Strands of Starlight (26 page)

And so she was not overly conscious of the passage of days. The moon waxed and waned, the sun rose each day, but that was all. Of weeks, or months, or feast days—mere conveniences of a human-created calendar—she knew nothing. Today was simply today.

And today contained the winter forest, and the sky, and the certain knowledge of the Dance that went on around her. With Terrill she wandered through the trees, and together they looked in on hibernating bears and broke the ice of the river for thirsty foxes. One day she found a lamed rabbit, and without thinking, she healed it, the power flowing effortlessly.

It was pleasure. It was very good. And as the days went on, cold and white, the cave warm and filled with firelight and with the presence of the Elves, Miriam allowed herself a luxury that had been denied her for many years: time to forget, time to give up struggles, time to lay aside burdens—for a little while.

Roxanne nursed her baby. Natil played her harp. Talla danced in intricate variations that complemented the shimmering arpeggios of Natil's music, variations that she recognized as being akin to the movements she herself knew.

And when, on an evening in that prolonged present into which she had entered, Talla took her by the hand and led her through the subtle twinings of a dance, Miriam moved with an instinctive knowledge of the steps, as though everything the Elves did—dancing, fighting, breathing, living—reflected the changing patterns around them, the patterns they called the Dance, the Dance that was the Lady.

The old, human clumsiness fell from Miriam's feet, and the shimmer about her quickened again. Talla's dance flowed into the Greater Dance, and Miriam wondered where one left off and the other began. Were her movements really altering the course of worlds? Of stars? How was it that this little healer had come to enter into the workings of the universe?

When they finished, Talla hugged her and murmured into her ear: “
Ele, Miryai. Elea.
”

That name again, and with the added inflection that Miriam had come to recognize as an endearment. But she looked over Talla's shoulder and saw Terrill standing by the entrance to the cave. His arms were folded, and in his eyes was such a look of grief that she was stricken. Terrill was more than her teacher. He had, in spite of his demanding methods, become her friend, and the knowledge of such sorrow in him made her want to comfort.

“Terrill,” she said, but the Elf was already gone, the flap of the door falling shut behind him.

She ran across the dry sand to the door, peered out into the winter landscape. “Terrill!” Her throat ached, as though she remembered another parting, a long and grievous one, one she could not name, one that remained only dim bleakness in the back of her mind.

She slumped by the fire, her head bent. Natil came to sit beside her. “I have tried,” said the harper. “There are some wounds too deep to heal quickly.”

“What happened?”

“I may not speak of it.”

Before, Miriam's temper would have flared, and she would have pressed her question. Not so now. She did not speak for a time. Then: “Is it in the Dance?”

The harper smiled slightly. The firelight caught the silver in her hair. “Everything is in the Dance,” she said. She took a soft cloth and wiped the strings of her instrument.

“Then I could go back and see what happened.”

“You could,” said Natil. “But if Terrill is unwilling to speak of it, then have you the right to go and look?”

Miriam watched the flames. “Compassion.”

“It is so. Compassion.”

For the first time since she had come to this quiet cave, she thought of the many futures that held bloodshed and battle for the Free Towns. Did Aloysius Cranby think of compassion? Did Roger of Aurverelle? Her memory flashed—the Chateau, the Inquisition, the dull throbbing of now vanished wounds. “What good is compassion against an uplifted sword?” she said.

“That can only be answered in the Dance.”

“I've looked into the futures, Natil. I can't make any sense out of them.”

“Not just the futures, Miriam. The Dance as a whole. Past, present, futures.”

Miriam sought to comprehend her words, but if her feet had gained the lightness of the Elves, her mind had not. “It just seems futile, somehow. I must be too human. I can't find any peace in your words.”

Natil was still calm. “It takes time. There is time.”

Miriam grimaced. Everything was just out of her reach. “No,” she said, “there isn't time. Not for Kay, or Charity, or any of the others. Not for the thousand little things that make up Saint Brigid. There just isn't time.”

Natil's blue eyes regarded Miriam quietly. There was a peace about the harper that was greater than that of the rest of her people, and when she played, her music spoke of that peace eloquently. “Everything that happens,” she said, “happens exactly as it should, because that is the way it happens. We sit beside this fire. That is good. Not because it was foreordained, not because we choose to, but because we are here. That is all. Terrill sorrows. In itself that is not good, but in the Dance as a whole, in all its futures, can you not see that it might be for the best?”

Miriam felt the old anger stirring, dark embers starting suddenly into ruddy life. “And I was raped, Natil. Was that for the best?”

Natil did not flinch. “In the end,” she said calmly.

“I don't accept that. Everything only comes out well in the end if there's enough time before the end.”

“There is time.”

“There isn't,” Miriam insisted. What day was this? How long had she been here? “Not for me. Not for Saint Brigid. Not for the Free Towns.”

Natil nodded slowly. “I understand.”

“But you don't agree.”

“I do not.”

Miriam passed her hands over her face. “I think,” she said softly, “that it's time for me to go back to the town. I came out here for something. I'm still not quite sure what it was, but I think I found it. At least I found as much of it as I can hold right now. I'll be back, though.” Natil was smiling fondly at her. “If I'm still welcome.”

“There are always returns,” said the harper. “To leave is to return. To return is to be welcome.” She leaned forward and kissed her. “Be at peace.”

Miriam stood up. Suddenly she asked: “What does
Mirya
mean?”

“It is our word for the sudden blooming of a flower,” said Natil. “There is a star we call that. And . . .” Her sight seemed to be elsewhere for a moment. “And someone we knew once . . .”

The sky was clear above Hypprux, but the sun gave no warmth. That quality might have been systematically removed from the pale disk that each morning slid above the plains to the east. There was light, and that was about all that could be said.

The River Tordion had frozen over near the first of the year, and now small boys played there, cr3eeping out across the white surface on wooden skates, pelting one another with snowballs, chinning themselves on the large chains that hung from the guard towers on either bank.

Paul delMari, tenth baron of Furze, pulled his hood close about his head as he followed the funeral procession along the Street of Saint Lazarus, the tic above his right eye twitching repeatedly. There was no doubt in anyone's mind about who would be the next chamberlain, for Roger of Aurverelle had already donned the chain of office. Lucky devil! Married right, bribed right, supported right. Although—and Paul looked at the huge man who walked directly behind the velvet-draped bier—the story that Baron Roger had threatened to break the neck of anyone who questioned his claim to the office was quite believable. The baron was not known for gentleness. There were stories about his first wife . . . and about peasant girls found in the forest. . . .

Paul slipped and came close to breaking his head on the cobbles, but the loyal arm of his steward caught him. The baron nodded his thanks to the man as he found his footing, and he reminded himself that his thoughts should be on prayers for the eternal rest of old Thomas.

God, that he himself should live to be so respected and venerable as the late chamberlain! Even Aloysius Cranby had to praise the man who had served the city and the region for over forty years. In fact, the bishop was going to celebrate the funeral Mass himself, although Paul admitted that if he did not, he would be considered discourteous by all, even by his supporters.

And Paul's thoughts returned again to politics. He hoped that George was doing something down in Saint Blaise. But then, George had probably done quite enough already. Those Elves. And witches now, too. He wondered about the letter he had received from Aloysius Cranby the evening before, and had the uneasy suspicion that the bishop had been asking about the old midwife. Another unpleasant thought.

Aloysius Cranby, clad in the purple of his rank, his crozier frosted by the cold but nonetheless agleam with amethysts and—some thought prematurely—rubies, walked at the head of the procession. Flanking the bishop were the two Dominican friars who worked closely with him, and following were members of Thomas's guild, the Brotherhood of the Queen of Heaven, sevenscore and ten of the wealthiest men of the city who had devoted much time and money to the care of the poor, the outcast, and the unfortunate.

Then the bier, the new chamberlain, and Paul. Behind the baron of Furze marched the other barons who were wintering in Hypprux, the aldermen of the city, and a selection of men from the respected trades. Slowly, the procession wound along the Street of Saint Lazarus, up the Street Gran Pont, and into the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mercy where the choir was already singing. The bells tolled, and a few crows took wing and flapped about the flèche, their cries brittle in the frosty air, their forms dark.

The altar was ablaze with candles, and incense hung wraithlike in the air. After placing the bier directly at the intersection of nave and transepts, the bearers took the black pall away, revealing a dark blue drape with an intricately embroidered device of interlaced moon and star.

Taking his place nearby, Paul knelt on a red cushion and crossed himself. Time to say farewell to an old man.

***

Every year now, the winter seemed a little harder.

Mika made her way along the road, cloak pulled tight against the cold, booted feet plodding through the snow. Her joints ached, and her eyes smarted. There was a stiffness in her knees that would not go away, she knew, until the weather warmed, and the old twinge in her left shoulder was persisting in spite of herbs and compresses.

“Midwife, heal thyself,” she murmured. But even Miriam could not take away the burden of the years, and hers was the most miraculous power of which Mika had ever heard, excepting maybe that of a certain carpenter of Nazareth.

Mika stopped in the road, looked up at the brilliant blue sky. Where was the girl now? Was she warm? Was someone looking after her? Had she found safety? A home?

The wind stung her face. She pulled her hood down low and continued on her way. A crow called harshly form the bare branches of a tree.

“Not much to eat, is there, old one?” said the midwife. “I'll put something out for you when I get home.”

The bird flapped its wings once, then settled and fluffed its feathers. Mika took the turning that led to Clare's house and the young mother let her into a warm room that smelled of fresh straw and hot stew.

“It's just in time for supper you are,” said Clare. “Will'ee stay?”

“I could be persuaded.” Mika doffed her cloak. “How is little Miriam?”

“She's fine.” The little girl, ten months old now, toddled up to Mika. The midwife lifted her. Miriam giggled and made a grab for her nose, and Mika laughed.

“She seems fine indeed, Clare. Eyes as bright as silver pennies.”

“She's talking.”

“She is! What's she saying?”

Clare stirred the stew. “She'll sit on her father's lap, and she'll point to most everything in the room and name it.” She laughed. “Sometimes she dan get the names quite right, but that dan seem to bother her!”

Mika smiled. “What's that?” she said to the girl, pointing at the table.

Miriam looked at the table with enormous gray eyes. “Dog,” she said seriously.

“It's a table, little sweet,” said Mika.

“Dog,” said Miriam in a tone that did brook disagreement.

“Well,” said the midwife, “I suppose she takes after her namesake.”

Clare did not look up from the pot. “Ha' you . . . ha' you any idea where she is?”

“No,” said Mika after a long silence.

“The priest asked me questions about her after Mass last Sunday.”

“What did you tell him?” Mika's voice was tight.

Clare shrugged, plainly disturbed. “I told him I didn't know.”

From outside, clearly, the sound brittle in the cold, came the cawing of a crow.

***

To leave is to return.

There were, Miriam reflected, all kinds of returns, whether to a forest cave and the sound of harp strings, or to a small village in the south of Adria. But as she and Roxanne came out of the trees and saw the rooftops of Saint Brigid poking up above the walls of the town, she knew that her time there would be limited. This was a return, no more. There would be other returns, to other towns, other places. Maybe, in the end, to the forest. It was as if she had passed some midpoint in her life—perhaps on a stone slab at midsummer—as if, from now on, she would only be returning.

She wondered. Would she return to Mika, too? And what about the Chateau? Woulds he again set foot within its white, polished walls? For what purpose?

So many places to which to return.

Lake, Roxanne's son, murmured softly, and the witch nestled him deep into the folds of her gray cloak. Varden would have come to see them home, but Roxanne preferred to enter the town of her birth by herself, bearing her child in her arms. She had her own returns. Varden, understanding, had not pressed.

“How is he, Sana?” asked Miriam.

“Sleeping,” said the witch with a fond smile. “I think he misses Natil's playing already. I'm afraid I'm going to have to take up the harp until he's old enough to hold one himself.”

“I'm sure he'll have a good teacher.”