Robin McKinley - Chalice

Everything in her power. Including going on living. Including bearing a son to Horuld.

Everything in her power….

She did not notice that the sky behind her was darkening with bees.

The faenorn would be held on the open drive in front of the House. It was where the original insult had occurred which caused the faenorn to be called; it was also where the new Master had first stepped down from his carriage as Master of Willowlands, and climbed the stair to the front door to be greeted by his Chalice. The place would in itself support the better claim of the two combatants; she realised in despair that she was not even sure who that might be—she was only sure of whom she had chosen, for whom she would do anything, even live on after…

Surely it was the Master who had the better claim? But it was here that the calamity had occurred; should not the land itself have leaped up, to prevent the Overlord falling?

She had not had time to find out the rules or traditions of the faenorn ; she had had—she had chosen—other work to do. Now she could only come back to the House to see the end. She had to see it; she was Chalice. She would bear witness to this momentous thing as she was obliged to bear witness to all meetings and events that concerned the unity and accord of her demesne. Her tired mind stumbled, and found itself walking down another path, the path that had become the most familiar of all to her in the last year: What would she mix for this cup?…Her stomach lurched, and for a moment she could neither breathe nor see.

She had no Chalice cup for the faenorn .

When she had packed for the last sennight she had thought only of what she would be doing before the faenorn ; it had been cruelly clear in her mind that she would not be able to come back to the cottage before it was all over, and yet she had thought only of what she would need for her clearing and binding, for her journey around the boundaries of Willowlands. The faenorn seemed an absolute, like a vast monolith at the end of her road—like a headsman standing with his axe. She knew that was where she was going, but she could not think about it, she could only try to bear it. And yet—this was the most important, the most urgent and critical meeting that she was likely ever to attend as Chalice. How could she not bear a cup?

The only cup she had with her was the small brass silver-bound and-chased cup she had used for some of the work of her journey; it was a pretty thing, finer than anything a minor woodskeeper would possess, though small and tough for travelling; but it could in no way bear the immensity of the scene to come. She remembered the weight of the goblet she had carried through the aftermath of the Overlord’s fall, her sense that it was filling up with broken earthlines…. It had happened occasionally, in the long history of Chalicehood, that some frightened or incompetent Chalice had misjudged her witnessing so badly that the cup she had chosen shattered under the pressure brought to bear upon it. This had never produced a less than ruinous result; and the faenorn was disaster enough.

How could she have forgotten—how could she not have thought of this?

It was too late now. She had to be there, with the rest of the Circle.

She could see the beginnings of the crowd as soon as she rode past the final hedgerow. What she was not expecting was that most of them turned toward her as the news of her arrival spread. She was also not expecting to see that most of them were carrying candles. Many of the candles were nearly stubs; there were very few fresh ones. As the people noticed her and turned toward her, a few knelt, and their flints came out, and sparks were struck; and once the first candles were lit, they lit their neighbours’, who then lit their neighbours’, and long spreading winding lines of candle flames moved through the crowd till finally a low, twinkling, wavering forest of candlelight was raised to her. “Chalice,” the murmur came; and with the murmur a faint aroma of warm honey. Some of them said “missus.” Some said “Lady.”

She thought the thrumming in her ears was her own blood; she thought that she did not hear the voices clearly because she did not want to. There were bees around her, but there were always bees around her recently; she still had not looked behind her. She had no reason to look behind her; she only looked ahead.

What could she do about the cup she did not have? The people— her people—were looking to her.

The Overlord’s coach and a second, smaller one behind it, were drawn up opposite the front stair of the House, and at least twenty horses and riders in the Overlord’s livery lined the drive, and more on foot; but the Grand Seneschal stood at the top of the stairs alone. She looked around for the other members of the Circle; most of them were standing in an awkward and irresolute-looking group near the foot of the stairs: not quite treacherously close to the Overlord’s company but too far to be counted as loyal to the Master either. And yet what good was loyalty now? Let them save themselves. The Prelate seemed again to have disappeared. All the Circle must be present; even if he stood at the Overlord’s elbow it were better than that he was missing. Could he be so selfish as not to care that the survival of Willowlands might depend on an unbroken Circle, today of all days?

A Circle whose Chalice, today of all days, had no cup to bear.

Chalice, she heard again. Lady . These were her people now, as much as they were the Master’s. She saw into the crowd without meaning to, looked into their faces—realising how many of them she now knew as individuals—how many she could put names to, and say what they did, how many children they had, where they lived. And—especially today, the day of the faenorn —they were expecting her, relying on her, to hold the demesne together. Only the Chalice had the strength of connection to the Mastership to bridge the difference between a blood Master and an outblood one.

I’ve only been Chalice such a little while! she thought despairingly. You cannot ask this of me!

But they had to. There was no one else.

And she had brought no cup to bear for them.

She turned Ironfoot’s head toward the horseyard. The horseman who took the bridles from her had an unlit candle end tucked in the breast of his shirt. “Thank you,” she said, and briefly touched the candle, as if reminding herself of the presence of a friend. She did not think what it would look like to the man. Nor did she think of what she was doing when she unslung the one pannier that held what was left of her honey, water, herbs and mead, stones and the little travelling cup, and hung it over her shoulder. It was too late for her to do anything further with these; she did not dare mix a last-minute, haphazard, unplanned cup for such as the faenorn with the odds and ends left after her journey. But she had carried them a long way, and if there was any reason for her doing it, it was to have a friend with her. The pannier was made to hang from a saddle, against a horse’s side, but it settled easily against her back.

She went to join the Grand Seneschal at the front door. She was trembling now, trembling as she had not done for almost a year, when they were waiting for their new Master, their new Master who had been a priest of Fire. The people parted before her, holding up their little candle flames as she passed them. She paused at the bottom of the steps.

She saw neither the Overlord nor the Heir.

She climbed the steps slowly, heavily. The pannier thumped against her leg, and it occurred to her that there was even less sense than none that she had brought it with her. Not only did she have no goblet to carry for the faenorn , she had no goblet to welcome the Master with afterward. However this meeting ended—and she knew how everyone present believed it would end—she would have a Master to welcome. And nothing to welcome him with.