Coracle, Chapter 10: Where You Find 'Em

Mostly done editing PG5 (street date should be sometime next week), so, back to other projects!

***

The cathedral was… imposing. If Marda was to be honest, it was overwhelming. Knowing that it housed the classrooms, teachers, and postulants put its size in perspective—of course it had to be big!—but that didn’t make it any less intimidating. The rose window over the entrance could have fit three of the windows from St. Ermina’s, and it had a lot more colors too. St. Ermina’s had one fountain in front of it, in the plaza. This cathedral was so broad it had two statues with little gardens around them and separate fountains on either side of the doors, which you had to get to by climbing stairs. Really tall stairs.

Marda would have found it far too humbling had there not been a woman poking around one of the statues like she was looking for something. As she and Evie approached, a whiskery face popped up from the other side of the statue and held out a sprig of greens in a webbed fist.

“Oh, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Thank you, Otterby.”

Otterby bounded into view and Marda gasped. She’d heard about the otters that skated on the Savior’s Breath, but she’d never seen one. He was almost as long as Marda was tall, and dark purple with orangy-pink and red blotches on his tail and back. His fur twinkled when he moved, as if his coat was peppered with stars, and he had a line of fins on either side of his spine with gossamer purple vanes. “Is that a nebula otter?” she exclaimed, trying to lean forward without shifting the coracle on her back.

The woman, straightening, beamed at them both. “Why yes. Well met, stranger. Hello, Evie. Who’s this you’ve brought us?”

“This is Marda Quincesinger, ma’am. She’s a farmer from Temperance. Come on a coracle.”

“So I see,” the woman said, smiling at Marda. “Welcome, Marda. I am Aelonwy Tallowwax, Rector of the Outremers’ school. And this is my brother, Otterby.”

“The Rector’s in charge of the whole school,” Evie told her.

 Tallowwax looked to be around Mama’s age, which while a good age to be, wasn’t the stooped and wrinkled wisewoman Marda had expected to find in charge of the school. The Rector had riant brown eyes framed in a fan of lines and had the brown-and-tawny skin patterns of one of the Quick Dancers. Her hair was barely visible under her wimple, but what Marda could see was mostly dark slate-blue with only a few strands of silver. And her body, though obscured by her robes and scapular, didn’t move with the hesitance of an old woman.

She had a nebula otter for a brother, which made her an Outremer herself, as well as the person in charge of an entire school dedicated to training new Outremers. Marda didn’t know where to start with any of her questions. She curtseyed awkwardly, trying to keep the coracle from falling off her, and said, “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Here, dear, let me have that.” The coracle lifted off Marda’s back. Tallowwax handed it to her otter. “Would you push that over to the quay, please?”

Otterby chirped and pressed his head against the coracle’s side. To Marda’s delight, little coils of the Breath puddled under it, spreading from beneath the otter, and then the two were sailing away over the ground.

“There, that’s taken care of. And Evie can see you to a room, I’m sure.” The Rector smiled at Evie and lifted a brow. “She’s put her nose into everything so far, haven’t you, Evie?”

Evie grinned. “What can I say? I’m curious.”

“A born Scout,” Tallowwax said to Marda.

“That’s me. The Line of Toby, all the way.”

Remembering her manners, Marda turned to Evie and put her hand on the basket. “Could I get in here?” As Evie held it out, she rummaged for one of the jars of jam. She offered it to the Rector. “Quince jam.”

“Why, thank you!” Delight shone in Tallowwax’seyes. “I love jam. Do you mind if I…” She pointed at the lid.

“It is for eating, ma’am.”

“Oh good.” The woman unscrewed the lid and stuck her finger in it. “If I don’t get into it first, Otterby will have it all eaten by supper.” She scooped up some of the jam and popped it in her mouth. “Mmm, songquinces!”

“Yes!” Marda said, surprised. “You know them?”

“Oh, yes. I love a good praisetree. And they’re all good, even if some of them are a little naughty.” The Rector grinned and closed the jar. “That was very thoughtful of you, Marda. I’ll enjoy it with my morning toast. Very much, since I can taste the devotion in it. You and your family must take very good care of your orchard.”

“It’s mostly Mama,” Marda said. “I do help sometimes.”

“Do you love plants, then?”

Strange question. It made Marda wrinkle her brow, trying to imagine. “I never thought about it, I guess. I lived with them all my life… it’s what I know.”

“And you always love what you know, is that it?” the woman asked, interested.

“That can’t be true,” Evie said. “I know plenty of things I hate. Like bug bites and storms that keep me inside.”

The Rector laughed and so did Marda.

“Miss Evie has a point,” the Rector said. “Do you agree?”

“I don’t know,” Marda admitted. “Except… you can’t love something you don’t know, can you? So I guess if you want to love something at all, it’s going to be something you know.” She wrinkled her nose. “But by Evie’s standards, I definitely love plants. Because I know I don’t love ant piles and bug bites.”

“Early bedtimes are the worst,” Evie said. “I hated those when I was a kid.”

“And you’re not a kid anymore, is that it?” the Rector asked, amused.

“I’m an older kid!” Evie grinned. “When I’m ready to be an adult, I’ll tell everyone.”

“I’m sure you will.” To Marda, “I like plants too. Though I farm a different kind.” She offered the sprig the otter had found her. “Do you recognize this?”

Marda examined the heart-shaped leaves, bent close to sniff it: the smell was spicy and green and a little cinammony. “No, ma’am. We don’t have anything like that at home.”

“This is heartsheal,” the Rector said, pinching off a leaf and handing it to Marda. “It helps the body and spirit find strength. We use it here for some of our salves in the infirmary, and we diffuse its floral waters for grief.”

Marda rolled the little leaf between her fingers, inhaling the scent. “It’s refreshing.”

“Exactly.” Tallowwax smiled. “And it can’t be grown! It must be hunted. Fortunately, there’s a patch that likes to pop up here at the feet of our statue of Saint Dovelin. Every summer, just as the new postulants are arriving, they start poking up through the ground. It’s almost as if they know you all are coming, with all your bumps and bruises and scraped up knees.” Her eyes twinkled. “When you have a chance, have Evie show you to the arboretum. I think you’ll like it.”

“I will, ma’am. Thank you. And for the welcome.”

“Thank you for the jam, Marda Quincesinger. We’re glad to have you.”

As they started up the stone steps, Evie said to Marda, “You’re so lucky! I had to carry my own coracle all the way to the quay.”

Marda glanced at her, amused. “But I bet you enjoyed poking around once you got there.”

“Well, yes.” Evie grinned back. “I’ll take you there, too. It’s a Breath-quay, not a water-quay! It’s great! You’ve never seen anything like it! And there’s an entire building full of coracles! I bet some of them have been there since they put down the first rock for this place!”

Listening to her new friend, Marda sniffed her fingers, then tucked the leaf in her dress pocket.

“You’re not keeping that, are you?” Evie asked, skeptical.

“Why not? It seems useful.”

“One leaf??”

“One leaf makes a lot of smell!” Marda said.

Evie laughed. “If I’m Line of Toby, you are so Get of Lira. Speaking of which, come on. Let’s find your bed so we can put all this down!”

Hurrying after Evie as the girl changed direction, Marda wondered: was she really of the Hearthkeeper’s Get? How did one decide, if one didn’t already know? Would she get lucky and have someone tell her?

Probably not, she thought. Growing up didn’t seem to involve any simple answers. She sighed.