Meri by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

on Pilgrimage at Solstice, Leal.”
    “What? Why?”
    “Osraed Ealad-hach...” She paused. No, she really shouldn’t
lay this at his door—that would be backbiting. “Osraed Bevol thinks it would be
a good way for me to prove myself at Halig-liath. To prove I’m not what people
are saying I am.” She glanced at him sidelong. “You’ve heard the rumors.”
    He nodded, watching the flagged walkway in front of them. “Aye.
You must know I don’t believe it. By the Kiss, Meredydd, I know none of it’s true. You’re no Wicke. You’ve done
naught to Wyth or Brys or anyone.”
    She laughed. “Bristles!”
    He glanced at her reproachfully. “I’m your friend, Meredydd.
I’ll always defend you.”
    Impulsively, she put her arm through his. “I’m fortunate in
my friends,” she told him and he smiled brilliantly for her.
    “Tell me, Leal. Have you ever been to Creiddylad?”
    He blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Aye.”
    “Is it really a jewel?”
    He shrugged. “I suppose you could say it was. It’s a big
town and fine and rich. Except the poor parts. It’s not like here, where there’s
some a little rich and some a little poor, but most living goodly lives and
making sure the poor stay only a little that way. In Creiddylad, there’s deep
poor. Folks that can barely scrape by. They’ve no land, you see. They’re all crowded
into little—” He waved his free hand with its bit of creamcake as if trying to
prod a word loose from the air.
    “Warrens,” he said finally. “Aye, they’re almost like
that—like rabbit hutches. And all these folks crammed in there with no land of
their own so they can’t farm up victuals for the family table.”
    Meredydd was stunned. If the report had come from anyone
else, she wouldn’t have believed it, but Leal would lie to her no more than he
would abandon her. “But that’s awful. And how can it be, with Cyne Colfre
living right there?”
    “Well, father says there are reserves set aside from tariffs
and the like that are supposed to help care for these folk and set up workshare
for them, but he says that hasn’t been working so well of late. Father says it’s
greed—unscrupulous administrators turning the monies to their own use. Used to
be that Creiddylad was like Nairne and the other villages, where the landed
folk took care of the unlanded folk, at least that’s what Father says. He says
it must change, of course, but who could
change it?”
    “I would think God could; the Meri could. Perhaps we should
ask after it when we go on Pilgrimage, instead of worrying about our own
estate.”
    Leal nodded. “I think you must be right. But why do you ask
about Creiddylad?”
    “Like I said, I was thinking of what to do after. I don’t
know if I could stay here, because if I fail, Nairne wouldn’t have me. They’ll
believe the stories and I’ll have no life here.
    I thought maybe I could go to Creiddylad. Maybe there’d be
something for me to do there. It sounds like there’s a lot to be done there,”
she added.
    Lealbhallain scowled—actually scowled—at her. “Oh, you’ll go
to Creiddylad, all right, Meredydd-a-Lagan. You’ll go there to give the Pilgrim’s
Tell to Cyne Colfre. Mark it.”
    They had reached the riverbend by now and wandered along the
quay, watching the little boats bobbing on the quiet waters and the fishermen
sitting so patiently on their piers. But when they sat on a stone balustrade in
the shadow of the palisades, it was Halig-liath that drew Meredydd’s eyes—drew
them up to the warm stone walls and the staunch parapets. She could see the
outer wall of the concourse from here and the high gallery above the hidden
courtyard. In one week, she would say good-bye, she prayed it was not forever.
    She left Lealbhallain on the corner of his street, not
wanting to cause him any trouble with his family, and left the streets and
avenues of Nairne behind her. The rest of the day was hers and she knew exactly
what she would do