Chapter Four
Alone in a practice room, Isbel labored over inversions in the fourth mode, trying to fill the emptiness created by Sira’s absence. The fingering was complex, and she did it again and again until her fingers grew tired. She stopped to rest, laying down her filhata and stretching her arms. Strands of hair fell over her shoulders, and she combed them back with her fingers. As she started to redo the binding, the sensation of her fingers in her long hair brought up a memory, one she had avoided thinking of for a very long time. She pulled her hair loose and let it fall about her shoulders as she dwelt for a moment in the past. Her loneliness had begun in her babyhood.
Isbel had been born between summers, and she was two and a half years old when she first stepped outside into the light from Nevya’s two suns. She remembered seeing the Visitor for the first time. She also remembered the look on her mother’s face at day’s end.
Isbel’s mother, Mreen v’Isenhope, had smiled at her little girl running back and forth over the smooth cobblestones. Isbel squirmed when Mreen caught her up, laughing, tugging at the mass of curls that already fell halfway down Isbel’s back. For a moment Mreen hugged her little daughter, then released her to run again.
Isbel was Mreen’s only family. She had lost a child, a little boy who never saw a summer, to a fever the Cantor could not control. Her mate had died of the same fever. On this first summer day, Mreen sat with other parents, all of them smiling as they listened to the squeals and laughter that filled the courtyard.
When a woman began calling, “Karl!” with fear in her voice, the laughter stopped. More urgently she called again, “Karl! I can’t find Karl!” Isbel remembered the bright afternoon seeming to dim all around them.
The adults in the courtyard were on their feet, looking behind the benches, hurrying off to look in the stables. Some went to the edge of the forest and called between the huge irontrees.
Isbel, unhappy at the interruption, ran to her mother. “Mama, Mama, play!”
Mreen picked her up. “Not now, darling. Ana can’t find Karl. I must help her. You stay right here and wait for me.”
The children were unaccustomed to the freedom of outdoors. It was rare for one to have the courage to walk away from the House. Isbel recalled sensing fear in the air, as sharp as smoke. She had held tight to her mother’s neck.
“But, Mama,” she said. “I know where Karl is.”
“You do? Show Mama, then.” Mreen put her daughter down and Isbel immediately trotted to the edge of the courtyard and into the woods.
“Isbel, where are you going?” Mreen called, hurrying after her.
“Show Karl, Mama.” The beginnings of softwood shoots greened the earth under the ironwood trees and filled the air with their spicy scent. Isbel led Mreen into the chill shade of a broad tree that obscured the view of the House. Karl was curled up in the crook of an ironwood sucker, sound asleep.
Mreen swept him up in her arms and hurried back to the House. Karl was just waking as she handed him to his frantic mother. The adults gathered round, laughing in relief and asking Mreen where she had found him. She said, “Isbel found him,” then looked down at her little daughter, realization dawning in her eyes. There was only one way Isbel could have known where the missing boy was.
Still, Mreen searched for another explanation. “Did you see Karl leave the courtyard?”
Isbel shook her curls. “No, Mama. I heard him.”
“What do you mean, you heard him?” Mreen asked, her voice harsh with a new fear.
“I heard him sleeping,” Isbel said, pulling her hand away from Mreen’s. “I heard his dream. Didn’t you?” She looked up into her mother’s face, and watched the light go out of her face as surely as the suns would set a few hours later.
Mreen began, inexorably and deliberately, to withdraw from her daughter from that day forward. Isbel could not understand until much later that her mother simply could not bear the loss of another loved one. Mreen knew the pain that was coming. She also knew her duty. Her little Isbel was Gifted, and that meant she belonged, not to Mreen, but to Nevya.
Isbel was two and a half that summer. There were five years until Conservatory claimed her, and Mreen did what she had to do. But Isbel never saw her mother smile again.
Eighteen-year-old Isbel, now a third-level Conservatory student, dashed tears from her eyes and smoothed her hair back into its binding. She picked up her filhata again. Maestro Takei would want to hear the inversions tomorrow. That was what mattered now. Her mother had long ago gone with the Spirit beyond the stars.
The evening meal in the great room cheered Isbel. She took comfort in the familiar routine, seeing Mkel and Cathrin at their table in the center of the room, with Maestra Lu and the other teachers next to them. The students, Isbel’s class and the two lower levels, all sat together at one side. Their tunics were drab, but their faces and eyes were bright. The air was thick with their silent chatter, for those who could hear it. At the other side of the room, the colorfully dressed Housemen and women conversed aloud, in the rich blend of Gifted and unGifted that was Conservatory.
Who is next, do you think? Kevn, one of the third-level students sent to the group.
No one for a while, I hope. This was Jana, the youngest of their level. It is too soon.
Not too soon for Sira—I mean, Cantrix Sira, Kevn responded.
Maybe it was, though, Jana sent back. She is still not a strong healer. And not close to four summers.
Closer than you! Kevn teased, and Jana smiled.
Isbel smiled, too, but the sadness of the afternoon flooded over her again. She looked down the table at her classmates, her friends. There are so few of us, she mused.
Kevn looked at her, his smile fading. Only one for each House. A heavy responsibility.
They were all silent for a moment; only the first-level class was oblivious to the turn their conversation had taken. No one needed to mention that the newest class was even smaller, not even one young Singer for each of the thirteen Houses. Isbel felt, somehow, that her memory of her mother and the students’ concern over small classes were in some way connected, but she couldn’t think how. She shook her head, frustrated, and saw that Kevn was watching her.
What is it? he asked.
I do not know, she sent. Something I was thinking of earlier, but it is gone now.
Kevn turned away to tease Jana. Isbel tried to join in the general conversation, but as one of the oldest students, she felt she hardly fit in anymore. When she pushed away her keftet and rose from the table, she was surprised to see Magister Mkel’s eyes on her. He smiled gently, and she bowed. She knew he understood that she missed Sira, and that she shared his concern over her friend’s assignment. As she left the great room, she felt heavy with the burden of the Gift, a weight that could never be put down.
She looked back as she reached the door. The students and the teachers in their plain tunics, together with the House members in vivid red and green and blue, made a lively scene in the bright light of Conservatory’s quiru. They had gathered almost all of them, for the quirunha earlier. After the evening meal some would go to their family apartments, others to the ubanyor or ubanyix. Some would stay here to talk and tell stories, one of Isbel’s favorite pastimes. She hoped Sira found the atmosphere at Bariken as congenial, but however pleasant Bariken was, Sira would feel as they all did, that Conservatory was home. It was now lost to her for years to come. Before long it would be lost to all of them.
Sira, her hair carefully bound and her filhata impeccably tuned and shining with fresh oil, waited for Cantrix Magret outside the Cantoris. Memories of Conservatory quirunhas rose in her mind, and she pictured the Cantoris there, an austere room, with rows of plain ironwood benches filled with students, teachers, and visitors. They would be silent, concentrating, preparing to support the Cantors in their work.
Usually two Singers worked together in the Cantoris, although there could be more. At Lamdon, the capital House, there might be as many as four at the daily quirunha. Lamdon was famed for the intensity of its House quiru and the abundance of Singer energy it could expend.
Cantrix Magret appeared now, smiling at her junior, and led the way into the Cantoris. Sira looked around curiously.
There was only a scattering of people, all in dark clothing, seated on ornately carved benches. They were chattering and laughing as if this were a social occasion. There were none of the vivid tunics of the working Housemen and women.
Since Magret appeared unsurprised, Sira had to assume this was typical. She kept her mind open, but her senior sent nothing. Sira, with her filhata under her arm, followed her up onto the dais. She must clear her mind now. She could think of these things later, when the ceremony was accomplished.
Those attending the quirunha rose and bowed to the Cantrixes. The chatter subsided, and the atmosphere grew solemn at last. This was the function for which Singers trained. Without the quirunha, the House would grow cold and dark. The plants would droop and die. The people would shiver in the cold, and as it crept through the stone walls, they, too, would die. The quirunha was the reason families dedicated their Gifted children at a young age, relinquishing them to Conservatory. It was a great sacrifice, and it was necessary.
Magret bowed briefly to her junior, sat, and began the ceremony with a quick strum of her filhata’s strings. Her high, delicate voice had a slight vibrato, a fragile sound like the chiming of icicles striking together. Sira’s own dark, even tone contrasted dramatically with Magret’s. Their filhatas, schooled in the same tradition, made a disciplined counterpoint.
Sira followed her senior’s lead easily, thinking perhaps Magret, using only the first mode, was keeping things simple for their first quirunha together. Lacy drifts of melody rose to fill the high-ceilinged Cantoris as they concentrated their psi together. The room brightened, and began to grow warm. Sira reached out with her mind to the glassworks, the apartments, the stables, and the nursery gardens, all places she had not yet seen with her eyes. She imagined each seedling and plant in the gardens stretching out its green leaves to receive the blessing of warmth.
When the quiru was strong and warm once again, Magret laid down her instrument. Sira looked out into the faces in the Cantoris. Wil, the Housekeeper, sat at the end of one of the long benches, his long legs stretching into the aisle. Cantor Grigr sat close to the dais, tremulously nodding appreciation. Rhia was absent, nor was there any man present who looked as if he might be Magister Shen. Sira’s pride was hurt. How could both the Magister and his mate ignore her first quirunha in their House?
Magret rose then, and Sira did, too, bowing formally to her senior as the assemblage rose. Together they chanted the traditional prayer:
SMILE ON US, O SPIRIT OF STARS,
SEND US THE SUMMER TO WARM THE WORLD
UNTIL THE SUNS WILL SHINE ALWAYS TOGETHER.
The ceremony was complete. Magret sent, Thank you, Sira. You are as talented as Maestra Lu said.
Sira was relieved to be able to send to her senior for a moment. You are very kind, Cantrix Magret. It was a lovely quirunha.
Magret made a deprecating face. Future quirunhas will be more interesting, perhaps.
Sira caught a flash of wordless feelings, and understood that Magret, in keeping their music simple, was protecting Cantor Grigr’s feelings. Sympathy welled in her. She could think of no heavier loss than losing the Gift. She thought of Maestra Lu, aged and yet still musically and mentally so strong. Perhaps Maestro Nikei really could restore some of Grigr’s health. She sent a brief prayer to the Spirit that it might be so.
The Housekeeper came to the dais and stood by as first Magret and then Sira stepped down. He was very tall, half a head taller even than Sira. He looked down at her with narrow, dark eyes. “A charming quirunha, Cantrixes,” he murmured as he bowed. There was an undercurrent of something in his voice, laughter or boredom, Sira couldn’t tell which. When she glanced up at him, his thin mouth curved, and she looked away. She felt tall and awkward and childish, not at all the way she wanted to feel. She tucked her filhata under her arm, hugging its weight to her body.
“Thank you,” Magret said to Wil. She put her hand firmly under her junior’s elbow. “Come along, Sira, and I will show you the garden before the evening meal. Grigr and I had Cantoris hours this morning, and for now I am free.”
Sira, glad to escape Wil’s intense gaze, bowed goodbye to him, and went with Magret out of the Cantoris. She felt the Housekeeper’s eyes on her back as she walked away.
Just outside the Cantoris the wrinkled little Housewoman who had been on the steps with Rhia when Sira first arrived stepped up to Magret with a sketchy bow. “Cantrix Magret, Rhia wants you to come and warm the ubanyix for her.”
Sira drew breath to offer herself for the task, but Magret nodded to the Housewoman and turned down the hall toward the ubanyix. Sira opened her mind, but Magret sent nothing. Uncertainly, Sira followed her, expecting some instruction. The little Housewoman trotted busily in front of Magret. Sira sensed only resignation from her senior.
Still, this wasn’t proper. Sira called, “Cantrix Magret, please. Allow me this small task. You are senior now.”
Magret looked back in surprise. “That is very kind, Sira,” she said. “But it is better if I do it today. We will have our walk in the gardens later.” Her voice had gone rather flat, but her face gave no indication of her feelings. She hurried away, following the old Housewoman.
There was nothing Sira could do but turn and walk on alone, wondering. Magret had accepted a peremptory, even discourteous command, and she had complied without demur. Sira did not understand why a senior Cantrix, with her heavy responsibilities, should be treated in this way. Naturally, customs would differ here, but such disrespect surely should not be tolerated.
Sira wandered down the long, broad corridor. The intricate carvings that lined the walls reflected the yellow quiru light from curved and faceted surfaces. It was distracting. There was so much to look at, everywhere. It must have taken many summers to decorate every inch of Bariken in this way. Several people passed Sira. They bowed, but they did not speak. There were no voices in her mind. There were no friendly smiles.
A wide staircase opened up before her, with a carved banister that rippled and flowed like a slender river of wood. It was beautiful, and extravagant. She knew very little about obis carvers, but the ones who had made this banister had invested it with real artistry. It invited her hand to caress it as she climbed.
She wandered up the stairs, stopping to admire the wavy limeglass window above the first landing. The glassworkers also had much to be proud of.
On the floor above, the hallway was similarly wide, with apartment doors spaced far apart. Sira thought she must have come upon the Magister’s wing, where he and his staff would have the largest rooms. She heard the murmur of conversation and ongoing family life behind the doors she passed, a homely and familiar sound. Her fur boots whispered across the stone floor as she walked.
She was sure she must soon come to another stairwell that would return her to the first floor. As she paced the corridor, she heard a door open behind her.
“Cantrix Sira!” The voice resonated in the hall. It sounded, in fact, like the voice of a Singer, the soft palate lifted, the vowels open. Sira turned to see a plump, middle-aged woman in the dark tunic of the upper class, standing in the doorway of one of the largest apartments. A child called something behind her.
“Yes,” Sira said, wondering how this woman had known she was passing.
“I believe you have lost your way,” said the woman. She closed her door and came forward, a woman as ample in her proportions as Sira was spare. She bowed rather casually. “I’m Trude. May I show you back to your room?”
“It is not necessary. I will find it.”
“Very well. At the end of the corridor, turn right down the stairs and then right again.” Trude smiled, her expression reminding Sira of Wil’s odd one. “I enjoyed your quirunha today. Certainly a relief after listening to old Grigr’s wobble.”
Sira frowned. “I am sure he gave long and devoted service,” she said stiffly.
“Too long, Cantrix. You’re a refreshing change.” Trude looked Sira up and down. “You certainly look like a Singer. No danger of you going astray, is there?”
Sira’s eyebrows lifted. “I beg your pardon?”
Trude laughed, and Sira heard again the overtones of Conservatory in her voice. “Never mind, young Cantrix. I’ll leave you alone. If you really don’t want a guide, then—” She bowed again, still smiling.
“Thank you.” Sira spoke coldly, and made a deliberately shallow bow. She turned her back, and was some way down the hall before she heard Trude’s door close behind her.
Sira shrugged off her irritation as she went looking for the stairs. Someone, she thought, should teach the House members of Bariken how Singers should be addressed.
She took her filhata from under her arm and stroked its glowing surface, remembering the Houseman at Conservatory who had so painstakingly carved and polished and tuned it. She recalled the ceremony with which he had presented it to her. He would have disapproved of the manners of these people. Maestra Lu would have been furious.
Sira was always an early riser, preferring to put in an hour of work before the morning meal. On her third day at Bariken she rose even earlier than usual, and gently sought Magret with her mind, careful not to intrude. When she determined that her senior was still in her room, Sira hurried out. She carried her filla in her hand, and moved quickly among the few people who were in the halls at that hour. When she opened the door to the ubanyix, she saw with satisfaction that the big carved tub was empty. The air was redolent with the fragrance of herbs left to soak overnight.
Her little melody in the third mode, with its plaintive raised fourth degree, floated out across the water. She played until curls of steam rose from the surface into the yellowish light.
Magret came in just as she was about to leave. A Housewoman was behind her, carrying a stack of woven towels.
“Sira? Are you bathing so early?”
Sira bowed. “No. But a senior Cantrix should not have to perform this small task.”
“Ah. I see.” Magret’s cheeks curved with her smile, making her look younger than her seven summers. “Thank you.” She hesitated for a moment, her eyes half-closed, listening to something. The Housewoman was on the other side of the room, busy with towels and cakes of soap. Magret opened her mind briefly.
There are problems here, she sent. You are very thoughtful. But please be cautious.
Sira raised one eyebrow, and waited for an explanation, but Magret shook her head. “Let us go to the great room together.”
Sira inclined her head. She would follow her senior’s lead, of course.
On the point of leaving the ubanyix, Magret turned back. Keep your thoughts shielded, she sent briefly. Always.
Sira’s eyes widened, but she nodded once again. It was strange advice. She followed Magret out into the corridor, wondering. She and all Singers learned in their early years to observe the courtesy of mental privacy. Shielding should not be necessary. She drummed her fingers against her filla in frustration. Were these trivial things the lessons that could not be taught? They seemed a waste of a Singer’s time.
She ate in silence, with a healthy appetite for the nursery fruit and spicy caeru stew. She and Magret sat alone at a table, basking in the bright light from one of the tall windows. Mealtime at Conservatory had been a time of community. The great room here at Bariken, Although filled with people, seemed cold and foreign.
She wondered what Rollie would be doing on such a clear morning. Perhaps she was outside, riding after the caeru in the sunlit hills.