The Singers of Nevya Page 3

  “I hope you had a good journey,” Magret said aloud. Her voice was resonant, a Singer’s voice. “I can hardly wait to hear all about Conservatory.”

  “Welcome, Cantrix Sira,” the older man, Cantor Grigr said. His hair was nearly white, and his face was marked with illness. “We are so glad to have you here.”

  Sira bowed deeply to him, in respect. “Thank you, Cantor.”

  “Rather young, aren’t you?” Rhia observed.

  “Yes.” Sira regarded the woman curiously. Surely youth was nothing to apologize for, but there was implied criticism in Rhia’s manner. There was something extraordinary about every aspect of her appearance and bearing, the binding of her hair, the cut of her tunic. She spoke with authority, yet she bore no title. Sira hardly knew how to respond to her.

  The dark man standing next to Rhia spoke now. “Magister Mkel of Conservatory spoke very highly of Cantrix Sira.”

  Rhia nodded. “Yes. Of course.” Rhia lifted a graceful hand. “This is my Housekeeper, Wil. He will show you to your room.” As an afterthought, it seemed, she added, “We all look forward to hearing you sing.”

  Sira doubted the sincerity of this very much, but she pressed the thought low so as not to offend her new senior. Rhia turned and went into the House, the elderly Housewoman trotting after her like a caeru pup after its dam.

  Sira turned back to say farewell to the riders, but they were already leading the hruss out of the courtyard toward the back of the House, where the stables would be. The traveler Devid went with them. Only Blane still stood next to Sira.

  “Thank you for escorting me,” she said formally. She bowed to him, too, feeling tall and awkward and out of place.

  His bow was deeper, and when he spoke, she sensed his sympathy. “Good luck, young Cantrix,” he murmured. “We’re sure you’ll be a great success.”

  Sira straightened her shoulders and looked up at the great House awaiting her, expecting her to warm and light it, to serve its inhabitants. “By the will of the Spirit,” she responded, and started up the steps.

  *

  Sira had expected, once she joined her new senior, the silent and easy communication she was accustomed to. It was a surprise to her that Magret persisted in speaking aloud as they sat together over their evening meal. The great room of Bariken was very like that of Conservatory, though smaller. The biggest difference, Sira thought, looking about her, was one of adornment. At Bariken, every surface was carved and molded into rich detail. The brightly colored clothes of the Housemen and women looked familiar, but the dark tunics worn by those of the upper class were heavily embroidered and embossed. Every wall bore hangings, and all the floors were laid with rugs. Conservatory was austere, its hard surfaces left bare to enhance their resonance. The first thing Sira planned to do tomorrow morning was remove the extraneous decorations that cluttered her own room.

  “We are so glad you are here at last,” Magret was saying. “Poor Cantor Grigr was not sure he could cope much longer.”

  Sira looked down the table to where Grigr sat, leaning on his elbows. His hand, as he lifted the wooden spoon to his mouth, trembled. She felt a rush of compassion that the old cantor must have sensed, for he turned to her. She thrust the feeling down, sorry to have disturbed him, and bowed respectfully from where she sat. His answering nod was tired, and full of understanding.

  Since her senior spoke aloud, Sira did, too. “Can you not discover what is wrong?”

  Magret shook her had. “Perhaps Nikei can help him. But you know, my dear, Cantor Grigr has eleven summers. He would have retired before this had there not been such a shortage of Singers.”

  Sira nodded. This was why she had been graduated so quickly. As a general rule, Cantors and Cantrixes did not step into a Cantoris before the age of twenty. Sira was only seventeen, not yet having four summers.

  “Cantrix Magret, where is the Magister?”

  Magret’s smile faded. “I do not know where he is tonight, Sira. He may be hunting. He likes it very well.”

  Sira raised an eyebrow. Her mind was open, waiting for closer communication from her senior, but Magret, looking up at the central table, sent nothing. Sira followed her gaze.

  Rhia, who Sira now knew was the Magister’s mate, was deep in conversation with the Housekeeper. At Conservatory there would have been people coming to the table, asking questions and advice, being given directions. No one approached Rhia’s table. Wil lifted his dark, narrow head occasionally to scan the room, but he and Rhia were left in privacy.

  Sira turned back to hear Magret say, “Would you like to bathe now? After all that traveling …”

  Sira accepted gratefully. It had been a busy afternoon, and a long, warm bath would be a great pleasure.

  She and her senior both fetched clean clothes, and Magret led the way to the ubanyix. Here, as elsewhere at Bariken, there was an abundance of decoration. The great ironwood tub was scrolled and sculpted all around its edge, and Sira marveled at the number of obis knives that must have been worn to slivers in its making. Scented flower petals floated on the water, and piles of woven towels from Perl, familiar to Sira, were set out on the benches.

  The two women stepped out of their tunics and trousers and hung them on pegs above their furred boots. As they slipped down into the tub, Sira stretched joyously, relieved to be free of the clothes she had worn for so long. Her body under the water was as lean and taut as a child’s, while Magret’s was curving and plump, with generous breasts and hips softened by the passing of years and comfortable living.

  There were bars of soap from the abattoir in carved niches around the tub, and the soap, too, was scented. The Housekeeper must be very good at his job, Sira thought.

  “Cantrix Magret, shall I warm the water a bit?”

  Magret nodded. “That would be nice.

  Sira got out of the tub to fetch her filla, then stood naked, unselfconscious, as she played a little melody in Doryu, the third mode. The temperature of the water rose sharply, until Magret held up her hand.

  Very good, Sira, she sent.

  Sira smiled, relieved. Now they could really talk to one another. She stepped back into the tub and began to unbind her hair for washing. Maestra Lu sends her greetings to you.

  Is she well? Magret asked.

  I think she is tired. And worried about me, Sira sent.

  Magret lifted her head, her forehead creasing with a sudden frown. Softly, but aloud, she said, “We have a need to keep our thoughts private here.”

  Sira looked up through the wet, dark strands of her hair. Confusion made her abrupt. “But why?”

  Her senior’s frown softened and she reached out to push a lock of Sira’s hair away from her eyes. “Everything is different here,” she said. “It is difficult to explain. But there are Gifted people in the House who can hear us.”

  Sira leaned back in the water to rinse the soap from her hair. She could only follow her senior’s lead, of course. If Magret wished to explain to her, she would. If not, Sira’s duty was to accommodate her.

  I know it is strange, Magret sent. Try to be patient.

  Sira nodded, unsure what was expected of her. As they stepped from the tub to dry themselves and dress, she told herself she must simply wait and watch. Surely her questions would have answers soon enough. Surely Magister Shen would attend her first quirunha tomorrow, and perhaps she would understand more then. In any case, she had only to fulfill her duties. She was confident of her ability to do that. The politics of the House could not possibly matter, she thought.

  She was mistaken.

  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 vivi
d 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?