land. “I walked here from Irangiln province dressed as a man, but that did not stop nine separate attempts to rob me. In Yasgril, I saved Sabanus from drunken thugs, and he became my companion.” Essonine’s recollection returned Sabanus himself to those moments. Again he relived the shock of rescue at a woman’s hands, the strongest woman he had ever known, and the most impregnable; her courage was an icy fortress around her.
“Do not speak to me of a woman’s delicacy,” Essonine continued, “when every inn that follows the bardic code of hospitality yields the best bed to him, and the most beautiful woman, as well as their choicest cut of meat.”
“A woman can become impregnated,” Nhiadil countered. “And then the bardic hall must support her and the infant. What is a bard who does not love?”
“It is a bard’s choice to love or not,” Essonine shot back.
“She has a point,” declared Tarada. “Not all bards scatter their progeny through the realm.”
Indignant lines spidered across Nhiadil’s brow, deepening when Essonine said, “Tell me, master bards. What is the difference between a woman and such as him who dresses and even sings as one?”
Sabanus’s hands twisted in his lap, and he barely stifled a frightened squeak. For a moment, he debated diving under the bench.
For a long time, Leroc merely stroked his beard, which Sabanus recognized as the sign that he was thinking.
“I think we should give her a chance,” Tarada said. The look Leroc shot at him was as deadly as spears thrown during ancient battles. “Essonine has proven herself both intelligent and resourceful to come this far and to do so well on the tests.”
“Would you break tradition so easily, Tarada?” Leroc growled. “Ours is a vote of three,” he said, turning to Yassanar. “What is your decision regarding this exceptional talent cursed with the weaker sex?”
“Let me join!” Essonine demanded in Yassanar’s silence. “Or every year, you will hear my song. As time withers me, you will remember what you have wasted.”
“Such bitterness in one so young,” Yassanar said, but it was still no answer.
“Might we give Essonine a final test to measure her resolve?” Tarada said. “And if she passed it, she could circumvent this ancient law?”
“What test can we offer that she has not already faced?” Yassanar said.
“Suppose I set my own test?” Essonine said. The three bardic masters turned to her. While Leroc bristled, first at his fellow judges and then at Essonine for her boldness, Tarada leaned forward in expectation, and Yassanar’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I shall retrieve the flower bard’s last rose from the Athillor manor.”
“How did you attain this knowledge?” Leroc sounded indignant. “You who are not even admitted to Asudar Isior!”
“The Bardic Memorial Hall is open to everyone, whether or not they are students of Asudar Isior. Even those who cannot distinguish middle C from the treble clef may enter,” Essonine replied coldly. “I discovered the place after my tests one afternoon. You cannot deny you desire Auoril Yumas’s lute; even country fiddlers know you long for it as ardently as you wish I were a man so the hall might keep its traditions and harvest my talents.”
“Returning Auoril Yumas’s mementos is a danger disproportionate to any she would face as a bard!” Tarada protested. “You must not go to that charnel house!”
“Clearly her life means little to her,” Nhiadil said. “Let her go. There may be a song in it.”
“May I remind you, Nhiadil, you have only just been admitted to the bardic hall. Hold your peace,” Leroc said.
“When I return with the last rose—“
Yassanar interrupted Essonine. “When you return? Over twenty men have added their bones to the piles in Athillor’s ballroom. What makes you think you can succeed?”
“Please, sirs.” Somehow Sabanus spoke out, though his voice was threadbare from fear. “Who was Auoril Yumas? Why is his ‘last rose’ so important to you?”
The three bardic masters exchanged volumes in a mere glance.
Leroc spoke first. His voice was cavernous, a mountain housing a core of fire. “Auoril Yumas, known by his colleagues and students as the ‘flower bard,’ was one of Asudar Isior’s most famous bardic masters. To inspire him, he always carried a rose. He enjoyed the lute, his principal instrument, so much, that he learned to make them. He developed an original design in which the lute’s soundhole is rose-shaped. And so they were named ‘the flower bard’s roses.’ The Bardic Memorial Hall contains several examples, although Auoril Yumas’s ‘last rose’ remains in the Athillor manor. How it came to rest there is where our story really begins.
“Almost thirty years ago, the noble house of Athillor hosted a party as a feeble façade at which to parade their wealth and finery. Many long-time friends of theirs resented their arrogance.”
Leroc’s voice had spelled the boys; now Yassanar’s brought them deeper into darkness. “Athillor commissioned Auoril Yumas to entertain. That night, someone at the party unleashed a poison, powdered doom so potent that simply breathing in that room was a death sentence. To this day, none know who did it.”
Now Tarada took up the tale in tones keen and spectral that raised goosebumps on Sabanus’s arms. “Asudar Isior allowed an entire year to pass so the poison might disperse before sending servants to retrieve Auoril Yumas’s remains. When they came back, their faces were bloodless, as though they had climbed free of their own graves. The room, the servants said, seemed filled with phantom party-goers.
“Many have since tried to enter the manor house. Each time, the restless spirits have surrounded them with their mist-like forms. All who the ghosts envelop feel their own spirits being pulled loose. Under such conditions, it is folly to seek even Auoril Yumas’s instrument.”
“Essonine, you can’t go alone!” Sabanus yelled out.
Uneasy titters filled the hall, increasing in volume with Essonine’s answer.
“You can’t come with me!” For the first time Sabanus could remember, emotion colored Essonine’s words. “I will need all my wits against the ghosts. I cannot protect you, too.”
“I just want to return the help you’ve given me. I wouldn’t have made it here without you! And who’s to say? I just might help you before the end.”
“I accept help from no one.” Essonine’s mask was back in place; attempting to see beneath it was as futile as warming the heart of winter with a match. “But if I cannot dissuade you from coming, you will have to look after yourself.”
Leroc buried his head in his hands. “Oh, the dignity of the hall,” he muttered so only Sabanus and those with him in the first row could hear.
“Have you both decided that she shall go, then?” Yassanar asked Leroc and Tarada. The latter nodded. Leroc grunted. “She has already proven herself exceptional,” Yassanar said. “I question whether another test is really necessary, but she has chosen her challenge.”
“Perhaps the winds of change have found Asudar Isior,” Tarada said. “It is intriguing to think of women as bards. How might their contributions affect us?”
Leroc glared at Tarada. “Do not presume this possible change in law affects all women,” he said. “This Essonine is a rare exception, talented and daring. I cannot deny that to have Auoril Yumas’s last rose restored to the hall would be a great boon. However, I do not approve of ending this law that has endured since Asudar Isior’s founding. Nonetheless, I am outnumbered. Essonine shall undertake this test.”
{****}
The next evening, Essonine and Sabanus set out to the Athillor manor. Without Leroc’s knowledge, Tarada offered to show the way. Sabanus liked Tarada; as the youngest of the bard masters, he was also the kindest and most dynamic. Since the first time they met, Sabanus had been bursting with questions for him. Yet now that he actually had the chance to ask them, Sabanus could not muster the words. Essonine had not spoken to him since his ou
tburst in the hall. Her silent anger and the peril ahead stilled all thoughts of music and Asudar Isior.
The trio’s silent procession into deepening darkness ended at a gate standing wide open. Its fancy ironwork had rusted; Sabanus thought with a shudder of rotting, blood-stained teeth.
“You realize there is no reason for you to face this danger, Essonine,” Tarada said. “Your courage has intrigued Leroc, who, I imagine is bored with the daily perfection he encounters leading the continent’s most skilled bards. I am certain that were you to return to Asudar Isior without the last rose, Leroc would make an arrangement.”
“Would he let me study and eventually name me a bard? Would he permit other women the same right?” Essonine’s words were as brittle as icicles thinned in the sun’s light.
“Perhaps not right away…” Tarada trailed off.
“I will not back down,” Essonine said. “And I will not be an object of pity.”
It was no idle statement, Sabanus knew. From the little he had learned of Essonine during their travels, he knew she considered pity far worse than dying in the manor.
Tarada looked troubled as he bowed in parting to Sabanus and Essonine.
Sabanus stared after him, then realized that Essonine was halfway to the house. “Essonine, wait!” he called. Essonine did not stop until she reached the front door. Sabanus sprinted after her and leaned against the wall, catching his