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 he 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.”