Slap. Wail! Tiny Feelings of terror . . .
Something hot and wet squirming on Thaile’s belly . . . Wailing.
“My son!” Again she tried to lift herself, and again her arms failed her. Even her neck had gone limp, so she could not lift her head.
“Not your son, Thaile,” the older woman said. She seemed to grow, larger and menacing, and her eyes were terrible. “He can never be yours. Do not try to look. It will only hurt worse if you see him.”
Leeb, Leeb! Hurry! He was coming—she could Feel him coming.
The burden was lifted from Thaile’s abdomen. The Mearn woman rose and turned away quickly, carrying something. The little yowls faded as she left the room, but she could still Feel his terror and bewilderment.
“My baby!” Thaile scrambled up on her knees and then to her feet. Her great bulging tummy had gone. She felt cloth reappear on her, covering her nakedness. She registered vaguely that it was her best smock, so her breasts must have shrunk back to almost their normal size also. Her insides felt very strange, but not sore. She swayed. The tall Shole reached out a hand to steady her.
Oh, those eyes!
“You were warned, Thafle! Jain warned you, didn’t he?”
“My baby!” She tried to struggle, and that weak-looking grasp on her arm held her helpless. The eyes held her, burning gold eyes.
“He warned you that you must come to the College.” The little, wrinkled mouth pursed, showing teeth as spiteful as a rodent’s. “But you didn’t! You disobeyed a recorder. You broke the Blood Law. Your folly has brought tragedy into three lives, Thaile! And do you think we enjoy this either, you foolish, headstrong child?”
“Leeb is coming!”
The old woman nodded, seeming to restrain a smile. “Yes, he’s coming. He will be here very soon. He will find the baby, alive and well. But he will find you dead beside it.”
“No! No! No!”
“Yes. Oh, not you. But the body he will find will seem to be yours. ”
“Monster! How can you be so cruel?”
“Cruel? We, cruel? You do not know what you are saying.” The woman shook Thaile one-handed, raising her voice shrilly and shouting in her face. Her tiny teeth were very white and even. “Evil is abroad in the world, and you have duties so far beyond that peasant and his spawn that I cannot even attempt to explain them to you. Your folly has delayed your preparation and perhaps weakened our defenses. The Keeper was furious when we discovered what you had done.”
“Leeb! Oh, Leeb!” Thaile thought of him rushing up from the river and finding—
“Forget him, foolish girl! He will bury the false body. He will raise the brat on goat’s milk, with the old crone’s help. Soon he will find another Place and mate again. Stop your weeping! Do you think Mearn and I enjoy this squalid deception?”
Thaile tried to break free of the bony grip and was helpless as a fly in a web.
The sorceress smiled thinly. “Now we go to the College. You must forget the child, Thaile. You must forget its father.”
“Never! I will not leave my man!” Thaile felt a strange shimmer. ”If you take me away I will come back!” she screamed. All around her the Leeb Place disappeared and there was sunshine . . .
4
A swan slid close to the verge, snowy white on dark water, sailing so smoothly it did not stir its own reflection. Then it waded out of the pond and was suddenly awkward, trudging black flippers on the mud. Drops and ripples broke the empty mirror left behind. Divine beauty became unsightly effort as it rolled forward with in-toed gait, snaky neck stretched out before it. Ugly.
“I love these mixed-up days,” Jain remarked cheerfully, amber eyes twinkling as if the remark held some hidden meaning. “White clouds and gray clouds and patches of blue—unsettled, full of surprises. Makes you appreciate the sunshine instead of taking it for granted. And it isn’t really cold, is it? You’re warm enough?”
“Yes,” Thaile said. There was something she wanted to say, and she could not remember it, something lingering at the back of her mind.
They sat side by side on a bench. From their toes, the turf ran down to the pond, which had swans on it, and ducks. All around them green hillocks were ablaze with flowers—white and gold creeping through the grass, festoons of purple and scarlet draped over bushes like washing hung to dry, blue and white and crimson standing up to dance in the breeze. Even some of the trees had exploded into blossom. The world was twinkly and sparkly after the rain, but the sun was shining now. High forest enclosed the glade with a comforting wall.
A pair of bare-chested young men went trotting along the path by the shore. She Felt a momentary flash of man-interest, cut off sharply. One of them waved. Jain waved back and watched them go, but Thaile knew the wave had been directed at her. She was puzzled—what were they running from, or after, at that pace?
Jain said, “Exercising.”
“Exercising?”
“I expect they have to sit a lot. People don’t work on their feet all day long in the College.”
Thaile thought of her mother. Frial mostly sat while she worked—sewing, weaving, plucking chickens. Her father? No. Scraping a pigskin, maybe. Everything else Gaib did required standing: weeding, digging, pruning . . . Odd shed never realized that before.
What was that other thing she wanted to think about?
“This is the Meeting Place,” Jain said. “Anytime you want company or feel like talking with someone, you come here. It’s a good place to sit and think, too. Just to lie on the grass and count the birds.”
She could Feel nothing of his emotions, of course—he was a mage. But there were other benches in among the rainbowdraped shrubbery; there were little open cabins, too, to keep rain off, maybe. She could see about a dozen people, sitting or walking, in twos or threes, all too far off to obtrude. The nearest were a boy and girl standing together, holding hands and gazing spellbound into each other’s eyes. She could Feel very clearly what was in the girl’s heart, but the boy and all the others . . . she could Feel none of them.
“Sorcerers?” she muttered. “Or mages—like you?”
“I was a mage,” Jain said tersely. “Now I’ve been told a fourth word, so I’m a sorcerer. I didn’t rank quite as high as I d . . . but not too bad. And I’m not a recorder anymore. I’m an archivist now.”
An archivist was more important than a recorder. How did she know that?
“Congratulations.”
“Have you any idea what Im talking about?”
“Not the muddiest!” she admitted.
He laughed. “You’ll learn all that soon enough.”
Most of the people in the glade wore long cloaks and wide hats like his. And she . . . she was wearing a thin, brown thing that was oddly familiar, and yet she couldn’t quite remember . . .
“I’m sure you’ll love it here at the College,” Jain said. ”Just remember how important it is. Did you have a good journey?”
“Journey? Oh, fine,” Thaile said vaguely.
“We have a Place ready for you, of course. I think you’ll like it. Mist’ll be here soon.”
“Mist?”
“Another novice. He’ll show you around. Give him something to do.”
If what the College did was so important, then why did this Mist person need something to do? She supposed the answer must be obvious, so she didn’t ask.
“Normally you would be welcomed—and shown around—by the mistress of novices, Archivist Mearn. She’s tied up today on a matter of some importance. She sends her apologies.”
Thaile muttered a polite-sounding nothing. A novice would be better company, likely. She rubbed the back of her neck, which felt oddly cool as if there were a draft blowing on it. She ran fingers through her hair.
“If you’re not too tired,” Jain continued, “Mist’ll help you pick out some new clothes.”
He meant that she was wearing a rag. He was contemptuous of her poverty, although he’d told her once that his family had been poor, too. That should have made him sympathetic, she would have thought. Probably he was trying to be kind, as best he could, and make her welcome, and she shouldn’t be just sitting there like a pillow, paying more attention to the swans than to him. He had frightened her when he came to the Gaib Place back . . . how long ago? He did not frighten her now, and if he still spoke to her as if she were an ignorant, willful child . . . well, compared to him she probably was an ignorant child. She still did not trust him, although she could not imagine why. He had a quiet voice and a nice smile. He was tall, and goodlooking, with very pointy ears. He was wearing a green, furtrimmed cloak that she remembered. Together they had eaten a picnic off that cloak.