Aine put her fists on her hips. "Oh, do tell me it's sugar creams and iced-cakes that'll make my freckles fade. I'll eat them away in a week! Oh, and chocolates to make my hair brown, too, I imagine."

Taminy laughed. Doireann almost smiled.

"I'll get my herbs at the Apothecary, thank you," Aine concluded.

Taminy shrugged. "Where do you think all those fine Apothecary powders and elixirs come from, Aine? Someone must collect them and sort them and process them before they go to the Apothecary."

"Aye!" said Gwynet with much feeling. She glanced down at her green-stained fingertips. "I surely know who washes them."

"Hot and cold water," opined Aine. "That's what my Ma says. That's the common healing. Leave the artful stuff and the inyxes to the Osraed. They know what they're doing."

"Girls shouldn't go up to Halig-liath," murmured Doireann, sullen eyes on Gwynet. "It's not our domain."

"But you'd go, wouldn't you? If they said it was all right?"

Iseabal glanced from one girl to the other. "Wouldn't you?"

"Never," said Aine. "Musty books and histories. Submission and servitude and all that studying. And look at the little one's hands. All green and frog-like from cleaning weeds."

"It's not right," said Doireann.

"I'll tell you what's not right." The voice thrust into the air like a gnarled old tree limb. "What's not right is my grandson wasting precious shop time flirting and fawning with a pack of dandelion brained cailin." Marnie-o-Loom stood in the doorway to the nether room, glaring at the knot of youngsters grouped around her cutting table.

Terris paled, then flushed, then paled again. "Granmar, I-"

Taminy shot the old woman a welcoming smile. "Oh, hardly wasted, Mam Webber. He's mostly been waiting on me." She held up an end of vividly green wool. "This is wonderful fabric, Mam. It feels as if you've woven the warmth of sun on wool right into it."

"Odd you should say that, girl," Marnie said. "For it was told of my Granpar that he could weave the spring and summer into his winter cloth. But then Granpar were a little fey. He wove more than fabrics, if you take my meaning." There was pride in that and a little wistfulness.

"I think you inherited his Gift," Taminy told her.

"God, mighty and merciful! What are you on about, cailin? What would an old woman like me be doing messin' about with Weavin'?"

"It's not such a difficult inyx," said Taminy, perhaps incautiously.

"Ah! And you'd know it, I s'pose?"

"I do know it." Yes, indeed, I do. And so suddenly and so clearly, I can feel it in my fingertips.

Various noises of disbelief rose around her and Marnie said, "Scraps! If you knew such an inyx, you'd use it yourself."

Taminy shrugged, smiling. "But, Mam, I don't know how to weave cloth."

Marnie gave a hoot of laughter. "And me, I don't know how to Weave inyx. And wouldn't, if I could. I've never uttered a duan in my life. Scraps! If I tried, the Eibhilin would just shut up their ears and wail. There's folks as take me for a Wicke already. I'm not like to give 'em more grounds. And neither should you, girlie." She pointed a gnarled finger at Taminy. "You're not Meredydd, but you're like her. Careful you don't go the same way she did. Now, sell 'er the cloth, boy." She glared at Terris, then disappeared into her workshop.

Too late, old woman, Taminy thought. I've gone Meredydd's way. Now, I am going my own.

"Uh," said Terris, fumbling the softweave. "That was six?"

She turned back to him. Sweat beaded on his forehead. She nearly laughed, smiled instead, and said, "Six of the gray, four of the heather."

"Marnie's right," said Aine, behind her. "If you knew any Runes you'd Weave them yourself."

"That'll be six ambre, fifty," said Terris.

"Osraed Bevol knows a Rune that will crumble stone," Taminy said. She fetched out her belt pouch and counted out six gold ambres and a sorcha. "I don't think he's ever had reason to use it."

"You don't know any Runes. I'll bet you don't even know the simplest duan."

"Yes, she does," said Iseabal. "I've heard her sing."

"I do know some Runes," murmured Taminy, handing Terris her coins. Yes, all neatly stacked in my head like books on a shelf. Useless unless read. And my eyes fail me. "Or I once did."

"If you knew the teeniest, tiniest inyx," persisted Aine Red, "then you'd have used it to put some color in that hair of yours."

Taminy took up her package and turned to look at the other girl appraisingly. Ah, that's the way of it. "And why would I do that? I like the color of my hair. Don't you like yours?"

She left the shop then, slipping out onto the street to a pleasant assault of Nairnian sights and sounds and smells. The Backstere's next.

The others had followed her, leaving Terris alone to sulk.

"I do like my hair, thank you," said Aine, striking a defensive pose in the middle of the flagstone walk. "I think it's glorious." She tossed it for good effect, making sunlight ripple through it like fire.

Taminy nodded. "You're right. It is glorious. If I had hair as bright and beautiful as that, I'd be very glad of it. And very careful about eating too many chocolates."

Doireann giggled and Taminy, ignoring Aine's gawping stare, glanced from Gwynet to Iseabal. "I think we should go to the Backstere's before we take our packages home, don't you?"

Gwynet's eyes lit up like twin lightbowls. "Oh, could we, Taminy? Could we go there?"

"We'll still go to the woods, won't we?" asked Iseabal, eying her two friends.

"If you like." She turned to Aine and Doireann. "You're welcome to come along."

Doireann's dark eyes flickered from Taminy's face to Aine's and back. She licked her lips. "Do you really know a poultice for the complexion?"

"Doireann Spenser! You are that gullible!" With a flick of blazing tresses, Aine turned and walked away.

Doireann, blushing rose beneath her olive skin, gave Taminy one last glance before tailing after her friend.

"But she says she knows," Doireann's voice came back to them, whining. "What harm is there in calling her out?"

Aine said nothing and the two went their way. Iseabal looked after, her brow furrowed, while Taminy smiled.

"Cream cakes!" she said, and led the way to the Backstere's shop.

They didn't go to the pool after all, for the afternoon became cool and dark with blue-gray clouds that threatened rain. Instead, Taminy invited Iseabal to supper and, after a grant of permission from the Cirkemaster and his wife, the three girls started up the road toward Gled Manor, carrying Marnie's fine cloth and blinking against a lusty breeze.

"Delicious!" exclaimed Taminy. "Oh, delicious breeze!" And she laughed when it kicked up her skirts and flirted with her hair.

Rain began to fall, raising tiny puffs of dust in the roadway. The rhythm of it put a song on Taminy's lips and she sang it: "Tiny, bright, jeweled, light- Spilling on the ground.

Who has tilt the silver box And sent the rain gems tumbling down?

Is that you, saucy breeze, Playing tap-tunes on the leaves?

Does your mistress know you play And toss her Eibhilin jewels away?"

"How pretty!" said Iseabal. "You have a wonderful voice. Mama will want you in her chorus, I know. Where did you learn that?"

"I don't-" Taminy began, then hesitated. I don't remember, she'd been about to say, but it seemed as if the moist breeze had blown memory back into her head with the tune. "My mama taught it to me. It was our rainy day song. When I was a little girl, we'd sit in the window casement of my room and sing the song to the drops that fell on the Sanctuary roof. I remember how the rain would make the slate of the roof look dark and stormy like the sky."

Iseabal glanced at her, eyes amazed. "Is your father a Cirkemaster, too? Or, I mean, was he? I ... I'd heard ... that is, someone said you were orphaned."

Taminy nodded, fighting a sudden sense of vertigo and wondering if it showed.

Time. It's like a corridor. I think I'm at one end and suddenly-whisk!-I'm at the other, looking back at myself and wondering, Who is that girl?

"I can see the Sanctuary roof from my bedroom window, too," said Iseabal. "When it rains I pretend ..." She smiled shyly and lowered her eyes to the toes of her shoes. "I pretend the roof is a sea snake's back, long and streaming slick with water, and that I'm riding high up among its great fins, all dry and cozy." She bobbed her head. "I mean, I used to pretend that. Child-ways. I'm too old now, of course."

"Never," said Taminy, tearing her eyes from the other end of the time corridor. "Never be too old to ride sea snakes in the rain, Iseabal."

They were running by the time they reached Gled Manor. Running and laughing and soaking wet. They erupted into the hall, swept up the stairs, and collapsed into Taminy's room, dropping packages and scurrying for towels. While Taminy sat on her bed peeling off wet stockings, and Gwynet curled in the window seat, Iseabal dried her hair and wandered. She marveled at the variety of books on Taminy's shelf, admired the hangings of calligraphies, and musical scores, and glass-pressed flowers and feathers, and stopped stone still to stare at a crystal set atop a wooden sconce.

She turned from it to award Taminy a wondering gaze. "Is it yours?" she asked, and when Taminy nodded, "May I ... may I hold it?"

"Of course."

Iseabal lifted the crystal from the little shelf and turned it in her hands. "It's beautiful! So very beautiful. Pure, like rain and ... warm!"

Taminy watched the other girl's face bathed in lamp light, her eyes great and pale and very like the crystal. She watched the crystal, too, and wondered if those pale-pure eyes noticed the tiny pulse of light deep down among the converging facets-a pulse that would have been there if every light in the room was extinguished. The crystal knew, if Iseabal did not, what gifts might live in the soul of a Cirkemaster's daughter.

"Look how it glows!" said Iseabal. "Does it have a name? Papa says the Osraed always name theirs. His is Perahta-and, of course, I know about Ochan's Osmaer-everyone does. Does this one have a name?" She turned curious eyes to Taminy.

"Ileane," Taminy said. "Light Bearer."

"And you Runeweave with it?"

"I did ... once. It's been a long time."

"I suppose I should believe that's wicked. I suppose I should leave."

"Do you want to?"

Iseabal shook her head, dragging rain-heavy hair across her shoulders. "No." She set the crystal back on its sconce and came to perch beside Taminy on the bed. "I did run out on Meredydd. I didn't want to, but I did." She glanced over at the crystal. "Aine thinks it's all so much frivol, or at least she'd like me to believe she thinks that. And to Doireann, it's all impossibly wicked. My father felt sorry for Meredydd. He wanted me to befriend her so I could help save her soul. I didn't want to save her soul-I mean, I didn't think it needed saving-but I couldn't be her friend while Aine and Doireann teased, and Brys-a-Lach threatened that my own soul was at risk, and my father waited for me to steal Meredydd away from her Weaving and visions."

She pulled her knees up and buried her face between them. "It was too much," she said, muffled. "I tried to talk to mother about it, but all she'd say was, 'I imagine your father's right, Isha. The poor cailin's spirit wants saving.'"

"She'd likely say the same of me," said Taminy.

"Aye."

"But you're not running from my house."

"No."

"And why not?"

Iseabal raised her head. "I don't know," she said. She glanced, again, at the crystal, Ileane, then back into Taminy's face. "I don't really know. Maybe I'm a little more wicked now. Or ... a little less a coward."

Taminy smiled and took the other girl's hands. "I've some dry clothes you can wear," she said.

Below stairs, the front door opened and Osraed Bevol called and the three girls scurried to dress themselves for supper.

CHAPTER 7.

When the Pilgrim shall have fulfilled the conditions inherent in the name, "Who Seeks Us," that one shall know the blessing inherent in the words, "We shall guide in our Way."

-Osraed Ochan

Book of the Covenant, compiled by Osraed Wyth

Wyth Arundel flexed his cramped hand and stretched. His shoulders felt as if someone had been pummeling them. He closed his eyes, rolled them behind burning lids, then bent to examine his work. The lettering was good, but his hand was cramping horribly. He glanced up as a Prentice laid a set of freshly transcribed pages beside him on the library work table.

"Here, Osraed Wyth. Here are my pages and Fairlea's, too. Ready for proofreading."

Wyth smiled. "Thank you, Peagas. You've done very good work-both of you. Why don't you take a break now?"

The Prentice bobbed respectfully, glowing at having earned the new Osraed's smiles and praise, and hurried away to relieve his companion.

"How goes the work, Wyth?"

Wyth raised his eyes to see Osraed Bevol regarding him from the other side of the table. "Slowly, Osraed Bevol. The Prentices are a great help, but there is so much to get through." He rubbed his stiff fingers. "I don't suppose you know a Weave that will copy these pages without us having to write them out by hand."