Meghann McVey
Copyright 2012
www.firesidestories.webs.com
The Last Rose
_______________________
Sabanus crossed the courtyard from sunlight to shade, mentally reviewing the songs he had chosen for his flute test. He had played the notes correctly, but they were so stiff, lacking the tenderness they’d had in practice. Sabanus sighed. He knew what had happened, what always happened. The depth of feeling in his music had fled with his nerves.
Beneath a sprawling oak tree, countless boys sat atop moss, grass, and dirt; some swung their legs from the winding roots and low-hanging branches. All were undergoing this week of tests to attain the privilege of studying at Asudar Isior, the esteemed bardic hall. If they failed, and most would, an entire year would pass before they could try again. Each day, Sabanus joined them under this tree to discuss the day’s tests. Usually their discussions began objectively and escalated into frantic worry as each boy attempted to predict his fate.
“But not today,” Sabanus muttered. “I promised myself and Essonine that I wouldn’t torture myself about it.”
Just then, a bird trilled. Its unencumbered emotion reminded Sabanus of everything his prior playing had lacked, severing his optimism, and so he joined the other boys under the tree to discuss the day’s musical ordeals.
“Tomorrow we face the most difficult task of all,” someone declared as Sabanus sat down.
The boys fell silent, remembering how Leroc, the head of Asudar Isior, had stressed the countless doors which opened for a bard with a distinct, enthralling voice.
“The singing test should hold no fear for any of us,” Nhiadil declared in his mellifluous voice. “I think when we put aside vain hopes, we know whether we shall become bards.” Although Nhiadil was not yet a student of the bards, he already wore their signifying regalia of bright colors.
The other boys gazed at Nhiadil out of the corners of their eyes, Sabanus among them. Over the past week, they had discovered that despite his feminine beauty, Nhiadil was as savage, if not more so, than his more masculine competition. He was a peacock with feathers in every hue of the rainbow, which he spread at the slightest provocation.
“Talent alone does not make a great bard, just as mere beauty does not make a woman lovely,” said a slender youth leaning against the side of the building. The shadows of a tree fell across a face as unreadable as fresh-fallen snow.
“Essonine!” Sabanus’s smile was uncertain. He was glad to see his friend, but sensed a clash between the two aspiring bards.
Nhiadil tossed the golden river of hair that flowed down his delicate shoulders. “You filthy country bumpkin! How dare you challenge my certain selection to Asudar Isior?”
“Life has taught me that certainty does not exist,” Essonine answered.
“Oh? What of your own selection by Asudar Isior?”
“It shall be.” Essonine’s eyes burned as moonlight in deep winter nights too cold even for snow. “For I want it more than life itself.”
“Is that so?” There was no mistaking the contempt in Nhiadil’s cultured, musical voice. “Well then, you shall be disappointed. Musical skill comes from talent and years of study. You can desire it until you sweat blood, but that will not change what you lack.”
“Tomorrow will tell all.”
“Tomorrow, then!”
Sabanus shot a wary glance at Nhiadil as he swept past. “You should not have antagonized him,” he said to Essonine. “Who knows what he might do!”
Essonine’s face was the smooth surface of a frozen pond. “I do not care. Nhiadil will not stand in my way. And if you are all too timid to challenge Nhiadil, it is left to me.”
“But it would be safer-“
“To tremble with the rest of you?”
Shame-faced silence claimed Sabanus.
“None of the good things in life favor the timid, Sabanus. Remember that.”
{****}
The following dawn, a song like a keening goddess roused the would-be bards. With them, Sabanus stumbled awake to fill his ears with this exquisite music.
The sound rose and undulated through the halls, its source at the practice stage. It was a soprano as redolent with the joy of life as a sunrise.
Yet when Sabanus and the other boys reached the site of the song, they cringed. Nhiadil stood smirking upon that stage, and with such pure notes who could blame him? None could deny that the youth’s arrogance was well-founded. Only Essonine betrayed no dismay as Nhiadil finished his song.
“The choice is clear to me,” Leroc said when the last notes became but memories in the air, Nhiadil’s chest heaving with passion for himself and his exquisite voice. “Congratulations, Nhiadil. You are permitted to study at Asudar Isior, if you will have us.”
“Of course,” Nhiadil said, for hadn’t he known all along? As Nhiadil took his leave, he drew back his perfect petal lips ever so slightly at Essonine. In every sense, it was a challenge.
Sabanus shivered at Nhiadil’s malice. Essonine, however, remained stoic.
{****}
“Do you truly have no fear?” Sabanus asked. He and Essonine waited at the practice stage. In only half an hour, the sun would set, beginning Essonine’s test.
“Every contender for entry to Asudar Isior and many established bards are coming to see your performance.” Sabanus’s breath came faster, though his own test was finished, dead and buried. He marveled at Essonine’s composure. Most bards had undergone this test with only Leroc, Yassanar, and Tarada, the three bardic masters, as their audience and judge.
“Why should I fear a larger audience?” Essonine said. “The decision remains with the masters, no matter who else comes.”
In the next fifteen minutes, the rest of the contenders arrived, as well as the three bardic masters. Scanning the crowd, Sabanus saw no trace of Nhiadil, which gave him a sense of foreboding. He doubted the feminine youth would just forget his rivalry with Essonine.
“Your name, boy?” Leroc asked Essonine when the three judges had seated themselves
Before Essonine could give it, the door opposite the stage swung open. With a fierce draft as his entourage, Nhiadil entered; the crowd parted for him as for a wrathful queen.
“My name is Essonine.”
Sabanus marveled how his friend’s determination seemed to increase as the critical moment came nearer.
“Very well, Essonine. When you are ready, you may begin.”
And Essonine sang a requiem for the parting day. While Nhiadil’s song had streamed out like the far-reaching rays of dawn, Essonine’s was of a frosty, subdued beauty, as stars in the midnight blue.
Glancing around, Sabanus discovered that he was not the only one to wipe tears from his eyes.
“Astonishing,” Leroc, master over all bards, said in a low voice. His gray eyes shone like clear stones against the iron of his beard.
“I would give much to hear you sing a duet with Nhiadil,” said Tarada, the youngest bard master.
“That will never be!” Nhiadil hissed, rising from his place. “Only a green boy could sing like that!”
“What of you, Nhiadil?” Leroc said. “Perhaps Essonine, too, did not experience the deepening of voice that manhood makes the fate of so many.”
Nhiadil stalked toward the stage, staring pointedly at the cloth wound around Essonine’s head. “How many colonies of lice are under that rag? Or do you have something else to hide?”
Sabanus gasped. He had to help Essonine somehow! Yet dread bound his tongue tighter than any gag.
Essonine remained standing, rigid with pride. As Nhiadil approached, the youth tugged the head wrapping
free. Her hair snowed down to her shoulders, the white-gold of winter afternoon. “Leave off your accusations, Nhiadil. I will not hide what I am. However…the mighty compliments the three masters have paid me prove beyond dispute that a woman can pass the tests of Asudar Isior.”
“There was never any question of that.” Nhiadil smiled, porcelain-cold. “However, bardic law forbids women to study at Asudar Isior.”
Essonine turned to Leroc. Her voice cut like winter’s gale. “Tell me, master bards. What is the reason for such a law’s existence?”
Leroc crossed his arms; his tone was absolute as it resounded through the practice hall. “It is ancient tradition.”
“But why was it begun?” Essonine pressed.
Sabanus marveled at her courage, even as he remained petrified in his seat.
“I suppose the hardships a bard must endure are what prevented them from admitting women,” Yassanar suggested.
No grand cadence colored Essonine’s response; she spoke only with the defiant pride one might hear in a farmer as he described the ordeals he had faced with his