The Silver Branch, page 15
part #3 of The Tales of Aeron Series
As they halted in the faha before the gate, Aeron could not take her eyes from the face of the Magistra. Although she knew that Kesten was of an age almost to be her great-grandmother, Aeron saw that the face beneath the silver fillet and black wimple was ageless. No maiden’s cheek could be fresher, yet the dark eyes that were watching Aeron so steadily from out of that unlined countenance seemed to have looked upon not a mere hundred years and threescore, but millennia.
Beyond Kesten’s shoulder, there seemed to be someone else in the darkness under the arch, someone Aeron could not see clearly; indeed scarce could see at all, for whoever stood there had chosen to veil herself in the ceo-draoichta, the druids’ fog, as well as in mundane shadow. Still—
Unthinkingly Aeron put forth that new power which of late had been making itself felt more and more. Untried it was and chancy, and by no means reliable—that was why she was come here, to learn to be its master, so that it would no longer be hers—but all at once she felt it leap out strong and sure, like a questing glance or a reaching arm. And under the momentary touch of that sureness and strength, as under a strong light or blaze of the sun, the ceo-draoichta shimmered and faded, enough to let Aeron see the woman who had masked herself with its magic.
An instant only: a quick impression of a tall figure, a smiling face, surprised and approving. Then the ceo-draoichta swirled round again, easily as a cloak might be drawn and wrapped close, and the woman was gone; and Aeron slid from her saddle to greet her new teachers.
•
Later that day, alone in her newly assigned chamber—Keina had returned to Tara, after a long private conversation with the Magistra and a last loving interview with her niece—Aeron sat staring at the stone-flagged floor.
This was the first time in all her life that she had been truly left to her own resources. Though she had been fostered away from home since the age of five, those to whom she had been entrusted had still been family—intimate friends to her parents, known to her almost since birth—and so the strangeness there had been nearly nil. But here at Scartanore there would be neither kin nor friend to sustain her; Fionnbarr had so decreed, and on that point he had been adamant—with Keina and Gwyneira to back him when Emer had protested.
Already she missed them all: Morwen, Ari, her brothers and sisters and cousins. Well then, if I am not to be allowed old friends, I shall make shift to find myself some new ones… She laughed suddenly, remembering: When Morwen had learned that Aeron was to be sent to Scartanore, she had tried every tune she could think of to get her own parents to send her too. She had been very persuasive; but the broken reed to that pipe was that Morwen had less aptitude for magic than perhaps anyone ever born into Clann Douglas in all the years of Keltia. So for all her eloquent pleadings, Faolan and Mared had not been swayed and she had not been sent. But that same eloquence, ironically enough—or perhaps not, if one factored dán into it, and one was generally unwise not to—had managed only to get Morwen admitted as novice to the Hill of Laws, the brehon school on Arvor in the Brytaned system, where she had been student for two years now, and where she would remain for four more.
She complains of it bitterly, I know, but I also know she loves it, thought Aeron with a smile for the memory of her friend’s lamentings. It is as suited to her mind and talents as I hope this place will be to mine; and it will be an excellent thing for us both later on, when I am Ard-rían and shall have need of a brehon-trained advisor who is also a longtime friend. All the same, for now it is hard to be apart, and it does not make me glad…
Aeron looked up as the door opened, and Arianeira entered the room. So stunned was Aeron to see her there that for a moment she believed the newcomer to be no creature of flesh and blood, but that she herself had for the second time that day tapped unthinkingly into unthought powers—and untaught powers—and conjured up a taish…
“Ari? Ari, is it you?”
Arianeira laughed and came forward to take Aeron by the hands and kiss her cheek.
“Well, who else, to give fitting welcome to my fostern on her coming to Scartanore?—Nay, Aeron, it is I, truly! Why do you look so confounded?”
“For that I am! My father told me most pointedly that I should have here for my comfort no one known to me; and now, apart from the Magistra Kesten’s, and—and another’s, yours is the first face I see.”
Arianeira slipped her arm through Aeron’s—a gesture not habitual with her, though the younger girl was grateful for the touch, and had no thought of the calculation behind it—and drew her out into the corridor, down a wide stone staircase to the convent’s Great Hall.
“Your father may be Ard-rígh, but here Kesten Magistra is the only sovereign; she it was who summoned me here from Errigal, where I had been serving my prenticeship to the Abbess Roewyn. I do not know what put it into her mind to call for me, but I am very glad she did! To come to Scartanore is a thing every Ban-draoi hopes for herself, and not all are so invited. Oh, surely I was glad too for that I knew you would be here, and no doubt that is why the Magistra did summon me… You know I did not take my own training here, but at Marazanvos on Kernow; a worthy school, though scarcely Scartanore.”
All this was news indeed to Aeron, who wondered briefly for whose true benefit Arianeira had been summoned: Aeron’s or Ari’s own. But they had come by then to the Great Hall, where the nightmeal was awaiting them, and merging into the stream of others, clad for the most part like Aeron herself in the plain dark gray of learners, they went in at the students’ entrance.
•
So did Aeron’s schooling in magic begin, there at the Thicket of Gold. She was taught first of all how to learn, and for that she had to unlearn much that she had thought she knew, before the true teaching could begin; and even then for much of the time she would teach herself.
Then the spells began, all manner of spells: the little spells, for souring milk and sweetening butter, for curing and for cursing; the spell of the Spancel, and the words to break its bands; the spell to lift the faery-stroke, the one given by the queen of the liss and the worse one dealt by the Fool of the Forth; the spell of the corp-creidh and that of the glas-ghairm; spells to raise a bridge from a hair of the head, a brier-hedge from a comb; to raise an iron-fence from a hair-pin or a wave from the contents of a flask.
And then the greater spells, the spells to bless or to blast, to send or to bind. Spells too there were that none should teach, and that none should ever seek to learn. But since to forbid knowledge was contrary to wisdom, there was no bar even to these, for a determined student to get the mastery… and some did.
But most of this learning lay yet in the future. For now, Aeron was still a novice, however talented, at present struggling to prove herself in the eyes of her teachers; struggling likewise to prove herself to her own classmates, that she was here by merit and not for her royal blood. Too, as she met and mastered one lesson after another, she had to prove that she was no togmall, no pet lamb or glozer to curry favor with the preceptresses; for these her classmates were after all scarce out of childhood, even as Aeron herself, with all childhood’s uncertainties still strong in them as in her, and there was bound to be envy: envy of her brilliance in her studies, as well as envy of that rank they affected to disdain.
So for all her resolve, Aeron made no new friend for some months. It seemed that all those with whom she would be friends had each of them some cause for turning that friendship aside: Either they were students more advanced than she in their training, and had neither time nor inclination to befriend a novice; or they had sufficient of friends and wished for no more; or they were simply fearful or resentful of Aeron herself—of that aura of power already around her which was growing daily more pronounced, or of her royal rank, though she never flaunted it or even spoke of it, or, more likely, of the sharp tongue she was coming of force to depend upon for her chief and instinctive defense.
Whatever, as the weeks passed Aeron found herself increasingly alone, save for Arianeira; but even Ari could not always spare time for Aeron from her own studies and duties, and indeed was not always inclined to do so. And however much Aeron tried to console herself with the thought that “alone” was a useful and necessary thing for Keltia’s next Ard-rían to learn well, for a girl not yet fourteen it was hard and harsh, the coldest of comfort, and it had brought her more than once to tears.
Matters arranged themselves, though, one afternoon of late summer. True it was that Aeron, to cheer herself up, had been showing off just a little; true also that she had been called upon it by another novice: one Duvessa, dark-haired, sallow-skinned, short and stocky and—or so at least went the general opinion—not overly talented. But if she was not gifted much beyond the common run in magic, Duvessa Cantelon had a kind of mean perception that could pierce her victims’ defenses, to wound where wounding would pain the sorest and surest, and this she now employed to insult Aeron to her face, and a small crowd quickly gathered to enjoy it.
Any other time Aeron would have given back as good as she was getting, or better, for in these months out of her need her tongue had grown sharp and facile. But all at once the freight of those months came down hard upon her, all the loneliness and petty snubbings and nameless sorrows, all the pinpricks that had festered like bitterthorns, all the woes that weigh so heavy at such an age, and it seemed to her more than she could bear even to listen to her tormentor, much less to strike back. So though she flushed under Duvessa’s words, she spoke none to defend herself, and she was turning away to hide her unhappiness when out of nowhere she found herself possessed of a champion.
Aeron had noticed before today the girl who now spoke out—a young Erinnachín, with brown-gold hair and warm brown eyes, a novice like herself; had noticed her to be both talented and industrious, not one to court favor or friendship, but to be her own woman only, holding herself apart from the petty factions and rivalries that were rife among so many of her fellows.
Indeed, she had seemed as much a lone-walker as Aeron herself, though perhaps for rather different reasons, and so it was with surprise redoubled that Aeron heard her now stand out in Aeron’s defense against Duvessa, with a tongue that dripped poisoned honey, so smooth and artful that though Duvessa could take no exception to the words she could not but at the same time take their sting.
Nor did the others miss the wasp in those words: Swift and heartless to change sides to the stronger, they were laughing openly now at Aeron’s discomfited attacker, and soon dispersed, Duvessa among them in a fury, until only Aeron and the brown-haired girl remained in the courtyard by the fountain.
Aeron turned to the stranger with gratitude in her eyes, and a certain diffidence also. “My thanks, mistress,” she said then. “That was nicely done of you, though no doubt they will now accuse you of coming to my defense merely to court my favor.”
The other shrugged, though plainly pleased at Aeron’s words. “Small care to me; that pack of snipelings concerns me not at all, and still less should they matter to you.” A grin flashed then, merry and malicious. “And as for that muck-mouthed little streppoch Cantelon, I’ll pin her ears back for her in earnest if she tries that again any time soon… But it is no matter for praise, Tanista; anyone with any decent upbringing would have done the same, no matter if the victim were princess or pig-girl.”
“Then those others here just now can have had no decent upbringing, for they did nothing where you did much—and risked much.”
“I risked naught but their contempt! That is less than naught.”
“I say otherwise,” persisted Aeron, for it was suddenly important to her that this girl should accept her words and her thanks. “And I say too that I hope we may come to be friends, you and I, for I should dearly like a friend such as you in this place—or in any other place.”
Her companion looked astonished, as indeed she was. “The heir of Keltia must be neck-deep in friends and would-be friends, and surely would not need to ask for comradeship.”
Aeron gave her a strange smile. “If everyone thinks so, then small wonder the heir of Keltia has no friend to her side; but such a friend as you have just proved yourself is never easily come by, for pig-girl or princess. Maybe more easily for a pig-girl than for a princess… And any road, I am not ‘Tanista’ to those friends but ‘Aeron’.”
Each of them felt the spark of friendship born in that moment, and each of them put away their defenses between them forever.
“Sabia ní Dálaigh,” said the brown-haired girl, holding out both hands, and Aeron eagerly clasped arms with her in the traditional gesture. “My family are horse-breeders, we have a farm on the Timpaun—”
As they walked away together, deep in talk, high above them in the south tower Kesten Hannivec let fall the curtain across the window from which she had been watching, and smiled with satisfaction.
Chapter 13
Though there was peace and to spare at Scartanore, Aeron soon found that she had need of more, or other; and in the first months of her residence at the school she had taken advantage of every spare moment to ride out into the hills and woods surrounding: with Sabia, once their friendship began, or with Ari on rarer occasions, but generally alone, and generally in unsettled frame of mind. It seemed to her that she sought something, though she had no smallest idea of what, or of where she might go to find it. But for all her seeking, it was not until the next spring that she found Lundavra, and Tybie, and the white stone llan beside the Roaringwater.
•
She had ridden out that morning in what felt to be a mood more evil than any she had ever known. There was no reason for it either bad or good: Her studies had been going well as ever; she had had no quarrel with friend or enemy; no preceptress had reprimanded her with or without cause—the day itself was surpassing fine, cool and sunny, with high white clouds and a strong wind, the kind of day she best loved.
But her life’s present brightness seemed only to make her mood the blacker, and when all at once, after half a morning’s ride, she came over the breast of a ridge and looked down into the broad valley of the Roaringwater, Aeron was near as weary and fretful as her horse, and just as happy to halt.
She had never come that way before. For the past hour they had been crossing a region of upland valleys, wide and lonely, lying across their path like folds pinched into the green fabric of the land, even and regular as waves in a rising sea; and in all those miles she had seen no more than a scant handful of farmsteads, or even the maenors of gentry, and in her dark mood she had taken care to pass by them at a distance.
But now as she looked along the valley’s length, her gaze fell upon a white stone structure on the near slope, no more than a mile or so distant. It was a llan, a retreat-house for some religious—Druid or Ban-draoi or Dragon Kin—who had chosen to live a life apart from what most of the rest of Keltia would call living. Built into the side of the hill, beside a leaping waterfall that helped to swell the infant Roaringwater, the llan was sheltered by ancient elms and beeches whose leaves were just now turning spring’s bright shouting green. Peace lay upon that place like a visible veil, and the water that foamed and fell only yards away from the white walls, though distant as she was Aeron could not yet hear its music, seemed only to underscore that peace with its very chatter.
And as she looked upon the llan, Aeron felt her black mood lift and take wing, and in its place came a sudden desperate need to speak with someone—with that someone, with that very one who lived in that llan and no other, to learn who it was that dwelt in so lonely a place, and whyfor, and since what time, and did that someone have aught to say to her.
So it was with a sense of some vast unposed question about to be answered that Aeron touched her horse’s neck; and the tired beast, sensing her goal, and food and rest for itself, carried her gladly over the lip of the hill.
•
No sooner had she slipped from her saddle, to stand in the grassy faha before the llan’s gated walls, than the dark weathered wooden door in that high wall swung open.
Turning her head at the sound, Aeron saw a woman in gray, a Ban-draoi plainly, of great age and greater serenity. Her immediate thought was of Kesten, though the two women did not physically resemble each other in the slightest: Kesten’s face was cool and chiselled, a scholar’s face, and this face was strong and square, broad of brow and cheekbone, with the complexion of one who spent much time out of doors. But there was the same bearing, the same smile, and above all the same light in the eyes… She caught herself staring; it seemed somehow—though she knew it was not possible, never would she have forgotten such a face as this—that she had seen this woman before, and her puzzlement showed.
The woman’s smile warmed, as if she knew perfectly well the girl’s thought and understood her puzzlement; as perhaps she did. She stood aside now, holding open the gate in the wall, and gestured Aeron to enter.
“Come in, Aeron,” said Tybie Vedryns ferch Eilir. “I have been expecting you; you must be near famished by now, and your horse as well.”
If the face had not been so friendly, or so strangely, maddeningly familiar, or the eyes less warm or less plainly perceptive, Aeron might well have been alarmed, to hear her name spoken so; might have had thoughts of old tales, that told how the folk of the dúns, the Shining Ones, were wont to lure unwary mortals into their hollow hills, with smiles and fair speech and the promise of refreshment and rest.
But as it was, she felt welcomed, as if her spirit knew better than her mind, as if she were no stranger here but had been a guest in this place many times before, and would be again.
With sudden decision, Aeron untacked her horse to allow him to graze in comfort, saw that there was water for him near at hand, in a little pool continually replenished by the waterfall itself, and, murmuring the ritual formula courtesy and custom demanded of one on entering another’s home for the first time, went in at the wooden gate.
