Chapter Seventeen
Theo approached Magister Mkel at the morning meal. Cathrin was at Mkel’s left, overseeing the meal from their table in the center of the great room. Most of the students, teachers, and visitors were present, crowding the room with more than three hundred people. Theo waited as a messenger spoke in a low tone to the Magister, who looked grave.
When the messenger departed, Theo bowed. “Good morning, Cathrin. Magister, I’m afraid I’ve enjoyed the hospitality of Conservatory long enough.”
“Oh, please don’t speak of leaving so soon, Singer,” said Cathrin warmly. “I’ve enjoyed your stories so much.”
“You’re a patient listener,” Theo said with a grin. “But I can’t work up enough pain in my wound to justify this holiday any longer.”
“Are you quite sure, Singer?” asked Mkel. He looked distracted, his eyes straying after the messenger as he wended his way through the tables. Theo followed his gaze, wondering what the news had been.
Cathrin touched her mate’s hand. “Mkel. Be sure Nikei agrees the Singer is healed.”
Theo turned back to her. “I will miss seeing your face at the center table every day.” To Mkel he said, “If you know of a traveling party, Magister, I would be glad of the work.”
“You will always be welcome here,” Mkel said. “You have our gratitude.”
“Thank you,” said Theo. “But if I don’t get back to work soon, I’ll have no new stories for Cathrin when I see her next.”
Cathrin laughed. Mkel said, “Just let Maestro Nikei examine your wound, Singer, to set Cathrin’s mind at ease. Traveling parties are frequent here, as you have seen. I will recommend you to one.”
“Thank you.”
“You may wish to know, also,” Mkel added, “that the Magistral Committee has ruled on the disposition of those involved in the attack on the Cantrix and the Magister of Bariken.” Mkel leaned one elbow on the table as if too weary to sit upright. “Trude and Rhia,” he said heavily, “were exposed in Forgotten Pass, a day’s ride north of Lamdon. It was done three days ago. It must all be over now.”
Theo nodded grim acknowledgment. Life on the Continent required fierce and swift justice. It was a brutal punishment, one that had been used as long as Nevyans could remember. In this case, Theo thought, being left to the elements, deliberately abandoned to the cold, was no less cruel a fate than the one the two women had planned for Sira.
“Has Cantrix Sira been told?” he asked.
“No,” Mkel said. “That will be my next task.”
There was nothing further to say about it. Theo bowed and left them, and made his way through the long tables to find a seat. He looked around at the now-familiar faces of the House members and wished he didn’t have to strike out into the mountains with strangers once again. Isbel caught his eye and waved. He winked at her, enjoying her dimples as she giggled. Her classmates clustered around her, all except Sira. Once again, the young Cantrix was absent.
Theo finished his breakfast of fresh yeast bread and sliced fruit, then hurried to catch up with Isbel as she left the great room. She saw him following, and slowed her pace. Her auburn head just reached his shoulder as they walked on together.
“I hear you will be leaving us,” she said, with a pout of regret.
“By the Six Stars, word travels around here as fast as a caeru can run!”
Isbel laughed, a merry chime that fell sweetly on the ear. Theo had to resist an urge to stroke her head as if she were a little girl. How he would miss the beautiful voices of these young Singers!
They walked on to where their paths diverged, while Theo wondered how to ask about Sira. At the turning of the hall, Isbel looked up at him. “I do not know where she is,” she said, startling Theo. “I was not prying,” she added, “but you are sending rather clearly.”
Theo shook his head in helpless amusement, wishing he had Isbel’s control. Then he wondered if she heard that, too. If she did, she kept it to herself. She put her hand lightly on his arm. “None of us knows where she is,” she said. “It is kind of you to be concerned for her.”
“Someone must know!” Theo exclaimed.
“Magister Mkel asked me,” Isbel said, “and I assume he has asked others. If one of the students knew, we would all know. I fear she has found a way to leave.”
“You can’t mean . . . leave Conservatory?”
She dropped her hand and sighed. “Yes. And she cut her hair.”
“I saw that, but . . . surely she didn’t go alone!”
Isbel tilted her head. “Go where?”
The hall cleared of people as they talked, leaving them alone. Theo ran his hand over his own hair, freshly shorn by a Housewoman in the kitchens only the evening before.
“When I get ready to travel, I always cut my hair,” he said. “The women itinerants all wear their hair short. Long hair is too hard to care for.”
Isbel’s eyes widened in alarm. “But would she—could she—do that?”
“Would she? I think so!” He spread his hands. “Could she? I don’t know. Unfortunately, there’s more to an itinerant’s work than singing up quiru.”
“She said I was not to call her Cantrix.” Isbel’s eyes filled with ready tears. “She has always been independent. But she is more dear to me than anyone in the world.”
“It’s my fault,” Theo said miserably. “I refused to help her. I thought that would be and end to it.” He rubbed his forehead in frustration. “I never thought she would go alone!”
“Singer, we must tell Magister Mkel.”
“But what can he do?”
“He can find out who has left the House. I cannot believe she would want to be out in the mountains by herself again.”
Back they went to the great room, but they found it empty. Isbel led Theo up to the Magister’s apartment, where they were admitted by Cathrin. The Magister looked grave as Theo explained his last conversation with Sira.
Isbel broke in. “We must stop her!”
“I do not know how we can do that,” Mkel said. “We cannot force her into a Cantoris.”
“But she is in danger!” Isbel’s voice rose.
Theo lifted his hand. “Isbel, I’ll go after her. I promise.”
Isbel fell silent, but her lips trembled, and she put her fingers over them.
“Do you know of anyone who has left in the last day, Magister?” Theo asked. Half of his mind hurried ahead, already dealing with the details of a hasty departure.
“I will ask the stableman,” Mkel said. He looked suddenly aged, lines of care etching ever more deeply into his face. Cathrin hovered behind him. “This has been a bad business from beginning to end. I wish I had listened to Lu. She was against Sira’s assignment from the first.”
Theo stood. “I must take the blame for this.” Mkel shook his head, but Theo said, “She asked me to tell her all about an itinerant’s work, and I refused. I should have come to you.”
“We could only have argued with her. She has a right to her own decisions.”
“She’s as stubborn as last winter’s icicles, that’s certain. But I will find her.”
Cathrin said, “We must hire the Singer to go after her, Mkel. She can’t know what it is she’s doing.” She gave Theo a pleading look. “At least bring her back so we can talk to her.”
“I will try,” he said. He hoped Mkel and Isbel would not catch his thought that it was a big Continent on which to find one girl, Gifted or not. His task looked enormous.
It took most of one day to prepare to leave, which Theo estimated put Sira two days ahead of him. Erc, the stableman, had dispatched two hruss the previous day, one for Sira, and one for an itinerant without a traveling party, an old Singer named Lorn who had told no one his destination. Theo could only guess at the direction they had taken.
Mkel, Nikei, and Isbel gathered to bid him farewell. It made him smile to see them grouped on the steps, as if he were a Cantor, to receive full ceremonies whenever he made a move. He stopped smiling when he saw the concern on their faces.
“Good luck, Singer,” Magister Mkel said. “We thank you.”
“Stay well,” Maestro Nikei added.
“I hope you can find her,” Isbel added.
Theo bowed. “I hope so, too. And you must try not to worry, Isbel. You have your Cantoris to think of.”
She inclined her head, and the sun gleamed red on her hair. “So I do,” she said. She would be Cantrix at Amric in a few short weeks.
Theo lifted his hand in farewell, and lifted his reins. Isbel watched him with her hands clasped under her chin. He winked at her, and received a small smile in answer. He was disappointed not to see her dimples.
They had decided the place to start would be Lamdon. Itinerants were required to register there. Mkel gave him a written message for Cantrix Sharn, which Theo had carefully stowed in his saddlepack, and which begged Sharn to persuade Sira to return to Conservatory. Theo doubted it would make a difference to Sira. But it would affect his reception at Lamdon.
He rode away from Conservatory alone, into the silence of the snowy mountains. Not much like a Cantor now, he reflected. No Cantor or Cantrix rides alone on the Continent.
He hoped that was true of Sira. Surely she would have this itinerant, whoever he was. Theo wished he could be sure where they had gone.
Lamdon was eight days’ ride away. They would be lonely days, cold and worrisome ones. Theo only hoped Sira would not have already gone when he arrived.
He rounded the curve of the courtyard, and the walls of Conservatory disappeared behind the irontrees, leaving only its great roof visible. He looked back once, regretfully. In his head he heard the faint echo of Isbel sending, Goodbye, Singer.
Theo shook his head ruefully. He liked Isbel too well to be envious. But I would sing up a thousand quiru, he thought, to learn that skill.