“What is it?” Divad asked, knowing very well what she proffered. He’d been at Descant only a year, but in that year his life had gotten busy. He hadn’t been home in months. Whenever she came, her gift was the same.
Into his hand, Jemma dropped a pomegranate, its skin dry and pocked. Around it a note had been wrapped after the fashion of his father, who sold damaged fruit on the edge of the merchant district, where street carts were permitted. His and Jemma’s gifts on their name days and any other special occasion had been the same—father’s best piece of fruit with a handnote as wrapping.
“Will you visit soon?” Jemma now used both hands to keep her cowl carefully in place.
Divad opened the note, which basically asked the same question, along with words of fatherly pride over Divad’s being one of the select few admitted to Descant.
“I’ll try,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like, though. There’s so much to learn. Any time away puts me behind.”
Jemma nodded inside her cowl. “Mother misses your laughter after supper. Especially since the harvest came in light.”
That caught Divad’s attention, if only for a moment. “Father’s still selling what the merchant houses won’t though, right? The older produce. The houses haven’t taken that business back in, have they?”
“No,” she replied, “but they may as well. There’s not much left by the time it reaches father’s carts. And what of it there is, he has to sell at less than half, it’s so picked over.”
“And you? You’re well?” he asked.
She simply stared ahead. She stepped toward him and gave him a light hug with one arm, then turned to go. He said goodbye, and caught a brief glimpse of her face in the light of a clothier shop as she stepped past him. He should have stopped her to ask about the discoloration—or was it a shadow?—but she gave him little time and he was eager to get back to his study. If the pomegranate wasn’t completely desiccated, it would make a fine treat to accompany the memorization of the mixolydian mode.
Divad’s fingers began to tremble with the memory. He put the taper punch down, flexed his hands several times, then shook them to get the blood flowing. He sat back and drew several deep breaths. While waiting for his tool-hand to feel normal again after so long pinching the iron, he reached out with this other hand and again traced the scar in the viola’s face.
It had gone much deeper than simply marring the lacquer. This gouge had gotten into the wood, and had torn along the soundboard for the length of two thumbs. It was by far the viola’s worst scar. Before Belamae shattered it. His student might have been the one who slammed the instrument down, but Divad felt responsible. Just as he was responsible for this older scar in the viola face.
Divad looked away to the window, allowing the sound of the rain beyond to fill him. But try as he might to avoid it, the memory of the next time he saw Jemma rose like a specter in his mind.
The Cathedral quarter had once been the high district in Recityv. Now, it was maybe a hair’s breadth better than a slum. The smells of bay rum sold by the cask, old urine-soaked straw and rotting mud, and unwashed day laborers filled the air. Jangly music drifted from the windows and open doorways of performance taverns. And children too young to be on their own either panhandled or waited with cunning eyes to pick the pockets of the unsuspecting.
Divad, oblivious to it all tonight, made his way through the streets to a familiar tavern. He needed a glass of wheat bitter to sip while he continued to struggle with the notion of attunement—a concept introduced to him that afternoon during a lecture on acoustics.
As he ambled toward the back corner, he passed a seated woman who kept her eyes lowered. At the edge of her table rested an empty mug. He’d nearly passed her when he realized who she was, and stopped abruptly.
“Jemma? What are you doing here?”
His sister’s eyes flicked up to him with a mix of concern and embarrassment. She regained her composure within the time of a single breath. “Same as you, I would guess. Resting. Trying to shake off some of the street. Thinking.”
He smiled and sat down opposite her.
“At home, it was strong tea and the stump behind the house.” She returned his smile.
“Here it’s wheat bitter and the stool in the corner,” he said. “What about you? What are you drinking?” He pointed to her empty mug.
“Nothing. I’m fine,” she replied rather quickly.
Divad nodded, recognizing when not to press too hard. “How’s Father? Mother? Has the market gotten any better?”
When she met his eyes he noticed the same discoloration he remembered seeing…was that a year ago? But hadn’t it been on the other side of her face?
“Father’s selling road fare beyond the city wall now. The merchant houses haven’t had fruit for him to vend in months.”
A heavyset man with a ponderous belly that rolled over his belt like a water bag sauntered up to their table. “You going to buy the lady a drink? Or talk to her all night?”