"No, Abbod, it did not."

"Really, Osraed? Not for one moment?" He smiled as an old man might smile at the antics of his grandchild.

"No, sir."

"Ah, but what if it had not been the Meri's voice?"

"It was. I've never heard another like it."

"Never?"

Leal shook his head.

"Nothing else has ever whispered in your heart? Not fear or zeal or anger, perhaps?"

"Yes. Of course they have. But not like this."

Osraed Ladhar considered that for a moment, his eyes taking slices out of the stone floor instead of Leal's face. "Some time ago," he said at length, "this young man here-" -he gestured at Fhada- "came to me with some concerns raised by an experience similar to yours. He heard a voice-a beautiful, determined voice-that prodded him to act rashly. He, too, was certain the voice was that of his Beloved. But we advised him to be cautious, to question the voice, to hold out against it until he was certain of it. This, he did, and finally the voice subsided, ceased to plague him with its ... determined demands. As we advised him, we advise you."

Leal glanced at Fhada. The man's face had no more color than the dust-caked, light-washed glass behind him and his eyes were as bleak. Ladhar is wringing out his soul. Anger whispered to Leal, then; he had no trouble recognizing the voice. He silenced it and returned his attention to the Abbod.

"I don't want the Voice to subside. I have no doubt that it's the Meri's. No one has ever spoken to me as She does. I did what She desired."

"She expressed no such desire to me, or to Fhada, who was with you."

Osraed Fhada turned to gaze out the window. Ladhar's eyes followed him, falcon quick, then returned to Leal.

"Abbod," Leal said, "when you came here after your Pilgrimage, did you have a mission-a calling?"

"Of course. I was called to Ochanshrine. To take part in its administration and to serve the Abbod."

"Then, you made no changes in its running?"

The Abbod's brows crested. "Of course, I made changes. I oversaw the addition of the High Reliquary and re-instituted the Registry of Stones. I brought fine artists and craftsmen to Ochanshrine to be trained up as Cleirachs. A regular program, mind you, not haphazard like before, when most of our Cleirachs were failed Prentices who didn't want to return to the family stead."

"Those are fine accomplishments," Leal complimented him. "Wonderful ideas. Were they yours or, perhaps, Cyne Ciarda's?"

A red flush crept over the Abbod's face. "They were given me by the Meri."

"And not to your Abbod? Not to one of the more experienced Osraed?"

"No." Ladhar fingered the links of his prayer chain. "I was fresh from Pilgrimage. It was part of my mission-to improve the Abbis as a repository of spiritual artifacts and a retreat for the Osraed, to increase its ability to produce well-taught Cleirachs for the schools."

Lealbhallain nodded. "As my mission is to see to the welfare of the citizens of Creiddylad-most especially, its children."

"A broad purpose, but one which has nothing to do with what the Cyne does in his Cirke."

"Osraed Ladhar, it's not his Cirke. It's God's Cirke, the Meri's Cirke. And what the Cyne does before the citizens of Creiddylad, what he says to them about his relationship with their God affects their welfare at its most elemental level-the spiritual."

Ladhar's eyes moved to Fhada's back. The younger man stiffened, as if sensing that touch. "Still, none of the changes I made at the Meri's behest publicly embarrassed my Cyne."

"Might they not have embarrassed your Abbod, who would have expected such insights to come to him?"

The fatty wattles beneath the Abbod's ample jowls shivered. "Do you deliberately misunderstand me, young man? You have embarrassed the Cyne of Caraid-land."

"Is that what he thinks?"

"He's not sure what to think."

He had spoken to the Cyne, then. Leal inclined his head, trying not to shake. "If I have embarrassed the Cyne, I will apologize to him. I didn't mean to embarrass him. Not at all. But he was implying a relationship with the Meri-"

"That you couldn't abide?" suggested Ladhar.

"That She couldn't abide."

Abbod Ladhar studied Lealbhallain through diamond-bright eyes. Studied him until he felt all the flesh had been flayed from his face. Then the old man gathered himself and rose, slipping easily out of the chair and back into his fatherly smile.

"Well, I must go, young firebrand. Come, both of you, and walk me to my coach."

They did as bidden, passing through the corridors of the Care House in relative silence. They passed by newly repaired fireplaces with freshly cleaned chimneys; Ladhar remarked on them and on the well-lit halls and clean floors. When they reached the outer courtyard, the Abbod paused to regard a dray that had pulled up before the kitchen entrance to offload goods from the Cyne's Market.

"Well, Osraed Lealbhallain," he said. "You have made a good beginning to the fulfillment of your mission here. It seems you have reminded Cyne Colfre of his duty to the poor and cautioned him to kindness. What a rain of bounty you've precipitated! What a pity if it should cease and all this be lost."

Fhada spoke for the first time. "You caution him to fear the Cyne? To bend to the Cyne's whims?"

Ladhar shot him a slivered glance. "I would not so caution him. It is the Meri's wrath we must fear-God's approval we must obtain. I am concerned only that all the good you have wrought here in the Meri's name might be lost. If the Cyne's whims, as you call them, are foiled, they may suffer most who have the least."

His gaze strayed back to the dray, dragging Fhada's and Lealbhallain's with it. There, several older orphans and a man with one arm helped the jaeger unload goods. All were smiling over the Cyne's largesse, dreaming, no doubt, of the meals to come.

The Abbod turned then, clambered aboard his coach and was borne away. Fhada and Leal watched him through the gates.

"Damn him," said Fhada. "Damn him."

Shivering, Leal returned to the Care House. He spent the rest of the day thinking about Ladhar's visit without thinking about it. It sat in his conscience where his soul could see it. Sat there without moving, captured in that last tableau: the three of them there in the court, watching the delivery of the Cyne's bounty.

Wrong, though, Leal thought. Wrong. The food and goods arriving by royal dray were not gifts, they were duty. It was the joint occupation of Cyne and Osraed to care for the Caraidin, and in the long history of Caraid-land, it had been the Cyne who supplied the means while the Osraed provided the way. Leal knew, as Abbod Ladhar implicitly suggested he forget, that Cyne Colfre of the House Malcuim would not be on his throne today were it not for the Meri and Her chosen representatives. It was the first Osraed, Ochan, who gave Malcuim the wisdom necessary to establish his House as the House from which Caraidin Cynes arose. Another history there might have been if Ochan-a-Coille had not staggered to the Cyne's threshold six centuries ago and warned him that the Houses Claeg and Feich were engaged in covert rebellion.

Still, there was a point to what the Abbod said. Leal's mission here was to see to the welfare of the citizenry of Creiddylad-especially the poor. The Meri had impressed that upon him, that and the need for change. He had made a good start, coercing Colfre to be more open-handed. True, he hadn't convinced the Cyne to give control of the Osraed funds back into their own hands, but that could come if ... if he didn't lose the ground he had won.

In the Meri's name, Ladhar had said. The good you have wrought in the Meri's name. Lost. Because you could not abide ...

Had the voice in the Sanctuary been his own? Had he been motivated by simple jealousy, unable to tolerate the Cyne's communion with his Beloved?

Feeling wretched and confused, Leal secluded himself in his chambers. He meditated himself to calm, then took out his crystal and slipped into his aislinn chamber. The chamber, like all those at Care House, was make-shift, little more than a cylindrical closet built up with screens of wood. Leal sat cross-legged on the floor of his, while the crystal, Bliss, lay at center atop a carved wooden stand. Incense burned, home incense that carried scents of Nairne-the pines, the river, the wildflowers and spices. He breathed deeply and let his mind flow to the crystal.

He did not ask to see visions-he wanted only certitude-it was visions he got. The crystal lit and spoke. In the ancient aislinn tongue, it poured pictures into the darkened place, pictures that passed like storm-driven clouds. There was a huge room-the Assembly Hall at Mertuile-filled with people and anger and fear and tense silence. There were flashes of fire that became torches and light globes carried high in the hands of people who laughed and cried and reached out in joyous celebration to a figure standing high above them upon a gleaming dais. The people gazed up at the dais and its occupants.

Leal tried to see them, to determine who they were, but the image eluded him, subtly altering itself. The people still chanted, but their laughter shattered into barks of rage, fingers curled into fists, faces twisted, hideous. The Hall trembled with their rage. They became a sea of faces, a teeming ocean of souls, their emotions like a myriad waves in a crossing sea. There was thunder.

No, Leal realized, there was someone pounding on his door.

"Coming!" he managed to croak, and withdrew himself from the aislinn realm. The crystal sucked in its light and its darkness and his visions, folding them up again into silent facets.

The young girl at the door bobbed an awed curtsey, her eyes on Leal's face. "All pardon, Osraed Leal," she said in a loud whisper, "but you bid me tell you when Aelder Buach returned from the docks. He's in Refectory, Osraed."

"Of course, Fris. Thank you." He smiled at her and she returned the smile before dropping another curtsey and scurrying away.

Buach was indeed in the Refectory, tucking away an impressive amount of vegetable stew. He nodded at Leal as the younger boy slid onto the stool opposite him, a bowl of stew and a spoon in hand.

"How are things along the riverfront?" asked Leal after downing several bites of stew.

Buach gave him a watery smile. "Is there mail, do you mean? As it happens, Osraed, there is." He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small folio of hide and cloth packets. "Here."

He held one out to Leal, who took it eagerly. The packet was from his family and contained letters from each of them, the longest appearing to be from his sister, Orna. Grateful, Leal thanked Buach and laid the letters on the table.

"You did some care calls today, did you?"

"Aye. A few. It was a clothing run, mostly. To the families down under Farbridge. Autumn comes early down there."

"And did you visit your family while you were there?"

Buach's father owned a shop just above Farbridge and his entire family had been in the Cyne's Cirke last Cirke-dag. He often paid them a visit when out on care calls in the area, but his wary expression said he wasn't sure why the Osraed had brought it up.

"Only after I'd done my dues," he said.

"Did you talk to them at all about the happenings Cirke-dag?"

Buach tried to hide his grin behind a chunk of bread. "You mean when you came head on into Cyne Colfre's ceremony?"

Leal swallowed. "Yes. I couldn't help but wonder what people are saying about it. I knew your family was there ..."

Buach studied his stew-sodden bread. "Tongues are flapping, Osraed. I can tell you that. No one I've spoken to can agree altogether on what it meant, though. Now my Gran'da says you busted the Cyne pure and simple-showed him who's charged by the Spirit in Caraid-land. My elder brother, on the other hand, says you were doing no such thing; that you were confirming the Cyne's right to speak for the Meri."

"How does he figure that?"

Buach shrugged. "You said only the Meri's Chosen spoke for Her. Since the Cyne claimed to speak for Her, he must be Chosen."

Had he said that? The words came back to him: The Meri speaks through Her Chosen. The Meri is known through the counsel of the divine. No man among you knows the changes I have wrought.

"I believe I said no man could know what the Cyne claimed to know."

"Oh, aye. Which, in my brother's frail brain means that since the Cyne claimed to know it, he's no mere man."

"You don't agree."

Buach made a rude noise. "If the Cyne's divine, I'm the Gwenwyvar. I say with my Gran'da. You busted him."

While Buach's new admiration was preferable to his sullen disinterest, his words did little to reassure Leal. He didn't know which extreme was worse-to have it thought he'd humiliated the Cyne, or to have it thought he'd accorded him divinity. He prayed those were just extremes and turned to the reading of his letters.

The letters were full of the chatter of Nairne, telling him what his family thought he'd want to know about the furor Osraed Wyth's announcement had caused, about the Cirkemaster's daughter having the Gift and being a candidate for Prenticeship, about how the Hillwild Ren, Catahn, had come up with an entire classroom full of candidates, which included his own daughter, the Renic Desary.

It was the longest letter, the one from Orna, that brought him the most disturbing tale. Osraed Bevol's choice of wards had once again plunged Halig-liath into controversy. Orna described in detail the gossip resulting from Ealad-hach's attempted test of Taminy-a-Gled, adding her own opinion that the old man must be daft to suspect such a brave and obviously gifted cailin of being Wicke. He was not to tell Ma or Da, she confided, but she had sought Taminy's company herself and heard and seen some truly wonderful things. She enumerated.

Leal must have groaned or gasped for he felt Buach's eyes suddenly on him.

"Trouble at home, Osraed?"

"Oh ... you could say. One of the Osraed has accused a local girl of being Wicke."

"Oh, aye!" The Aelder's sallow face lit with enthusiasm. "That's the news come in on the galleys, too. All over the waterfront, that. It's true then, it's in one of your letters?"

Leal nodded and Buach grinned. "There was an official packet for the Abbod, too, and one for the Cyne. The boatman thought they must be about the acceptance of girls at Halig-liath. Did your letters mention that, too?"

"The Ren Catahn's daughter is a candidate, according to my father."

"God-the-Spirit, a Hillwild Renic at the Academy! These are interesting times ..." He glanced coyly into Leal's face. "So what do you think, Osraed ... of girls at the Holy Fortress?"

"I think it's a great thing." He thought of Meredydd, then. Meredydd, who had wanted, above all else, to be Osraed; who had wanted, failing that, to come heal the wounds of Creiddylad's poor. He supposed, in some way, he was here in her stead.

"A great thing," he repeated and cleared his plate from the table.

Cyne Colfre sat in his favorite place, breeze rippling his dark hair and teasing the corners of the paper spread before him on the stone table. His eyes caressed the inked lines of the sketches lovingly; they were his, he had put them there himself with an architect's delicate skill. The design was his own and he fancied it carried such distinction that, generations hence, architects and students of art would look at it and say, "Ah, now that was Colfrian. Classic Golden Cusp. A fine work." They would see the power and grace in those lines and marvel that such a thing, such an aerie, could stand ...When it ought to soar. He smiled, not looking up even when he heard the footfall on the pavilion's stone walkway. He knew the stride.

"So," he said, without glancing up, "how is our Abbod today?"

"Our Abbod is in quite a state." Daimhin Feich gave a cursory bow and seated himself on one of the stone benches.

"Our Abbod is always in a state, what with one thing and another. What's the excuse of the day?"

"You won't like it."

The Cyne glanced up from his drawings. "The boy again?"

"'The boy' has sent a letter to the Apex at Halig-liath. An urgent letter."

Colfre's expression was wary. "Not a progress report, I gather."

"The Abbod thinks not. It was sent out with a special seal rune-something even the Abbod was loathe to tinker with. The letter was directed to the eyes of the Apex Osraed only."

"I thought the Abbod spoke to the boy."

"He did, but I gathered from his report that the conversation was far from satisfactory."

"He said he rattled him."

"He said what he thought you wanted to hear. He also said the boy seemed ambivalent. On further prodding, I got him to admit that our littlest Osraed has gotten Fhada inflamed again. According to Ladhar, he was openly hostile during that last visit."