. On the north side of the circle, a platform stood, its polished wooden railing perhaps twelve feet above the ground. Red cloth, embroidered in gold with the sign of the keltice, hung from its sides.

Renchald stood alone on the platform, watching the confluence of Temple members. To the side of the Master Priest, a gong as tall as a man rested in a black lacquered frame, its burnished metal reflecting the sun. Across the circle was another platform where the First Priestess stood.

Behind the outline of stones along the western edge of the circle, a dais draped in red held a row of priests. Facing the priests on the eastern rim, another
dais supported priestesses. The only break in the stone circle was a narrow space in front of Renchald's platform, near the gong.

Dawn led Bryn to stand with the other handmaids who had not yet been chosen by birds and were between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. Bryn saw Clea wearing a satin robe thickly embroidered in a pattern of feathers. The rich blue fabric set off her yellow hair, which was wreathed with bands of gold. Her glance stopped on Bryn's plain robe and shoes; she might as well have scoffed aloud. She smirked at the sight of Dawn's unusual headdress.

Group prayers began, led by the Master Priest. They seemed interminable, for every god and goddess must be enjoined to bless the ceremony. When all seven deities had been properly entreated, the sun was several degrees higher.

Renchald lifted his arms. Silence fell.

“Before the gods,” the Master Priest declared, “we are assembled here for the Ceremony of Birds. We bow to the will of the gods, awaiting the choices they will make.” He nodded to a priest who stood beside the gong. The man raised a padded golden stick, striking the gong three times. A deep note reverberated around the circle.

Acolytes were forming a line beside the gong, a line ordered according to their ages, with the oldest first—those whose last chance it was to be given a feather.

Marvin, an acolyte almost eighteen years old, hurried through the break in the circle of stones. The
gong sounded once as he stepped inside the circle. He walked to the center and stood quietly, hands clasped, the air around him so still that his black hair appeared painted to his head. A minute passed. Bryn searched the sky. Another minute went by, but nothing moved anywhere on the horizon. The heat of the morning seemed to grow in the silence.

The gong sounded again. Marvin left the circle, unchosen.

Two more young men repeated the ritual. No birds appeared. Bryn wondered what would happen if a domestic chicken were to stray into the circle by mistake. The thought made her want to burst out laughing. She clapped a hand over her mouth, afraid of disgracing herself. Then her attention was riveted as Kiran strode past the gong.

He had taken no special care with his appearance. His faded acolyte's robe bunched across his shoulders; shaggy hair touched his collar. He clasped his big hands.

A minute passed. Kiran seemed unconcerned. He might have been at the stable door looking for clouds. Another minute. Were his lips moving?

The First Priestess lifted her arm, pointing north where a large speck drifted in the sky. The speck became a bird, winging steadily toward the circle of stones.

It didn't look like a normal swan. Swans were white, with black beaks. This bird's feathers were dark, and as it came closer Bryn could see that its beak was red. The biggest bird she had ever beheld, its wingspan wider than that of a golden eagle.

But it wasn't an eagle. Its eye didn't flash like a bird of prey's; its neck was too graceful to belong to anything but a swan. Black feathers glistening, it swept above the gong to land smoothly on the grass within the circle.

Black swan
. Bryn wasn't surprised to see Kiran go down on his knees. The bird's red bill tugged out one of its feathers. The long neck extended toward Kiran, holding out the shining quill. He received the swan's feather and then bowed to the ground.

The black swan turned. It took a few steps on webbed feet, and lifted on majestic wings.

Bird choosings fascinated Dawn. Who would be chosen, and by which birds? Most of all, she wondered why the gods favored people like Gridley and Eloise.

The triumph she felt when Kiran's swan gave him a feather made her heart beat rapidly, causing her wounded head to throb. Not only a swan, but a black swan, rarest and most noble of birds.
That
would stick in the craw of the Feathers and Wings who liked to sneer at Kiran.

There was another shock in store for the arrogant Wings. Brock, a smith's son from the Southland, was chosen by the spotted owl, a bird of high status. New to the Temple, Brock had already shown such promise in math class that Dawn doubted she would be able to keep the title bestowed on her by her friends: Queen of Numbers. The other students didn't know what to make of Brock, with his dark skin and quick, musical way of speaking. He would rumple his black curls and
quirk one eyebrow when Ishaan frowned on him, and then offhandedly give the right answer to the most perplexing problems. Dawn remembered the day he'd solved the Quarend Theorem, an achievement that had taken her hours; Brock had calculated the solution in minutes by strumming the beads of his abacus while looking up at the ceiling, his eyes darting back and forth, his head wagging.

And now he was owl-chosen.

None of the birds who gave feathers to other acolytes was as spectacular as the swan or the owl. After each of the waiting acolytes had passed the gong and spent his allotted time within the circle, it was the handmaids' turn. Dawn took her place behind Alyce to await her last chance for a feather.

Alyce entered the circle and left it unchosen. She would not participate in the Ceremony of Birds again. If she stayed in the Temple, she would be a handmaid all her life. But her face showed no disappointment. Alyce was fond of baking and had no ambition beyond being assigned to the Temple's bakery.