The Singers of Nevya (33 page)

A wave of shame swept him a moment later. One did not, could not, think such things about the Gifted. Well, itinerants, maybe, though he had never met one that raised such a thought in his mind. But this was a Cantrix, Conservatory-trained, inviolate, unreachable to the likes of an ordinary rider like himself. He said respectfully, “My name is Kai, Cantrix. I was just thinking what an easy ride this is.”

She nodded to him, but her pretty lips formed a rueful pout. “Yet I was thinking how hard this saddle is, and wondering how you sit in it so easily.” She shifted her weight, as if trying to find a position that didn’t hurt.

“I ride almost every day. I’m a hunter,” Kai said with pride. “I’ve hunted
caeru
more than two summers. Once my brothers and I” —he nodded toward his two brothers riding ahead of them—”we killed a
tkir
.”

The Cantrix looked up at him once again, and Kai had to swallow as he looked into the clear green of her eyes. Like the first shoots of the softwood tree in summer, those eyes.

“What was it like?” she murmured.

“Oh, it’s not a pleasant story, Cantrix,” he said hastily, remembering the snarling attack of the
tkir
and the long scar his brother Rho still bore from its claws.

“I like all stories,” the Cantrix said, and her dimples flashed. “I am a collector of stories.”

Kai couldn’t resist the dimples. He smiled down at her. “I will tell you, then, if you like.” He moved his
hruss
a bit closer, careful that his leg should not inadvertently brush hers. “But I wouldn’t think you’d want to hear about blood and arrows and such things.”

“So I do,” she said with a laugh, “if they are part of the story.”

Kai grinned. “As you wish, then.” He leaned back in his saddle and began his tale. At the most exciting moments the Cantrix turned her eyes up to him, and he found himself embellishing the account of the hunt to make her do it again and again. She was a patient and close listener, and he made the story last a long time. She smiled her thanks at the end.

He didn’t hear her voice again that day until the camp was settled for the night. All the riders, and their young charge, were secure in their bedfurs, the
quiru
strong and warm around them and their
hruss
. Kai was almost asleep himself when he heard a slight sound.

He sat up to locate the source. He saw a small movement of the Cantrix’s bedfurs, and he heard the sound again.

She was weeping, softly, trying to muffle the sound in her furs. Kai reached out his arm to comfort her, then drew it back, remembering. The glow of the
quiru
dimmed where she lay. Her unhappiness slowed the light, drew the warmth from the air, leaving an alarming little pocket of shadow around her.

Kai didn’t know what to do. Who could comfort a Cantrix? He must neither touch her nor talk to her unless she spoke first. The tabu was as rigid as the trunk of an irontree.

Saddened, he lay down again. How lonely she must be! His baby sister would have been instantly swept up in the embrace of one of her big brothers, to cry against a shoulder until she felt better. This young Cantrix must weep alone in her bedfurs, with no one to offer solace.

Kai waited until the gentle sounds of her sobs ceased, then a little longer. When he sat up once more, the darkness was gone and she appeared to be asleep. He made certain her furs were tucked about her before he lay down again. He lay thinking, staring up at the cold dark sky beyond the light and warmth she had made. He watched the stars wheel above the
quiru
for a long time before he finally slept.

Chapter Two

The Houses on the Continent had been built so long ago that no one remembered their beginnings. Amric lay close to the Great Glacier, and the north wind continually blew the scent of ice and firn into its courtyard. Its thick stone walls seemed to have grown naturally out of the rocky landscape, looking as ancient as the fields of ice on which no creature walked but the
caeru
and the occasional
urbear
wandering east from the coast. Isbel found Amric cold and daunting. Its abundance of fur and leather and carved ironwood did not warm it for her. Even after she had been there for weeks, she yearned for the austerity of Conservatory, and for its company.

Her new senior was Cantor Ovan, a lean, pinched man of at least eight summers. He was remote at her welcoming ceremony, while Magister Edrus and the Housekeeper, Cael, were friendly and smiling. At her first
quirunha
, Cantor Ovan’s black eyes burned at her, making her pitch tremble and her fingers slip once or twice on the strings of the
filhata
. She could barely follow his lead, and her voice wobbled in a fearful vibrato for several moments.

Ovan’s own voice was reedy and harsh. His upper range, if he had ever had one, was gone. He played tortuously complex patterns on the
filhata
, as if to compensate for the ugliness of his singing. He had a habit of starting in
Aiodu
, then modulating abruptly into
Iridu
without warning or preparation. Their first
quirunha
was half over before Isbel could grasp his musical idea and follow him. His voice overbalanced hers, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Sira, she was sure, would have dominated even Cantor Ovan. She wished her friend were her to advise her, or even better, to play the
quirunha
in her place. Ignore him, she imagined Sira saying. Keep the accompaniment simple, let your voice spin. He is not the Singer you are.

But, Isbel thought sadly, I am not the Singer Sira is. And who knows where she is now?

She kept a respectful face turned to her senior, and did as she had been trained to do. Her first
quirunha
at Amric were not beautiful, but they did their work. The warmth and the light flowed out from the Cantoris, not as swiftly as she might have liked, but it enveloped the House, refreshing the
quiru
, keeping Amric safe for another day.

Cantoris hours were the hardest part of her new assignment. Every day, after the morning meal, Isbel took her seat on the dais next to her senior. Housemen and women, in their brightly-dyed tunics, lined up before them. Sometimes one or two of the Magister’s people were there in their dark tunics, waiting their turn for healing. Isbel held her
filla
in tense fingers, breathing deeply to calm herself. Healing was hard enough without being frightened half to death.

She had reason to be nervous. Her first Cantoris hours had been disastrous.

A
hruss
had tripped on one of the great ironwood suckers that reached from tree to tree under the snow. The beast had fallen with all its great weight on its rider’s leg, shattering the ankle. Ovan seemed unaffected by the ghastliness of broken bone and torn flesh. He played an
Iridu
melody and directed his psi into the mangled ankle without flinching. Isbel followed him as she had been taught, so that she might learn through observation, but the injured man’s pain made her gasp and writhe in agony.

To her great shame, her senior abruptly ceased playing and turned his hard eyes on her.
Stop
, was all he sent. Isbel instantly closed her mind and her eyes.

The Housemen accompanying the rider set the leg under Ovan’s direction, and the Cantor played again to heal the skin and muscle around the break. Isbel could not even watch.

When it was done, Ovan looked down his beaked nose at her, his lips compressed, nostrils pinched white.
Are they not teaching healing at Conservatory any longer?

Yes, Cantor Ovan, they are.
She ducked her head to avoid his eyes, and a lock of hair escaped its binding and fell untidily against her cheek.

It is not evident to me
, Ovan went on.
Nor was it to that injured man.

The House members standing before them watched curiously. Isbel felt their eyes on her, and her cheeks flamed. She longed to run right out of the Cantoris.

I
—
I need more practice
, she sent.

You need more shielding.

I know
, she answered miserably.
It is my weakness.

He turned his back on her in a way that no one watching could have missed. When Isbel raised her head she saw the rider Kai watching from the back of the Cantoris, and she wished that he, of all people, had not been there to witness her humiliation. As soon as she could, she hurried from the Cantoris, her eyes on the floor. She avoided the great room, missing the mid-day meal rather than endure the glances of the House members.

Over the weeks since that first calamity, her healing had improved somewhat. If someone’s pain or illness upset her, she hid it as best she could. Today a Housewoman with a bit of rag wrapped around her hand stepped up to the dais. Isbel watched as the woman undid the wrapping and held her burned hand out for Ovan to see. When he picked up his
filla
, his melody was uninspired, but the Housewoman closed her eyes and sighed, and Isbel thought his psi must be doing its work. She shielded herself carefully, and tried to follow, closing her own eyes, sending her psi after Ovan’s as he soothed the blistered skin.

There was so little experience to be had in healing at Conservatory. Only the earaches and sore throats of the Singers gave the students practice. The youngest ones had always sought Isbel when they were sick, and until now she had believed herself adept with their complaints.

The ailments she saw now were far more upsetting. There were cuts and burns from the kitchen workers and the tanners. There had been something wrong with the breathing of a tiny baby, which brought tears to Isbel’s eyes, but no idea of how to help. When she shielded herself, as she was supposed to, her psi seemed useless, aimless, unable to find the seat of the trouble. But she dared not repeat the experience of those first Cantoris hours, when Kai and the other House members had witnessed her humiliation.

The Housewoman with the burn bowed her thanks to Cantor Ovan and went back to the kitchen. A flushed, feverish Houseman stepped up in her place.

Ovan turned to Isbel.
Cantrix. Surely you can help this man? It is only a fever.

She bit her lip.
I will try, Cantor Ovan.
Her breath came quickly as she looked down at the Houseman.

Her senior settled back in his carved chair, his
filla
idle in his lap. He gazed at her from beneath lowered eyelids.

Isbel took up her own
filla
. The man looked terribly ill, his skin ashen above his bright blue tunic. There was a slight movement behind him, and Isbel realized with dismay that the Magister, Edrus, had come into the Cantoris. He took a seat on one of the side benches.

Isbel closed her eyes, and put her
filla
to her lips. She cast about for a melody, anything, in order to begin.

She tried a tune in
Aiodu
, to carry her psi out and into the man’s mind. Through her shielding, she could feel nothing of his discomfort. Ovan was following her, she knew, but if she could not feel the man’s illness, how could she help him? For some moments she played, searching for a way, but finding none.

Bit by bit, she relaxed her shields, wary of her senior’s criticism. Perhaps, if she opened herself just a little . . .

She felt herself, all at once, engulfed by the misery of the sick man. She felt his nausea and aches as acutely as if they were in her own body. She swallowed, and stopped. Opening her eyes, she said weakly, “This man needs to sit down.”

Her senior arched a dark eyebrow, but a Housewoman nearby pushed a chair forward. Isbel saw the Magister watching, and quickly closed her eyes again, trying not to be distracted. A thrill of nerves fluttered under her breastbone. She had to brace herself to enter the Houseman’s mind again. She tried to think only of him, tried not to give in to the illness itself. If her senior would just give her time, let her find a way . . .

She tried a different melody this time, in
Doryu
, as she had heard Maestro Nikei do for infections. She spun out her psi to search for the source of the man’s fever. It was so difficult, so confusing. With the little Singers, the work had been straightforward: their ears hurt, or their teeth, and their young minds were clear and easy to read. This man was not Gifted, nor was his illness easily identified. How was she going to lower his fever if she could not find the source?

Hot, was all she could read from the man. He was hot, and weak. She tried to examine other parts of him, feeling with her own mind the sickness in his stomach, the trembling of his hands, the burning of his eyes against their lids. Isbel’s melody faltered. She could not find what was wrong. All she could think of to do was to soothe and quiet him, as she had the children in the dormitory at Conservatory.

She played a soft air in
Iridu
, for sleep, one she had learned when she had only two summers. She used feathery touches of psi to try to cool the man’s feverish mind, to make his limbs cease their trembling and his muscles relax. When she opened her eyes the man’s head was tipped back against his chair, his eyes closed. He was asleep.

Isbel turned to Ovan.
It was all I could do, Cantor. I am sorry. I do not know what causes his illness.

Ovan’s black eyes flicked away from her.
Apparently not.
He signaled to two Housemen to help the man up. They put their shoulders under his arms and assisted him out of the Cantoris, his head lolling sleepily.

Isbel saw Magister Edrus leave also, and she sighed in relief.
Cantor Ovan, did you know what was wrong with him?

He had already turned back to the waiting line of people.
A fever
, he sent in an offhand way.
Probably brought in from some other House. That is all.

Isbel stared at his sharp-nosed profile. Was it possible that Cantor Ovan no more understood the Houseman’s illness than she did? It was a rebellious idea, a disrespectful one, and she kept it very low, lest he hear it.

The lines of Ovan’s face revealed nothing to her. It was beyond belief that her entire future was tied to this cold, unbending man. She was inextricably bound, with him, to the House they were both pledged to serve.