The Singers of Nevya (44 page)

Their two
filhata
sounded in tune, Ovan’s
Aiodu
melody properly supported by her plucked harmony. Isbel instinctively smoothed the vibrato of her voice to try to blend with Ovan’s dry tone. Still, the warmth that swelled from the dais came in a sluggish wave that Isbel knew would disappoint Sira. She closed her eyes, trying to urge her psi to a more effective intensity. She remembered how to do it, how it felt when it spun properly out and away, exciting the air around her into warmth. But somehow the harder she tried, the worse it was.

Quirunha
were well attended at Amric, with Magister Edrus and Housekeeper Cael setting a daily example for all their House. Today, Sira and the Singer Iban also sat on the benches, listening, concentrating with the Cantors. Isbel felt a stab of panic. She would fail, Magister Edrus would suspect something was wrong. What would they do to her when they found out?

Her next breath, taken through the tension of her fear, was shallow and trembling, almost useless. Her voice faltered, and, to her horror, she missed a fingering, and played a discordant harmony. For one terrible moment she could not think what to play next, what note to sing. The progression made no sense. She feared she might burst into helpless tears right there on the dais, in front of her senior, her Magister, and Sira.

At that moment she felt the firm undercurrent of Sira’s psi slip beneath hers, as if her friend had put out her hand to lift her up. Her own psi strengthened, freshened, swelled the
quiru
in the old manner. Her voice steadied, and her fingers found their place again. There was no time to wonder if Ovan would know, if he would detect that extra psi. The light radiated from the dais, glowing with gratifying strength and swiftness. Ovan’s satisfaction and Sira’s reassurance mingled with Isbel’s relief. Ovan brought the music to an awkwardly prepared cadence, and Isbel’s fingers trembled with strain as she lifted them from the strings.

She could pick out Sira’s deep voice from the others as they chanted the ending prayer:

S
MILE ON US,

O
S
PIRIT OF
S
TARS,

S
END US THE SUMMER TO WARM THE WORLD,

U
NTIL THE SUNS WILL SHINE ALWAYS TOGETHER.

Kai’s voice was there, too. He had returned from his hunt last night, very late. Although Isbel had not spoken with him, she felt his presence in the House as some deep, sweet music played far away. She dared not think of him now, not with Sira here, not with Cantor Ovan still so open. She dared not listen for the timbre of his voice as it blended with the others. She bowed to the assembly and stepped down from the dais, her eyes averted. She did not know how she would explain why Sira had been obliged to help her. How would she excuse her weakness?

There was no time for discussion at the moment. She and Sira, along with Ovan, were swept along with the House members into the great room for the mid-day meal. They sat at the center table with Magister Edrus and his mate, the Housekeeper and various other residents of the upper floors. Sira tried to turn away, to join Iban at one of the lower tables, but Cael bowed and held a chair for her, and she had to accept out of courtesy.

When the meal began, and conversation rose around the room, Cantor Ovan fixed his black eyes on Sira.
Cantrix Sira. Are you on your way to Conservatory now you are back? To receive another assignment?

The sharp angles of Sira’s face revealed nothing.
No.

Ovan’s eyes narrowed.
Are you ill? In need of rest or healing?

Isbel wanted to intercede for her friend, to speak up, but her shame and fear made her afraid to open her mind. Sira’s gaze moved to her, her eyes widening in the old way that meant she was open, ready to listen. Isbel closed her own eyes, as if to say, I cannot. Sira hesitated a moment, then looked back to Ovan.

This was a new Sira. As a student, she had been impatient, candid, blunt to the point of tactlessness. But today, she was protecting her friend. Isbel wished she could send her gratitude.

I am not ill,
Sira sent to Ovan. Her eyes were almost as dark as his, but they did not glitter as his did. Their light was warm and steady. She could still be blunt, though. The tone of her sending was unyielding.
I am apprentice to the Singer Iban, sitting there by the window. That is the work I will do.

Ovan shook his head.
You are turning your back on the people who need you.
When Sira forebore to answer this, his face darkened.
Conservatory will be ashamed. Do they no longer teach loyalty and service there?
Again Sira sat in silence, making good work of her meal in the ready way of travelers.

Isbel toyed with the spoon beside her plate, but the spicy stewed meat that was Amric’s pride had no appeal today. The three Singers sat in chilly silence as the talk of the unGifted swirled around them and Isbel’s meal grew cold. At the end, they parted without courtesy.

Isbel drew Sira toward her own room with a hand under her arm.
You are being kind to me. I thank you.

Sira pressed Isbel’s hand against her side.
There is little enough kindness in your Cantoris. And I have learned from Theo that there are reasons for everything.

Isbel smiled, remembering Theo and his teasing.
I am so glad you are friends, you two
, she sent. She held a picture of Theo’s merry grin in her mind so they could share the memory.

Sira was preoccupied as they went into Isbel’s spacious apartment. She sat down at a table strewn with oddments, and one by one she picked them up: brushes, a little packet of thick paper from Clare, the small framed leather panel. Isbel sat on her bed. She pulled the binding from her hair and shook it free, combing it with her fingers. She wondered how she could explain to Sira, and how Sira could understand, even now.

Sira sent,
Theo and I are more than friends.

Isbel tensed, letting the long strands of her hair hide her face. Had Sira guessed?

But Theo and I
. . . Sira paused delicately, and Isbel felt her eyes upon her.
We do not mate. We do nothing to compromise the Gift. But we do . . . love. He is with me in all things.

Isbel’s eyes stung, and her lip trembled like a child’s.
Sira
, she sent miserably.
I have been so lonely. I have no one here.
She did not want to tell her friend of her wekaness, of the temptation that distracted her so that her psi was impaired. She longed for the two of them to be back at Conservatory, sharing the innocent secrets of their student days, with nothing to worry about but modulations and fingerings and phrasings.

Sira put her strong hand on Isbel’s knee, and Isbel pushed back her hair and looked up through a blur of tears.
I am sorry, Isbel,
Sira sent.
I know what it is to be lonely.

Isbel understood then that Sira would neither scold her nor press her for explanations. Sira’s understanding brought even more tears. Isbel dropped her face in her hands and sobbed while her friend, her dear friend, only sat by her, steady in her support and affection.

Isbel swore to herself she would get control of the situation, that the lapse in this morning’s
quirunha
would never happen again. When her tears were dried, she and Sira would bathe, and it would be as if nothing had happened, nothing had gone wrong. It would be as it had been at Conservatory, when Isbel was the understanding one, protecting Sira from the barbs and jibes of jealous classmates. Sira was back, and for the moment, at least, Isbel need not be lonely.

The second day of her stay at Amric, Sira was relieved that Isbel managed the
quirunha
without her help. She knew something was very wrong, just the same. Even in the openness of their sending, some small part of Isbel’s mind was closed away, hidden from her. There was more, too, some flaw in Ovan’s Gift that made the
quirunha
drag. It was not only that the music was indifferent. Had Ovan been strong enough, Isbel could have overcome her difficulties. There was too much pressure on her Gift, straining it to the breaking point. Ovan was concealing something, too.

But today, Isbel flashed her dimples as they shared the morning meal. The night before she had told a story, a colorful tale about a
tkir
brought down by Amric hunters. The hunters were three brothers, she said, and their family apartment boasted the only
tkir
hide in the House, a huge tawny thing that they walked on each day, sometimes feeling its layered fur against their bare feet. It had been good to hear one of Isbel’s stories again.

As they rose from the table after their meal, Iban approached, bowing politely to them both. “May I speak to you, Cantrix Sira?”

“Singer,” she corrected.

His eyebrows danced. “Singer. But everyone treats you as a Cantrix, you know. You sit at the center table, you’re in a Cantrix’s company . . .” He bowed again in Isbel’s direction.

“In other words,” Isbel said, with another twinkle of dimples in her rosy cheeks, “you act like a Cantrix, Sira!”

Sira smiled, happy to see Isbel joking after her misery of the day before.

“It is like one of Theo’s sayings,” Isbel went on. “‘If it has neither arms nor legs, and breathes only water, you may as well call it a fish.’” Sira and Iban laughed, and a pretty color rose in Isbel’s cheeks. People passing them on their way out of the great room smiled at the sight of their junior Cantrix laughing with her friends.

“Now, Theo–there is a true Cantor,” Sira told them. “He sings in a Cantoris and he serves a House. I do neither thing.”

Iban chuckled. “Perhaps I should call you apprentice, then. As I’m now your master.”

Sira bowed, assenting. He went on, “I’ve had word of Zakri, the one you’re looking for. It was Zakri v’Perl, wasn’t it?”

“His father was from Perl.”

“Your Zakri’s now at Tarus, on the Frozen Sea,” Iban said. “A traveling party just arrived from there, and their
hruss
were cared for by one Zakri v’Tarus.”

“Not Singer Zakri?” Sira asked, frowning.

Iban shook his head. “They were definite about that. He’s a stableman at Tarus, and a very strange Houseman they said he is.”

“I am afraid he is more than strange,” Isbel said. “He is dangerous. Why are you seeking him, Sira?”

“I met Zakri when he was quite young, no more than three summers. His mother was an itinerant who died. He wanted to go to Conservatory, I am sure of it, but his father refused. We argued about it, his father and I.”

Iban added, “The riders from Tarus say he doesn’t like people a bit. Spends all his time with
hruss
.”

“
Hruss
have no emotions,” Sira said.

“His Gift is out of control,” Isbel warned. “I am not sure you can help him, Sira. You must be careful!”

Sira nodded, and touched Isbel’s hand. To Iban she said, in a voice of command, “We must go to Tarus. As soon as possible.”

Iban’s eyebrows lifted. He said to Isbel, “You see how the apprentice orders the master!”

Isbel giggled, and Sira was abashed. “I am sorry, Singer Iban. I forgot.”

Iban only grinned at her, and Sira smiled at the two of them, touched by the easy way they teased her. Friendship was a precious thing.

Isbel sent,
Must you leave so soon?

Soon enough,
Sira responded.
I will leave it to my master. I will come back, though. I promise.

They went out of the great room together. They did not notice the young Housewoman with her curly-headed daughter in her lap, huddled in the window seat. But Trisa, five years old, murmured to her mother, “I could hear them, Mama, most of it anyway. It was about a Singer, a boy who didn’t go to Conservatory. He had the Gift, too. If he didn’t go, why do I have to?”

Chapter Thirteen

In the Cantoris early the next morning, Sira sat far from the dais, and neither Isbel nor Ovan appeared to notice her when they came in. Isbel stood to one side, her head bowed, waiting for Ovan to step up on the dais before she took her own seat. There were only two House members waiting for them. In summer, illnesses seemed to be fewer, as if no one wanted to waste the precious weeks of warmth by lying in bed. Sira remembered dealing mostly with bruises and scratches, as the children ran and played out of doors with an abandon not possible in other seasons. Sometimes they tripped over rocks or ironwood suckers, and, squalling with surprise and indignation, had to be picked up and carried indoors by their parents.

Still, the man who sagged in a chair before the dais was very ill. His eyes drooped, and he had to be supported by his mate, who bent over him to mop his sweaty forehead with a bit of cloth.

Ovan waved a languid hand at his junior. Isbel nodded obediently, and brought her
filla
to her lips, closing her eyes. Ovan folded his arms and watched her, his eyes widening slightly as he opened his mind to follow.

Sira had not been invited to join with the two Cantors. Custom demanded that she leave them to their work, but she cared nothing for that. She followed Isbel, too, but at a careful distance. Her eyes closed to shut out all distractions. She rested her elbow on the back of the bench, and her chin on her hand. To anyone else, it might have looked as if she were dozing, a tall, lean itinerant lounging in the back of the Cantoris. In truth, it required all her concentration to follow someone else’s psi at a distance without the aid of music and without being detected.

Isbel played a traditional
Aiodu
melody often used for examinations. It was a tentative sound at first, the theme stretched into long, slow notes, sounded one at a time, with a breath after each one, as if the player was not sure what pitch came next. Bit by bit, as Isel’s psi brushed the sick man’s mind, the melodic line grew stronger. Her breaths were steadier, and the notes she played more decisive. Her psi was set free to search out the source of the illness.

Sira had to discipline herself not to pull back as Isbel slipped more deeply into the sick man’s mind. It was not pleasant to feel his pain and nausea, but she had learned from Theo that a Singer must experience the illness to understand it. She must know where it hurt and how much. She must accept the sour taste in the mouth, the agony in the stomach, the burning in the blood. All of this was difficult for Sira.