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.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Flame and Thunder
I HELD ALL OF my mourning for Savien and Aloine to a few moments.
Knowing I was still on display, I gathered myself and straightened in my chair to look out at my audience. My silent audience.
Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician’s curse. Even as I sat, the ending I had improvised was fading from my memory. Then came doubt. What if it hadn’t been as whole as it had seemed? What if my ending hadn’t carried the terrible tragedy of the song to anyone but myself? What if my tears seemed to be nothing more than a child’s embarrassing reaction to his own failure?
Then, waiting, I heard the silence pouring from them. The audience held themselves quiet, tense, and tight, as if the song had burned them worse than flame. Each person held their wounded selves closely, clutching their pain as if it were a precious thing.
Then there was a murmur of sobs released and sobs escaping. A sigh of tears. A whisper of bodies slowly becoming no longer still.
Then the applause. A roar like leaping flame, like thunder after lightning.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Patrons, Maids and Metheglin
I RESTRUNG MY LUTE. It was a fair distraction while Stanchion gathered opinions from the crowd. My hands went through the routine motions of stripping the broken string away while I fretted to myself. Now that the applause had died, my doubts had come to plague me again. Was one song enough to prove my skill? What if the audience’s reaction had been due to the power of the song, rather than my playing of it? What of my improvised ending? Perhaps the song had only seemed whole to me….
As I finished removing the broken string I gave it an idle look and all my thoughts fell to a jumble at my feet.
It wasn’t worn or flawed as I had thought it would be. The broken end was clean, as if it had been cut with a knife or snipped with a pair of scissors.
For a while I simply stared at it dumbly. My lute had been tampered with? Impossible. It was never out of my sight. Besides, I had checked the strings before I left the University, and again before I had come on stage. Then how?
I was running the thought in circles in my head when I noticed the crowd quieting. I looked up in time to see Stanchion take the last step onto the stage. I hurriedly got to my feet to face him.
His expression was pleasant but otherwise unreadable. My stomach tied a knot as h
e walked toward me, then it fell as he held out his hand the same way he had held it out for the other two musicians who had been found wanting.
I forced my best smile onto my face and reached to take his hand. I was my father’s son and a trouper. I would take my refusal with the high dignity of the Edema Ruh. The earth would crack and swallow this glittering, self-important place before I would show a trace of despair.
And somewhere in the watching audience was Ambrose. The earth would have to swallow the Eolian, Imre, and the whole Centhe Sea before I gave him a grain of satisfaction over this.
So I smiled brightly and took Stanchion’s hand in my own. As I shook it, something hard pressed into my palm. Looking down I saw a glimmer of silver. My talent pipes.
My expression must have been a delight to watch. I looked back up at Stanchion. His eyes danced and he winked at me.
I turned and held my pipes aloft for everyone to see. The Eolian roared again. This time it roared a welcome.
“You’ll have to promise me,” a red-eyed Simmon said seriously, “That you will never play that song again without warning me first. Ever.”
“Was it that bad?” I smiled giddily at him.
“No!” Simmon almost cried out. “It’s…I’ve never—” He struggled, wordless for a moment, then bowed his head and began to cry hopelessly into his hands.
Wilem put a protective arm around Simmon, who leaned unashamedly against his shoulder. “Our Simmon has a tender heart,” he said gently. “I imagine he meant to say that he liked it very much.”
I noticed that Wilem’s eyes were red around the edges too. I lay a hand on Simmon’s back. “It hit me hard the first time I heard it too.” I told him honestly. “My parents performed it during the Midwinter Pageantry when I was nine, and I was a wreck for two hours afterward. They had to cut my part from The Swineherd and the Nightingale because I wasn’t in any shape to act.”
Simmon nodded and made a gesture that seemed to imply that he was fine but that he didn’t expect to be able to talk any time soon and that I should just carry along with whatever it was I was doing.
I looked back at Wilem. “I forgot that it hits some people this way,” I said lamely.
“I recommend scutten,” Wilem said bluntly. “Cut-tail, if you insist on the vulgar. But I seem to remember you saying that you would float us home tonight if you got your pipes. Which may be unfortunate, as I happen to be wearing my lead drinking shoes.”
I heard Stanchion chuckle behind me. “These must be the two non-castrati friends, eh?” Simmon was surprised enough at being called a non-castrati to collect himself slightly, rubbing his nose on his sleeve.
“Wilem, Simmon, this is Stanchion.” Simmon nodded. Wilem gave a slight, stiff bow. “Stanchion, could you help us to the bar? I’ve promised to buy them a drink.”
“S,” Wilem said. “Drinks.”
“Sorry, drinks,” I stressed the plural. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”
“Ah,” Stanchion said with a grin. “Patrons, I understand completely!”
The victory tankard turned out to be the same as the consolation one. It was ready for me when Stanchion finally managed to get us through the throng of people to our new seats at the bar. He even insisted on buying scutten for Simmon and Wilem, saying that patrons have some claim to the spoils of victory as well. I thanked him earnestly from the bottom of my rapidly thinning purse.
While we were waiting for their drinks to come, I tried to peer curiously into my tankard, and found that doing so while it was sitting on the bar would require me to stand on my stool.
“Metheglin,” Stanchion informed me. “Try it and you can thank me later. Where I’m from, they say a man will come back from the dead to get a drink of it.”
I tipped an imaginary hat to him. “At your service.”
“Yours and your family’s,” he replied politely.
I took a drink from the tall tankard to give myself a chance to collect my wits, and something wonderful happened in my mouth: cool spring honey, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, pressed grape, burnt apple, sweet pear, and clear well water. That is all I have to say of metheglin. If you haven’t tried it, then I am sorry I cannot describe it properly. If you have, you don’t need me to remind you what it is like.
I was relieved to see the cut-tail had come in moderately sized glasses, with one for Stanchion too. If my friends had received tankards of the black wine, I would have needed a wheelbarrow to get them back to the other side of the river.
“To Savien!” Wilem toasted.
“Hear hear!” Stanchion said, lifting his own glass.
“Savien…” Simmon managed, his voice sounding like a stifled sob.
“…and Aloine,” I said, and maneuvered my great tankard to touch glasses with them.
Stanchion drank off his Scutten with a nonchalance that made my eyes water. “So,” he said, “Before I leave you to the adulation of your peers, I have to ask. Where did you learn to do that? Play missing a string, I mean.”
I thought for a moment. “Do you want the short or the long of it?”
“I’ll take the short for now.”
I smiled. “Well in that case, it’s just something I picked up.” I made a casual gesture as if tossing something away. “A remnant of my misspent youth.”
Stanchion gave me a long look, his expression amused. “I suppose I deserve that. I’ll take the long version next time.” He took a deep breath and looked around the room, his golden earring swung and caught the light. “I’m off to mix the crowd. I’ll keep them from coming at you all at once.”
I grinned relief. “Thank you, sir.”
He shook his head and made a preemptory motion to someone behind the bar who quickly fetched him his tankard. “Earlier tonight ‘sir’ was proper and good. But now it’s Stanchion.” He glanced back in my direction, and I smiled and nodded. “And I should call you?”
“Kvothe,” I said, “just Kvothe.”
“Just Kvothe,” Wilem toasted behind me.
“And Aloine,” Simmon added, and began to cry softly into the crook of his arm.
Count Threpe was one of the first to come to me. He looked shorter up close, and older. But he was bright-eyed and laughing as he talked about my song.
“Then it broke!” he said, gesturing wildly. “And all I could think was, Not now! Not before the ending! But I saw the blood on your hand and my stomach knotted up. You looked up at us, then down at the strings, and it got quieter and quieter. Then you put your hands back on the lute and all I could think was, There’s a brave boy. Too brave. He doesn’t know he can’t save the end of a broken song with a broken lute. But you did!” He laughed as if I’d played a joke on the world, and danced a quick jig step.
Simmon, who had stopped crying and was on his way to becoming well-buttered, laughed along with the count. Wilem didn’t seem to know what to make of the man, and watched him with serious eyes.
“You must play at my house some day,” Threpe said, then quickly held up a hand. “We won’t talk of that now, and I won’t take up any more of your evening.” He smiled. “But before I go, I need to ask you one last question. How many years did Savien spend with the Amyr?”
I didn’t have to think about it. “Six. Three years proving himself, three years training.”
“Does six strike you as a good number?”
I didn’t know what he was getting at. “Six isn’t exactly a lucky number,” I hedged. “If I were looking for a good number I’d have to go up to seven.” I shrugged. “Or down to three.”
Threpe considered this, tapping his chin. “You’re right. But six years with the Amyr means he came back to Aloine on the seventh year.” He dug into a pocket and brought out a handful of coins of at least three different currencies. He sorted seven talents out of the mess and pushed them into my surprised hand.
“My lord,” I stammered. “I cannot take your money.” It wasn’t the money itself that surprised me, but the amount.
> Threpe looked confused. “Whyever not?”
I gaped a little bit, and for a rare moment I was at a loss for words.
Threpe chuckled and closed my hand around the coins. “It’s not a reward for playing. Well, it is that, but it’s more an incentive for you to keep practicing, keep getting better. It’s for the sake of the music.”
He shrugged. “You see, a laurel needs rain to grow. I can’t do much about that. But I can keep that rain off a few musician’s heads, can’t I?” A sly smile wound its way onto his face. “So God will tend the laurels and keep them wet. And I will tend the players and keep them dry. And wiser minds than mine will decide when to bring the two together.”
I was silent for a moment. “I think you might be wiser than you give yourself credit for.”
“Well,” he said, trying not to look pleased. “Well don’t let it get around or people will start expecting great things from me.” He turned and was quickly swallowed by the crowd.
I slid the seven talents into my pocket and felt a great weight lift from my shoulders. It was like a stay of execution. Perhaps literally, as I had no idea how Devi might have encouraged me to pay my debt. I drew my first carefree breath in two months. It felt good.
After Threpe left, one of the talented musicians came to offer his compliments. After him it was a Cealdish moneylender who shook my hand and offered to buy me a drink.
Then there was a minor nobleman, another musician, and a pretty young lady that I thought might be my Aloine until I heard her voice. She was the daughter of a local moneylender, and we talked of small things, briefly, before she moved on. I remembered my manners almost too late and kissed her hand before she left.
They all blurred together after a while. One by one they came to give me their regards, compliments, handshakes, advice, envy, and admiration. Though Stanchion was true to his word and managed to keep them all from coming at me in a mass, it wasn’t long before I began having trouble telling one from another. The metheglin wasn’t helping matters either.