The Singers of Nevya (42 page)

Magister Gowan cleared his throat. “Cantrix Sira, I hope you’re feeling refreshed?”

Sira bowed slightly in assent.

“Hmm, yes. Good. Well, the Committee—” The Magister, short and quite fat with soft white hands, indicated the other men and one woman sitting near him. “You know, of course, that Rhia and Trude v’Bariken were punished after their conspiracy against you and Magister Shen?” When Sira did not answer he said with distaste, “They were exposed.”

A perceptible shiver ran around the room, though this could hardly be news. It had happened nearly five years before.

The Magister continued. “Now the Committee feels it’s important to hear your story, to decide what steps must be taken as regards Observatory.”

Sira arched her scarred eyebrow. “Steps?” she asked in a dry tone. Committee members exchanged glances.

“Certainly,” the Magister replied. “You didn’t think we would let them go unpunished?”

Sira pressed her lips together to keep from smiling at the absurdity of it. She took a moment to choose her words carefully. “I very much doubt you can take any . . . steps . . . regarding Observatory.” It was mildly, even casually spoken, but it was a challenge, and she saw that every member of the Committee realized it at once.

An uncomfortable silence stretched around the long table. Sira felt Jana wriggling nervously beside her.

What is it, Jana?
Sira sent.

Jana answered,
By the Spirit, Sira, this is the Magistral Committee! You must be courteous.

Sira cast Jana a sideways glance, then looked back at Magister Gowan. “Forgive me if I speak bluntly. I am no longer used to formal meetings.”

“Of course, of course. We were thinking, Cantrix—”

“Singer, please.”

Magister Gowan looked blank. “I beg your pardon?”

“I prefer to be addressed as Singer. I have not been a Cantrix for some five years.”

“But surely, now that you are rescued . . .”

Sira did smile this time. “I am not rescued, Magister.”

He was speechless before this remark, and Jana sent again,
Sira, please!

Sira did not answer her old classmate. Instead, she rose and stepped back from the table to look down from her height on the members of the Committee. She found them effete, soft and colorless, insubstantial. Did any one of them know what it was to be hungry, to be ill, to be desperate? They were accustomed to having and wielding power. Through the senior Cantor they worked with Conservatory to control the placement of Cantors and Cantrixes, thereby holding sway over all the Houses. No Magister dared cross the Committee and risk being short of Singers in his Cantoris. Obedience was more important to the Magistral Committee than capable leadership. Sira had seen that much when she was at Bariken, and Rhia, the conspirator, had paid a bitter price for it.

Still standing, Sira addressed the Magister. “It was not necessary, nor was it possible, to rescue me. It is—” She was about to say, “foolish,” but she caught the insulting word before she spoke it. “It is pointless to speak of punishing the Watchers. You could not find them, nor would you have any power over them. Observatory allowed me to leave only because, in the end, I gave them what they wanted. I am glad that I did. I learned a great deal from the experience.”

Sira was not used to speaking aloud at length. She fell silent for a moment, searching for the right words while her audience waited, watching her. She sensed that some were angry, others suspicious. None was surprised. Several kept their minds tightly shielded, and she wondered what trivial secrets they had to protect. She felt the tickle of Cantor Abram’s probe again and flashed him a look. Jana had turned away from her, as if to deny their association.

At last Sira said, “I will not be a Cantrix again, Magister.”

“Cantrix Sira!” Cantor Abram spoke this time, with sharp authority. “The shortage of Singers is more grave than ever. Perhaps you do not know how small the newest Conservatory class is.”

Sira bowed politely to him. “There may be a shortage of Cantors and Cantrixes. But it would be most interesting to know if there is actually a shortage of Singers.”

Cantor Abram frowned. “I do not understand you,” he said crossly.

“The class at Conservatory is small,” Sira went on, “but are there Gifted children who are not being sent to Conservatory?”

“There are itinerants’ children—” Cantor Abram began.

A Committee member put in, “We’re taking steps to make sure they’re sent in the future. Those families withholding Gifted children will suffer severe penalties.”

Sira turned to him, and said flatly, “That would be an error.”

“You don’t know what’s been happening!” the man burst out. The woman next to him put a hand on his arm.

Cantor Abram stood and faced Sira. “It is an error for a junior Cantrix to challenge a member of the Committee! You had better explain yourself.”

Sira nodded, ignoring the use of the title. “Yes, Cantor Abram, I will try.” She would have been much happier to send her explanation than having to express it aloud. But she had put considerable thought into how she would make this speech.

“Two years after my arrival at Observatory, conditions were much improved there, and a Gifted child was born. Before I left, two more children were born who Cantor Theo and I believe are also Gifted, though they were too young to test.” Sira touched her eyebrow with her forefinger, remembering Theo with a chubby babe in his arms, his blond hair falling over the child’s downy head. “You should know that the population of Observatory is very small, no more than half that of the Continent’s smallest House.”

Cantor Abram exclaimed, “With three Gifted children born between summers? That is considerably out of proportion!”

Sira went on. “Like our ironwood trees, which are all part of one great whole, the Gift is part of our whole people. If one of the ironwood trees is destroyed, by a landslide or by being taken by the Glacier, all those connected with it suffer, and some of them die. If an ironwood tree sends out its roots . . .” Sira extended her arm, seeing in her mind the network of thick suckers crossing back and forth above the ground. When the suckers took hold, they grew massive, rock-hard roots that penetrated the tundra over years of slow growth. The itinerants who traveled through the passes were careful of the suckers, knowing how important they were. But how often did any of this Committee travel through the mountains?

“If the ironwood extends its roots, but finds only stone, or ice, the treeling cannot take hold and flourish. So it is, I think, with the Gift.”

She paused, looking around to see if someone, anyone, understood what she was trying to say. Cantor Abram’s eyes were bright. The Committee members frowned and shook their heads at each other.

“If the Gift finds only suffering, isolation, disappointment, it does not flower,” Sira finished. “If the Gift is punished when it shows itself, it will not appear.”

“That makes no sense,” the Magister said. “We don’t punish the Gifted, we honor them. Privileges, special favors for their families, respect . . .”

“Do you think we honor the Gift by taking little children from their parents? By isolating the Gifted from friends, family, colleagues?”

Niel v’Arren stood up, scraping his chair against the floor. “We do our duty!” Sira felt his anger, and something else . . . perhaps some inner doubt he was trying not to admit. “We make our sacrifice for the good of all the people! Do you think it’s easy, giving up a child?”

“How else would we survive, except through the service of our Cantors and Cantrixes?” the Magister asked.

Sira said, “I do not have answers yet. But my years at Observatory taught me many things. The most important was that there is more than one way to train the Gifted, to realize the full potential of a Singer.”

One of the Cantors spoke. “There is only one way to train for the Cantoris, and that is Conservatory’s way. It has been so for a hundred summers.”

Sira dropped her eyes. She had known the resistance she would meet, but even so she felt weary, anxious and alone.

Cantor Abram spoke harshly. “I am sorry, Cantrix Sira, that you feel the way you do. But you are needed. I must insist—”

Sira raised her head swiftly to look into her senior’s eyes, to stop him. She sent,
Please, do not order me. I have no wish to embarrass you.
It was easy to send to him strongly. His mind was wide open. He had been trying from the beginning to find a way into hers.

Cantor Abram closed his mouth, hard. They stared at one another for a long moment.
You do not understand the situation
, he sent.

I believe I do. That is why I am here.

“Cantrix Sira,” Magister Gowan interjected. “What is it you want to do? Is there perhaps some compromise?”

“I am going in search of someone, one Zakri. I met him by chance when I was—” She stopped, the old horror springing up in her. Setting her jaw, she thrust the feeling aside. “When I was junior Cantrix at Bariken,” she finished. “He represents all the problems we are having with the Gift. His mother was an itinerant Singer, and his father refused to send him to Conservatory, although I tried to persuade him.”

“All Gifted children should be sent to Conservatory, without exception.” This statement came from one of the Committee. “We must have control over it.”

“And we must control the itinerants,” someone else muttered.

“Your controls are ineffective,” Sira said. “The Gift is disappearing from the Continent.”

Cantor Abram’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Do you think you alone will find the answers?”

Sira stared at him. If only, she thought, Cantrix Sharn were alive. She at least would have listened, would have thought before she spoke. Sira allowed this thought to be read by Cantor Abram’s constant probing, and she saw his eyes narrow.

“With the help of the Spirit,” she said aloud, “I will at least try.”

She turned to leave the room, but Cantor Abram called out a question. “Who is Cantor Theo? I know of no Cantor by that name.”

Sira stopped in the doorway to answer. “He is Cantor Theo v’Observatory, who was the itinerant Singer Theo.”

“How is that possible?” demanded Cantor Abram.

In this, Sira knew, he had every right to ask. He was senior Cantor at Lamdon, and therefore senior to every Cantor and Cantrix on the Continent.

“Observatory’s need was enormous,” she replied. “I resisted them for more than a year, but they were hungry and freezing. Infants were dying, and their mothers too. In the end, I sang for Observatory. And I trained Theo. Cantor Theo.”

“Your teaching an itinerant Singer a few tricks does not make him a full Cantor!”

Sira bowed deeply to the Senior Cantor, to assure him of her respect for his office. “In this case it does, Cantor Abram. There is nothing any one of us can do that Cantor Theo cannot. He is precious to the Watchers because he makes their House warm and bright, because he gives them hot water for the
ubanyix 
and the
ubanyor
, because they can grow food in their nursery gardens. And he heals their sick, better than most of us do, in truth.” She ignored Abram’s bridling at that remark.

She bowed again, to the room at large. “I am sorry I cannot give what you want me to give. But I am doing what I believe I must.”

She turned swiftly then, and left the room. An uproar of angry and astonished voices followed her as she paced down the hall to the stairs and to her room. She would make ready to depart as quickly as possible. Her welcome at Lamdon, she had no doubt, was worn out.

Chapter Eleven

Sira found the Singer Iban in the kitchens after searching for him in the great room, in the stables, in the halls. She felt eyes on her wherever she went, whispers behind her as she wandered Lamdon’s corridors. She had not been here a full day, yet it seemed everyone in the House knew who she was.

The chattering kitchen Housewomen fell instantly silent when they saw Sira look around the door. She almost did not go in, but one of the women left the counter where she was stirring something in a large bowl, came forward and bowed, wiping her sticky hands on a bit of towel. “May we get you something, Cantrix?”

All other work stopped. In the silence Sira heard the crackling of softwood burning in the huge ovens lining the inner wall, where the warmth could spill into the House and gardens. “Just Singer, please,” she said. She felt awkward, as she so often had at Observatory, uneasy with working Housemen and women. “Singer Sira,” she repeated. “I am looking for the Singer Iban.”

“Please come in, then,” the woman said. “He’s right here.” There was a rustle of movement behind her, the scraping of a chair on the stone floor, and Singer Iban came into view.

He was also wiping his fingers as he bowed. “So I am,” he said, his eyebrows drawing high on his forehead. His gray eyes were almost green in the light cast by the brilliant
quiru
, and he fairly radiated curiosity. “May I help you in some way . . . Singer?” He smiled.

Sira looked behind him, down the long room, and saw a number of people, perhaps a dozen, seated around a plain work table with cups and platters of food before them. Every face turned up to her, alive with curiosity. She took a step back toward the door. “I am sorry to interrupt your—” She could not think what to call the gathering. “Your conversation,” she finally said. “But I would like to speak with you.”

With an easy wave that reminded Sira of Theo, Singer Iban excused himself from the group. “You’re not interrupting much,” he said cheerfully. “Just House gossip and a little Lamdon wine. I’m sure what you have to say will be more interesting!”

He led her down the long corridor to the front of the House, where the doors of the great room and the Cantoris faced each other across the wide central hall. No one was about, and Sira feared the committee meeting was still going on upstairs. As Iban gestured her into the great room, she glanced up the staircase.

He gave her a quizzical glance. “I thought you were meeting with the Committee.”

“So I was,” Sira said shortly. “But I am finished with them.”