The Gift

2: BUSK

FROM the sea, the town of Busk seemed to have been scattered along the cliffs of the Isle of Thorold by some idle giant. Its roads and alleys scrambled around the steep hills in a crazy but picturesque disorder, and its whitewashed buildings gleamed like blocks of salt amid the dark greens of cypresses and laurels and olives. It was a busy trading port, its harbour well protected against both storm and attack by a maze of reefs and rips, and also by the arms of its encircling cliffs. These were extended by tall crenellated breakwaters that ended in two harbour towers.
As The White Owl neared the towers, Maerad began to feel apprehensive. The entrance was very narrow, a strip of water barely twenty feet wide, and the tower walls loomed over their small craft and cast a chilly shadow over the water. The echoes of waves slapping on the stone seemed unnaturally loud, even threatening. The ancient stone, green with slime and encrusted with barnacles and limpets, was uncomfortably close. She wondered if anyone watched them through the slits she saw high up in the walls.
She breathed out heavily when they burst through into the sunlight again, and entered the bustling haven of Busk. The buildings on the harbourside were plain and whitewashed, casting back the bright summer sunshine with a blinding glare, but any sense of austerity was offset by the activity going on around. The quay was crowded with rough woven baskets full of blue and silver fish packed in salt, giant coils of rope, piles of round cheeses coated in blue and red wax, lobster pots, barrels of wine and oil and huge bolts of raw silk, and dozens of people.
As she stepped onto the stone quay, it seemed to Maerad's startled perception that everyone was arguing. Many traders were bargaining, scoffing in disbelief at the prices offered, talking up the inimitable value of their wares. Elsewhere fishers were bringing in their catch, shouting orders to each other, and sailors were working on their boats or greeting friends, laughing and swearing. The teeming, noisy harbourside was a shock after the silence and solitude of the sea, and she glanced back at her two companions, momentarily discomforted.
Cadvan and Maerad fondly took their leave of Owan, promising to meet him soon, and headed up the steep streets to the School of Busk. Cadvan picked his way unerringly through the tangle of tiny streets and alleys and Maerad looked around eagerly, her tiredness momentarily forgotten.
The people of Busk seemed to live outside on their vine-shaded balconies, for the pleasures it afforded them of chaffing passing friends, minding each other's business and exchanging gossip: she saw them washing, eating, dressing children and cooking, all in the open air. Cadvan noticed her staring.
"Thoroldians are a people apart," he said, smiling. "They think Annarens are cold and snobbish. Annarens, on the other hand, think Thoroldians are impertinent and have no sense of privacy."
"I think I like it," said Maerad. "It seems very - lively. But I don't know that I'd like to live like that all the time."
"Perhaps not," said Cadvan, smiling. "But of course, it's different in winter; everybody moves inside."
The School of Busk was set above the main town, surrounded by a low wall which served as a demarcation rather than a barrier. Here the ubiquitous whitewashed houses and twisting alleys gave way to wide, stoneflagged streets lined with tall, stately cypresses and magnificent olive trees. The road, like all the roads in Busk, was flagged with stone, and threw back the sunlight blindingly. Behind the trees were Bard houses built of marble and the local pink granite, surrounded with wide porticos held up by broad columns ornately decorated in bright colours and leafed with gold; many were entwined with ancient vines, their fat fruit purpling in the sun. Maerad glimpsed the dark tops of conifers behind high walls, and thought longingly of cool private gardens.
Unlike Innail and Norloch, the only Schools Maerad knew, Busk was not planned in concentric circles; the geography of the island, steep and irregular, made this impossible. And, as Cadvan said, the Thoroldians liked in any case to do things their own way. The streets were laid in terraces, with flights of broad steps to connect the different levels, and it was very easy to get lost until you knew your way about, because they seemed to follow no rational order. There were no towers in Busk, apart from the small ones guarding the harbour: the grander buildings were simply broader and wider, and built with higher roofs.
The School was, for all its impressive architecture, as lively as the lower town. It was now mid-afternoon, when, as Maerad discovered later, Thoroldians put the business of the day aside for pleasanter pursuits. The streets themselves were deserted; the sun was really too hot for going out. As they walked through the School, Maerad saw that some of the wide, shady porticos were populated with Bards. Like everyone else in Busk, they all seemed to be involved in lively conversations and disputes. Some groups of Bards were playing instruments and singing. They looked up curiously when Cadvan and Maerad passed, and some waved a greeting. Cadvan smiled back.
Maerad stopped shyly to linger outside one of the houses, burning with curiosity. The Bards lounged in comfortable wicker chairs arranged around low wooden tables, most of which were laden with platters of fruit and carafes of wine and water. She watched a woman who was sprawled in a chair, declaiming a poem to a small group of Bards. They listened intently until she finished and then broke into a furious argument about its prosody. The woman, who was tall and heavy boned, with a bright scarf wound about her head and long green earrings, stood up and argued back fiercely, finally throwing her arms up in the air in frustration and cuffing her most vocal critic, to the cheers of half the table.
The Bards alarmed Maerad more than the townfolk; after all, she was not a Thoroldian, and could be expected to be different. But in the School she was a Bard: one of them. She couldn't imagine that she would not be overwhelmed among such people.
Maerad looked sideways at Cadvan. "Are the Bards of Busk always so loud?" she asked.
Cadvan gave her an amused glance. "Pretty much, Maerad. But it's more lively than Norloch, don't you think?"
"Well, yes," she answered feelingly, thinking of the stern Bards she had met there. "But, you know, they seem just as frightening, in a different way."
"You'll get used to it," he said. "In a way, you're part Thoroldian yourself."
"I am?" Maerad turned to him open-mouthed.
"Of course you are. I told you," he said, with the edge of impatience he always had when he had to repeat something, even if it was something he had mentioned in passing two months before. "The House of Karn fled to Thorold during the Great Silence. Thorold was always one of the most independent of the Seven Kingdoms, and was a chief point of resistance to the Nameless One. I suppose it's eight hundred years or so since last your family was here, so you can be excused a little strangeness. The Thoroldians are a great people: a true bastion of the Light. The only real problem is keeping up with their consumption of wine. I don't know how they do it."
As they were speaking, they stopped in front of a house and turned in to the portico. Maerad was blinded in the sudden shade, and Cadvan led her blinking through two large bronze double doors into a huge atrium flagged with marble. Orange and lemon trees and flowers were planted in big glazed pots, giving a delicious perfume, and jasmine climbed over the slim columns. In its centre, in the middle of an intricate mosaic of birds and flowers, played a fountain. Maerad relaxed in the coolness and looked around. The atrium seemed to be deserted.
Cadvan rang a brass handbell that stood on a small plinth, and then sat down on a wooden bench and stretched out his legs.
"Someone will come in a minute," he said. "Sit down."
"It's lovely," said Maerad. She sat next to him, content to do nothing for the meantime. She felt again how tired and grimy she was, and how much she longed to wear clean clothes and to sleep in a proper bed. Was it only yesterday they had driven off the ondril? It seemed like last year... She felt as if she had been travelling forever.
"Do you think we could stay here a while?" she asked.
"It would be a good idea, if the School permits us," said Cadvan. "I'm a little tired of travel myself. Busk has a very good library; I was hoping I might be able to find out something about the Treesong. And we are safe here, for the meantime."
Maerad sighed, and turned to look at the fountain. The sunlight struck off the droplets in little prisms, and its murmurous music sank into her hypnotically, as if it were a song of which she almost understood the words. She didn't notice the old man who stepped out of the shade at the other end of the atrium until he was only a few feet away.
Cadvan stood up, extending his hand in greeting. "Elenxi," he said. "Greetings."
"Samandalamë, Cadvan," said the old Bard, smiling widely. He had strong, white teeth. "Welcome." Maerad looked at him wonderingly; he must have been a giant in his youth, and still towered over Cadvan. His hair and beard were utterly white, and his dark eyes were sharp, the eyes of a much younger man. Like Cadvan he used the Speech, the inborn language of Bards, and not the tongue of the Thoroldians. It was much more than a courtesy to strangers: to use it was an offering of trust as much as a practicality. It was said to be impossible to lie when using the Speech.
"My companion is Maerad of Pellinor," said Cadvan. Maerad bowed her head, and Elenxi, bowing his head in return, gave her a swift, piercing glance, but made no comment. "We are here seeking refuge, fleeing peril on land and sea, and bring news of great import."
"You are always welcome, Cadvan," said Elenxi. "And I have heard somewhat of Maerad of Pellinor." Again he gave her that sharp, disconcerting gaze. "Nerili will no doubt wish you to join her for dinner; she is detained at present. In the meantime, I will arrange rooms, and I expect you want to refresh yourselves and rest."
So it was that barely twenty minutes later Maerad found herself in a graceful room with cool stone walls decorated with embroidered silk hangings, and a huge bed draped with a white net which Cadvan told her later was for keeping out stinging insects at night. Against the wall was a high cabinet carved out of dark wood, and there was a table with a lamp and a plain wooden chair. It bore a decanter of water and a glass, and a bowl of summer fruits. On one side were wide windowed doors, with white shutters both inside and out. These were now open and led out, past the portico, to a shady garden. Fresh clothes - a long crimson dress of the style of Thorold, with a low neck, well fitted sleeves and a wide brocaded belt - were laid out for her; and the chatty Bard assigned to show her around finally left her to her own devices, after Maerad earnestly requested to be shown the bathroom.
Maerad was addicted to baths. For most of her life, the years of drudgery in Gilman's Cot when she had been a mean slave, she had never even heard of bathing. But since her introduction to Bardic ideas of cleanliness in the School of Innail, Maerad couldn't get enough of them. This bathroom was especially pleasant: it was painted a cool blue, and opened out on a tiny courtyard where finches hopped in the potted trees. The bath itself was tiled with a mosaic of dolphins and other sea creatures, and the water was hot and plentiful. When it was deep enough to come up to her neck, Maerad dropped a bunch of lavender and rosemary into the water and stepped down into the fragrant bath with a sigh of bliss. She emerged an hour later, dressed herself leisurely, wandered to her room, and unpacked.
Unpacking had become a ritual, a kind of reckoning of her life. First she took out her wooden lyre, freeing it from the leather carrying case stamped with the lily sign of the School of Pellinor which had been a gift from Cadvan. The lyre had been her mother's, and of all things she owned it was the most precious to her. She brushed her fingers gently over its ten strings before she leant it carefully in the corner. She put all her clothes aside for washing, unpinning the silver brooch from her cloak and laying it on the table, and unpacked the light chain mail and helm and the sword, Irigan, that she had been given in Innail, and put them in the cabinet. She put various other items in one of the drawers: a small leather kit containing a hoofpick and brushes for horses, a pen and a small pad of paper, a leather water bag, a clasp knife, and a blue bottle of the Bard drink medhyl, brewed to combat tiredness, which was almost empty.
Lastly she took out a number of objects which she placed carefully about the room, for they were precious to her: a reed flute, given her by the Elidhu in the Weywood, whom Maerad alone knew was also the Queen Ardina of Rachida, and who had, in her other incarnation, given Maerad the exquisitely wrought golden ring that she wore on her little finger, and a black wooden cat that might have been carved as a toy for a child, retrieved from the sacked caravan the day they had found her brother Hem. Lastly she unwrapped from bound oilskin a small but beautifully illuminated book of poems given her by the Dernhil of Gent. She looked at it sadly; she had not had much time to read it, and reading was, in any case, a slow business for her; but she knew most of the poems in it by heart. Dernhil's death still weighed on her heavily, a regret and a grief.
She shook her head, clearing her thoughts, and picking a golden pear out of the bowl on the table, stepped outside. All the rooms on this side of the house had doors which led out here, but the garden was empty. The shadows were now beginning to lengthen and a fresh breeze had sprung up, smelling faintly of brine. Maerad stepped barefoot onto the cool grass and sat on the ground in the shade of a trellis overgrown with pale yellow roses. She ate the pear slowly, letting its sweet juice fill her mouth, her head entirely empty of thought, utterly content. Somewhere a bird burbled unseen in the bushes, but otherwise all was quiet.

When the shadows lengthened and the lamps were lit, Cadvan knocked on Maerad's door and they wended their way through the Bardhouse to the private quarters of Nerili, First Bard of Busk. Nerili's rooms were on the other side of the Bard house, and they had to pass through the atrium again on their way there. Maerad dawdled through it, feeling that she would rather sit there all evening than meet any Thoroldian Bard, let alone the most important Bard in the School. The fountain bubbled peacefully in the twilight, murmuring its endless song, as the white stars opened above it in a deep blue sky.
They left the atrium and entered a labyrinth of corridors, turning again and again until Maerad had completely lost her sense of direction. The Bardhouse was enormous. But Cadvan led her unerringly, and at last they stood outside a tall door, faced with bronze like the front door of the house, and knocked. It opened, and a slim woman stood in the doorway and smilingly greeted them.
"Cadvan of Lirigon! It is long since your path has led this way," she said.
"Too long," said Cadvan. "But alas, such has been my fate."
"I regret that the charms of Busk could not draw you here more often," said Nerili. There was a sharpness in her tone which made Maerad look again, but now she was smiling and stretching her hand towards Maerad. Cadvan cleared his throat and introduced her.
Nerili of Busk was not quite what Maerad had expected. She seemed too young to be a First Bard, although among Bards age was always difficult to guess. Maerad thought she looked about thirty five years old, which given the triple life-span of Bards probably meant she was perhaps seventy or eighty. She was short, not much taller than Maerad, but her authority and grace, and the challenging glance she gave Cadvan as they entered, gave her an illusory stature. She was strikingly beautiful, with the grey eyes, black hair and olive skin of a Thoroldian, and her grey silk dress fell softly about her, shimmering like a waterfall. Her hair was piled up on her head and held in place by silver combs and a length of grey silk, in a style worn by many Busk women, and she wore no jewellery apart from long silver earrings. Maerad was a little dazzled, and stammered as Cadvan introduced her. It seemed to her that even Cadvan was uncharacteristically awkward. She glanced at him curiously; surely he wasn't shy?
Her rooms, like Nerili herself, were elegant: she eschewed the usual silk hangings, ubiquitous in Busk, and instead the stone walls were painted a pale blue, with a faint stencilling of birds in a deeper blue. The only other decoration was the exquisitely glazed blue and white tiles around the doors and windows and fireplace, each painted with a different scene from Thoroldian life: fishermen, silkweavers, goatherds, children playing. The mahogany furnishings were plain but beautifully made, the chairs and sofas upholstered in blue silk, and white lilies stood in a big vase on a plinth in a corner. It was a calm, beautiful room. Through a half-open door Maerad could see what she supposed must be Nerili's study, from the chaos of manuscripts, scrolls and books she glimpsed piled on a table, and on the far side was a dining table set with candles in glass holders and a generous meal - flat rounds of unleavened bread, little bowls of pickled vegetables and sauces, cold meats and cheeses. There was a plate of round black spiky things that looked like strange fruits, and a large bowl of shells with orange lips. Her mouth started to water: she was very hungry.
Nerili invited them to sit down and poured out a light red wine. "So," she said, looking at Cadvan with an unusual directness. "Elenxi tells me you have news, Cadvan? Serious, important news, he said. And he said you were seeking refuge. Refuge from what?"
Maerad suddenly thought, she's a Truthteller, like Cadvan. She couldn't have said why she understood these things; she simply knew. She examined Nerili with new interest.
Cadvan raised his glass. "Good wine, Neri. It's been a while since I tasted Thoroldian grapes; I had forgotten how excellent they are." Nerili smiled briefly, and Cadvan leant back in his chair and let out a long breath.
"Well, we have a long and complicated story to tell. But I will tell you the worst news first." His voice hardened. "Maerad and I are seeking refuge from Enkir of Norloch, who has betrayed the Light. We fled the Citadel three days ago: it was then in flames. I fear civil war in Annar. And I know that the Nameless One returns, the Dark moves on Annar; and even as it rises, the White Flame collapses from within. The First Circle of Annar is broken."
Nerili swallowed hard and was silent for a few moments as she studied Cadvan's face.
"I see that you say no untruth," she said quietly. "But I can scarce credit it. Norloch burns? The First Bard betrays the Light?"
"It's true," said Maerad. A sudden image flashed into her mind of Enkir's face, cold and vicious with rage, and she felt a bitter anger rising within her. "The First Bard Enkir sent my mother to be enslaved and betrayed Pellinor to the Dark. I was only a little girl when it happened, but when I met him I remembered his face. Before we left Norloch he tried to imprison half of the First Circle for treachery. He sent soldiers for us, and we only just escaped, with Owan's help."
"He sent an ondril to pursue us," added Cadvan. "And no ordinary ondril either. We only just escaped that, too."
Nerili shook her head in bewilderment, and put up her hand. "Let's go back to the beginning," she said. "You are saying that Enkir caused Pellinor to be sacked? That is a grim accusation..."
"He did. He wanted me." Maerad looked up at Nerili, her jaw jutting out. She was tired of having to explain her story. "He knew the Fated One would be born to my parents. We don't know how. But he took my brother Hem instead; he thought the boy must be the Fated One."
Nerili gave a small, barely audible gasp.
"My father was killed with everyone else. My mother died later, in slavery." Maerad stopped suddenly, twisting her fingers around the glass and staring at the floor. This stark narration caused all her old sadnesses to rise up inside her, choking her throat.
"The One? You are sure?" asked Nerili softly, looking across at Cadvan.
Cadvan nodded. Nerili leaned forward and took Maerad's chin in her hand, looking at her intently. Maerad stared back into her eyes without fear or surprise; a few Bards had searched her this way now, not quite scrying her, but feeling her out. She felt a delicate touch in her mind, a light like music. After a few seconds, Nerili sat back and passed her hand over her face.
"I shall need some time to absorb this." She picked up her glass and drained it. "I have not felt anything like you before, Maerad. I do not know what you are."
"Neither do I," Maerad answered, a little forlornly.
"You have great power. But it is a strange power, a wild power. And you are very young to bear such a burden." Nerili filled her glass again and, as if suddenly remembering something important, turned urgently to Cadvan.
"What of Nelac?" she asked. "Is he still in Norloch then? Or did he flee as well?"
"Nelac." At the mention of his old teacher, Nelac of Lirigon, Cadvan's voice thickened with sadness. "Nelac wouldn't come. I asked him. He said he was too old, and that he was needed in Norloch. I... I have no doubt he is in great danger, and I don't know what has happened in Norloch since we left. I fear for him greatly."
"He is a powerful Bard," said Nerili. "He is not easily endangered."
"Yes. But you do not know what Enkir has become. He draws on something other than himself. How else could he summon a creature like an ondril? I think that he guesses we are here, even as we speak. And Nelac is old, even by the count of Bards. He is not afraid of death. Perhaps..." Cadvan sighed, and stared out into the garden. "Perhaps I won't see him again."
"Your news is all ill," said Nerili. There was a short silence. "Well, there is much to discuss. I'm sure you are both hungry; we can talk and eat." She gave Cadvan a strange private look, and Cadvan looked away, his face troubled.
Maerad realised suddenly that Cadvan and Nerili did indeed know each other, and that Cadvan's awkwardness had nothing to do with unfamiliarity. Perhaps, she thought, they had even been lovers. Cadvan called her Neri, not Nerili... Quite unexpectedly she felt a flash of jealousy, and awkwardly stood up to follow the older Bards to the dining table, almost knocking her glass over.
Over dinner, Cadvan and Maerad told of how Cadvan had helped Maerad escape from slavery in Gilman's Cot at the beginning of that spring, how he had come to suspect she was the Fated One, prophesied to bring about the downfall of the Nameless One, and how her instatement as a full Bard in Norloch had confirmed his suspicions. It was a tangled telling: Nerili constantly interrupted with questions and speculations, and led the conversation in different directions.
The atmosphere relaxed, and Maerad began to feel less tense. She decided she liked Nerili very much; she spoke as someone sure of her authority, and there was a quick warmth behind her apparent coolness, and a deep gentleness. Cadvan's face was inscrutable, and Maerad could not guess what he felt.
To distract herself, she experimented with the food. She discovered that she liked olives, although she found their bitter, oily taste a little unpleasant at first. The bread, crusty and tough, was unambiguously delicious, and she enjoyed the pickled vegetables, most of which she didn't recognise, and the meats, which were flavoured with lemon and garlic and herbs.
She fared less well with the shellfish, which she had not eaten before, as she had never lived by the sea. Cadvan told her the orange-lipped shells were mussels, so she picked one up and, as Cadvan instructed her, split open the bivalve shell and picked out the flesh. Even that made her feel a little sick, but she persevered and put a small piece in her mouth. Only a rictus of politeness prevented her from spitting it out on the table and she put the rest of it aside uneaten. The black spiky things were sea urchins, boiled and split in half so their rosy insides were exposed, like exotic, poisonous flowers. Nerili ate them with enthusiasm, spooning out the flesh from the shell, but Maerad thought they smelt like rotting boots. She noticed that Cadvan, who was monopolising the mussels, wasn't touching the sea urchins.
Nerili and Cadvan began a complicated conversation about the politics of Norloch, which bored Maerad slightly, and the wine conspired with her tiredness to make her drowsy. Her mind began to wander. She hadn't thought of Cadvan having a lover, apart from Ceredin, who had died when he was a young man; but now she did think of it, there was no reason to suppose that he hadn't. She guessed they were not lovers now, and it wasn't as if she and Cadvan were, well, were... she had no reason to feel jealous. But she did, all the same. She had so few friends.
She thought again of Dernhil, who had loved her, and whom she had turned away in panic and confusion, so long ago it seemed, in Innail. Dernhil had spoken to her of the Way of the Heart, and Silvia had too... even the Queen Ardina had talked to her of love. You have a great heart, the Queen had told her, but will only find it to be so through great pain. This is the wisdom of love, and its doubtful gift.
But Maerad hadn't understood. She still didn't understand. Was it love which had given Nerili's smile its ironic edge? But maybe she was imagining it all... Cadvan and Nerili were simply two Bards, debating questions of high policy, and these subterranean feelings which so disturbed Maerad were but flutterings of her tired mind.
She stared abstractedly out of the window, where the garden was now wrapped in purple shadows, with flowers glimmering palely in the darkness. Whenever Bards had mentioned the Way of the Heart to her, it filled her with an unreasoning fear. She had spent her childhood protecting herself from the violent men of Gilman's Cot, and that was certainly part of it; but at a deeper level was some kind of foreboding, a sense of darkness which wrapped itself around the part of her which might love, as if to love might extinguish her. It seemed too full of risk, and she already risked too much, simply by being who she was.
"Are you weary, Maerad?" Nerili broke in on her thoughts, startling her. "You seem a little tired."
"I am," she answered. "I haven't slept much these past nights. I wouldn't mind going to bed."
"Maerad is no sailor," Cadvan said. "She was a very interesting green for most of our voyage here."
"And you didn't spell her? I thought you were a rare healer." Nerili gave him a mocking glance.
"I had to keep the wind in the sails. That was exhausting enough."
"He managed to stop my vomiting, which was really almost miraculous," said Maerad dryly. "But even Cadvan couldn't get rid of the nausea. Not that the ondril helped."
"You must be tired almost to death." Nerili stood up, grimacing. "And you must be longing to sleep in a proper bed, and here I am, plying you with questions. We can talk in the coming days."
"Will you be able to find your chamber, Maerad?" asked Cadvan. "It's still quite early, and I'm not ready for sleep. Nerili and I have much to speak of."
"I'll manage," said Maerad lightly, although she wished that Cadvan didn't want to stay and talk with Nerili, and would come with her instead. "I'll see you tomorrow." She bowed her head in farewell, and left the room.
She made her way without difficulty back to her room, only turning the wrong way once, noticing with pleasure the now familiar noises of a Bard house around her - the murmur of conversation in distant rooms, people laughing outside, musicians playing a duet somewhere, some young Bards arguing. A hunger she had been barely aware of flowered painfully inside her. Music! When had she last played? She couldn't remember.
Back in her room, she picked up her lyre and started plucking it, randomly at first and then more seriously. She was a little out of practice. She ran through a few scales, and then picked out a tune she had once heard some minstrels play in Ettinor - she didn't feel like playing Bardic music tonight. It was a plaintive song about a man who had fallen in love with a water sprite. She couldn't quite remember the words, so she made up some of her own once she had the melody down to her satisfaction. She sang it through twice, feeling her anxieties subside in the absorption of playing. Then, yawning violently, she put her lyre carefully aside and prepared herself for bed.

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