Free The Riddle by Alison Croggon Page B

The children wear masks and are allowed to steal sweetmeats from the stalls and to cheek their elders and get into all sorts of mischief, for they can’t be punished on that day.
    “But the real event is the Rite of Renewal, which is always made by the First Bard. It is one of the most beautiful of the Bardic Rites; I have seen it so many times, and I never tire of it. The First Bard takes the Mirror of Maras, which holds the old year, and she smashes it. Then she remakes it, and from the Mirror grows the Tree of Light.”
    Maerad remembered the glimmerspell Nerili had made in their first lesson, and her heart quickened.
    “And afterward there is dancing and eating and drinking. And kissing,” Kabeka added wickedly, making Maerad blush. “You shall have to find someone to kiss.”
    “I don’t want to kiss anyone,” said Maerad hotly, thinking suddenly of Dernhil.
    “There are plenty who want to kiss you,” Kabeka answered, and Maerad’s blush deepened. “You’ll just have to work out how to stop them, then.”
    One day, Maerad finished her lessons early and decided to go to the library to find Cadvan, who she knew would be searching through its archives for any mention of the Treesong. The Busk Library, off the central square, was a labyrinthine building that stretched back deep into the rocky hill behind it. It had been added to in a chaotic fashion in the centuries since it had been built, and it was now a bewildering honeycomb of rooms. Some were huge halls lit by long windows; others were tiny, dark chambers. But they were all lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, each of which was piled with scrolls or huge, leather-bound volumes or strange objects whose purpose she could not guess.
    Maerad was quite happy to wander through the rooms, nodding to the Bards who sat reading at tables or stood on stepladders rummaging through the shelves. She wondered how anyone found anything, and after a while began to feel awed by the sheer weight of the knowledge she was walking past so lightly. Even if she spent her whole life doing nothing but reading, she would never get through it all. As she worked her way to the back of the library — she supposed Cadvan would be in the older rooms that were delved into the rock — she found more and more chambers that looked as if no one ever went there: the shelves were covered with thick dust, and they had a forlorn air. She picked up a lamp, for many of these rooms were dark, and continued her wandering.
    At last she entered a long, narrow hall hung with intricately fashioned silver lamps that let down clear pools of light over a table that ran the entire length of the room. Underneath the light farthest from Maerad sat Cadvan, his head bent over a scroll spread open on the table. Opposite him, Nerili leafed steadily through a heavy book.
    Maerad paused irresolutely at the threshold, wondering whether to enter and greet them. Neither Bard had noticed her presence; they were deeply absorbed in their work. There was a self-sufficiency in their silent companionship that she was too shy to disturb. In the end, she retraced her steps, trying to quell a small bitterness that had risen in her throat. In all their evenings of discussion, Cadvan had never mentioned that Nerili was helping him in his search of the library.
    On Midsummer Day, the sun rose into a sky as perfectly blue as a robin’s egg. The winding alleys and small streets of Busk were packed with people, with the rest of the town seemingly out on their balconies, drinking and eating and waving and gossiping. Everyone had put on their best clothes, and the streets were a carnival of color, shimmering with the blazing silks woven and dyed in Busk: emerald green and crimson and gold and azure and turquoise.
    The crowds made Maerad feel breathless; she’d never seen so many people squeezed into such tiny spaces. As they pressed through the narrow streets, she drew close to Cadvan, who was shouldering his way steadily