But now once more I felt it, and as if I still wore Whites, I could read the ripples of emotion as easily as a fisherman can read the ripples in a stream.
For Meramay to speak Moonwoman’s name aloud was bad enough. To say what she had done—in fact, to accuse Moonwoman of doing something—was far worse. Even though no one moved from where they stood, I felt their displeasure, and I was not surprised when they began to drift away and move their goods away, until soon Meramay was standing alone.
Even Garan felt it. He made graceful apologies to Meramay, saying he had to get his family settled in, but still he left; he had been Sung away nearly five moonturns ago, after all, and the people who had taken him in were all the family he knew.
She gazed at me, eyes wide and hurt and frightened, just beginning to be afraid.
I knew then that we must leave at once, for the sort of sullen anger she had roused was the sort I had seen flare to violence more times than I could count. But she swore she would not leave without Garan; that he would not be taken from her twice.
I mustered every good argument I could think of in vain—that she knew now where he was and that he was safe; that she did not wish to kindle one of the stubborn grudges that might smolder for generations in a small enclave, beginning for a cause as trivial as a misheard greeting; that Garan would return to her when he had gotten a chance to think—but she would not go. Whether because it was impossible for her to leave Midsummer Meeting or because it was impossible for her to leave Garan, I did not know. I dared not press her too hard lest she turn against me and order me from the Meeting; I would not go in any event, and I thought she would need my help soon.
I was more right than I suspected.
The shunning of Meramay that had begun when she had spoken those fatal words grew like the lake ripples from a thrown stone, until her face was as grim as my own. No one wished her assistance at their cookstove, nor to add the dishes she had prepared to their communal table. But she was proud and stubborn, and still she would not leave. We sat alone together, I making my whole meal of the eggs and vegetable pies that were to have been her contribution to the feast, and Meramay too miserable to eat at all.
I had expected the dancing to resume after supper, though the trading and bargaining over knives and axheads, cloth and livestock, was over for the day. But instead of pipes and drums and fiddles, as the sun set over the valley and twilight filled it, the only sound I heard was that of a lone and distant gittern.
In my home village we play the twelve-string gittern only, though the six-string is the more common instrument in most of the kingdom, for it is easier to learn, and to play well. I recognized the faint silvery ringing of the doublestringed gittern long before I saw the singer.
She came walking down the valley, glowing like the full moon itself in the twilight, and if you had never seen a Companion, you would surely think that the hair that fell loose and rippling to her waist was as white as its coat.
And I thought I must know what she was, or half of it.
When I was a student at Haven, a child was brought to the Healer’s College for treatment. Young Jaxon’s skin and hair were as white as Moonwoman’s, and the bright light hurt his eyes terribly. I had seen the boy arrive, and asked the Healers what might be wrong with him. Master Tiedor told me that like some animals, the boy had been born without color in his skin or hair, and none of the healing arts could cure that, or lend strength to his eyes. In animals, Healer Tiedor told me, the uncolored state does not cause weak eyes, but humans who are so afflicted cannot see in bright sunlight at all.
The Healers were able to help, with tinted lenses for Jaxon’s eyes, lotion for his skin to heal the effects of the sun, and calm matter-of-fact advice to his parents. Though his parents had been hoping for a cure when they came to Haven, this was no disease, just a different way of being born, and to change it was beyond a Healer’s skill.
So must it be with Moonwoman.
The people all turned toward her like flowers to the sun, and I felt a strong prickle of warning, though as yet she had done nothing but pick out a tune upon the gittern, a lullay I had heard many of the women sing here. It is written in a minor key, filled with sadness and longing, like so many of the old songs.
But now the sweet tune seemed to contain anger as well; I felt it prickle across my skin and I wished, longingly, for some weapon. But I had nothing more than an eating knife, and my belled staff.
Many of the men with whom I had shared ale last night had fallen into step behind her, and from all around, men and women drifted toward her in little groups, following as she paced slowly down the length of the valley. Some carried torches plucked up from around the dancing floors to light their way.
And then Moonwoman opened her mouth and sang.
To this day the experience seems unreal to me. Her words were of a father who has gone away hunting to feed his family and will never return; but the meaning had nothing to do with the words.
In Haven I had once been privileged to listen to a Master Bard enchant a whole hall of folk in just this way, standing upon a stage with a harp in his arms—but it was his audience that was his instrument. But the emotions Bard Ronton had conjured in audience were mild and peaceful, compared to the killing rage I sensed building in the people around me.
In a minute—or two, at most—it would crescendo into violence, and I could already guess its target. If we dared to run, we would only conjure the inevitable up faster. Meramay stood beside me, too terrified by what she, too, knew was about to happen to fall beneath the music’s spell.
The music—and the musician.
By now the mob was close enough that I could see the singer’s face clearly. Tears glittered in her pale eyes, and her face was set in a white mask.
She was as terrified as Meramay.
I could not let this happen, though I died trying to prevent it.
As Shavanne had died, swept downstream by floodwaters, her body battered against the rocks along the way, until she was impaled on a submerged tree branch that ended her glorious life as surely as a Tedrel spear.
We had nearly been safely across the river, risking the crossing because villagers downstream had to be warned about the flood. But the bridge ropes had been rotted through with age, and it had collapsed under our weight. Shavanne had nearly gotten us both to safety even so, but the far bank was water-sodden earth and it had collapsed beneath her hooves when she tried to climb it. She had spent the last of her strength throwing me to safety, but doing so had pitched her back into the water.
I had felt each moment of her struggle to live.
I had heard her dying scream.
I would not again fail to save a life.
Not here, and not tonight.
I willed Moonwoman to hear me, as I stepped into her path and shouted with all my might, both in Mindspeech and with my voice. To stop what she was doing was our only chance; the people she had englamoured could not be reasoned with, nor would they feel they were acting in anything but self-defense.
Someone threw a rock.
It struck me in the shoulder, too small and flung from too far off to do more than sting, but in that moment I knew despair and felt Death step near.
Yet I would not surrender nor flee, for I was a Herald still, in my heart, even though no one could see.
I had never ceased to be a Herald.
Power roared through my veins like the waters of that long-ago flooded river. This was the Mindspeech such as I had never wielded it, strong enough to match Moonwoman’s own gift, enough for all about me to hear.
She flung back her head as if I had struck her with a hand of flesh. The gittern fell from her hands, and she swayed, falling at last to her knees and burying her face in her hands, weeping.
All around me the hill folk roused, coming out of the trance into which she had Sung them. They gazed from Moonwoman to me with looks of awe, though I knew how quickly that would change to both fear and anger. The “sorceress’s” power over them was broken at last—and they would quickly hate what they had lately feared—but they had no idea how.
