Chapter Twenty-three
Sira sat alone at the morning meal listening to Jon and Theo working in the Cantoris, the sounds of their filla faint through the stone walls. They did their work early, so what quiru they were able to create would fade by night, in accordance with the requirements of the House. It was an unnecessary precaution; the quiru was never bright enough to fade the light of the stars.
Pol sat at the central table in the great room, his cold gaze fixed on Sira. She knew he was waiting for her to acquiesce, to follow her colleagues into the Cantoris. She tried not to think of the repaired filhata lying useless in her room. Stubbornly, she took a long time over her tea, letting him watch her sit idly, pointlessly at the long table.
The meals here left her hungry. She sometimes dreamed of the nursery fruit that was so abundant at Conservatory. Fruit would not grow at Observatory. Grain, yeast bread, and meat, with a paltry sprinkling of vegetables, were all Observatory’s kitchens could produce.
At length, Theo and Jon joined her. Jon looked tired and reproachful, but Theo sat down beside her with a smile of greeting, cheerful as ever.
I am hungry, he sent. Sira reached for a bowl of the greasy keftet.
This is all there is, she sent. And it has gone cold. Jon had a bowl also, and was listlessly eating. Theo tried some, and made a face.
You should eat anyway, Sira sent to him.
If I eat my keftet, will you teach me the filhata?
Sira’s mouth curved, and Jon looked up. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” she said, and stopped smiling. She pushed her bowl away. It was really not polite to be sending when Jon could not hear. The practice was good for Theo, though. She watched Jon as he slumped over his bowl. What exactly was the difference between them? Was Theo more Gifted, and Jon less? Or was it a matter of circumstance? Jon did not interest her at all as a student, while Theo seemed rich with untapped talent and special ability.
She rose from the table, compunction making her careful to keep her face impassive. Meet me after your meal, she sent to Theo.
He, too, showed nothing on his face. I will be there soon.
As she left the great room, she heard him telling Jon some joke, trying to bring a smile to the dour face. Her own smile returned. Theo was an unusual man, worthy of any instruction she could give him. She looked forward to seeing him learn.
The first lesson on the filhata was tuning. Sira showed Theo the middle, deepest string, and sang the C pitch for him, to which it must always be tuned. To be sure he understood, she spoke aloud. “You must memorize the C,” she said. “Begin and end each day by singing the C until it is as automatic to you as your breath.” She sang it again, and he sang it also.
“I believe I have already memorized it,” he said.
“Have you? Do itinerants memorize it also?”
He shook his head, then grinned happily. “I can’t speak for all itinerants. But since I was little I have always remembered all the pitches.” He showed her by singing Iridu, the first mode, that began on the C pitch.
Wonderful, Theo, she sent. Your Gift includes perfect pitch. You will be an easy student.
Thank you, Maestra, he sent, with a little bow.
Sira’s smile faded. You must not call me that. I have not earned it.
He raised his eyebrows, but made no further comment. He watched her fingers as she deftly turned the pegs in the neck of the filhata, then tried it himself. C was the middle string; from the top to the bottom, the pitches were E, B, F, down to the low C, then up to G, D, and A. Sira showed him the little exercise by which she had learned to check the tuning: C-G, D-A, E-B, F-C. Theo plucked it slowly, carefully, grinning like a small boy with a new toy. He did it again, and again. Sira gave him a new exercise, and he played that one, too, slowly at first, then faster.
After some time, they both sat back, satisfied. Sira had not noticed until that moment that her hands had been on Theo’s guiding them, adjusting their position. His hair brushed her cheek as she leaned close to demonstrate the exercises. She had been too absorbed to notice. It had been exactly as if she were back at Conservatory, with all the Gifted ones with whom she had grown up. Now she felt shy again, realizing, but Theo’s enthusiasm covered any embarrassment.
Play something for me, he sent. Something hard!
Sira smiled. Something hard? I am somewhat out of practice, remember.
But as she took the filhata in her hands, automatically checking the tuning once more, the feel of the carved wood and the strings under fingers recalled a melody she had played long ago. She had not held a filhata since Maestra Lu’s death, and she found herself full of an emotion she had not yet expressed.
As she began her melody, she forgot where she was. The cold and dark and frustration and anger fell away from her, and she poured her soul into the music, as she used to do before her experiences had changed her life. The air in the little room grew warm and bright, and Theo’s own psi floated with Sira’s in an ecstatic moment of forgetfulness. She felt his mind there with hers, his strength and calm, and the closeness was a great comfort.
When it ended, they were quiet for some moments. Sira drew a deep breath, and Theo closed his eyes. And odd sound from just outside the room made him open them, and they looked at each other in surprise.
It came again, a mewling cry. It sounded like an infant.
Sira laid aside the filhata and went to the door.
The corridor outside her room had grown bright and warm with the overflow of heat from Sira’s playing. Two women were seated on the floor, leaning against the outside wall of Sira’s room, basking in the warmth. Each had a heavily-wrapped baby in her arms, infants with running noses and cheeks reddened with cold or fever—Sira was not sure she knew the difference.
The younger of the women, painfully thin, with wispy yellow hair, had her eyes closed. Her head lolled against the wall.
The other was trying to shush her child, the one who had cried. She turned her face up to Sira when the door opened. She looked dull and ill, but her face was defiant.
“Sorry to disturb you,” said the woman. “But it’s warmer here. My baby’s sick.”
The woman lifted the child to her shoulder, crooning. It was clear even to Sira that the mother was more ill than her baby. Sira shuddered slightly, as if in pain, and folded her arms around herself.
“It is all right,” she said in a low voice. “You have not disturbed me.”
As she returned to her room and closed the door, she reflected that she had not been truthful. The sight of them, sick and cold and hopeless, disturbed her deeply. She felt helpless. She felt trapped.
What is it? Theo sent.
There are two women out there, with their babies. They are sick, all of them. Sira lifted her shoulders in a helpless gesture.
Theo went to the door himself and looked out. After a moment he stepped into the corridor, softly closing the door behind him. Sira heard him murmur to the women, and their soft answers. There were shuffling sounds as they got up from the stone floor and moved away. When she went to the door and opened it again, they were gone, and Theo with them.
*
Not knowing where else to work, Theo led the sick women to the Cantoris. At least in the Cantoris, where he and Jon had labored with their filla that morning, there was some warmth and light. He did not bother with the dais, however, but asked the women to make themselves as comfortable as they could on the wooden benches.
The younger woman, with thin fair hair, was very ill indeed, Theo discovered. He took his filla from inside his tunic, and played in Doryu, the third mode. As he attuned his mind to hers, his own body began to ache with her fever. He experienced with her the effort it took for her to hold her baby. Her arms trembled with weakness, and he felt her great fear that she would die and leave her baby behind. It was painful, but he could not shield himself and still heal her.
He continued in the third mode, searching with his psi for the hottest spot in her body, the source of the illness. It was her throat, he thought, and probably the same for her baby. He played until he was exhausted, trying to cool her, switching to Iridu to try to soothe the pain of her throat and her muscles. He did the same for her child, and it was somewhat easier, as there was no wall of emotion to be breached.
The other woman was not so ill, but worn and tired from caring for her friend and for her own infant. Theo did what he could for her, and at length both women stretched out on the benches, drowsing, with their children beside them. Theo frowned down at them as he stood to stretch his stiff muscles.
“You’re good at healing, Singer,” came Pol’s rough voice from the back of the Cantoris.
Theo looked up at him and shrugged. “I can only do so much.”
“Why is that?” Pol challenged. Theo walked to the back of the room so his voice would not disturb the women.
He spoke softly, looking directly down into Pol’s eyes. “Your House is in awful condition,” he said. “It’s cold, the food is bad, the walls are damp, so your people are sick.”
It was Pol’s turn to shrug. “What can I do about that?” he asked. “We brought you, and Singer Jon. Summers are better here. It’s our destiny to suffer until the Ship comes.”
Theo made a sound of pure disgust. Pol turned his small fierce eyes back to the women resting on the benches. “They understand that,” he said. “They have always lived this way.” He looked up at Theo again. “We have a song, you know, that used to say we will wait a hundred summers for the Ship. Now we sing that we will wait a thousand summers for the Ship.”
“I have been to nearly every House on the Continent,” Theo said. “No other House believes as you do. You’re sacrificing your people for a foolish fable.”
Pol pursed his lips, then said, “It’s no fable. All Observatory knows it.” He went to the doors of the Cantoris and stood there, looking out into the shadowy hall. “Shall I send someone to fetch these women?”
Theo nodded. “Yes. I’ll wait.”
“Others will want your help when they hear.”
“I’ll do what I can, but I am only one Singer.”
Pol disappeared through the doors, and Theo went back to watch over the sleeping women. The older one was breathing easily, her baby resting quietly beside her. The younger woman, her wisps of pale hair awry, was sleeping, but her breath rattled in her chest, and her infant whimpered in its sleep. Theo picked up the baby, careful not to disturb its mother. He held the little one close to his chest. It was hot, its skin dry and marked with rashes.
“Poor little one,” he murmured to it, putting his cheek to its fringe of hair. “I’m sorry, baby. Fables are not much good to you, are they?” As he waited, he sang bits of a lullaby he had heard long ago. He could not remember where he had learned it. In another lifetime, perhaps.
LITTLE ONE, LOST ONE,
SWEET ONE, SLEEPY ONE,
THE SHIP WILL CARRY YOU HOME.
He held the baby until a Housewoman came and, smiling gently at him, took the infant into her own arms. Theo went slowly and wearily down the dark, cold corridors to his own room, and collapsed on his cot. He closed his eyes against the feeble light, and saw in his mind Pol’s fierce unyielding gaze. Sira is right, he thought. These people are not sane.