The Singers of Nevya (100 page)

Magret nodded quickly. “I felt certain you would say exactly that, Magistrix.” She rose, adding, “I will let the others know for you, shall I?”

Cathrin stopped her. “Wait, please, Maestra!” Magret turned back in surprise.

“Sira,” Cathrin said, very softly. She paused, searching for the words she needed. “You know, being mated made Mkel’s job all the easier. It’s an enormous duty you have taken on, and it can be exhausting. Wouldn’t you like to think about it?”

“So I have,” Sira said quickly. “There was no decision to make.”

“But,” Cathrin insisted gently, “your special friend, Cantor Theo. Wouldn’t you like to have him by your side, to help you to bear the load as I helped Mkel over the years?”

There was a silence. Sira could not sit still any longer. She pushed away from the table and went to look out over the summer-green hills, where the softwood shoots were already half as tall as she. For one fleeting moment, she wished she and Theo could simply ride away, out under the sky that was the same blue as his eyes, away from all problems and decisions and responsibilities. But she could not turn her back on this call, and she knew it. All her life she had answered the call of the Gift. She would not change that now.

She turned back to Cathrin and Magret. “I would,” she said. “I would so like to have Theo’s support, his help and his companionship, here at Conservatory. But I will never mate. It is not in me to make that compromise with my Gift. And how can I ask Theo to stay here, to abandon his work at Observatory? In truth, I am not sure he would want to do so either way, mated or unmated. He is Cantor Theo v’Observatory, not Magistrix Sira’s mate!”

“I should tell you, Magistrix,” said Magret, “that Lamdon believes you will move your school at Observatory, bring those Gifted children to Conservatory to be trained.”

Sira’s chin went up. “I will not. That would be throwing aside all that the Gift has taught us. If that is why they chose me, they were mistaken, and they will have to choose another.”

Magret laughed. “Oh, they cannot choose another! Despite Cantor Abram’s fine speech, Magister Mkel chose you, and they were bound to respect his wishes. But they did hope that your appointment as Magistrix would simplify things. You are such a puzzle to them all!”

Sira came back to sit again in the tall chair that had been Mkel’s. “I believe I am to meet with Cantor Abram this morning, after the
quirunha
. I will explain to him, and to all of you, my plans for Observatory. But, Maestra, I hope I will have advice from you too, you and Maestro Nikei and all the others. It is important to me, and to Cantor Theo, to hear everyone’s voice.”

Magret bowed to her. “Magistrix, we will give you every support we can.”

Magret was right. Abram’s smug expression crumpled into an angry one when he learned that Sira and Theo had no intention of moving their students from Observatory. Sira was Magistrix already, though, despite the fact that the ceremony had not taken place, and he could not give vent to his feelings as he had when she was simply a rebel Cantrix without a Cantoris.

“Surely, Magistrix,” he pleaded, his plump features pinched by his attempt to control his temper. “Surely it is better if all the Gifted are trained in one place.”

Sira knew very well the power of her new position. It frightened her in the long night hours, but at this moment, she understood it was her job to use it. She trusted to her instincts. “Cantor Abram,” she said levelly. “Why do you think Observatory, small House that it is, has seen such a flourishing of the Gift?”

Abram stared at her. “Does anyone know the reasons for such things? Those are the mysteries of life on the Continent!”

Sira met Theo’s eyes and he winked at her. “I believe I do know,” Sira said. She rose to pace to the window and back, to stand behind her tall chair, the Magister’s—no, the Magistrix’s—chair. She gripped it with her hands. The teachers and Cantor Abram, Theo, Berk, and Zakri were ranged around the meeting table. She swept them all with her glance.

“I am sure Cantor Theo would say that the
ferrel
builds more than one nest,” she began. Theo grinned. “The way we have trained the Gift, the way in which we have used it on Nevya, has grown more and more narrow over the years. It is natural to try to control that on which we are dependent; but we have tried too hard. We have set too high a price on the Gift. We have misused our Singers, isolated them. For some, discovering their Gift is tantamount to a punishment, and therefore, the Gift does not appear.”

“Punishment?” sputtered Abram. “I do not understand! The Gift has to be disciplined!”

“Yes. But discipline does not require ancient rules that have outlived their time.”

“What rules, then? What rules do you wish to break?”

“Only the artificial ones,” Sira said. “The ones that say the Gift can only be trained in one way, in one place. The rules that ignore realities, such as those that touched Trisa’s life, or Zakri’s, or Isbel’s, or—” She nodded toward Theo. “Or Cantor Theo’s.”

Abram shook his head. Maestro Nikei said, “Mkel came to believe, in his last years, that change was necessary, and that Magistrix Sira was sent by the Gift to effect the change. When Mreen arrived, this child that is purely of the Gift, nurtured at Observatory and brought here by as revolutionary a figure as Cantor Theo—”

Theo chuckled aloud at that. Nikei smiled at him. “Indeed you may laugh, Cantor,” he said. “When the Gift has you in its current, you must simply float on the tide. I doubt any of the great revolutionaries set out to be so. I doubt that Magistrix Sira set out to be a reformer.”

Sira smiled at him. “You know I did not, Maestro Nikei,” she said. “If I am, as you say, a reformer, then it is the work of the Spirit. I am no visionary.” She paused for a moment, surveying the people around her. Very softly, she finished, “I am only a Singer, like each of you, willing to work hard and to listen to the Gift when it calls.”

Theo smiled at Sira, his eyes the clear blue of the sky above the hills.

Abram said wearily, “What do you want, then, Magistrix? What are we supposed to do?”

Sira opened her hands, a gesture to include them all. “We will work,” she said. “We will study and teach and practice as we have always done. Observatory’s school will go on, with Theo and Cantrix Jana if she is willing. We will be open to surprises like Theo, and like Cantor Zakri. We will be more open in general, in fact, since I have learned from Theo that our healing can be much improved by being more open.”

Abram scowled. Sira saw Zakri staring at him, and she suppressed a smile. No doubt later Zakri would tell her all that Abram had been thinking! She would scold him, but it would do no good. And she would not, in truth, mind knowing.

“I do not know what will happen,” Abram muttered.

“No, Cantor Abram,” Sira agreed. “Nor do I. We will simply have to try, and trust. It is all we can ever do.”

*

The day of Sira’s investiture as Magistrix of Conservatory dawned bright and warm, with the two suns brilliant in the sky. The Housemen and women, the young Singers, all the teachers, and the many visitors spent most of the morning bathing, planning what to wear and what to say, preparing to celebrate the ceremony and enjoy the feast afterward. Only Sira, with Theo and Nikei, was working, seated once again at the long table in her apartment.

“If you leave yourself open,” Nikei was saying, “how can you bear the illness, and still do your work?”

“If you are closed,” Theo answered him, “how can you know where the illness is?”

“You will have to show me, I think, Cantor . . .”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door, and Theo opened it to find a young Housewoman standing with her hands on her hips. “Yes?” he said.

“If the Magistrix doesn’t come and bathe soon, there won’t be any time!” she snapped.

Sira stood quickly. “Cantor Theo, please meet Ita. She is my new Housewoman.”

Theo bowed to the girl, and she bowed in return, properly, but quickly. “Truly, Magistrix,” she insisted. “It’s late. You must come now! I won’t have you looking like some kitchen worker—”

“All right, Ita.” Sira arched her brow at Theo as she passed him. “I am coming.”

Theo and Nikei listened to Ita scold Sira as they went down the corridor together. “It’s really too bad about your hair, Magistrix,” she was saying. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now. I suppose it will grow, in time.”

Theo laughed aloud. “I wish her luck with the hair,” he chortled. “But it seems Sira will be obliged to obey someone, after all!”

It was a grand and colorful event, the investituture of Magistrix Sira v’Conservatory. The dark tunics of the upper levels and the Gifted gave way, through the ranks of the assembly, to the brilliant hues of the Housemen and women. Magister Gowan’s white hair and fleshy face contrasted sharply with Sira’s tanned, lean figure on the dais. Magister Pol attended, on his first trip outside of Observatory. Sira’s parents too, Niel v’Arren and his mate, were there. She had to struggle to find something to say to them. They were strangers to her, but they did not seem troubled by that. Their pride made them almost speechless in any case.

Mreen made Theo hold her up in his arms so she could see. Between them, Magister Gowan and Cantor Abram made the succession of the Magistrix of Conservatory official. The rite itself was short, but the congratulations and the cheering of the House members were long, cut off in the end only by the announcement of the meal.

Conservatory’s kitchens had spared no effort, and the feast laid out in the great room was the richest Mreen had ever seen. She sat with her class, of course, but she watched Magistrix Sira at the central table with all the teachers, the dignitaries from Lamdon, her awestruck parents. Mreen thought Sira looked wonderful, tall and noble, born to be a Magistrix.

She watched Cantor Theo, too. He had a special place at Sira’s right hand, and Mreen saw them glance at each other often, and she sensed the pain between them. It was wrong, somehow, that pain. Her own halo darkened when she felt it. Little shadows flitted around her despite her pleasure in the day. There was only laughter and vivacity around her, but Mreen was distracted from the rich
caeru
stew, the nutbread, the sweets she loved. At last she could bear it no more. She ducked under the table to scamper across the great room.

She tugged on Theo’s sleeve, and he grinned down at her.
Well, hello, little one. Is the food at your own table not so good?

She dimpled.
The food is wonderful!

Then what are you doing here, with the old folk?

I know you are worried, you and Ca—I mean, Magistrix Sira.

Theo patted her cheek.
You know, even when we are happy, we each have our special sorrows, dear heart. Mine is that I must say goodbye to Magistrix Sira tomorrow . . . and to you as well!

But, Cantor Theo,
she sent urgently.
You are coming back!

He looked at her quizzically.
Well, I suppose one day, Mreen. I am certain to come for a visit some day. Perhaps when you sing your first quirunha!

She shook her head, her curls bouncing, her nimbus sparkling with energy.
Oh, no, Cantor Theo . . . very soon!

How can you know that, Mreen?

She grinned at him, laughing her soundless laugh.
You are everywhere in Conservatory. I feel you in the classrooms, even in the practice rooms.

Mreen, he sent carefully. I have never been in any of those places.

The little old woman peered out from behind the child’s face again, in a way that had become almost familiar. You will be, Cantor Theo. You will be. Her nimbus shifted, dark and light together.

Mreen looked up to see that Sira, Magistrix Sira v’Conservatory, was listening to what she sent. Theo and Sira looked into each other’s eyes, and they smiled. The pain between them evaporated like morning fog under the light of the two suns, and Mreen’s halo frothed, glimmers and sparks of light doing a wild dance about her head, her floating red curls. The ancient expression vanished from her plump features, and her dimples flashed.

Suddenly, she was ravenous. She hurried back to her own table, eager for the lovely treats that awaited her there.