Initiate’s Trial: First book of Sword of the Canon. Janny Wurts
Читать онлайн книгу.
hedge by the wood, you’d see he’s got yew twining into itself with a purpose that’s frankly uncanny. That’s not done without use of the secret lore kept by the charm makers.’
‘Few dare that practice, far less in the open.’ Kerelie shoved the sick tray aside with her foot. Frowning, she gathered her splattered skirts and settled next to her brother. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Tarens regarded her with wide-lashed candor. ‘What would you have done, Kerie? Driven him out? Or could you lie to a temple examiner if one returns with more suspicious questions? Worse, could I lay us open to blackmail, that any unscrupulous suitor might pressure us for your hand in marriage? I couldn’t abide the chance that might happen! But without Efflin’s help, in flat honesty, I can’t work the croft by myself!’
Kerelie stood. Tight with hurt, she spun and picked up the tray. The clean spoon beside the untouched cloth napkin sharpened her to accusation. ‘You were risking our landed heritage, Tarens.’
‘Set against Efflin’s life? Does our titled right to till these miserable acres even signify?’
‘More than our brother’s health may be at stake,’ Kerelie pointed out, tart. ‘Or does the fact each of us was declared for the Light since our birth have no meaning?’
There, even her brother’s mild nature lost patience. ‘Your prim faith in the True Sect’s canon serves naught. The temple preaches a loveless morality that cares not one jot for the plight of our livelihood. The priests are fat parasites, theosophizing on their rumps while folk like us break our backs, milked dry by their tithes and their rote obligations. Where does their doctrine show the least concern for our chance to enjoy the fruits of our happiness?’
Kerelie banged down the tray and confronted her brother, her work-worn hands as chapped as his own, and her eyes just as smudged with relentless fatigue. ‘Do you honestly believe that mad vagabond has the gift, or the knowledge to enact a deep healing? Even the Light’s priesthood don’t flaunt such arrogance! They warn against undue interference. Could you take the risk that an invasive power of Darkness might ensnare a man’s defenseless soul? Or that a madman with a rogue talent could invasively damage a wounded spirit?’
‘That fellow is not crazy!’ Blushed under her censure, Tarens amended in heart-felt conviction. ‘No, I don’t know everything. The Light’s policies confuse me. But if Efflin dies, our family holding is lost to us anyhow. Should we act on our unseen fears before the virtue of human kindness? Who’s given us more, the Light’s faith or that stranger? And if you choose to reject generosity, then what standing do we have left in this world, or in the hereafter, for that matter?’
Kerelie turned her back. Palms pressed to her face, her hunched shoulders quivering, she lashed out and kicked the tin tray. The spoon flashed air-borne and tumbled into the garden, while the napkin, wind-chased, fluttered across the sere ground and caught like a forlorn flag of truce in the rose trellis. A moment, she stood, her vulnerable fragility fit to shatter at the next breath. Until the surfeit of grief overset her distress, and she broke into snuffles of laughter.
‘Well,’ she gasped presently. ‘I never did want to marry. Or bear the brood it would take to upkeep this sprawling place properly. If you think that scruffy creature might help, go ahead and try to find him.’
Late night made the vigil the hardest to bear, when the candle carved harsh shadows that rendered Efflin’s wasted face cadaverous. He had not touched the stew brought for his supper. The sorry, cold mass congealed in the bowl, that hard straits and poverty saved to reheat for Tarens upon his return. Since the plan to seek help must wait for the vagabond to emerge from his hidden cover, the lonely watch extended far into the night.
Kerelie fetched a rushlight for thrift, and her osier work-basket. She stretched new linen onto her embroidery hoop, then snatched for the illusion of solace by plying her needle. Against the laboured breaths of a brother’s decline, she sewed life: small birds, brilliant butterflies, and entwined summer flowers. The simple beauty that nurtured her delight bloomed under her hands in lovingly set, intricate stitches. Frantically as she sought to escape from her grief, the pervasive astringency of cailcallow tea and the bitter aroma of willow bark made the sick-room oppressive.
Religion had never founded her peace, but nothing else fed her stark absence of hope. She lacked the wisdom to tell if the vagabond was in fact a rogue sorcerer. Her prayer to the Light appealed for clear guidance, or lacking that, the gift of clemency. Should the human heart be asked to choose between a blind adherence to faith, or succour for a dying brother? Hours passed to the whine of the wind through the eaves and the bang of a loosened shutter. The northerly cold that brought in early blizzards seeped through the casement and flared the coals as the kitchen fire subsided to ash. Kerelie arose and piled on fresh logs. Almost, she wished Tarens would be unsuccessful, that the gall of her doubts might stay the brute course on known ground, without liability. Perhaps the refuge of belief was best kept unchallenged by troublesome questions that bordered on heresy.
The latch clicked in that moment of harrowed uncertainty. Kerelie met Tarens as he stepped in, bone chilled but triumphant. The disreputable vagabond dogged his heels, slight and graceful in step as a ghost.
Kerelie’s start of jangled trepidation met green eyes, oddly sparked by ironic hilarity. Then the wafted stink brought indoors with him assaulted her nostrils. Her mouth, just opened to scold, snapped shut against sudden nausea. Hurled beyond dignity, Kerelie back-stepped, hands clutched to her middle.
For of course, denied any civilized shelter, the vagabond had been forced to survive on snared game. Necessity made him fashion his jerkin and jacket from green hides, skinned off the animals he trapped for sustenance.
Kerelie whirled, forearms braced on the window-sill until her shocked spasms subsided. ‘Light’s grace attend us!’ she gasped. ‘Your sorry friend will breed rampant pestilence, reeking of rot as he does!’
Before Tarens managed a heated response, she collapsed on the bench, flushed bright pink. She drew several taxed breaths, then abandoned propriety and curled up, not sick, but helplessly laughing.
‘My fault, I admit, for pinch-fisted thriftiness since I refused to spare any other warm clothing for someone so desperately needy.’ Her contrite change of heart came on as the spring storm, without apology and brisk enough to level pride and presumption. ‘Tarens! Fetch in the wash-tub and draw water for bathing. Then ask that poor creature to strip to the skin! Burn his unholy mess of raw fur out of doors and throw the ashes onto the midden. I’ll fetch the good soap and scrounge proper dress from Uncle’s left things in the cedar trunk. Be sure of this! I won’t let that appalling charnel stench anywhere near Efflin’s sick-bed.’
Scoured clean by his own hand, also shaved and refreshed by the scent of lavender soap, the vagabond soon passed the sister’s critical muster to be admitted to her brother’s bedside. Kerelie ensconced herself in Aunt Saffie’s rocker, once used to settle her infant sons after nursing in the late hours. Now, the worn cushion held a bristle of jabbed pins to take in Uncle Fiath’s good winter jacket. Tarens tucked cross-legged on the window-seat, reluctant to rest and abandon the beggarman to his sister’s prickly temperament.
Efflin alone showed no apprehension. Bone-pale, he lay lifelessly still, the smoothed quilts on his chest scarcely stirred by his shallow breaths. His cheeks were sunken into his skull, with his half-opened, flint eyes glinting empty and listless. He seemed to have drifted past Fate’s Wheel already, with naught but a shell left behind as his sturdy frame wasted.
The vagabond absorbed the cadaverous flesh at one glance. Restless or driven, he retreated into the kitchen and slipped back out into the night. A taut interval passed. Before Kerelie loosened her guard in relief, and while Tarens wrestled impatience, the fellow returned with an armload of logs from the wood-pile. His hand-picked cache contained only birch. The sweet fragrance lightened the air as he built up the kitchen fire.
Once the crackling flames caught from the embers, the ruffian stood up and quartered the croft cottage, length and breadth. His industrious survey peered into crannies and touched random objects with an interest that ran beyond curiosity. His rapt