Mache > Fantasy > Chalice Read Online

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Chalice Robin McKinley 163570K 2023-08-29

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To Molly, Gard, Chiron and Guenevere

PART ONE

Because she was Chalice she stood at the front door with the Grand Seneschal, the Overlord's agent and the Prelate, all of ere carefully ignoring her But she was Chalice, and it was from her hand the Master would take the welcome cup

Fronificent curling sweep of stair, she could see over the heads of the crowd The rest of the Circle stood stiffly and formally at the foot of the stair with the first Houseardener, but nearly the entire citizenry of the demesne seemed to have found an excuse to be so drive froates today

Their new Master was coht lost or irrecoverable The Master who, as younger brother of the previous Master, had been sent off to the priests of Fire, to get rid of him Third and fourth brothers of Masters were often similarly disposed of, but the solitary brother of an unmarried Master without other Heir should not have been dealt with so summarily So the Master had been told But the two brothers hated each other, and the younger one was given to the priests of Fire That had been seven years ago

A little over six years later the Master died, still without other Heir The Grand Seneschal had sent ient need of the younger brother of the Master of Willowlands, for the Master had died without having produced a son Such a request - a plea - had never been one to the Elemental priests, they do not return

But a dee of faenerations, till the new fa relative of the old Master of Willowlands was a fourth cousin who had already married someone unsuitable and had three children by her The priests of Fire said they would see what they could do, but they proer brother of the old Master had just crossed into the third level, and by the third level Ele ordinary humans

But six weeks ago the Grand Seneschal had received another e from the priests of Fire: that the Master of Willowlands was co home It would not be an easy Mastership, and the priests were not sure it was even possible, but the Master himself felt the responsibility to his demesne, and he was determined to try

Mirasol - straining her eyes toward the gate, partly as a way to ignore the three er brother: his strength of purpose, his feeling of obligation to the de for the demesne It hat the brothers had quarrelled about The elder brother had loved the power of the Mastership, not its duties, and he was not the least willing to bear lectures on his behaviour froer brother was co home, even from the third level of the priesthood of Fire

She had dreaht before it arrived: she had felt the fire and s She knew the Master would co, but she did not knohat Might the demesne itself burn, or its new Master?

She could see only a little way down the drive as it curved toward the gates half a league distant But she could see when people better placed than she for first sight of the arrival stiffened and stared The threewith her drew themselves to attention

She could hear carriage wheels now

It will be all right, she told herself It ht She settled her shoulders with a tiny, invisible shake, and fractionally raised her chin

Six horses drew the coach: four of therey The coach itself was also black, but black was always fashionable arand and would draw no comment But the curtains at these ere drawn closed, and they too were black A light flickered behind theht

Again she sined it

The welco The ceremony of investiture was the official occasion, and after the rites were done there was an enor for everyone who belonged to the demesne - and for anyone else from any other demesne ished to join in the festivities at the price of some enthusiastic contribution to toasts and cheers and acclamations But the informal arrival of a Master should still be a happy moment And she knew she was not the only person present who felt that the brothers had been born in the wrong order: it was the younger ould have

But no one clapped or called No one s their breath

The coach stopped in front of the House, where the gravel had been raked in a perfect circle, a syood luck Any coach wheels and any horses' hooves would have broken the circle, splintered the careful spiral; that it should be so broken was a part of the welco out the contents of a bottle of wine There was no reason for her to feel uneasy, watching the horses dance as they halted, kicking pebbles every way, to feel that so destroyed

The body of the coach rocked on its wheels, and little spurts of gravel pattered out from under them

Then the door opened

Perhaps she iined the cloud of darkness like smoke that billowed out; no one else reacted, and she bit down on her own gulp of astonisher brother She had not known him - it was not for such a one as she had been to know the Master's faood deal of him She had known more of him than of the Master, before the Master sent him away, because he was the one who rode or walked round the derew and throve, and the temples and places of poere serene and well tended He was not tall and handso-eyed like his older brother, but there was kindness and grace in hience in his unremarkable brown eyes

She knew little of the Ele of their initiations, and only folk-tales of what the priesthoods did and were capable of She knew that Fire frightened her worst, more than Earth or Air And the Fire priests theer live a ordinary humans

As the coach door swung back, one of the House servants ju hiures climbed carefully down They both wore black capes with hoods that hid their faces, but they carried theht As any ordinary huht

There was a collective letting-out of breath Talisman, the tallest of the htener, as the fattest, seemed fatter

That was until the third figure climbed down from the coach

He too wore a black cape with a hood, but the cape bulged and seethed weirdly around him, and he let himself carefully down the steps as if he did not know or could not reures who had cli hi on, that their hands did not grasp quite where elbows and armpits should be

He half limped, half rolled up the steps toward the House's front door with his helpers still on his either side She seeht in a sudden updraft She wanted to glance at the faces of the other people, the people who had colihtened or appalled But she couldn't drag her own gaze away fro toward her

She felt the threenot to step back and away as she stepped forward She had been clutching the welcohtly that her stoantly ornahness of the intricate overlay on the cup's bowl gave her suddenly cold stiff fingers better purchase as she moved her hands to their proper places on its stem

She was Chalice, and hers the first greeting

The top step was a wide smooth half-moon of white stone before the door There was plenty of space for her and him and his two aides, as well as the threethe doorposts She raised her cup, grateful that the weight of it prevented her hands fro, and looked down Three faces turned up toward her, two of the

The third face was black, as black as the coal-coloured horses that drew the black coach, and its - his - eyes were red, flickering like fire around the black pupils She recognised nothing in that face froer brother of the dead Master She looked at hi - that she could welcome as Master, and in the final seconds it took him to climb the last step, she sahat she needed to see: comprehension He knew her for Chalice and knew she was there to welcome him, because he came as Master

When he stood with her on the top step he gave a little shudder, or ripple, and his two aides dropped their hands and stepped back As they let go of hiloves Herash, and she was slow to say the two important words: "Welcome, Master"

She was slow, but he was slower He should reach immediately to take the cup from her, hold it briefly over his head for everyone to see that he accepted it, taste its contents and hand it back to her It was possible that he would thank her, but it was not necessary

But he only stood, looking at her The hood shadowed his shadow-dark face; she thought she was glad of it He twitched, a tiny spas to raise his hands The third ti back as if blown by a wind, and she saw that he too wore gloves, long heavy ones, laced snugly to the elbows

She could not give any Chalice cup to gloved hands She looked back into his face - into the shadohere his face was She did not knohat to do She thought she ined the comprehension she had seen there a moment earlier; she could read no expression on that black face now

Cluh the laces of the glove on his right The cords fell away in uneven shards, as if charred Slowly he peeled the glove away froed out at her The air between them was almost too hot to breathe Even lowing like eers of that fiery hand curled round the bowl of the cup inches frorew uncoainst her skin and steam rose from the liquid within it

The weight of the cup did not change and she supported it as he stood with his hand around it He looked at it and back at her

"Whatdo you giveme to drink?" His voice was as eerie as his appearance, but perfectly intelligible

Her answer to this question had been in no record she had consulted about the rite of welcome; but then no one had ever welcomed a third-level Eleainst the preferences of the Prelate and the Grand Seneschal only because she was, in the end, Chalice, and they could not order her to give him the earthed wine customary for a welcome cup But she had not expected to have to announce publicly her departure from tradition: only the Master himself would taste the contents of his welco ard, unreasonable and oblivious all over again when she had to reply, "Water - plain water from the Ladywell - and a spoonful of honey, Master"

She was sure - she was aline it that he sin to draw the cup toward hiht, and so she carried it for hi it above his head, for the audience to see; and then she tipped it gently against his mouth, and saw him drink; and also saw a tiny rivulet run down by the side of hisa fire-red tracing thread behind it

He let her draw the cup back toward her again with his hand still around it She looked again into his face and saw, though she could not have explained how she saw, that he was tired, tired almost to death; and so she knew that it was only weariness that made him clumsier still, that when he lifted his hand away from the cup, he was not able to do it cleanly, and his hand dropped a little, and glanced - only barely, fleetingly glanced - off the back of her hand, where it seared the thin flesh to the bone

At the time it al so like it to happen, and did not flinch when it did She lowered the goblet only a little bit hastily, and tucked the weight of it against her body again so that she could drop her wounded hand to her side and let the long sleeve of her robe cover the burn This made it throb worse than if she could have held it up, but that couldn't be helped No one farther away than the threetheir turn - and possibly the Master's two aides - would have seen anything, and she wished to keep it that way

But the threejust behind her would have seen The Grand Seneschal ood - it was he who had negotiated with the priests of Fire in the first place, and he who had received the news that the priests did not believe what he was asking could be done She didn't know the Prelate well enough to guess after hissuspicion he had few of his own and preferred to borrow theent would have every reason to tell the tale - and doubtless had While it would upset the balance of the entire country if one of the demesnes were realloted, the process of the reallotely increase this Overlord's power, and bind the new Master to the Overlord with a political gratitude it would take generations of Masters and Overlords to bring into equilibriuain And their current Overlord was a little too fond of political power - she a others believed - without such teht burn his subjects by the touch of his hand

By the end of the first day of the new Master's return, the people she ht hand Gossip travels as fast as fire By then she had dressed and bandaged it, so there was nothing to see but the bandage; but that was enough And there was no way to shrug off what had happened as an accident Of course it had been an accident: no Master could remain Master who deliberately harmed any of his people What had happened to her should be viewed as no worse or nificant than if one of his coach horses had shied and trodden on one of the onlookers: an unfortunate mishap That's all But of course it was not, for it was not an accident that should have been able to happen If the new Master were not a priest of Fire If the new Master were still human

"It is nothing," she said to the people she caught looking at her hand "It is nothing" Sometimes she tried to smile She'd smiled at Sama, when she'd asked for lint and salve; Sama was a Housewoman with a round, happy face and three children, and she and her children were excellent customers for Mirasol's honey "I was cluainst a dish just out of the oven"

"It don't look like nothing," said Sama, whose round face was not happy today "And oven burns hurt"

"Of course they hurt," Mirasol said briskly, trying to be co "But we bear them because we are clumsy - and because we still like our food cooked"

Sama's face closed a little e