"Then, perhaps you should endeavor to control her."

Colfre turned to regard his Durweard with mild bemusement. "We wanted miracles, remember?"

"Little miracles. 'Oh-and-ah' miracles. Not stupefying, mind-boggling miracles."

"You have no sense of mystery!"

"And you have no-!" Feich turned his head and gazed momentarily at a muraled panel. He took a deep breath and looked back to his Cyne, smiling. "You have no idea, my lord, what the superstitious mind can make of such wonders. We are attempting to display a lovable Taminy, an innocent Taminy, not a fire-slinging hellion who knocks Cleirachs about like rumble pins. Our purpose is to prove the Osraed to be inept and fanatical stewards of Caraid-land's spiritual life."

"Our purpose was. I think that is changing. I think I see other possibilities."

Feich gazed down at the rich folds of his tunic. "I'm sure you do. I see ... other possibilities, also. But if you terrify the Osraed, you risk uniting them. You can't afford to unite them now. United, and still a force in government, they will fight you tooth and claw over the situation with the Deasach, and they will never allow you to declare yourself Osric. Your greatest and best weapon against them is their own disunity."

Ah, damn, the man had a point. Colfre came back to the couch again, to sit and try to appear relaxed. Inside, he churned. "Well, Daimhin Feich, Durweard, what do you propose I do about it? Taminy-a-Cuinn performs ostentatious miracles completely at will. I couldn't have stopped her from healing that boy this morning. Nor could I have stopped what happened with the Stone. I saw what it did to that idiot Cleirach, and I had no reason to believe it would show any more respect for a mere Cyne. So tell me: What can I do?"

"Try harder to control her."

Colfre nodded, mouth a-twist. "Oh, yes. I see. I'll have to book up on my Runeweaves."

"There are ways. I shouldn't need to remind you, my lord, that women-particularly very young women-find you most ... winning. Win her."

Colfre, to whom such an observation was usually Sun to a seedling, could only stare at his Durweard in gut-tickling unease. "Absurd idea."

Daimhin Feich's surprise seemed genuine. "Why? Do you not find her attractive?"

Did he not-? He pulled his arms about himself, suddenly chill. "She's beautiful. Lightning in flesh. She excites me in ways I didn't know a man could be excited."

Feich spread long delicate fingers. "Well, then ... ?"

Colfre stood, putting his Durweard behind him. "No, I can't." He raised a hand. "Don't ask why. I couldn't invent an answer that would make sense. I can't because I saw her in the Shrine today making love to that Stone. Because I saw her in the street wearing a robe of blue glory and doing things no seventeen year old girl should be able to do. She is more than an embarrassment to the Osraed, Daimhin. She is their nemesis."

Colfre could almost hear Feich's eyebrows cresting. "Superstition, my lord?"

"Awe, my Durweard. You saw her this afternoon-a tired little girl. You didn't see her this morning when she was ... I don't know what." He turned to intercept his companion's troubled gaze. "Lay it at the feet of my Hillwild mother. Perhaps it is superstition. And perhaps superstition is in the blood she passed on to me. Whatever it is, it is. I recognize, of course, that you're right. We must control her. We've befriended her; that's a start. But perhaps more is needed. You're a capable man, Daimhin. A more reasonable man than I am, obviously, and, I am told, as winning."

"My lord, I-"

"No, no. It's true. Perhaps you could succeed at what I will not even dare."

Feich inclined his head. "Yes, my lord. But in view of how you feel about the girl, how could I presume-"

Colfre glanced at him aslant. "You're a free man, Daimhin. Scion of a noble and powerful House. I may be Cyne, but I can hardly dictate your fancies, especially if they fall on a commoner."

He turned back to his darkened window, then. All color had drained from the garden as if lapped up by an invisible beast. He wondered if it was the same beast, sated, that now curled up in his stomach and slept.

She was exhausted, but sleepless, and felt like nothing so much as a woolly fleece sponge that had been wrung dry. Or a riverbed, she thought, after a spring flash flood. Such had been the rush of Eibhilin energies through their human channel that she vibrated, still, from the Touch of the Stone. No, not the Stone, but the Stone's Mistress.

Channels. It took a series of them to filter the Messages of the Spirit that some men might hear them: Spirit to Meri, Meri to Osmaer-Stone, Osmaer-Stone to Taminy-Osmaer. And from Taminy-Osmaer to ...?

She shivered, recalling the face of the Abbod Ladhar, sweat-polished and wild-eyed. The Message could not be filtered enough for that soul to find it comprehensible ... or acceptable. She could not reach a man like Ladhar, she could only expose him. She knew that after stepping into the embrace of the Crystal.

She knew other things, as well, of other souls. Of the two watching, unseen, from behind their simple Weaves, she knew earnestness and purity. Sharp contrast then, the Cleirach's soul-a soul condemned by its own sense of worthlessness. A soul who fought that strangling emotion with the unlikely weapons of suspicion and self-righteousness. Those were the wrong weapons, but he had no others. That made Caime Cadder pitiful. It also made him dangerous.

A frisson prickled up the back of her neck. She rose swiftly from the bed, exhaustion forgotten, and moved with silent feet to the door. She opened it. The Riagan Airleas stood outside in the dim-lit corridor, his hand outstretched toward the door latch. Their eyes met in an almost audible collision.

Airleas lowered his, then quickly raised them again. "I would have knocked," he said "Oh? And why would you have knocked, Riagan Airleas? What can you want with me?"

He jutted his chin up and out, fixing her with a gaze he'd no doubt seen his father use on recalcitrant Eiric. "They say you did a miracle today in the Cyne's Way."

"Are miracles not permitted there?"

He blinked at her, looking momentarily like a little boy. "I ... I suppose the Cyne must have permitted it. Did you?"

"What am I to have done that was so miraculous?"

"They say you healed a little boy."

"God healed the boy. I was only an instrument."

"I don't believe it. I don't believe you can heal people. I want you to prove it to me." The brave little Riagan shuddered like a breeze-blown poplar, but stood his ground.

"And how may I do that?" Taminy asked.

"I have a friend-the son of my mother's First Maid. He's sick. Very sick. I'll believe you, if you can heal him." He glared at her, daring her to accept his challenge.

She felt her exhaustion keenly, then-a weight pulling at her, holding her to the stone floors of Mertuile. Prove yourself, Taminy. Proof! Proof! For some there will never be enough proof. Are you one of those, Airleas Malcuim?

"All right," she said. "Only let me get a coat. It's chill in the corridors."

Snug in a felt panel coat, Taminy followed the Riagan down half-lit hallways, up a long flight of stone stairs, to the level above the Royals. Into a darkened apartment he led, silent and secret, showing with gestures that he intended her to be as quiet. Finally, they stood in a small room in which a single candle burned. Odd, since the entire castle had the benefit of lightglobes. There were two in this room, both dark. On a bed beneath a narrow window, a small figure lay, covered with a mountain of blankets.

"That's my friend," murmured Airleas, his young face long and solemn. "He's got a terrible disease."

"Ooo-oh!" said the form on the bed, and shivered violently.

"If you're so magical, heal him." The imperious scion of the House Malcuim was back, peering at Taminy through glittering, slitted eyes.

She inclined her head. "Yes, sire." At the bed, she paused to look down at its occupant. "Are you in much pain?" she asked.

"Oh, ye-es!"

She listened carefully to the small, tremulous voice. "Where is the pain?"

"Oh, everywhere!" said the pile of blankets.

Airleas uttered a chuff of exasperation. "Can't you tell how much pain he's in? Can't you tell where it is? Isn't that part of the Wicke Craft?"

She turned her head to look at him. "But Riagan, I'm not a Wicke."

"So you keep saying. Very well, the Art then. Isn't that called a Heal Tell?"

"Yes, it is. And the questions I ask are part of that Tell."

She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. The blanketed child shivered harder.

"See," said Airleas. "He has a horrible ague."

Taminy stretched out her hands and pulled back the blankets a bit. A ghost-pale face peeked out at her from the folds, its forehead misted with perspiration. Feverless perspiration.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The eyes, dark and clear, blinked. "Beag ... mam."

"Well, Beag, it's not hard to see what's wrong with you. You've piled on too many blankets. Take them off and you'll recover quickly enough from this horrible ague."

"W-what?" asked Beag, and Airleas said, "But he has a fever! See how he shakes?"

Taminy turned to face the Riagan squarely. "That's fear, not fever. Your friend isn't sick. Nor is he really your friend. He's the child of your mother's servant which, to your mind, makes him your servant. You pressed Beag into service to test me."

Airleas looked like a landed fish, all eyes and mouth. Beag began to cry. Shrugging off his encumbering blankets he sat up and clutched at Taminy's sleeve. "Oh, mam, I'm sorry! But he told me I must. He's the Cwen's son-what could I do?"

"Lie beneath a pile of blankets and quake, it would seem." The female voice came to them from the doorway. It belonged to a shadow that, once in candlelight, became the Cwen Toireasa.

Beag whined and cowered. Airleas had the good grace to look contrite. Cwen Toireasa surveyed them both with bland bemusement.

"To bed with you, Airleas," she told her son. "Taminy, you will accompany me ... please." Both obeyed immediately.

The Cwen said nothing more to her as they navigated the resplendent halls and wound down the stairs to the level below. At the bottom of the stairs, Cwen Toireasa paused. "May we talk in your chambers? They would be more private."

Taminy nodded. "As you wish, mistress."

"My son," said the Cwen, when they had closeted themselves in Taminy's rooms, "trusts only the conviction of his own senses. I suppose he resembles me in that. Colfre is likely to believe what he has not seen and disbelieve what he has seen with his own eyes." She moved to seat herself on a low settle by the hearth. Firelight and lightglobes set her golden hair aflame, making her seem more Eibhilin than human.

Like the Gwenwyvar, Taminy thought. She seated herself across from the Cwen and asked, "What do you believe, mistress?"

"I'm not sure. I'll tell you what I don't believe. I don't believe you're merely a madwoman or a zealot. Zealots and madwomen don't perform miracles. I was in the crowd today, along the Cyne's Way," she explained. "I saw what you did for the boy. I followed you on to Ochanshrine, too."

Taminy's surprise must have shown in her face, for the Cwen smiled and said, "You find that shocking? I don't trust my husband, Taminy-a-Cuinn. Or perhaps I should say, I trust him to follow his desires. He follows them all over Creiddylad and beyond. Sometimes he even exports them to the Abbis. I thought he was doing that this morning. It seems I was wrong."

Taminy said nothing, for she could think of nothing to say. She understood Toireasa's antipathy now, and that comprehension made her uncomfortable.

"I don't know if you are my husband's lover." Toireasa continued. "I do know that you're more than that. I might believe you," she added, "if you told me you were not his lover."

Taminy flushed. "I am not, mistress. I beg you to believe me. The Cyne has befriended me for reasons that have nothing to do with his affections."

Cwen Toireasa laughed. "How charmingly you put it! No, cailin. Colfre's affections are never involved in his plots and projects; only his passions are involved. And he has many of those. I think I know which one caused him to 'befriend' you-his passion to govern ... . No, that's naive of me. Not to govern, to rule. And to rule by popularity. Colfre Malcuim fancies himself to be carved from the same wood as Buidhe Harpere or Liusadhe or, God help us, the Malcuim, himself." She shook her head. "The artist warrior. He would like to see himself as a bit of each of them. A strange admixture-gentle artistry, passionate zeal, a little blood-lust for spice-but pure Malcuim-golden-haired, visionary eyes the color of the sea."

Taminy smiled, knowing the Cwen was right. She could well imagine Cyne Colfre arrayed before a mirror that reflected fantasy instead of reality: a harp, a crown, a sword. That last, that was the danger in Colfre and it was nothing to smile over. Taminy sobered.

"Yes, it is funny, isn't it? That's why he married me, you know, in the hope of producing a golden Malcuim heir. But Airleas is darker than his father, which I, unable to produce another child, am not allowed to forget."

A chill glided down Taminy's back like a silken runnel of ice water. "Does he show Airleas that he ... ?"

"Hoped for something else? Something other than a Hillwild throwback? Oh, yes. Not viciously, you understand, and not so much verbally as in those tiny, subtle ways that wound. Colfre did a family portrait of us once. He gave Airleas Thearl Malcuim's pale copper hair."

Taminy remembered that hair-how bright it had been in the sunny courtyard at Farewelling. "The Ambre Cyne, they called him," she murmured, "his hair was so bright. Poor Airleas."

"Colfre is not a forgiving man. He can't forgive his mother for being Hillwild or his father for marrying her; he can't forgive me for giving him a son who's more his than mine; and he can't forgive Airleas for just being Airleas. He named him, you know-Airleas, 'a pledge'-to remind me that somehow my pledge to him was broken." She looked down at her hands, clutched together in her lap. "To me, my son is a pledge that someday, when Colfre is gone, he will be Cyne. A better Cyne than his father ever dreamed of being." Her mouth twisted wryly and she raised her eyes to Taminy's. "No, Colfre has never dreamed of being a good Cyne, merely a popular and powerful one."

Taminy felt a wave of deep compassion for the Cwen of all Caraid-land and wondered at the confidences she'd revealed. "Why are you sharing all this with me, mistress?"

The Cwen studied her a long time before answering. "I don't know who or what you are, Taminy-a-Cuinn, but I know you can perform miracles. I hadn't believed in miracles until now. I suppose I dare hope you'll Weave a miracle for me." Toireasa rose then, shook out her skirts, and moved across the medallion carpet to the door.

"Perhaps I will Weave for you," Taminy told her. "Or perhaps you'll perform a miracle of your own."

Toireasa's smile was ironic. "Oh, I have already tried," she said, and let herself out.

CHAPTER 17.

To what house can a lover go but the house of his Beloved? Where can he find rest, but in the arms of his heart's desire? A lover lives in reunion and dies in separation. His spirit is impatient and his soul lacks peace. A host of lives he would offer up to travel in the way of his Love or to lay his head at Her feet.

- from The Song of Ochan "Why must you go, Saxan? Why must you? You aren't a pillar of the Hall. You've no voice there, no duty." Ardis-a-Nairnecirke flailed at her husband with haphazard words, her posture defensive. She didn't want him to take the downriver road to the capitol. She was afraid, as she had never been before, that he would come back changed, or not at all. It wasn't brigands she feared, or accident; it was this fever running through Caraid-land, a fever that no longer confined itself to Nairne.

"Who'll give lessons on Cirke-dag?" she pleaded. "Who'll say the blessing and lead the lays?"

Saxan did not even look up from his packing. "Ardis," he said, "I've a competent second in Aelder Culash."

"That doesn't answer me why."

"I've told you why. I can't just wait to hear. I want to be there. I'm entitled to be there. And, yes, I feel a duty to be there."

"Duty? To whom, Saxan? For God's love, it's out of your hands now."

He straightened from his satchel and looked at her. Finally, she thought. But his eyes had the glaze of someone who does not see what he looks at.

"Out of my hands," he repeated. "Yes, I suppose it is. But it's not out of my conscience ... or my heart." His eyes focused on her face, at last. "Don't you feel it, Ardis? Didn't you feel it the first time you saw her?"

Ardis twitched, a chill passing, ghostly, down her spine. Aingeal kisses, her mother called that. When she was a little girl, she'd turn quickly on her heel and kiss the air, hoping to catch the Eibhilin messenger and return its kiss.