Mage of Clouds (The Cloudmages #2), page 11
Thady shook his head. “No, Máister,” he began, but Siúr Meagher cleared her throat. Thady glanced at her, startled; Siúr Meagher lifted her right hand, a forefinger raised warningly. Meriel heard Thady sigh. “I really don’t know,” he said, staring at the Siúr. “But the rumor among the acolytes is that Siúr Meagher has a truth-stone, that it can tell her when someone’s lying. Evidently,” he added, his gaze going back to Máister Kirwan, “that’s more than a rumor.”
“Indeed it is,” Máister Kirwan answered. “Frankly, Siúr Meagher might possess a clochmion, but she holds a power that some holders of a Cloch Mór might wish they had. The two of you will bear that in mind as you answer me. Now ...” Maister Kirwan leaned back in his chair. “Thady MacCoughlin, exactly how did you come to be outside the keep before First Bell?”
Thady glanced again at Siúr Meagher before answering. “I woke up to use the chamber pot,” he answered. “Kharidi, my roommate, well, he was snoring, and once I woke up I couldn’t get back to sleep ...” He stopped; Meriel saw tiny muscles tug at the corners of Siúr Meagher’s lips and wondered what the woman heard in Thady’s comments. “Our room is close to the Hall of the Low Tower. I heard the door to the Women’s Wing open. I thought I might see who else was up, so I went to see.”
“And?”
Thady’s eyes flicked toward Meriel. “It was her.”
“And what did you do then?”
Meriel could see a blush rising up Thady’s neck as a corresponding irritation welled inside her. Thady’s tale certainly didn’t match what he’d told her down on the beach. “I thought I might follow Meriel and see where she was going, so I went back to my room, dressed quietly, and followed.”
Meriel turned to Thady, feeling the heat rising to her cheeks again. “You sneak! You told me you were just ‘wandering around’ and heard the seals,” she retorted, not caring that she was interrupting Máister Kirwan. Acting like your mam’s daughter ... that’s what her da would have said.
“That’s enough,” Máister Kirwan snapped at her, though Meriel thought she saw him smother a laugh. “Your turn will come, Bantiarna MacEagan, and we’ll see how well you fare.” Meriel shut her mouth, cutting off her protest though she could feel her forehead bristling in a scowl. Máister Kirwan nodded to Thady. “Please continue.”
Thady kept his face firmly pointed at the Máister. “She was gone by the time I came out, but I heard footsteps at the bottom of the tower, so I figured she was heading for the Acolyte’s Exit—that’s what we call it, Máister—so I just headed down that way. When I came out, I caught sight of her just starting to head down the beach trail. She was well ahead of me, already. That trail’s difficult enough in the daytime, so I thought she was just going to look at the water from the top of the path. I decided to wait there for a while for her to come back up. I waited a long time, maybe half a stripe of the candle or more before I realized that she must have gone down farther than I thought. I wondered whether she was in some trouble, so I started down myself. I went slowly, looking for her all the time and expecting to see her at one of the grazing fields for the sheep, but I never saw her. I went all the way down to the water, but I still couldn’t see her anywhere. I didn’t know where she was.”
Siúr Meagher raised her eyebrows, and Thady hurried to amend the statement. “But I found her clothes, fairly quickly, and I figured she’d gone into the water.”
“And what were you intending to do if you had found her?” Máister Kirwan asked. His eyes glittered under the shadow of his thick-hedged brow, his chin lifted slightly.
“Nothing,” Thady answered, but again Siúr Meagher cleared her throat. Thady’s head swiveled toward her and back again. “I wasn’t intending to hurt her or anything,” he said hurriedly. “I just thought . . . I thought we could talk, that’s all.” His eyes flicked over to Siúr Meagher and back; Siúr Meagher said nothing.
“And did you call out for her then and announce that you were there, or did you go down toward the water, knowing she was unclothed and hoping to see her in that state?” Máister Kirwan asked.
The blush rose over Thady’s face like a swift tide and his gaze dropped to his hands folded on his lap. “I went down to the water, Máister, ’tis true, but when I looked I couldn’t see her at all, only a family of blue seals, and I started to get worried, especially knowing who she is. I started back up the trail to get someone, but then the seals started making a commotion and I came back. That’s when I saw her . . .” He stopped, but Meriel could hear in the way his voice trailed off that there was more. She knew Máister Kirwan and Siúr Meagher heard it as well, and her stomach twisted and burned. Please, Mother-Creator—don’t let Thady have seen Dhegli and me together. Please ...
Máister Kirwan cocked his head and leaned forward. “And?” he prompted.
Thady looked at Siúr Meagher. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Really. I was mistaken.”
“I’ll make that decision,” Máister Kirwan answered. “What were you mistaken about?”
Thady’s face was blotched with red. “I thought . . . I thought for a moment when I first saw her that there was someone there with her, a young man. But when I looked again, he was gone.” Thady’s hands lifted, palms up. “I was mistaken in that, Máister. I had a good view of the beach; if there had really been someone else there, I would have noticed him. There was only Meriel. No one else.”
Meriel felt the knot in her stomach loosen a bit. Máister Kirwan seemed satisfied with that, leaning back in his chair and nodding. He didn’t ask the additional question that she might have asked: “Did you see Meriel clothed or naked?” Instead, he grunted and turned his attention to her. “Did An-tUasal MacCoughlin harm you in any way, or make you feel threatened?”
Meriel shook her head. “No, Máister. I was ... startled when I saw him, that’s all. But he ... he behaved as he should.”
Thady gave a relieved exhalation. From the corner of her vision, Meriel saw Siúr Meagher nod to Máister Kirwan, who grunted. “An-tUasal MacCoughlin, you may leave us, then. It’s well past First Bell and the others have already eaten, so you’ve missed breakfast. In fact, you will miss all your meals today, I think. Perhaps a little hunger in your belly will help you sleep better tonight. You’ll report to Bráthair O’Therreagh today—you’ll assist him in cleaning out the midden. You may go now.”
Thady grimaced, biting his lower lip, but said nothing. He rose, bowed to Máister Kirwan, and left the room without looking at Meriel again.
“The young man seems to be rather infatuated with you, Bantiarna MacEagan.” Meriel’s eyes widened with Máister Kirwan’s statement. “You’re surprised?” he continued. “You shouldn’t be. These things happen, especially at your age. Especially with someone of your lineage.”
“I’m not infatuated with him.” She denied it emphatically, then glanced at Siúr Meagher, who was smiling. “All right, aye, I find him interesting and attractive, but that’s still not ‘infatuated.’ Does that satisfy you, Siúr? Thady’s been helpful to me when others haven’t and I’m grateful. I don’t care that the others call him just a tuathánach—that’s what my mam’s family was, once. But that’s all. I haven’t done anything else.”
“Good.” A half smile lifted one side of Máister Kirwan’s mouth. “Jenna would have my—” He paused. Started again. “Banrion MacEagan would be upset if she found out you were involved in a serious romance here.”
“You needn’t worry about that with Thady, Máister,” Meriel answered, but she glanced over at Siúr Meagher as she said it. The woman still wore that amused expression, but said nothing. Her hand, with their arthritis-swollen joints, remained clasped around the clochmion on its chain.
“When I last corresponded with the Banrion, she told me to be especially watchful with you regarding the Saimhóir; understandably, I think, given your family history. This isn’t the first time you’ve gone ... swimming at night, is it?”
The burning in her stomach returned. Meriel saw Siúr Meagher’s fingers tighten around her clochmion. “ ’Tis the very first time, Máister,” Meriel answered with as much conviction as she could muster. Siúr Meagher snorted as if stifling a laugh. Máister Kirwan did chuckle, shaking his head.
“Well, I must admit that I would have made that test, too,” he said to her. “But I’m afraid that Siúr Meagher’s cloch works quite well. In fact, your mam can do the same—it’s one of the many abilities of Lámh Shábhála, as well.” Meriel’s eyebrows lifted; that bit of information explained several events in her childhood. She’d climbed up on the chair to reach her mam’s favorite vase, the one with the glittering golden threads in the glaze, but the vase had slipped out of her hands and shattered loudly on the floor. Her nurse at the time, who was sleeping near the fire, awoke with a snort. Worse, her mam happened to be in the next room, taking her tea and talking with one of the tiarna on the Comhairle. The Banrion came hurrying into the room at the bright explosion of noise. “I didn’t do it, Mam.” Meriel blubbered, unable to stop the tears. “The cat must have knocked it over.” Her mam’s right hand was touching Lámh Shábhála, and she simply glared until Meriel dropped her head in shame.
“Are you hurt?” her mam asked. Meriel shook her head. She didn’t dare look up. “What happened here?” her mam had asked the nurse, her voice icy.
“I . . . I didn’t see it, Banrion,” the woman stammered. “I turned my back for just a moment, and—”
“That’s enough,” Jenna snapped, and Meriel glanced up to see anger on her mam’s face, but thankfully directed at the nurse rather than her. Jenna’s disfigured right hand dropped away from the cloch, and she rubbed at the marked skin. “Just . . . clean up this mess.” Without another word to either of them, she’d turned to return to her meeting. That night, Meriel was given no supper, a new nurse attendant came in to put her to bed, and she didn’t see her mam for another day or more. . . .
“Meriel, I asked you a question,” Máister Kirwan said, interrupting her reverie. Meriel blinked. “This wasn’t the first time, was it?”
Meriel grimaced, lowering her head as she had that day long ago. A drop of cold water dripped from the end of a strand of hair onto her lap. “No, Máister. Not the first time. I heard the Saimhóir down on the beach nearly a month ago, and I went down to see them. My da, he told me some about Mam and the seals and I love looking at the Saimhóir, so I thought ...”
“You went in the water with them?”
A nod.
“As one of them? As your mam is reputed to have done?”
Meriel nodded again.
“The young man Thady saw—he was Saimhóir, wasn’t he? What’s his name?” Máister Kirwan asked.
Meriel’s head came up. Her lower lip trembled. She remembered the exciting brush of fur against fur, the disorienting moment of transformation and his smile, the touch of his fingers against her skin and the way she shuddered deliciously in response . . . “Dhegli,” she said. “He can keep the human form for only a few hours, as I can keep the Saimhóir.”
She thought he would ask the obvious next question, the one she didn’t want to answer. He didn’t. His gaze drifted away from her toward the window and the sun that was beginning to lift above the sloping shoulders of Mt. Inish and the fog from the valley. Máister Kirwan seemed lost in reverie, his long fingers stroking the facets of the Cloch Mór around his neck. Meriel squirmed in her chair, the fist that held her stomach tightening and twisting. Finally he turned back to her. “Meriel, I don’t expect any more excursions like this from you while you’re here with the Order. If we find you outside the keep again without permission, you will be immediately dismissed from the Order and sent back to Dún Kiil. I don’t think I need to tell you how your parents would react to that.”
“No, Máister.” That was easy for Meriel to imagine. Her da would be disappointed and quietly sad, but her mam’s reaction . . . well, that wasn’t anything Meriel would care to endure. Meriel felt the fist slowly release its grip on her intestines: at least it seemed that Máister Kirwan was going to say nothing about this. But never to see Dhegli again, never to swim with him again, wasn’t something she would accept.
You’re going to have to be very careful now. Very careful.
“I’m sorry, Máister,” Meriel said. It was easy enough to sound contrite—the tremble in her voice and the shimmering in her eyes were both genuine, even if the sentiment was not.
“You should be,” Máister Kirwan answered sternly. He rose from the chair, going to the door. “You’ll go immediately and join An-tUasal MacCoughlin and Bráthair O’Therreagh at the midden. Perhaps you’ll remember the stench the next time you’re tempted to take a late night stroll.” Meriel opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again at the look Máister Kirwan gave her. He opened the door. “That’s all, Bantiarna MacEagan.”
Meriel grimaced. She rose from the chair with a sigh, bowing her head to Siúr Meagher and the Máister, then walked out into the cold corridor. A trio of acolytes approached, heading for class and looking curiously at her before they noticed the Máister and scurried quickly past. The door shut firmly behind her.
Meriel did something she hadn’t done in years: she stuck out her tongue at the wooden planks. The gesture did little to make her feel better.
Máister Kirwan sighed, his hand still on the door handle. “Obviously I need to replace Siúr O’hAllmhurain as ward of the Women’s Wing, since she’s failed in that capacity. Actually, it’s my failing in choosing her and I’ll tell her so. And I need to find a quick replacement.”
“I’ll do it,” Siúr Meagher said, then raised her eyebrows as she slowly clenched and unclenched her left hand on her lap, grimacing at the stubborn ache in her knuckles. “That is what you were going to ask me, isn’t it?”
“Aye, it is. Thank you, Alexia.” He nodded toward her hand. “And thank you for this morning. I know your hands have been bothering you.”
“It’s fine,” she told him. “The joints are stiff in the morning, that’s all.” She put her right hand over her left. “Siúr O’hAllmhurain’s going to blame Meriel for this; she’s not one to keep a grudge secret, or not to act on it in some way.”
“Actions have consequences. If Meriel hasn’t learned that already, it’s time she started. I just hope the consequences aren’t . . . well . . .” He ran a hand over his skull from forehead to crown, as if brushing back the hair that once had been there. “I’m going to have to send the Banrion a report on this,” he said. “Jenna’s not going to be happy.”
“You can’t lock the girl in a closet for her whole life, Mundy,” Siúr Meagher told him. “This is an issue we have with all the acolytes. How many their ages are already married, already well into their adult lives? They come here at the most difficult time in their lives and we ask them to give up everything their peers have. They will find ways to listen to their emotions.”
“I know that, Alexia. But that won’t matter if someone needs to be blamed, and I’m the one who’s ultimately responsible for looking after her. I wish it were something as simple as a youthful infatuation, but it’s not—not when it’s the daughter of the Banrion and First Holder we’re talking about. It was bad enough that she was flirting with the MacCoughlin boy, but that was relatively harmless and easy enough to watch. The Saimhóir ...”
“Even Lámh Shábhála can’t stop her from growing up. She’s going to fall in—and out—of love, Mundy; she’s going to fight against the restraints we ‘old folks’ put on her. That’s what happens at her age. It’s part of the reason the Banrion sent her here. Banrion MacEagan knows you and trusts you, Mundy. She’ll understand.”
“I hope so,” Máister Kirwan answered. He managed a wan grin. “But even if she does, it doesn’t make things any easier. After talking with Jenna, I was most worried about attacks from the outside, and that’s what we’ve been watching for. Now I wonder if we weren’t looking the wrong way for the danger.”
11
In the Midden
THE MIDDEN was a malodorous, room-sized hole in the keep into which all the kitchen scraps were dropped. In addition, two latrines also deposited their visitors’ aromatic leavings into the space. The midden was cleaned out twice a year, spring and fall, and the black, rich compost from it mixed into the soil of the fields behind the keep.
It was the dirtiest, nastiest work Meriel had ever done.
Bráthair O’Therreagh, who also taught the slow magics to the fourth- and fifth-year acolytes, didn’t seem to be bothered by the horrendous stench that wafted out from the refuse heap. He fingered a small leather bag corded around his neck, and handed two similar pouches to Meriel and Thady. “Weed of sticklebur, sage, and mint,” he said, “with a spell of enhancement on it. I don’t smell a thing, myself. A good thing I made a few extra, eh?” To Meriel, the charms only seemed to make the air around her sickly sweet—the overpowering mint made her nearly as nauseous as the odor of corruption wafting from the midden. Wooden-bladed shovels were placed in their hands. “Máister Kirwan suggested that the two of you start inside; shovel the muck out the door, and the others will load it into the carts. When we have the carts filled, we’ll take it out to the fields and spread it. The faster everyone works, the sooner we’re done. Go on, now . . .”
There were six other acolytes working with them—four boys, two girls, all second- and third-years and none of them anyone Meriel knew well—each with one of Bráthair O’Therreagh’s bags around his or her neck. They didn’t look any happier to be there than Meriel; she wondered what they’d done to get this nasty duty. “I’ll need to burn these clothes and bury the boots afterward,” Meriel muttered as they stepped through the door into the darkness of the midden.
“And scrub off the top layer of your skin with that gritty brown soap of Siúr O’Flagherty’s,” Thady responded, “the one that leaves your skin looking like it’s been boiled.” He plunged his shovel into the mountain of black filth in front of them, the blade entering with a wet kchunk. He flung the heap of refuse back through the door. (“Eewwww,” someone groaned outside. “That’s nasty . . .”) “I’m sorry, Meriel,” he said. “I really am. I didn’t intend this. I hope you know that.”
