was that ordinary boy who stood before her now. Half in the old memory and half in the shock of the moment she stumbled into speech: "You - you might have sent for me - or - or - Someone - anyone - would have been honoured to have been asked to bring you - anywhere - "
"Honoured?" he said. The sunlight fell upon his black cloak and disappeared in its folds. A small breeze stirred, although the cloak moved oddly in response, and as the fabric brushed against the body it concealed she was again reminded of her sense that even the shape of his body was no longer quite human.
There was a brief silence, and she realised, too late again, that this was not how a Chalice, or anyone else, greeted a Master. Was it herself, her own worries and preoccupations - her own inability to fit into the skin of the role she now played - that kept making her behave so, or was it the strangeness of him? Or was it the unexpected memory of him as a boy she would have liked to have had as a friend?
Breathlessly she said, "I am honoured by your presence here. You are most welcome...."
He'd come halfway across the meadow and had stopped, waiting, as it seemed, gravely.
Chapter 6
"Welcome," she said again, still feeling dizzy and confused, but realising she meant it. He was welcome. "May I offer you - " She stopped. She had no idea what a Chalice was supposed to offer a Master who visited her at her home. There must be a tradition, a right thing, even perhaps a rule. But it was not an eventuality it had occurred to her she needed to prepare for. And perhaps there was no rule after all, because the Chalice should have lived at the House, at the House with the Master.
"Honey," he said. "Will you offer me honey?"
"Of course," she said, still wit-scattered. "Anything - anything I can offer you."
"Honey, please," he said politely, as if he were anyone - as if he were one of her customers.
She looked at him bemusedly. Which honey? Not the sleepy. The energetic? One of the ache-soothers? Which one? One of the ones she hadn't figured out yet (maybe they were just to make dull bread or porridge taste wonderful)?
"Of course," she said, and went indoors, as much to hide her confusion from him - but what did he see with his uncanny eyes? - as to fetch the honey. She went to the shelf where she kept the jars in use, and put her hand out blindly, choosing by not choosing: and so her hand reached itself, and took down a jar.
It was one of the mysterious ones: she knew neither what it was for nor what it was made of. It was an early-summer honey, and she could taste the yellow singers and the wild cherry, but there was something else in it as well. Perhaps it's a confusion-tamer, she thought, and the choice is really for me.
She took two spoons, which is what she would normally do for a friend - or had done when she had had friends. But it was only as she picked up the second spoon that it occurred to her that this honey was also her secret favourite, and that she liked not knowing what was in it, and had silly fantasies about what it might be for, besides making dull bread or porridge taste wonderful. Would a Master eat honey straight out of the jar? She dithered a moment longer, and then made up a tray, with a half loaf of bread and a knife, and two cups, and a pitcher of water drawn that morning from the cottage well - whose water now had the faintest sweet taste, as if a little honey were leaking into its source.
He was sitting in one of the stone chairs when she came back outside again. She had noticed before that he rarely stood for long; she wondered if the Hardbutt family furniture was to him any improvement on standing, but he looked, she thought, almost relaxed. More relaxed, anyway, than he had ever been during all the gatherings she had stood Chalice to.
She paused in her doorway to look at him a moment longer. Even when there was not the slightest breeze the hem of his cloak stirred faintly, as if in response to some intangible air. Or flame. As she watched he raised