It wasn’t the break that brought the man’s name to mind, though. It was the timbre of his rich bass voice. “Malen.”
He’d spoken the man’s name without thinking, and drew back to look him in the eye. Years ago the young man had simply left Descant, after struggling for the larger part of a year to learn how to sing over the passagio.
“You needn’t have left,” Divad said, offering some consolation. “We’d have found a way.”
Malen smiled bitterly. “And I’d have believed you. They all do.” He reached down and picked up the bow Divad had been shaping. “Still using sour mash, I see.”
“Let me pour you a drink. Settled nerves make better music.”
“You and your music metaphors. A teaching technique, yeah? Well, Maesteri, you then are Descant’s bow.” He tapped the side of Divad’s neck with the length of Pemam. “And you play each Lyren for the fiddle he is.”
Divad felt some compassion for the man. Each musician hits several potential break points—passagios of a different kind—that they either work through or are defeated by. But Divad’s sympathy quickly turned to anger. He didn’t like being threatened. Less so here within the walls of Descant. And least of all in the peaceful confines of his lutherie. “Don’t retaliate against us because you failed here. Or are you still being played, only the fiddler now is the League Ascendant?”
Malen brought the unfinished bow up between them, and began to slowly bend it, holding Divad’s defiant gaze while he broke the Pemam stick in two. The two Lyren at the threshold gasped.
“Maesteri?” he said, “I’m not asking permission. Four of your Suffering singers will come with me. We have some questions we’d like answered. If we find everything here is aboveboard,” he gestured around to mean Descant, “they’ll be back soon enough. And because I’m fair-minded, I’ve left you two Lieholan to sing Suffering. Just in case I’m wrong that it is all myth.”
He grinned and departed unceremoniously, leaving Divad breathless with anger. When Malen left the cathedral, Geola, Harnel, Pren, and Asa left with him.
It wasn’t a quarter hour before another visitor came to Descant’s doors. This time it was the young regent, in her seat less than a year. She explained that the League had twisted a new law, the Rule of Impartiality—meant to prevent treachery. Under its provisions they were broadly questioning various affiliations throughout Recityv. She’d heard they were coming here. And she apologized for arriving too late to help.
“What can I do?” Divad asked.
The young regent, Helaina was her name, answered, “Come with me.”
He put out his alcohol flame, doused his lamps, and pulled on his cloak. He gave brief instruction to Luumen, the senior of the two remaining Lieholan to whom he was leaving Descant while he was away. Then he hastened into the street, and struggled to keep pace with the purposeful gait of his regent.
Anger and worry twisted in his gut. He caught her eye and asked, “Can they really do this?”
She gave him a reassuring wink. “Not while I’m around,” she said, and if it was possible, strode faster still.
I never made it to the line. After singing the Sellari to death, I crawled back to my horse, and eased my way to my tent. I’d found an absolute sound, and the weight of it proved difficult to bear. Some songs were heavy. Knowing them was like shouldering a yoke of brick. Suffering was that way. Suffering was an absolute song. Its passages swirled in my mind now that I better understood its underpinning.
Near dawn, Baylet slipped into my tent again. He sat beside the sword he’d given me, which remained untouched. After a long moment he spoke wearily. “We lost two thousand men tonight.”
I’d have thought there’d be a tone of indictment in his voice. But really he was just tired. Tired in his body. Tired somewhere deeper.
As I sat with him, we both kept our own observances for the unspeakable loss. Sometime later, while he stared away southward, he said, “You killed the Sellari.”
It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. I said nothing.
“You found a way to sing death to a Shoarden man. We need your help.”
Phrases of Suffering began to repeat themselves in my head. “I’m not sure I can.”
“Because you can’t? Or because you won’t?” If Baylet hadn’t been so weary, there might have been some impatience or indignation in his tone. As it was, mostly the question rang of disappointment.
It’s how my father might have sounded, were he here to ask me the same. But I wouldn’t have had any better answer for him. The best response I had was to keep silent.