Strands of Starlight, page 20
“I'm sorry, Francis,” said Miriam. “That's just the way it happened.”
He blinked, startled, and she realized that it was rude to read his thoughts. Francis covered his discomfiture by squinting at the blade and rapping out an imperfection in the metal with a blow of his hammer. “And wi' the Fair Ones fight for sic as us? Or wi' they hide in tha forest?”
“I'll fight, Francis. Any way I can.”
But when she turned and made her way up the street, she knew that if she fought, it would be because of anger and rage. It would not be because Saint Brigid was her home. She had no home. She stood apart from human beings. As much as the little house of the midwife lay forever out of her reach, so now did the whole of Saint Brigid.
Simon the miller passed her, coughing violently. He was a robust man, but he suffered from weak lungs, and the winter was invariably hard on him. He stumped through the snow on his short legs, but had to stop until the fit passed.
“Simon,” said Miriam. “Do you need help?” She could heal. She no longer thought of denying her power in such instances.
The miller gasped a breath, but he shook his head. “I'll be all right in a moment.”
“I can—”
“I don't want that,” he said quickly.
She saw his thoughts leap forward into a future in which he was answering an inquisitor's questions about his dealings with the Elves. The less that happened, the better. “All right,” she said. “Be at peace, Simon.”
“And you also, mistress.”
He stumped off, drawing his hood up well around his face,
Miriam turned to the stars for comfort. “I am as I am,” she murmured, realizing as she did that she was repeating the words that Varden had uttered. Slowly, inexorably, she found herself accepting what she had fought against for months.
She turned toward Kay's house. Charity was in the kitchen when she opened the door, and the young witch smiled at Miriam. “How wonderful,” Charity said, slicing a large loaf of bread. “I've just come back from the forest, and now I won't have to repeat everything twice.”
“Or risk me muddling everything,” admitted the priest. He tried to put on a jovial face, but his eyes were sad. Mortality hung about him like a tattered cloak.
“There's not a great deal to muddle,” said Charity. “Roxanne is well. She's having a fine time with Varden and his people. We've all been hoping that the baby would come on the solstice, but Talla looked ahead and said that it's more likely he'll be a few days late.” She looked up at Miriam. “Why don't you go out and visit them?”
Miriam was hanging up her cloak. The moon-and-star clasp flashed in the firelight. “I'm not sure I should.”
Charity caught her tone. “You know you're welcome there,” she said gently.
Kay was getting butter and jam out of the pantry. Miriam looked at the clasp. “I . . . I don't know.”
“Miriam?” Kay, too, had heard her grief.
“I'm . . .” The stars had helped her, but they could only soften the loneliness, they could not take it away. “I'm not an Elf,” she said. “I don't belong with them. Roxanne is different, and you're different, too, Charity. I'm not quite elven, and I'm not human either. But . . .”
The priest and the witch were silent.
“But villages and towns are what I know. The future . . .” She recalled the flood of starlight coursing through her future, knew that there was a steady stream of that energy through the present. “I can't see all the futures.” Slowly, she sat down, put her face in her hands.
She felt Charity's arms, heard her voice. “Stay with us, then, Miriam. You're welcome here.”
“But for how much longer?” she whispered. The visions of war and blood whirled in her inner sight. “And how much longer will there be a here to be welcome in?”
***
The snow fell in soft flakes that sparkled in the starlight. Charity and Miriam went hand in hand toward the church. They joined the people of Saint Brigid who came to worship on this frosty Christmas night, their feet crunching through the crust of snow, their cloaks besparkled with glistening flakes. Andrew and Elizabeth were there, and Francis and his family, and Simon and his wife Elanor and their children, and all the others. Women and men, young and old, they came to church for midnight mass.
Inside, the air smelled of incense and pine, and Miriam sensed the presence of birch and mistletoe, the elder absent since the solstice two days before. Padding softly, she went up toward the front with Charity and stood before David's statue.
Though the thoughts of the villagers were overshadowed somewhat by the wonder of Christmas Eve, Miriam heard them nonetheless. If only . . . The Elves are good people, but if only they had not come. If only . . . This was the last Christmas before Aloysius Cranby and the barons would make their move. It could be the last Christmas that Saint Brigid and the Free Towns would ever have.
And Miriam, clad as an Elf, pushed back her hood and let her red-gold hair cascade freely over her shoulders. She stood straight, tall. Terrill's words came back to her: I will not have you slouching like a human.
She had gone beyond self-pity, she had gone beyond grief: the relentless changes that stirred her heart had forced her to accept that these people loved her, each in his or her own way. Even Simon, fearful as he was of the Inquisition, would fight for her, as she would for him. And that knowledge was, if anything, more painful than any rejection, for the townsfolk were, like herself, torn: wanting one thing, wishing fervently for another.
From one side of the chancel, Andrew sang:
”Stella splendens in monte ut solis radium
Miraculis serrato exaudi populum.
Concurrunt universi gaudentes populi
Divites et egeni, grandes et parvuli.
Ipsum ingrediuntur ut cernunt oculi
Et inde revertuntur graciis repleti.”
He was looking at Charity, and his voice swelled with pride, as if he knew that Charity's gaze dwelt upon the statue of the Lady, as if he had decided, long ago, that that was a good thing, worthy of praise.
The final cadence drifted up sweetly, with a touch of an inflection that some who were knowledgeable would call elven, but when Miriam followed Charity's eyes to the statue, she was suddenly rooted.
She had seen the statue only once before, when, months ago, protesting, she had come to the church with Charity to place flowers before it. She had assumed that it was of the Virgin. But it was not the Virgin. As was the case with everything David carved, it was merely burnished and buffed, but Miriam did not need paint or color to tell her that Her eyes were gray, Her hair dark, Her robes of blue and silver. Behind Her, a field of stars went on forever, the vision taking Miriam beyond the wood, beyond the church, beyond the world.
“Elthia,” she whispered, the name coming instinctively to her lips.
Charity turned, her eyes bright. “Do you see?”
In truth, Miriam saw nothing else: not the altar, bright with candles, not the bare cross above it, not the panels that had been uncovered this night, the wood glowing softly and depicting the unfortunate Alban. Philip, Andrew's song, who was serving this Mass, rang a small bell, and Kay entered, vested in white, the light of candle and lamp glistening on the fine threads of gold and silver worked into the ornate embroidery of his chasuble, but Miriam was aware of them only because the Dance held their actions and was altered by them. Only on this particular night, with the incense smoke drifting from the censer in just such a pattern, with Kay clearing a fold in the sleeve of his alb in just such a way, would Philip set the bell down as he now did, the clapper scraping ever so slightly on the stone floor.
But her mind was elsewhere, lost in the Lady, lost in the stars. She felt the sheen about her body quickening, felt her ears burning distinctly enough that she gave a shake of her hair to cover them thoroughly. It was only a statue, she knew, but so great was the spirit behind David's skill that Miriam would not have been surprised had She lifted her hand in blessing upon the people of Saint Brigid.
And when the Mass was over—the Mass she hardly heard—she turned to Charity.
“Did you see, Miriam?” asked the witch.
“I did, Charity.” She heard the whispers still: If only . . . If only . . . But those whispers were faint in comparison to the other voice she heard. Come, it said. Now. Tonight.
She bent and kissed the witch. “I have to go to the forest, Charity. I don't know what I'm supposed to do there, but I have to go. I don't know when I'll be back.”
Without waiting for a reply, she went to the small door that connected the south transept with Kay's house and slipped into the hallway that led to her room.
Kay was still unrobing in the vestry, and it was quiet in the house. Miriam went to her room, wondering if she should take anything with her. For a moment, she picked up the blue cloak that Mika had given her. The garment was absurdly short, but once, months ago, it had fit her perfectly.
She looked down at herself, clad in green and gray, her pale cloak fastened at her throat with an interlaced moon and star. With shaking hands, she hung the small cloak on a peg and left her room, left the house, left the town.
Terrill found her wandering deep in the wood as she searched for something that she did not really know, that she might not recognize even if she found it. Her tears were frozen on her face, and her hands were blue with cold.
For a moment, she looked with unseeing eyes at the Elf. Was this real? Was it potential? What was real? And how much of it was going to be lost as the pattern shifted and choices made many leagues away left the snow spattered with the blood of humans and Elves?
“Terrill . . .”
“Go to Her, beloved.”
“I . . . I can't. I'm not ready.”
“Then come with me.”
She did not know upon what path he led her. Possibly it was the same path she had been traveling ever since she had left the church, maybe ever since she had left her parents' house eight years before. There was, after all, only one path: the one she was on. The rest were merely potential. Maybes. Might-have-beens.
“Where are we going, Terrill?”
“Home,” he said softly.
“I don't have a home.” The forest, dark in lavenders and blues, was a confused tangle of trees. Foxes had holes, and birds had nests, but where could Miriam of Malvern go this cold Christmas night?
“A place like it, then, Mirya. Come.”
For the second time he had called her by that name, and she saw that his eyes were troubled, that, mixed with the starlight, there was grief, and loss.
He took her arm gently. “There is warmth and food there,” he said, “and a place to rest. Please.”
A part of her noted that he had said rest, not sleep, but she said nothing. She saw the many paths that were really only one path, watched the Dance go on and on around her until, as their steps brought them in sight of a cave that plunged into the side of the same hill upon which she had stood with Varden on the Day of Renewal, she heard the crystalline chime of harp strings, heard also, strong and loud, the cry of a newborn child, a glad shout of affirmation amid the bare branches and the white snow.
Chapter Twenty-one
She was not an Elf, but they welcomed her, and she did not hear thoughts of if only from them. The past could not be changed, the future was one of infinite possibilities, and the present was now. That was all that mattered.
And so she was not overly conscious of the passage of days. The moon waxed and waned, the sun rose each day, but that was all. Of weeks, or months, or feast days—mere conveniences of a human-created calendar—she knew nothing. Today was simply today.
And today contained the winter forest, and the sky, and the certain knowledge of the Dance that went on around her. With Terrill she wandered through the trees, and together they looked in on hibernating bears and broke the ice of the river for thirsty foxes. One day she found a lamed rabbit, and without thinking, she healed it, the power flowing effortlessly.
It was pleasure. It was very good. And as the days went on, cold and white, the cave warm and filled with firelight and with the presence of the Elves, Miriam allowed herself a luxury that had been denied her for many years: time to forget, time to give up struggles, time to lay aside burdens—for a little while.
Roxanne nursed her baby. Natil played her harp. Talla danced in intricate variations that complemented the shimmering arpeggios of Natil's music, variations that she recognized as being akin to the movements she herself knew.
And when, on an evening in that prolonged present into which she had entered, Talla took her by the hand and led her through the subtle twinings of a dance, Miriam moved with an instinctive knowledge of the steps, as though everything the Elves did—dancing, fighting, breathing, living—reflected the changing patterns around them, the patterns they called the Dance, the Dance that was the Lady.
The old, human clumsiness fell from Miriam's feet, and the shimmer about her quickened again. Talla's dance flowed into the Greater Dance, and Miriam wondered where one left off and the other began. Were her movements really altering the course of worlds? Of stars? How was it that this little healer had come to enter into the workings of the universe?
When they finished, Talla hugged her and murmured into her ear: “Ele, Miryai. Elea.”
That name again, and with the added inflection that Miriam had come to recognize as an endearment. But she looked over Talla's shoulder and saw Terrill standing by the entrance to the cave. His arms were folded, and in his eyes was such a look of grief that she was stricken. Terrill was more than her teacher. He had, in spite of his demanding methods, become her friend, and the knowledge of such sorrow in him made her want to comfort.
“Terrill,” she said, but the Elf was already gone, the flap of the door falling shut behind him.
She ran across the dry sand to the door, peered out into the winter landscape. “Terrill!” Her throat ached, as though she remembered another parting, a long and grievous one, one she could not name, one that remained only dim bleakness in the back of her mind.
She slumped by the fire, her head bent. Natil came to sit beside her. “I have tried,” said the harper. “There are some wounds too deep to heal quickly.”
“What happened?”
“I may not speak of it.”
Before, Miriam's temper would have flared, and she would have pressed her question. Not so now. She did not speak for a time. Then: “Is it in the Dance?”
The harper smiled slightly. The firelight caught the silver in her hair. “Everything is in the Dance,” she said. She took a soft cloth and wiped the strings of her instrument.
“Then I could go back and see what happened.”
“You could,” said Natil. “But if Terrill is unwilling to speak of it, then have you the right to go and look?”
Miriam watched the flames. “Compassion.”
“It is so. Compassion.”
For the first time since she had come to this quiet cave, she thought of the many futures that held bloodshed and battle for the Free Towns. Did Aloysius Cranby think of compassion? Did Roger of Aurverelle? Her memory flashed—the Chateau, the Inquisition, the dull throbbing of now vanished wounds. “What good is compassion against an uplifted sword?” she said.
“That can only be answered in the Dance.”
“I've looked into the futures, Natil. I can't make any sense out of them.”
“Not just the futures, Miriam. The Dance as a whole. Past, present, futures.”
Miriam sought to comprehend her words, but if her feet had gained the lightness of the Elves, her mind had not. “It just seems futile, somehow. I must be too human. I can't find any peace in your words.”
Natil was still calm. “It takes time. There is time.”
Miriam grimaced. Everything was just out of her reach. “No,” she said, “there isn't time. Not for Kay, or Charity, or any of the others. Not for the thousand little things that make up Saint Brigid. There just isn't time.”
Natil's blue eyes regarded Miriam quietly. There was a peace about the harper that was greater than that of the rest of her people, and when she played, her music spoke of that peace eloquently. “Everything that happens,” she said, “happens exactly as it should, because that is the way it happens. We sit beside this fire. That is good. Not because it was foreordained, not because we choose to, but because we are here. That is all. Terrill sorrows. In itself that is not good, but in the Dance as a whole, in all its futures, can you not see that it might be for the best?”
Miriam felt the old anger stirring, dark embers starting suddenly into ruddy life. “And I was raped, Natil. Was that for the best?”
Natil did not flinch. “In the end,” she said calmly.
“I don't accept that. Everything only comes out well in the end if there's enough time before the end.”
“There is time.”
“There isn't,” Miriam insisted. What day was this? How long had she been here? “Not for me. Not for Saint Brigid. Not for the Free Towns.”
Natil nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“But you don't agree.”
“I do not.”
Miriam passed her hands over her face. “I think,” she said softly, “that it's time for me to go back to the town. I came out here for something. I'm still not quite sure what it was, but I think I found it. At least I found as much of it as I can hold right now. I'll be back, though.” Natil was smiling fondly at her. “If I'm still welcome.”
“There are always returns,” said the harper. “To leave is to return. To return is to be welcome.” She leaned forward and kissed her. “Be at peace.”
Miriam stood up. Suddenly she asked: “What does Mirya mean?”
“It is our word for the sudden blooming of a flower,” said Natil. “There is a star we call that. And . . .” Her sight seemed to be elsewhere for a moment. “And someone we knew once . . .”
The sky was clear above Hypprux, but the sun gave no warmth. That quality might have been systematically removed from the pale disk that each morning slid above the plains to the east. There was light, and that was about all that could be said.
