Songs of the Earth (41 page)

‘It’s just a talent, Darin.’

‘Yes, yes, so you say. Has Aysha ever said anything about the mantle?’

‘No. It’s like it never happened.’

‘You still have it?’

‘In my closet.’

‘Maybe you should wear it in the refectory one day,’ Darin suggested lightly. ‘Might spice things up a bit. Did you know that half of Chapterhouse thinks you’re her lover?’

The stool crashed down onto all four feet. ‘
What?
’

‘You’re always disappearing to her study for hours at a time. If you don’t talk about that other talent, what else are people going to think?’

Gair’s face began to burn. ‘Darin, she’s one of my teachers!’

‘So? It wouldn’t be the first time the rules have been broken.’

‘I can’t believe you’d even give the idea house-room. It’s absurd.’

‘There’s a saying where I come from that rumours have the wings of eagles and truth can only walk. Give it enough time and everyone here will know the names of your children before you’ve even creased her sheets.’

‘Darin, I’m not her lover, I swear.’

Even as he said it, his conscience reminded him of one or two occasions when he had been precisely that, tireless and tender, in the seclusion of his own head. The memory of those dreams flushed him scarlet. ‘You’re obsessed with sex,’ he said weakly.

‘I can’t help it. Renna won’t let me go below the waist and it’s killing me.’

‘As I recall, Renna has more than enough above the waist to keep your hands full.’

‘She’s got plenty of apples, but I want the whole orchard. I know, I know, the sacred act of union entails a commitment that is not to be undertaken lightly, but chastely, soberly and fiddle-dedee.’ The quotation from the marriage ceremony was delivered in Darin’s idea of a priestly drone. ‘That’s all very well but my stones are turning blue.’

‘I don’t think I need to know that!’

‘You’ve got to tell me what’s happening between you and
Aysha, though. You owe me that much. It’s really just shape-shifting? Nothing else?’

‘Nothing but fresh air and healthy exercise, I promise. And lots of tea and arguing when the weather’s bad. She hates the cold.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Don’t look at me like that, I’m telling you the truth. We fly a lot, or go up into the hills as wolves, that sort of thing. She’s taught me some new shapes, and how to improve a few I hadn’t quite got the trick of, but that’s all.’

‘You know, you never did show me that.’

‘You won’t take my word for it?’

‘I believe you, Gair; I’d just like to see it for myself, if you don’t mind.’

‘Here?’

‘Now’s as good a time as any.’

Gair closed his eyes and reached into himself for the Song. It filled him in an instant. He let the music enfold him, then dipped into it and found the shape of a fire-eagle. The flat surface of the stool made perching difficult and his talons gouged runnels in the varnish, so after a few moments he changed back.

Darin’s eyes were so wide they looked ready to fall out of his head. He swore, colourfully and at some length. ‘I have never, ever,
ever
seen anything like that before! It’s incredible. How long have you been able to do that?’

‘Since I was eleven years old.’

Flopping back against his pillows, Darin shoved his fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘That’s a first for you.’

‘Thank you.’ The Belisthan gave him a sickly smile.

‘You’re welcome.’

Tanith reappeared on silent slippered feet, carrying a cup which she set down on the nightstand. ‘I’m sorry, but I think Darin has perhaps had enough for one day, and he has some medicine to take. Shall I walk you to the door?’

Darin grumbled, but was mollified when Gair promised to visit again the following day, after supper. He left the Belisthan drinking his medicine and pulling faces at the taste and walked with Tanith to the infirmary entrance. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, Aysha was there in his head, clamouring for his attention and demanding to know where he was. He winced; she was shouting.

‘Is there something wrong?’ Tanith asked.

‘Master Aysha.’ He gestured at his head. ‘She wants to know where I’ve been.’

‘The infirmary’s shielded,’ Tanith told him. ‘It has to be; the chatter of hundreds of minds working with the Song at once interferes with our concentration. It’s very distracting, like trying to hear what one person is saying in a crowd. The duty physician is excluded so that messages can be passed back and forth, but I suppose she didn’t know you were here.’ She tipped her head to one side. ‘You could shut her out and only answer if it’s convenient for you.’

‘I don’t know how,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t communicate like that.’

‘Really?’ Tanith gave him another appraising look. ‘You are a strange one. You have come such a long way with your gifts, but you haven’t stumbled across the ability to speak with your mind.’

‘There’re quite a few things I haven’t stumbled across. The Masters are always commenting on how I find the difficult things easy, but haven’t picked up the simple ones.’

‘It happens sometimes, even among my people. We don’t quite know why. It might be something similar to the way some babies learn to speak and walk before others.’

‘My foster-mother used to say I was a slow starter.’

Tanith smiled. ‘There you are, then. It’ll come to you in time. Now you had best be going. I can feel her impatience from here.’

‘Actually, I’m due a tutorial with Master Coran this morning.’

‘Oh!’ Confusion eddied across Tanith’s face, then became a
blush. ‘Well, it’s past Prime, so you’d better hurry. If there’s one thing that irks Coran, it’s lateness. Good day to you.’

With her cheeks as dusky as one of his foster-mother’s roses, she hurried back into the infirmary.

As he walked towards the lecture halls, Gair was uncomfortably certain that she had heard the rumours too. He tugged the cord from his hair, finger-combed it into an approximation of neatness and tied it back again. Mother have mercy on him, he’d thought his shape-shifting was enough to set tongues wagging. Now he had another reason to ensure he stuck to his schedule of tutorials in future, or he’d be keeping Chapterhouse in gossip to the end of his days.

Wrapped in a thick robe, Danilar stood at the window of his lodging and sipped his tea. Morning was his favourite time, and winter mornings especially, with the sky thin and blue as Western Isles crystal and the world holding its breath for the first bird. Into such a hush, he was sure, the Goddess must have spoken the Word that sparked life into Her creation. The new day was always filled with such promise.

Across the quadrangle, a light burned in the Preceptor’s window. Dawn on a winter’s day, and the old man was already up. Or perhaps he had been awake all night. Ansel kept erratic hours these days, drowsing in the afternoons, shuffling through the empty corridors late at night. Hengfors opined that old people often needed less sleep than younger men because they were less active, but he could not stifle the rumours that the Preceptor’s wits were failing.

Tea finished, Danilar donned some warm buskins for the walk down to the Knights’ Chapel. Hoarfrost crisped the few remaining leaves on the shrubs in the quadrangle, and the cold flags of the sanctuary promised another, harder frost to come. Genuflecting deeply before the altar, left palm out in the sign of the Oak, he breathed thanks that the rumours were not true.

In the vestry, he dressed a tray with a plain linen napkin and set out the small silver cup, box and plate for the sacrament, replicas of the larger golden pyx that gleamed on the high altar. He decanted some blessed wine into the cup and laid another napkin over the tray, then carried it out through the side door into the corridor that led towards the Preceptor’s lodging.

As Danilar balanced the tray on one hand to let himself into Ansel’s study, Hengfors stepped out, his scrip over his shoulder.

The heron-faced physician greeted him. ‘He’s taking the sacrament alone?’ Pale eyes stared down his nose at the tray.

‘The chapel is cold. He finds it hard to kneel for long, now. How is he?’

‘His joints are paining him more and more,’ Hengfors said, head dipping on its long neck. ‘I have never seen him look so frail. I will do what I can, of course, but his life is in the hands of the Goddess now.’

‘They are gentle hands, I am sure. If it is time for Her to call Her son home, She will call him softly.’

‘And you will know that best, Danilar, as Her voice on earth.’ Hengfors chuckled. ‘Good day to you.’

‘Good day, Hengfors.’

Danilar nudged the door open with his hip, then pushed it closed behind him with his heel. Finding an uncluttered part of the desk on which to set the tray was difficult. He frowned. The Preceptor had always been a tidy administrator; it was unlike him to leave it like this, with drifts of paper, books lying open, a half-eaten meal abandoned on top of a stack of ledgers.

‘I’m too old to waste my time putting things away,’ said Ansel. He sat in a chair by the hearth, propped up on pillows and with a blanket over his knees. A single candle burned on the mantelpiece, illuminating a book open in his lap but shrouding the rest of the inglenook in shadow. His twisted hands twitched over the pages like spiders.

‘Have you brought the sacrament?’

‘I have, my lord Preceptor.’

‘Well, over here, man, over here!’ The voice was quavery, but the temper was as steely as ever.

Danilar suppressed a smile. He placed the tray carefully on Ansel’s lap, lifted the top napkin and draped it across the thin chest.

Bright eyes glared at him from the pinched, sallow face. ‘Don’t treat me like an invalid, boy! I’m not drooling yet.’

‘Quite. Are you going to be quiet for the blessing, or am I going to have to gag you?’

‘You wouldn’t dare!’

‘Wouldn’t I?’ Calmly Danilar lifted the lid on the silver box and removed a wafer. He held it out and sketched the sign of the Oak in the air with it. ‘You have the good temper of a bear with a broken head, but we all love you very much and I will see to the safety of your immortal soul if I have to tie you down to do it. This is the bounty of the Goddess that She gave us that we Her children would not starve. Open wide.’

He placed the wafer on Ansel’s tongue. The Preceptor pulled a face at the taste of the herbs and salt, but swallowed it. Danilar lifted the cup and made the sign of the Oak again, then offered the wine.

‘This is the bounty of the Goddess that She gave us that we Her children would not thirst.’

Ansel drank with much more relish. He had always had a taste for Tylan red. Eyes closed, he leaned forward slightly so that Danilar could draw the Oak on his forehead.

‘This is the bounty of the Goddess that She gave us that we Her children should not falter. Be at peace in the certainty of Her love. Amen.’

‘Amen.’

Danilar covered the tray with the napkin again and set it on the desk. Then he sat down in the chair across the hearth from Ansel with his feet stretched out to soak up the fire’s warmth. ‘Has there been any news?’ he asked.

‘None. I thought we might have heard by now. Do you still think we have done the right thing?’

‘I am certain of it.’

‘I cannot help but feel I have left too much to chance,’ Ansel said with a sigh. ‘Well, it’s too late now. Too late for everything, except faith.’

‘And hope.’

‘And hope as well, but it’s a precious thin branch on which to hang everything. Precious thin.’ He shook his head. ‘There are so many things that I always wanted to see, Danilar, that now I know I never will.’

‘Such as?’

‘Oh, just fancies, those trivial things that lodge in a man’s heart in the course of his life.’ His expression grew faraway, faded eyes seeing landscapes Danilar could only imagine. ‘Midsummer’s Eve in the Northern Isles, when the sun does not set but hangs in the midnight sky like a lantern. The view from the highest peak in the Archen Mountains. The throne room of the Caliph’s palace in Abu Nidar – did you know the walls are supposed to be a hundred feet high and covered entirely in gold leaf? They say he has a drinking cup hollowed from a single diamond, and a wife for every day of the year.’