The Riddle - Alison Croggon [116]
Despite her close kinship to the Pilanel, she did not feel at home in Murask: it was alien and confusing, the people harsh and stern, if not unkind. She felt no echo of the strange familiarity that had puzzled her when she had first entered Innail, even though the School had been as different from her life in Gilman’s Cot as could be imagined. She was sure that Hem would have felt differently about Murask. He was not immediately comfortable among Bards; she had put it down to his nightmarish childhood, being kidnapped by Hulls after the slaughter of Pellinor and dumped in a grim orphanage in Edinur. But perhaps it was more profound than that, and his discomfort was the same kind of refusal that Sirkana had expressed, a belief that there were other ways of unlocking the Gift. And, unlike Maerad, with her fair Annaren skin, Hem would have been accepted as Pilanel without question.
She was glad that Sirkana intended keeping her identity secret. She thought she now understood how the Dark had known about her, why they were always, as Cadvan had said, two steps ahead of the Light. The Hulls must have known about the Pilanel prophecies; they must have known somehow about Sirkana’s dream and Maerad’s father’s decision to move to Annar. Sirkana had said she did not trust all her people. There may well be a spy in Murask now, and it seemed there had been one here before Maerad was born. Although, she thought, Dorn might have confided in a Bard of Annar who had betrayed him. She thought of Helgar, and the other Ettinor Bards she had so distrusted in Innail; they had been spies, if not for the Nameless One himself, certainly for Enkir. Maybe Dorn had spoken to Enkir himself? It would not be unlikely; why would Dorn have mistrusted a Norloch Bard of such standing?
Restlessly, Maerad stood up and paced the room. She felt stifled; she needed some fresh air. She opened the shutters over the window, thinking to lean out and see what the world looked like — it must be late afternoon by now. There were two sets, both of thick, stout wood, bolted fast. When she opened the outer shutters, they tore out of her hands, banging back against the wall, as a blast of freezing wind gusted into the room, dumping a small drift of snowflakes on the floor. Maerad had a glimpse of swirling whiteness before she wrestled the shutters back and bolted them closed again. She hadn’t realized there was such a storm; the walls of the house were very thick. If she had been out in the open, she would have frozen to death. She had beaten the snow by one day.
The thought rattled her slightly, and she sat back down on the bed and decided to unpack. As she took out her familiar objects — her lyre, Dernhil’s book, the bottle of medhyl, now quite depleted — she began to feel less displaced. She missed the wooden cat she had given Mirka, but even its absence was part of the tally of her life. When she had arranged the room to her satisfaction, she sat on her bed and opened Dernhil’s book. It had been a while since she had been able to read his poems, and, perhaps perversely, she felt more Bardic than she ever had. She wasn’t at all sure of what she thought about being claimed as a Pilanel.
That night she was invited to dine with Sirkana. Zara fussed around her, even insisting on plaiting her hair, and making sure that her robes were straight. Then she solemnly led her down to the hall again, where a long table had been set, with a bench on either side, full of people. The noise of conversation rose up to her as she walked along the gallery outside her room, and Maerad’s heart leaped into her mouth; she had not been among people for a long time, not since leaving Ossin. Going down to meet them took all her courage. She did her best to conceal her nervousness, but it was difficult when