The Singers of Nevya (8 page)

“I have only seen metal once before,” Isbel said. “Do you earn great amounts of it?”

Theo laughed again. “There is no great amount of it on the whole Continent! I earn enough to keep me supplied. A few bits for each traveler, a few more for healing. It’s enough.”

Isbel felt suddenly weary. She was unused to so much speaking aloud, and the quiet of the nursery gardens made her aware of how late it must be.

Theo seemed to sense her feeling. “It’s very late,” he said quietly. “You should surely be in your bed by now.”

She nodded to him. Evidently his Gift was intact, though apparently he could not send. “You are right, Singer. I must go up.” They rose and walked back through the gardens, down the deserted corridor to the stairwell for the students’ wing.

“Will you wait here at Conservatory for Arn?” Isbel asked before turning to the stairs.

“No. Magister Mkel has arranged a party for me to Arren.”

Isbel’s eyes widened. “So far,” she breathed. “All the way to the Southern Timberlands.”

He grinned at her. His eyes were ice-blue, like a cloudless sky above a snowfield. “It’s my specialty,” he said. “I know the southern Houses better than anyone.”

“Sometime you must tell me about them.” Isbel stifled a yawn with her hand.

He bowed. “With pleasure. Sometime when you’re awake!”

She dimpled, and bowed too. Experimentally, as she started up the steps, she sent,
Good night, Singer
. But although he waited politely as she climbed the stairs, he made no response.

Chapter Seven

The long-awaited summer was beginning at last. The distant speck of the Visitor, the wandering sun, glimmered above the southern horizon. Children who had never been out of doors in their lives scrambled over each other to peer through the rippled window glass, hoping for a glimpse. The firn began to diminish on the lower slopes of the Mariks, and the snow that seemed eternal now dropped from the trees in large, mushy chunks.

Sira, who had seen only three summers herself, was no less excited than the little ones at the coming season. She came into the great room before Cantoris hours and watched them at the window for a few moments before sitting down to her meal. Several House members bowed to her from a distance.

Sira would have liked to crowd into the window seat with the children to watch the changes outside, but she knew if she did, they would pull back, keep their distance, be careful not to touch her. If they didn’t, their parents would speak to them sharply, even fearfully. As Cantrix of Bariken, Sira had only her senior for real company.

She looked around the great room as she drank her tea. By now she could distinguish between the House members and their guests. Some were here to trade for limeglass, bringing worked leather goods from Amric or
obis
-carved ironwood implements from Tarus. In the far corner of the great room, two itinerants sat negotiating with the Housekeeper for work. Summertimes could be difficult for itinerants. For a few short weeks, Nevyans could move between Houses without hiring Singers to protect them. Itinerants had to find some other work to do while both the suns shone.

Sira leaned her head on her hand, remembering the visit her family had made to Conservatory last summer, five years before. Her mother had been silent and worn-looking. Her father was awkward and formal. Though Sira had not yet reached the status of full Cantrix, they did not touch her. They held themselves apart, as if she had become something alien, something awesome. She had been relieved when they departed, leaving her to her music and her friends. Since then, as before, she had received one message a year, carried by some traveler for the price of a small bit of metal, on the anniversary of her entrance to Conservatory.

Sira was not sure how many children her mother had. When she left, there were already three older than herself, and two younger. Of all her family only her father seemed vivid in her memory, full of energy after a hunt, striding into the family’s apartment with a joy in life her mother had never shown. Sira had not liked the rough-and-tumble of her siblings, and once her mother had accused her of thinking herself better than her brothers and sisters because of the Gift. That memory stung, partly because there was a substantial amount of truth in the criticism.

Good morning, Sira
, Magret sent, sitting down opposite her.

Good morning, Cantrix
. Sira welcomed the interruption of her dark thoughts.

Summer at last
. Magret and Sira had fallen into the habit of sending everyday pleasantries. Less trivial thoughts they spoke aloud.

Sira looked again at the children crowding against the big windows. She now knew a few of them by name. Denis was among them.

Magret followed her gaze.
In a few days, they will be playing outside.
Magret sipped her tea, and spoke aloud. “Last summer,” she said softly, “Denis ran off into the woods, and Trude had the whole House looking for him.” She shook her head. “The Magister treated it as a joke, but Rhia was furious. None of the children were allowed out again the rest of the summer.”

“That was hardly fair.”

“Certainly not. And it still did not change Denis’s behavior.”

Sira finished her meal, but waited politely for her senior. It was burdensome to speak aloud with another Gifted one, but Trude sat at the Magister’s table, reminding her of the need.

The
quirunha
went on as usual, since the thick stone of the House walls shed the warmth of summer as effectively as it did the more cold of the winter. The daily ceremony was Sira’s chief pleasure, the more so as she and Magret grew to know each other’s musical inclinations.

Cantrix Magret seemed to be almost without ego. She allowed Sira to dominate the
quirunha
, enjoying the freshness of her ideas and the effortlessness of her technique. Sira enjoyed each opportunity to perform, though the sparse attendance was still a disappointment.

Magret, one day, saw her searching the listeners when the music was over. “You know, Cantrix Sira, it is only important to sing; it is not so important for whom you sing.”

“I am sorry, Cantrix,” Sira said, abashed. “Of course you are right.” It was not wasted on her that Magret had spoken her rebuke aloud, so that Trude should not hear.

Magret put a soft hand on Sira’s arm. Sira started, and realized it had been many weeks since she had felt someone’s touch. “I am not angry with you, Sira,” Magret said. “It has not been so long since I was a junior Cantrix, you remember.”

“So I do, Cantrix,” Sira said. “And you are generous with me.”

Magret shook her head, as if that were not important. Sira marveled at the older Singer’s ease with her Gift. She appeared tranquil, content, while in Sira’s own breast the fire of ambition burned hotly. Sira wanted applause; she wanted to be presented in concert, as Maestra Lu so often had been, simply for the sake of her beautiful music. She cared what her listeners thought of her work. Cantrix Magret evidently cared only for the work itself.

From the first hint of the Visitor’s arrival, the summer came on quickly. In a very few days, Magret’s prediction came true, and the children were playing outside in the courtyard, with a few Housemen and women watching over them, and enjoying the suns on their own faces.

Sira was lingering over the morning meal, watching the courtyard, when she saw a man she recognized ride up, two long-legged boys on
hruss
beside him. It was Devid, the man her traveling party had encountered on the last day of her journey to Bariken. The boys were so like him, hair and eyes and build, that she had no doubt they were his sons. She pressed against the casement to watch them, putting her forehead to the cool glass. They all dismounted, and Devid sent the taller boy around back to the stables with the
hruss
while he and the other boy turned into the entrance.

After the
quirunha
that day, Sira saw the younger son once again. He sat in the back of Cantoris, on the bench furthest from the dais. His eyes were intent on the two Cantrixes as they stepped down. Sira tucked her
filhata
under her arm and strolled toward him.

He rose as she approached, brown eyes shining up at her in awe.

“You are Devid’s son?” Sira asked.

He nodded, and a flood of feeling swept out of him and over Sira as he stammered his compliments. “It was a beautiful
quirunha
, Cantrix. Wonderful! Your voice—and your melodies— Do you change them? I don’t know that many modes, but—”

Sira, almost laughing, put up her hand to hush him. His thin cheeks flushed red and he stopped talking, but the tides of emotion did not recede. There was elation, and pleasure, and a spate of longing that was unmistakable.

“What is your name?”

“Zakri, Cantrix.” He ran nervous fingers through his brush of brown hair, and made her a clumsy bow.

“Your father did not mention to me that one of his sons is Gifted.”

He gaped at her. “Can you tell? How did you know?”

“Zakri, your thoughts flow out of you like spilled water, going in all directions at once.”

He blushed again. “I’m sorry, Cantrix! My mother was trying to help me with that—but she died. She was a Singer.” The last he said with youthful pride and sorrow.

“Yes. I am very sorry about your mother.” Sira looked about her. The Cantoris had emptied. “Zakri, how old are you?”

“This summer makes three.”

“But in years, how old?”

He frowned, concentrating. “I—I think I am twelve.”

“You should have been at Conservatory long ago!” Sira spoke without thinking, and she knew she had blundered when tears welled in the boy’s eyes. He dropped his head, not answering, and Sira wished her words unspoken.

Devid’s bulky form appeared behind him. “Zakri, your brother needs your help in the stables.” The boy looked up at his father, and his eyes flashed. Devid stepped back suddenly, holding up a warning hand.

Zakri took a ragged breath, then bowed stiffly to Sira and rushed out of the Cantoris. It made Sira’s heart ache to watch his thin back as he hurried away. Undisciplined emotions poured from him, even after he was out of her sight.

She turned to Devid. He bowed, and was on the point of leaving.

“Your son needs training.” She spoke as a full Cantrix, with the authority of her position.

“His mother was teaching him,” Devid said. “Now I must find someone else.”

“Why did you not send him to Conservatory?”

“There was no need for that.” Devid’s gaze was hard, and his mouth looked stubborn. “His mother was a Singer. And we didn’t want to part with him. We needed him at home.”

“But he longs to be a true Singer.”

An old anger sparked in Devid’s eyes. “He will be! I will apprentice him to an itinerant Singer and he’ll learn all he needs to know, just like his mother did.”

Sira frowned. “It is very late for him, but you could still send him to Conservatory. I can send a message to Magister Mkel.”

Sira was so intent on her purpose that she was caught by surprise when Devid punched one big fist into his other palm. She jumped. She had not realized he was losing his temper.

“Why do you Cantors always think yours is the only way?” he thundered.

Sira had no answer. He was right. For a Conservatory-trained Singer, there was only one way. She stood tall, keeping her gaze steady. For a frozen moment they stared at one another, until Devid suddenly remembered himself.

He looked down at his furred boots. “Forgive me, Cantrix,” he mumbled. “You saved my life, and now I’ve offended you.”

Sira looked away, up at the dais where she had so recently sat and played. She tried to soften her own voice. “Nevya needs every Gifted person to be fully trained and capable. My class at Conservatory had barely one Singer for each House. We cannot afford to waste any.”

“We love our children,” Devid said, and there was fresh misery in his voice. “To send one away so young—we couldn’t do it.”

“But a Gifted child suffers without training,” Sira said, turning back to him. “If he hears other thoughts, sense other feelings, and cannot direct his own, he will go mad. He will be dangerous to those around him.”

“It’s been hard on him since his mother died. But I’ll find someone. He’ll be all right.”

Sira had no further argument to offer. She bowed to Devid in grim silence, and left the Cantoris. Poor, unhappy Zakri. If his father could feel his emotions as she did, he would know the child wanted nothing more than to go to Conservatory to train, late or not.

Sad and thoughtful, she went to her room and spent her emotions in long, painstaking practice with her
filhata
. Later she heard from Magret that young Zakri had stood in the hall outside her room for an hour, listening.

The brief weeks of summer fled by. The children grew brown and strong with running in the woods around Bariken. They laughed and chattered at dinner, and ate prodigiously, making the adults smile. The hunters ranged far, bringing back many
caeru
to be skinned and dressed, preserved for leaner times. One trip netted them a
tkir
pelt, and the entire House gathered to exclaim over its tawny, speckled richness, and to praise the hunters who had brought it down. They saved its great serrated teeth to be made into cutting tools valued in the abattoir. The children clamored to touch them, and when they were allowed to do so, cautiously, they put one finger to the yellowish points and then ran away, shrieking with mock fear.

In the forest around the House, the softwood shoots sprang up, growing visibly every day. Even the children were careful with them, never stepping on them or pulling them. Every Nevyan knew how much they were needed.

Sira had time to spare after the
quirunha
each day. She took to spending it in the courtyard, enjoying the suns, and playing little tunes on her
filla
for the children. Zakri sat near her one afternoon, and she smiled at him. She offered him her
filla
to play, but he shook his head, embarrassed. A leather ball lying near his feet suddenly rolled away over the cobblestones to smack against the side of a bench. Sira watched, trying not to show her surprise.