Ширли Мерфи - The Castle Оf Hape. Caves Оf Fire Аnd Ice. The Joining Оf Тhe Stone

She woke to noon sun flooding her room. A girl stood with her back to her, placing a tray by the bed.

“Clytey?”

Clytey turned. “Tra. Hoppa said you were sick. Too sick for company? I brought enough for two, but . . .” The younger girl hesitated.

Meatha was muzzy from sleep. She tried to smile. The scent of tammi tea and of broiled scallops brought her more fully awake. She found suddenly that she was ravenous. She sat up, tried to clear her mind, to clear away shadows. A sense of excitement lingered, a sense of power she did not want Clytey to see. Blocking, smiling at last, she gestured for Clytey to sit down.

Clytey shook her sandy hair away from her cheek and pulled up a stool. “You are pale, you . . .” Her blue eyes showed concern, then changed to unease, and she bent hastily to serve the plates. What did she sense? “You need some food, some tea. The scallops were dug this morning on Fentress.” When she looked up again, she was more in control and smiled quietly. Both were blocking, a gentle, polite wall placed between them.

Meatha sat admiring Clytey’s healthy good looks, remembering too vividly how she had looked when first they escaped the Kubalese caves, thin and ashen, sick from the long weeks drugged by MadogWerg. She supposed she had looked the same. Now Clytey was rosy and lithe—and fast becoming a young lady. Clytey had been only twelve when they came to Carriol. Now at fourteen she was nearly grown.

“Not grown enough,” Clytey said, touching her thoughts delicately. “Not grown enough so Alardded will let me dive.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to.”

“I do. Oh, I do, Meatha. He won’t let me go even to the bay of Vexin; he says I’m too young and frail. He got so angry. I’ve never seen Alardded so angry. Meatha, I’m not frail at all. You’ve seen me work the fields!”

Meatha stared at her. “That’s not like Alardded.”

“What could the real reason be? I couldn’t touch his thoughts. I’m as strong as Roth, or nearly. I’m as strong as Nicoli, even if she does train the horses. What is it about me? Oh—I’m sorry. I’m rattling on and you’re ill. I—”

“I’m all right, it’s . . . I don’t understand, either, why he won’t let you. Maybe I can talk to him, ask . . .”

Clytey’s eyes brightened, then dulled. “It won’t do any good, he’s like a rock.”

*

Meatha puzzled over Alardded’s attitude and knew she would speak to him about Clytey. Something about Alardded’s anger alarmed her sharply, though she could not imagine why. She wanted passionately now to know everything about diving, as if Clytey’s very distress had unleashed a heated flood of interest in every detail, in Alardded’s every purpose and intention.

She yearned to talk with Alardded, yet found no opportunity before he left for the bay of Vexin; she stood watching from the tower early one morning as he and Roth and Nicoli rode out, leading a dozen trained young horses and followed by Hux’s wagon. The well-trained horses led easily. It would be a different matter when the band returned leading young, untrained colts to be broken to the ways of saddle and sword and sectbow. Why was Alardded not taking Clytey, when she wanted so much to go? Meatha would have no chance, now, to ask until he returned in five days’ time.

It was mid-afternoon of the fifth day when she knew that Alardded’s party was returning home. On impulse, she saddled a horse and rode out to meet them, came upon them just at the mouth of the river Somat Cul where it emptied between marshy banks into the sea. They had stopped to mend a broken harness; and while Hux repaired the leather lines, Alardded and Nicoli and young Roth waded knee-deep in the surf, their trousers rolled up like children, laughing. The diving had gone well; they were in high spirits and anxious to be off to Pelli soon for the real dive, filled with eagerness to seek out the drowned runestone at last. She watched the three, concealing her own covetous interest in the drowned stone. They sensed nothing of her thoughts, grinned and waved at her and beckoned her to join them. Nicoli, with her legs bare and her short red hair blowing in the wind, looked no older than Roth. All three were sunburned. Roth deeply burned across his freckled nose.

A dozen young horses were tethered around the marsh on ground stakes, grazing the lush grass. Hux’s two older cart horses stood tied on long lines to the back of the wagon, grazing, too. Meatha looked with interest at the diving suit hanging to dry on the side of the wagon. It was like a big fat body, for the leather had been stuffed with cloth to keep the wax from cracking—a headless body, for the monster metal head was hanging alongside.

She wanted Alardded to tell her about the diving; but when he began to show her the journey, it was not the diving he brought in vision, but the three new waterwheels along the Somat Cul, the new grain huts nearby, the weaving sheds, the new breeding stock on the farms. Nothing at all of the diving. When they had saddled up once more, she rode alone with Alardded behind the wagon, for Nicoli and Roth had their hands full leading the strings of colts, tied head and tail to one another. At last she clenched her fist on the reins, took a deep breath, and looked across at Alardded. “Did the diving go well?”

“Oh, yes, very well.” No vision, no sense of what it had been like. His mind as closed as a clamshell.

“Alardded?”

He looked at her, his mind wary. Fear touched her for no reason, and she blocked with all her power, steeled herself to speak. “You did not take Clytey. Why not? She wanted badly to go. To dive with you. She—she is the same size as Nicoli or Roth. The suit would fit her, she—”

Alardded’s dark eyes flashed with warning. “Do not ask me, Meatha. I do not wish to discuss that.”

“But—” She plunged on despite his annoyance. “Why can’t you let her dive? What—?”

“Whether Clytey dives is not your affair. I do not like your speaking of it. This is my business, Meatha, and mine alone.”

She had never seen him like this, never seen him so unreasonable. His anger was like a tide. The sense of his mind was utterly closed. He gave her a stormy look, turned his horse, and rode away from her. She stared after him, dismayed and afraid. The fear that touched her spread, and a suspicion began to chill her. She tried to call after him and could not.

At last she kicked her horse into a gallop, caught up with him, and forced herself to speak, blurting it out before she could lose her nerve. “Would you let me dive, Alardded?”

He did not speak. His mind was like thunder.

“Would you let me dive?” She stared at him, willing him to speak.

“I will not let Clytey dive. I will not let you dive. I do not wish to speak of it. The diving is my business, not yours. You are behaving like an insolent child.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice, “oh, but this is my business.” For now she knew that she had every right to an answer; and the knowledge terrified her. She tried to breach his shielding, pushing her power at him until his dark eyes turned on her flashing, the muscles of his jaw working as if he bit on steel.

“You take liberties, Meatha. You show the grossest discourtesy to try to breach my mind so! I am the master Seer!” He had never talked down to her before. Her face went hot-but beyond her shame, her uneasy suspicion would not let her turn away. She faced him boldly, her face flaming. “Would you . . .” Her voice came out like a croak. “Would you let Shoppa dive? Would you let Tocca, if he were old enough? Would you let—any one of us who was drugged in the Kubalese caves?”

Alardded’s silence was so complete it was as if they paused in the eye of a storm. Not a breath of air moved between them. He looked suddenly older. His eyes were filled with pain. He gave her one long look, then turned his horse away from her and did not speak nor answer her in his mind.