“YOU LOOK DIFFERENT TODAY,” Simmon observed. Wilem grunted in agreement.
“I feel different,” I admitted. “Good, but different.”
The three of us were kicking up dust on the road to Imre. The day was warm and sunny, and we were in no particular hurry.
“You look…calm,” Simmon continued, brushing his hand through his hair. “I wish I felt as calm as you look.”
“I wish I felt as calm as I looked,” I mumbled.
Simmon refused to give up. “You look more solid.” He grimaced. “No.
You look…tight.”
“Tight?” Tension forced laughter out of me, leaving me more relaxed. “How can someone look tight?”
“Just tight.” He shrugged. “Like a coiled spring.”
“It’s the way he’s holding himself,” Wilem said, breaking his usual thoughtful silence. “Standing straight, neck unbent, shoulders back.” He gestured vaguely to illustrate his points. “When he steps, his whole foot treads the ground. Not just the ball, as if he would run, or the heel, as if he would hesitate. He steps solidly down, claiming the piece of ground for his own.”
I felt a momentary awkwardness as I tried to watch myself, always a futile thing to attempt.
Simmon gave him a sideways look. “Someone’s been spending time with Puppet, haven’t they?”
Wilem shrugged a vague agreement and threw a stone into the trees by the side of the road.
“Who is this Puppet you two keep mentioning?” I asked, partly to draw the attention away from myself. “I’m about to die of terminal curiosity, you know.”
“If anyone could, it would be you,” Wilem said.
“He spends most of his time in the Archives,” Sim said hesitantly, knowing that he was touching on a sore subject. “It would be hard to introduce you since…you know….”
We came to Stonebridge, the ancient arch of grey stone that spanned the
Omethi River between the University and Imre. Over two hundred feet from one bank to another, and arching more than sixty feet at its peak, Stonebridge had more stories and legends surrounding it than any other University landmark.
“Spit for luck,” Wilem urged, as we began to climb one side, and followed his own advice. Simmon followed suit, spitting over the side with a childlike exuberance.
I almost said, “Luck has nothing to do with it.” Master Arwyl’s words, repeated sternly a thousand times in the Medica. I tasted them on the tip of my tongue for a minute, hesitated, then spat instead.
The Eolian lay at the heart of Imre, its front doors facing out onto the city’s central cobblestone courtyard. There were benches, a few flowering trees, and a marble fountain misting water over a statue of a satyr chasing a group of half-clothed nymphs whose attempt at flight seemed token at best. Well-dressed people milled around, nearly a third carrying some sort of musical instrument or another. I counted at least seven lutes.
As we approached the Eolian the doorman tugged at the front of a wide-brimmed hat and made a nodding bow. He was at least six and a half feet tall, deeply tanned and muscular. “That will be one jot, young master,” he smiled as Wilem handed over a coin.
He turned to me next with the same sunny smile. Looking at the lute case I carried he cocked an eyebrow at me. “Good to see a new face. You know the rules?”
I nodded and handed him a jot.
He turned to point inside. “You see the bar?” It was hard to miss fifty feet of winding mahogany that curved through the far end of the room. “See where the far end turns toward the stage?” I nodded. “See him on the stool? If you decide to try for your pipes, he’s the one you want to talk to. Name’s Stanchion.”
We both turned away from the room at the same time. I shrugged my lute higher onto my shoulder. “Thank you—” I paused, not knowing his name.
“Deoch.” He smiled again in his relaxed way.
A sudden impulse seized me, and I held out my hand. “Deoch means ‘to drink.’ Will you let me buy you one later?”
He looked at me for a long second before he laughed. It was an unrestrained, happy sound that came leaping straight from his chest. He shook my hand warmly. “I just might at that.”
Deoch released my hand, looking behind me. “Simmon, did you bring us this one?”
“He brought me, actually.” Simmon seemed put out by my brief exchange
with the doorman, but I couldn’t guess why. “I don’t think anyone can really take him anywhere.” He handed a jot to Deoch.
“I’ll believe that,” Deoch said. “There’s something about him I like. He’s a little fae around the edges. I hope he plays for us tonight.”
“I hope so too,” I said, and we moved inside.
I looked around the Eolian as casually as I could manage. A raised circular stage thrust out from the wall opposite the curving mahogany bar. Several spiraling stairways lead to a second level that was much like a balcony. A smaller, third level was visible above that, more like a high mezzanine circling the room.
Stools and chairs ringed tables throughout around the room. Benches were recessed into niches in the walls. Sympathy lamps were mixed with candles, giving the room a natural light without fouling the air with smoke.
“Well that was cleverly done,” Simmon’s voice was brittle. “Merciful Tehlu, warn me before you try any more stunts, will you?”
“What?” I asked. “The thing with the doorman? Simmon, you are jittery as a teenage whore. He was friendly. I liked him. What’s the harm in offering him a drink?”
“Deoch owns this place,” Simmon said sharply. “And he absolutely hates it when musicians suck up to him. Two span ago he threw someone out of here for trying to tip him.” He gave me a long look. “Actually threw him. Almost far enough to make it into the fountain.”
“Oh,” I said, properly taken aback. I snuck a look at Deoch as he bantered with someone at the door. I saw the thick muscles in his arm tense and relax as he made a gesture outside. “Did he seem upset to you?” I asked.
“No, he didn’t. That’s the damnedest thing.”
Wilem approached us. “If the two of you will stop fishwiving and come to table, I will buy the first drinks, lhin?” We made our way to the table Wilem had picked out, not too far from where Stanchion sat at the bar. “What do you want to drink?” Wilem asked as Simmon and I sat down and I settled my lutecase into the fourth chair.
“Cinnamon mead,” Simmon said without stopping to think. “Girl,” Wilem said in a vaguely accusatory way and turned to me. “Cider,” I said. “Soft cider.”
“Two girls,” he said, and walked off to the bar.
I nodded toward Stanchion. “What about him?” I asked Simmon. “I thought he owned the place?”
“They both do. Stanchion handles the music end of it.”
“Is there anything I should know about him?” I asked, my near catastrophe with Deoch having sharpened my anxiety.
Simmon shook his head. “I hear he’s cheerful enough in his own right, but I’ve never talked with him. Don’t do anything stupid and everything should
be fine.”
“Thanks,” I said sarcastically as I pushed my chair back from the table and stood.
Stanchion had a medium build and was handsomely dressed in deep green and black. He had a round, bearded face and a slight paunch that was probably only noticeable because he was sitting. He smiled and motioned me forward with the hand that wasn’t holding an impressively tall tankard.
“Ho there,” he said cheerily. “You have the hopeful look about you. Are you here to play for us tonight?” He raised a speculative eyebrow. Now that I was closer, I noticed that Stanchion’s hair was a deep, bashful red that hid if the light struck him the wrong way.
“I hope to, sir,” I said. “Though I was planning to wait for a while.”
“Oh, certainly. We never let anyone try their talent until the sun is down.” He paused to take a drink, and as he turned his head I saw a golden set of pipes hanging from his ear.
Sighing, he wiped his mouth happily across the back of his sleeve. “What do you play then, lute?” I nodded. “Have any idea what you’ll use to woo us?”
“That depends sir. Has anyone played ‘The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard’ lately?”
Stanchion raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat. Smoothing his beard with his free hand, he said, “Well, no. Someone gave it a whirl a few months ago, but he bit off more than he could swallow whole. Missed a couple fingerings then fell apart.” He shook his head. “Simply said, no. Not lately.”
He took another drink from his tankard, and swallowed thoughtfully before he spoke again. “Most people find that a song of more moderate difficulty allows them to showcase their talent,” he said carefully.
I sensed his unspoken advice and was not offended. “Sir Savien” is the most difficult song I had ever heard. My father had been the only one in the troupe with the skill to perform it, and I had only heard him do it perhaps four or five times in front of an audience. It was only about fifteen minutes long, but those fifteen minutes required quick, precise fingering that, if done properly, would set two voices singing out of the lute at once, both a melody and a harmony.
That was tricky, but nothing any skilled lutist couldn’t accomplish. However, “Sir Savien” was a ballad, and the vocal part was a counter melody that ran against the timing of the lute. Difficult. If the song was being done properly, with both a man and a woman alternating the verses, the song was further complicated by the female’s counter harmony in the refrains. If it is done well, it is enough to cut a heart. Unfortunately, few musicians could perform calmly in the center of such a storm of song.
Stanchion drank off another solid swallow from his tankard and wiped his
beard on his sleeve. “You singing alone?” he asked, seeming a bit excited in spite of his half-spoken warning. “Or have you brought someone to sing opposite you? Is one of the boys you came in with a castrati?”
I fought down laughter at the thought of Wilem as a soprano and shook my head. “I don’t have any friends that can sing it. I was going to double the third refrain to give someone the chance to come in as Aloine.”
“Trouper style, eh?” He gave me a serious look. “Son, it’s really not my place to say this, but do you really want to try for your pipes with someone you’ve never even practiced with?”
It reassured me that he realized how hard it was going to be. “How many pipes will be here tonight, roughly?”
He thought briefly. “Roughly? Eight. Maybe a dozen.”
“So in all likelihood there will be at least three women who have earned their talents?”
Stanchion nodded, watching me curiously.
“Well,” I said slowly. “If what everyone has told me is true, if only real excellence can win the pipes, then one of those women will know Aloine’s part.”
Stanchion took another long, slow drink, watching me over the top of his tankard. When he finally set it down he forgot to wipe his beard. “You’re a proud one, aren’t you?” he said frankly.
I looked around the room. “Isn’t this the Eolian? I had heard that this is where pride pays silver and plays golden.”
“I like that,” Stanchion said, almost to himself. “Plays golden.” He slammed his tankard down onto the bar, causing a small geyser of something frothy to erupt from the top. “Dammit boy, I hope you’re as good as you seem to think you are. I could use someone else around here with Illien’s fire.” He ran a hand through his own red hair to clarify his double meaning.
“I hope this place is as good as everyone seems to think it is,” I said earnestly. “I need a place to burn.”
“He didn’t throw you out,” Simmon quipped as I returned to the table. “So I’m guessing it didn’t go as badly as it could have.”
“I think it went well,” I said distractedly. “But I’m not sure.”
“How can you not know?” Simmon objected. “I saw him laugh. That must mean something good.”
“Not necessarily,” Wilem said.
“I’m trying to remember everything I said to him,” I admitted. “Sometimes my mouth just starts talking and it takes my mind a little bit to catch up.”
“This happens often, does it?” asked Wilem with one of his rare, quiet
smiles.
Their banter began to relax me. “More and more often,” I confessed, grinning.
We drank and joked about small things, rumors of the masters and the rare female students who caught our attention. We talked about who we liked in the University, but more time was spent mulling over who we didn’t like, and why, and what we would do about it given the chance. Such is human nature.
So time passed and the Eolian slowly filled. Simmon gave in to Wilem’s taunting and began to drink scutten, a powerful black wine from the foothills of the Shalda mountains, more commonly called cut-tail.
Simmon showed the effects almost immediately, laughing louder, grinning wider, and fidgeting in his seat. Wilem remained his same taciturn self. I bought the next round of drinks, making it large mugs of straight cider for each of us. I responded to Wilem’s scowl by telling him that if I made my talent tonight, I would float him home in cut-tail, but if either of them got drunk on me before then, I would personally thrash them and drop them in the river. They settled down an appreciable amount, and began inventing obscene verses to “Tinker Tanner.”
I left them to it, retreating into my own thoughts. At the forefront of my mind was the fact that Stanchion’s unspoken advice might be worth listening to. I tried to think of other songs I could perform that were difficult enough to show my skill, but easy enough to allow me room for artistry.
Simmon’s voice drew me back to the here and now. “C’mon, you’re good at rhymes…” he urged me.
I replayed the last bit of their conversation that I’d been half listening to. “Try ‘in the Tehlin’s cassock,’” I suggested disinterestedly. I was too nervous to bother explaining that one of my father’s vices had been his propensity for dirty limericks.
They chortled delightedly to themselves while I tried to come up with a different song to sing. I hadn’t had much luck when Wilem distracted me again.
“What!” I demanded angrily. Then I saw the flat look in Wilem’s eyes that he only gets when he sees something he really doesn’t like. “What?” I repeated, more reasonably this time.
“Someone we all know and love,” he said darkly, nodding in the direction of the door.
I couldn’t see anyone I recognized. The Eolian was nearly full, and over a hundred people milled about on the ground floor alone. I saw through the open door that night had settled outside.
“His back is to us. He’s working his oily charm on a lovely young lady who must not know him…to the right of the round gentleman in red.” Wilem directed my attention.
“Son of a bitch,” I said, too stunned for proper profanity.
“I’ve always figured him for porcine parentage myself,” Wilem said dryly.
Simmon looked around, blinking owlishly. “What? Who’s here?” “Ambrose.”
“God’s balls,” Simmon said and hunched over the tabletop. “That’s all I need. Haven’t you two made nice yet?”
“I’m willing to leave him be,” I protested. “But every time he sees me he can’t help but make another jab in my direction.”
“It takes two to argue,” Simmon said.
“Like hell,” I retorted. “I don’t care whose son he is. I won’t go belly-up like some timid pup. If he’s fool enough to take a poke at me, I’ll snap the finger clean off that does the poking.” I took a breath to calm myself, and tried to sound rational. “Eventually, he’ll learn to leave me well enough alone.”
“You could just ignore him,” Simmon said, sounding surprisingly sober. “Just don’t rise to his baiting and he’ll tire of it soon enough.”
“No,” I said seriously, looking Simmon in the eye. “No, he won’t.” I liked Simmon, but he was terribly innocent at times. “Once he thinks I’m weak he’ll be on me twice as thick as the day before. I know his type.”
“Here he comes,” Wilem observed, looking casually away.
Ambrose saw me before he made it to our side of the room. Our eyes met, and it was obvious that he hadn’t expected to see me there. He said something to one of his ever-present group of bootlickers and they moved off through the crowd in a different direction to claim a table. His eyes moved from me, to Wilem, to Simmon, to my lute, and back to me. Then he turned and walked to the table his friends had claimed. He looked in my direction before he took his seat.
I found it unnerving that he didn’t smile. He had always smiled at me before, an over-sad pantomime smile, with mockery in his eyes.
Then I saw something that unnerved me even more. He was carrying a sturdy squared case. “Ambrose plays lyre?” I demanded of the world in general.
Wilem shrugged. Simmon looked uncomfortable. “I thought you knew,” he said weakly.
“You’ve seen him here before?” I asked. Sim nodded. “Did he play?” “Recited, actually. Poetry. He recited and kind of plucked at the lyre.”
Simmon looked like a rabbit about to run.
“Does he have his talent?” I said darkly. I decided then that if Ambrose was a member of this group, I didn’t want anything to do with it.
“No,” Simmon squeaked. “He tried for it, but…” He trailed off, looking a little wild around the eyes.
Wilem lay a hand on my arm and made a calming gesture. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to relax.
Slowly, I realized that none of this mattered. At most, it simply raised the stakes for tonight. Ambrose wouldn’t be able to do anything to disrupt my playing. He would be forced to watch and listen. Listen to me playing “The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard,” because now there was no question as to what I would be performing tonight.
The evening’s entertainment was led by one of the talented musicians from the crowd. He had a lute and showed that he could play it as well as any Edema Ruh. His second song was even better, one that I’d never heard before. There was a gap of about ten minutes before another talented musician was called onto the stage to sing. This man had a set of reed pipes and played them better than anyone I had ever heard. He followed by singing a haunting eulogy in a minor key. No instrument, just his high clear voice that rose and
flowed like the pipes he had played before.
I was pleased to find the skill of the talented musicians to be everything it was rumored to be. But my anxiety increased a proportionate amount. Excellence is excellence’s only companion. Had I not already decided to play “The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard” for purely spiteful reasons, these performances would have convinced me.
There followed another period of five or ten minutes. I realized that Stanchion was deliberately spacing things out to give the audience a chance to move about and make noise between the songs. The man knew his business. I wondered if he had ever been a trouper.
Then we had our first trial of the night. A bearded man of thirty years or so was brought onto the stage by Stanchion and introduced to the audience. He played flute. Played it well. He played two shorter songs that I knew and a third I didn’t. He played for perhaps twenty minutes in all, only making one small mistake that I could hear.
After the applause, the flutist remained on stage while Stanchion circulated in the crowd, gathering opinions. A serving boy brought the flutist a glass of water.
Eventually Stanchion came back onto the stage. The room was quiet as the owner drew close and solemnly shook the man’s hand. The musician’s expression fell, but he managed a sickly smile and a nod to the audience. Stanchion escorted him off the stage and bought something that came in a tall tankard.
The next to try her talent was a young woman, richly dressed with golden hair. After Stanchion introduced her, she sang an aria in a voice so clear and pure that I forgot my anxiety for a while and was ensnared by her song. For a
few blessed moments I forgot myself and could do nothing but listen.
Too soon it was over, leaving me with a tender feeling in my chest and a vague prickling in my eyes. Simmon sniffled a little and rubbed self-consciously at his face.
Then she sang a second song while accompanying herself on a half-harp. I watched her intently, and I will admit that it was not entirely for her musical ability. She had hair like ripe wheat. I could see the clear blue of her eyes from where I sat some thirty feet away. She had smooth arms and small delicate hands that were quick against the strings. And the way she held the harp between her legs made me think of…well, the things that every boy of fifteen thinks about incessantly.
Her voice was as lovely as before, enough to set a heart aching. Unfortunately, her playing could not match it. She struck wrong notes halfway through her second song, faltered, then recovered before she made it to the end of her performance.
There was a longer pause as Stanchion circulated this time. He milled through the three levels of the Eolian, talking with everyone, young and old, musician and not.
As I watched, Ambrose caught the eye of the woman on stage and gave her one of his smiles that seem so greasy to me and so charming to women. Then, looking away from her, his gaze wandered to my table and our eyes met. His smile faded, and for a long moment we simply watched each other, expressionless. Neither of us smiled mockingly, or mouthed small insulting nothings to the other. Nevertheless, all our smoldering enmity was renewed in those few minutes. I cannot say with certainty which of us looked away first.
After nearly fifteen minutes of gathering opinions, Stanchion mounted the stage again. He approached the golden-haired woman and took her hand as he had the previous musician’s. The woman’s face fell in much the same way his had. Stanchion led her from the stage and bought her what I guessed was the consolation tankard.
Closely on the heels of this failure was another talented musician who played fiddle, excellent as the two before him. Then an older man was brought onto stage by Stanchion as if he were trying for his talent. However the applause that greeted him seemed to imply that he was as popular as any of the talented musicians who had played before him.
I nudged Simmon. “Who’s this?” I asked, as the grey-bearded man tuned his lyre.
“Threpe,” Simmon whispered back at me. “Count Threpe, actually. He plays here all the time, has for years. Great patron of the arts. He stopped trying for his pipes years ago. Now he just plays. Everyone loves him.”
Threpe began to play and I could see immediately why he had never earned his pipes. His voice cracked and wavered as he plucked his lyre. His
rhythm varied erratically and it was hard to tell if he struck a wrong note. The song was obviously of his own devising, a rather candid revelation about the personal habits of a local nobleman. But in spite of its lack of classic artistic merit, I found myself laughing along with the rest of the crowd.
When he was done everyone applauded thunderously, some people pounding on the tables or stamping as well. Stanchion went directly onto the stage and shook the count’s hand, but Threpe didn’t seem disappointed in the least. Stanchion pounded him enthusiastically on the back as he led him down to the bar.
It was time. I stood and gathered up my lute.
Wilem clapped my arm and Simmon grinned at me, trying not to look almost sick with friendly worry. I nodded silently to each of them as I walked over to Stanchion’s vacant seat at the end of the bar where it curved toward the stage.
I fingered the silver talent in my pocket, thick and heavy. Some irrational part of me wanted to clutch it, hoard it for later. But I knew that in a few more days a single talent wouldn’t do me a bit of good. With a set of talent pipes I could support myself playing at local inns. If I was lucky enough to attract the attention of a patron, I could earn enough to square my debt to Devi and pay my tuition as well. It was a gamble I had to take.
Stanchion came ambling back to his spot at the bar.
“I’ll go next, sir. If it’s all right with you.” I hoped I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. My grip on the lute case was slippery from my sweating palms.
He smiled at me and nodded. “You’ve got a good eye for a crowd, boy.
This one’s ripe for a sad song. Still planning on doing ‘Savien’?” I nodded.
He sat down and took a drink. “Well then, let’s just give them a couple minutes to simmer and get their talking over with.”
I nodded and leaned against the bar. I took the time to fret uselessly about things I had no control over. One of the pegs on my lute was loose and I didn’t have the money to fix it. There had not been any talented women on stage yet. I felt a twinge of unease at the thought of this being the odd night where the only talented musicians at the Eolian were men, or women who didn’t know Aloine’s part.
It seemed only a short time before Stanchion stood and raised a questioning eyebrow at me. I nodded and picked up my lute case. It suddenly looked terribly shabby to me. Together we walked up the stairs.
As soon as my foot touched the stage the room hushed to a murmur. At the same time, my nervousness left me, burned away by the attention of the crowd. It has always been that way with me. Offstage I worry and sweat. Onstage I am calm as a windless winter night.
Stanchion bade everyone consider me as a candidate for my talent. His words had a soothing, ritual feel. When he gestured to me, there was no familiar applause, only an expectant silence. In a flash, I saw myself as the audience must see me. Not finely dressed as the others had been, in fact only one step from being ragged. Young, almost a child. I could feel their curiosity drawing them closer to me.
I let it build, taking my time as I unclasped my battered secondhand lute case and removed my battered secondhand lute. I felt their attention sharpen at the homely sight of it. I struck a few quiet chords, then touched the pegs, tuning it ever so slightly. I fingered a few more light chords, testing, listened, and nodded to myself.
The lights shining onto the stage made the rest of the room dim from where I sat. Looking out I saw what seemed to be a thousand eyes. Simmon and Wilem, Stanchion by the bar. Deoch by the door. I felt a vague flutter in my stomach as I saw Ambrose watching me with all the menace of a smoldering coal.
I looked away from him to see a bearded man in red, Count Threpe, an old couple holding hands, a lovely dark-eyed girl….
My audience. I smiled at them. The smile drew them closer still, and I sang.
“Still! Sit! For though you listen long
Long would you wait without the hope of song So sweet as this. As Illien himself set down
An age ago. Master work of a master’s life
Of Savien, and Aloine the woman he would take to wife.”
I let the wave of whisper pass through the crowd. Those who knew the song made soft exclamation to themselves, while those who didn’t asked their neighbors what the stir was about.
I raised my hands to the strings and drew their attention back to me. The room stilled, and I began to play.
The music came easily out of me, my lute like a second voice. I flicked my fingers and the lute made a third voice as well. I sang in the proud powerful tones of Savien Traliard, greatest of the Amyr. The audience moved under the music like grass against the wind. I sang as Sir Savien, and I felt the audience begin to love and fear me.
I was so used to practicing the song alone that I almost forgot to double the third refrain. But I remembered at the last moment in a flash of cold sweat. This time as I sang it I looked out into the audience, hoping at the end I would hear a voice answering my own.
I reached the end of the refrain before Aloine’s first stanza. I struck the first chord hard and waited as the sound of it began to fade without drawing a voice from the audience. I looked calmly out to them, waiting. Every second a greater relief vied with a greater disappointment inside me.
Then a voice drifted onto stage, gentle as a brushing feather, singing….
“Savien, how could you know
It was the time for you to come to me? Savien, do you remember
The days we squandered pleasantly? How well then have you carried what Have tarried in my heart and memory?”
She sang as Aloine, I as Savien. On the refrains her voice spun, twinning and mixing with my own. Part of me wanted to search the audience for her, to find the face of the woman I was singing with. I tried, once, but my fingers faltered as I searched for the face that could fit with the cool moonlight voice that answered mine. Distracted, I touched a wrong note and there was a burr in the music.
A small mistake. I set my teeth and concentrated on my playing. I pushed my curiosity aside and bowed my head to watch my fingers, careful to keep them from slipping on the strings.
And we sang! Her voice like burning silver, my voice an echoing answer. Savien sang solid, powerful lines, like branches of a rock-old oak, all the while Aloine was like a nightingale, moving in darting circles around the proud limbs of it.
I was only dimly aware of the audience now, dimly aware of the sweat on my body. I was so deeply in the music that I couldn’t have told you where it stopped and my blood began.
But it did stop. Two verses from the end of the song, the end came. I struck the beginning chord of Savien’s verse and I heard a piercing sound that pulled me out of the music like a fish dragged from deep water.
A string broke. High on the neck of the lute it snapped and the tension lashed it across the back of my hand, drawing a thin, bright line of blood.
I stared at it numbly. It should not have broken. None of my strings were worn badly enough to break. But it had, and as the last notes of the music faded into silence I felt the audience begin to stir. They began to rouse themselves from the waking dream that I had woven for them out of strands of song.
In the silence I felt it all unraveling, the audience waking with the dream unfinished, all my work ruined, wasted. And all the while burning inside me
was the song, the song. The song!
Without knowing what I did, I set my fingers back to the strings and fell deep into myself. Into years before, when my hands had calluses like stones and my music had come as easy as breathing. Back to the time I had played to make the sound of Wind Turning a Leaf on a lute with six strings.
And I began to play. Slowly, then with greater speed as my hands remembered. I gathered the fraying strands of song and wove them carefully back to what they had been a moment earlier.
It was not perfect. No song as complex as “Sir Savien” can be played perfectly on six strings instead of seven. But it was whole, and as I played the audience sighed, stirred, and slowly fell back under the spell that I had made for them.
I hardly knew they were there, and after a minute I forgot them entirely. My hands danced, then ran, then blurred across the strings as I fought to keep the lute’s two voices singing with my own. Then, even as I watched them, I forgot them, I forgot everything except finishing the song.
The refrain came, and Aloine sang again. To me she was not a person, or even a voice, she was just a part of the song that was burning out of me.
And then it was done. Raising my head to look at the room was like breaking the surface of the water for air. I came back into myself, found my hand bleeding and my body covered in sweat. Then the ending of the song struck me like a fist in my chest, as it always does, no matter where or when I listen to it.
I buried my face in my hands and wept. Not for a broken lute string and the chance of failure. Not for blood shed and a wounded hand. I did not even cry for the boy who had learned to play a lute with six strings in the forest years ago. I cried for Sir Savien and Aloine, for love lost and found and lost again, at cruel fate and man’s folly. And so, for a while, I was lost in grief and knew nothing.
