TWOLAS - 02 - The Ships of Merior

  Between the Mad Prophet's excursions from baths to brothels, and Medlir's acquaintances among the city guard, all rumours reached the attic, where Halliron spent increasing hours closeted in private with his lyranthe. He was disturbed just once, by two liveried footmen, who knocked with a small trunk of clothing furnished by the mayor for use on the night of the feast.

  All but trampled by the pair's flying haste to depart, Medlir stepped into the garret to find the Masterbard cursing in unmatched couplets, his rare and red-faced fervour focused to a frightening bent of rage.

  When the old man's tantrum at last succumbed to breathlessness, Medlir caught his wrists and sat him down. 'Care to say what's happened?'

  Halliron shot back up the instant his apprentice loosed his grip. Pacing, distraught, his collar laces swinging undone and the hair at his temples hooked to snarls by the rake of his vehement fingers, he gestured toward the window that faced the inn's muddy courtyard. 'Never have I stayed to play for a man who insults me not once, but repeatedly!'

  Medlir set his shoulders against the door post to keep from stepping back as the topaz eyes swivelled toward him, wide and snapping with fury. Quiet, he folded his arms.

  'Well, the nerve of Jaelot's mayor, to dare to suggest what I should wear in the presence of his ridiculous wife!' Halliron whirled, kicked the low cot to an explosion of dust from the ticking, and staggered a hopping half-step to end bent double in a sneeze. The paroxysm effectively sobered him. He regarded his knotted fists, and the wry twist to his lips unravelled in a burst of sudden laughter. 'Dharkaron have mercy! Could you see me wearing some dandy's tight-assed hose? In pink, no less, against a doublet with chartreuse shoulder ruffles?'

  Medlir choked back a smile. 'Imagination fails me. Did his lordship send a mask as well?'

  'Ath. A lamb's head. You can picture that!' The Masterbard collapsed on his mattress, loose-limbed as a puppet whose midriff had suddenly lost its stuffing. 'I'll be deliriously happy to be quit of this town.'

  Far from disarmed by the subject change, Medlir clicked the door shut with his heel. 'You didn't say what Jaelot's mayor sent for me to wear.'

  'No, I didn't,' Halliron cracked back in caustic, protective sharpness. 'You at least will stay out of this.'

  'Well, there we disagree.' The flexible humour Dakar could never shake disappeared. Suddenly more killer than singer, his stance radiating leashed force, the man in the doorway shook out his right sleeve and used his teeth to yank more tension in his cuff ties. 'I'm going. Don't pretend you won't need me.'

  The Masterbard locked eyes with the musician he had apprenticed, and the whetted determination he encountered threw him back six years to the memory of a prince's oath swearing in a woodland dell. 'I'm no match for Torbrand's temper,' he said quickly. 'But if you make this your duty, and harm comes to you, I'll go to my grave without forgiveness.'

  'Oh Ath,' Medlir said on a queer note of change. 'If you're worried only for me, then surely there's hope left for both of us.'

  * * *

  The sunset on summer solstice blazed over a city fragrant with fresh-split birch and cut flowers. Long since finished with his dressing, Halliron leaned on the sill of the opened casement, kneading the joints of his fingers. Sithaer take it, we have a visitor.'

  Caught while threading his points, Medlir said sharply, 'Another servant of the mayor's? After today, I wouldn't expect such a one would dare to show his face here.'

  'You still believe there's a man in this town who was born with any sense of shame?' At the thump of footsteps on the landing, Halliron wrenched the door open in the face of the startled arrival and demanded, 'Where's Dakar? Or is it true that armed guardsmen snatched him off the streets in the middle of Beckburn market?'

  The mayor's footman tugged down his waistcoat, ridden up over the dome of his belly in his puffing ascent of the stairs. Taken aback by the tall elder in his black silk doublet, he fell back a step and ventured, 'You speak of the mayor's prisoner?'

  'I speak of a man who carries my personal word as bond on his civil behaviour.' Halliron did not look aside as Medlir snatched his belt and stepped to his shoulder to back him.

  The footman cleared his throat. 'I wouldn't know anything about that.'

  'But you do know where Dakar is,' Medlir cut in. 'Stop hedging.'

  Dusk had fallen. Uncertain light from the chamber's single candle played into the gloom of the hall and raised hard sparkles from the trim on Halliron's dress clothes. A dimmer gleam of sweat sheened the footman's pink forehead as he fluttered his hands in ruffled cuffs. 'Well, I'm not to blame,' he began, then flinched back, though no one moved forward to threaten him. 'Your prophet's set in chains in the banquet hall. My Lord Mayor decreed his fetters shall be struck only after the Masterbard has delivered his promised performance.'

  From the street three storeys below, a carriage rumbled by, the harness bells on the team a sweet trill behind a woman's airy laughter. A dog barked, and a scullion banged the door to the midden as life in the precinct of the innyard ran its indifferent course: in contrast, confined, unspeaking tension gripped the close little garret.

  Then Halliron spun on his heel to a near soundless whisper of rich silk. None of his temper showed, nor did his words reflect rancour as he said in terse quiet to his apprentice, 'Ath forgive me, you were right. In every sense, I will need you.'

  Unobtrusive in his tunic of dove-grey linen, Medlir had no words. The silver-tipped laces of his shirt sleeves tapped and chimed as he hooked the last studs on his bootcuffs. He fetched his master's wrapped lyranthe from its corner peg behind the bed, and wondered in silent and venomous fury whether any other ruler in Athera's history had grossly flaunted such ignorance, to repudiate a masterbard's given word before his very face. 'Come on now.' The footman edged toward the stairwell. 'My Lord Mayor has a carriage ready outside to collect you.'

  Another insult: by ancient custom, a masterbard came and went at no man's pleasure. Halliron said stiffly, 'Tell your mayor I would break all my fingers before I accepted the ride.'

  The brass buttons on the footman's waistcoat flashed to his protesting breath. 'But -'

  'The weather is fine. We will walk.' Anchored against rage by the guiding touch of Medlir's hand on his shoulder, the Masterbard of Athera swept the mayor's cringing servant aside.

  He left behind a garret picked clean of belongings and a paid up account with the landlord. The pony cart also waited, packed to roll at a moment's notice, in the post stable nearest to the gate.

  'Dawn,' Medlir murmured. 'It can't come soon enough.'

  Master and apprentice reached the base of the stairs and by unspoken agreement turned down the service corridor that let into the alley beyond the kitchen. Behind, the tavern bulked massive and dark, its high, gabled roofline like folded black paper against a sky pricked with midsummer stars. The sea breeze reeked of salt and the fish offal spread to dry for fertilizer. Birch smoke drifted from the festival fires alight in the markets by Dagrien Court. The thready, wild notes of a fiddle spun through the dark, clipped by the slap of harness leather and the grinding turn of wheels as the mayor's carriage team was shaken up and reined around to leave the stableyard, its conveyance empty of passengers.

  Halliron set a brisk pace. The palace lay in the fashionable quarter across from the council hall, a distance made difficult by crooked streets and cobblestone byways that rose and fell with the terrain, or zigzagged unexpectedly into staircases cut into the ribs of the headland. After six months, Medlir knew every shortcut; given the gifts of his mastery, darkness held no impediment.

  Tempered back to reason by the anonymity of the night, Halliron gave a rueful sigh. 'I should have worried more about footpads.'

  'Why? Because of your jewels and gold chains?' Medlir grinned and turned his shoulder to guard the wrapped bulk of the lyranthe as he passed through a narrow archway. 'Take a closer look at yourself, my friend.'

  The Masterbard glanced down, rocked by a start to see his glittering co
urt finery masked to featureless black. 'Ath! Your shadows? I should have guessed.'

  'Pray the thieves won't,' Medlir said. 'There's little risk to use my power here. No one knows my reputation well enough to send an informer to Etarra. And anyway, if you'd set foot in that carriage, I would have broken the mayor's head. I still might. Do your joints hurt?'

  'Not so much.' Halliron glanced at the prosperous tallfronted houses limned in the bronze glow of torches. A high-wheeled phaeton rattled by, driven by a dandy bedecked in peacock plumes. 'Where are we?'

  'Spicer's Row,' Medlir said around a small cough. The last female to share the phaeton's upholstery had bequeathed enough perfume to shed a cloud of patchouli in the wake of the vehicle's passage. 'But never mind if you can't smell the cinnamon. Turn here.'

  They crossed a formal courtyard, where Medlir out of mischief flushed an amorous tom cat from yowling serenade beneath a rose bush. A shutter cracked open overhead, and a toothless matron emerged, shouting invective.

  Laughing as he ducked through an arbour of flowering vines, Medlir unlatched a side gate that let into the gutter behind the court house. 'Mind the horse piss.'

  'Or not,' Halliron commented. 'If I stink enough to turn heads, do you guess the mayor's wife would throw me out?'

  'She'd doubtless roast Dakar for the lapse, then sidestep sensibility by giving you a replacement pair of shoes, fancy ones with satin ruffles.' Medlir offered an arm to steady his master across the puddle. Through his thin sleeve, the old man trembled shockingly. 'It's not much further. We can cut through the guards' barracks.'

  'That's not necessary.' Halliron squared trim shoulders. 'I need the walk to cool my temper.' Companionably silent, the pair passed sights grown unwontedly familiar through the course of their enforced stay in Jaelot: the scarred stalls of the butcher's sheds, and fishmonger's baskets stacked like nested eggs in the starlit gloom of the alley. Halliron broke step to fling silver into a beggar's bowl. The mournful, deep bells in the guard tower chimed the hour, rousting up a flapping flock of pigeons. The birds wheeled above the city's muddled skyline, smudged into soot from coal fires lit to cut the sea damp.

  'It's hard to believe this place was once the site of Paravian mysteries,' Halliron commented over the clop of horses and the grind of gilt-striped carnage wheels. Foot traffic crowded the road, couples cloaked and masked and laughing as they hurried to dance at the festival fires in light-hearted contrast with hawkers trudging homeward with handcarts of unsold pastries. 'The sixth lane resonance once channelled through this headland. At solstice, you'd think I'd feel the pulse of the earth's song through my very boots. Everywhere else the unicorns danced, at least a ghost echo lingers.'

  Medlir shook his head, what sensitivity he had once possessed struck mute by forces less forgivable than Jaelot's tasteless arrogance. Smells of jasmine and lavender warred with the mess some lady's lapdog had excreted in the gutter. In some cranny beyond reach of lamplight, a rat chittered through the patter of a street waif's running footsteps. Farther off, the surf from the bay boomed in tireless refrain against the breakwater.

  From the corner of Broadwalk Way, wreaths of climbing roses strewed a litter of leaves and petals that the wind chivvied across the pavement. The pillared fagade of the mayor's palace loomed at the end of the cul-de-sac like some layered, white-iced confection, the rondeled mullions of its bow windows spangled in reflected candleflame.

  'With luck, we'll have missed the silly dinner.' Halliron mounted the stair like a man about to face his executioner. His steps sank soundless into the black and gold carpet runner spread for the occasion, each riser bearing like soldiers on parade an array of bronze urns crammed with peonies.

  One of the footmen on duty by the door reached to take the lyranthe. Medlir sidestepped the offer as though a viper had struck at him, to the servant's acrimonious displeasure. A chubby, bald butler scurried out to quell the disturbance. He nearly bowled over the Masterbard, who topped him by a head, and who waited to the right of the threshold in the unveiled elegance of his topaz studs and roped chains.

  'Ath, it's yourself,' the butler snapped. 'My Lord Mayor's vexed. Come inside. Quickly, quickly! Most awkward you've arrived so late, they're nearly finished with dessert.'

  Medlir and Halliron suffered the man's proprietary prodding across a vestibule banked with cut flowers, and on through the doubled doors into the grand hall. From the bowl of a recessed mosaic floor to the spans of its vaulted ceiling, the enormous chamber lay rinsed in dazzling brilliance. Wax candles and overdressed bodies pressed the air to steaming warmth. The reek of rich meats, fine sauces and expensively perfumed humanity stifled the senses in a wave.

  Halliron ran a jaundiced glance over fake kiosks of gilded pillars, streamered in ribbon and decorated with cast-plaster orchids that dripped in swagged archways over tables packed to sagging capacity. The drone of too many voices stewed into punishing roulades of echoed noise.

  Divested of feathered masks for their feasting, the aristocrats of Jaelot lounged on cushions, arguing stylishly, or exchanging sharp-witted jokes. Gilt cosmetics and jewels stung the eye in spattered flecks of light. The tinselled ruffles of discarded finery lay rowed like a milliner's wares under silk and paper arbours crammed with sprites, whose rosy cheeks and blush-tinted bare buttocks were presented on display with the same artless candour.

  A statement of brute contrast, a cleared space in the centre of the floor held a scaffold transfixed by a post. There, the miserable figure of Dakar languished, chained hand and foot in his laddered, striped hose and soiled shirtsleeves. The scuffle to retake him into custody had apparently cost him his garish orange garment sleeved with ribbon.

  'Well, the doublet's gone, I'm glad to see. Somewhere in Jaelot, there's a guardsman with a natural sense of elegance.' Halliron's dry sarcasm gave way to outrage as he added, 'The chains are an offence beyond forgiveness.' He never once glanced at the painted stool, waiting in vacant anticipation before the dais that raised the head table.

  Behind him, moved by unsettled instinct, his apprentice loosed the lyranthe's wrappings and softly started tuning silver strings. Since Medlir's adroit placement in the doorway forestalled the butler's entrance, no one announced their arrival. The still form of the Masterbard in his stark black and gold raised no stir, until, cued by the whispers of a table servant, a guest in the back rows pointed. Conversation in her presence flurried and flagged, and stillness fanned outward like ring ripples cast by a flung stone into a trout pool.

  The Mayor of Jaelot froze with a bite of confection halfway into parted lips. Elbowed by his wife, whose dark, painted eyes acknowledged Halliron's presence over her pink-feathered fan, he lowered his spoon and rearranged himself to begin a pompous speech.

  The Masterbard seized his moment, lifted the unsheathed gleam of his instrument from Medlir, and outmatched the mayor's blustering introduction. 'I play nothing for your guests until the bonds are struck from the man I've pledged to redeem.'

  Satiated diners stirred to languid interest as he bade his apprentice to wait, then descended the inner stair. His steps were marked by stifled whispers, while several ladies the worse for fine wine tittered behind hands laced with rings. Halliron paid no notice. Bare-headed, his silver hair combed in waves over his gold-bordered collar, he advanced through the gallery of plaster arches and presented himself before the dais.

  The Mayor of Jaelot smiled at him. 'The prisoner will be freed when your word is made good. I don't indulge impertinence in my hall, or before my lady wife and her guests. Have a care for propriety. Oath-breakers by law can be executed.' He signalled with one finger.

  Liveried halberdiers advanced from behind the plaster kiosks. Others joined them from the side doors and vestibule. Poised at the stair head, Medlir found himself flanked by the ungentle prick of bare weapons. He turned not a hair in response. His attention stayed riveted on his master, while the leather and cord wrappings lately stripped from the lyranthe wrung and twisted into knots between
his hands.

  Halliron wasted no voice in pointless argument, but spun on his heel to a fire-caught flash of topaz. He set his boot on the cushioned stool, cradled a lyranthe the last of its kind in five kingdoms, and snapped off a run to test the pitch. His apprentice's touch at tuning was never less than perfect; reft by circumstance from his customary love of theatrics, Halliron clapped down his palm, silenced his strings, and flung back his head in vivacious challenge.

  Melody erupted under his hands. The notes were fastpaced, keyed to major, and led off in tripping, drunken joy through the brash lilt of a dance tune. Guests grown torpid with rich food turned jaded faces in surprise. Whatever they had expected, this spree of cheerful melody fell incongruous as a slap dealt in anger with a feather.

  In sheer, provocative genius, Halliron Masterbard drew them in. The happy jinking melody stroked air and grabbed heartstrings and softened the best blood of Jaelot to smile and neglect fashion and tap their feet.

  Stone-still between the shafts of two halberds, Medlir shut his eyes against anguish. Alone in awareness, consumed by crawling dread, he knew this was the ballad written for Jaelot that Halliron had refused to let him hear.

  A chord pattered out, and another, soaring and quick as a swallow's flight. Somebody began to clap in rhythm. The Lord Mayor was smiling fatuously. His wife's pursestring lips hung open behind laced fingers, while her fan drooped like a wing-broken bird over the rim of her cake plate. Another moment, and decorum would give way to dancing; except that Halliron tipped back his chin and opened his throat in song.

  The words were all nonsense, syllables strung together for their resonance and rhythm. Against the superlative weave of the lyranthe, the counterplay of consonant and vowel sparked like gems in a tapestry. The heart leaped in step for pure wonder. Ladies laced tight in quilted bodices began to sway in their seats like tavernmaids. Husbands by their sides whooped and stamped and applauded, while the song unreeled in merry measures that had even the mayor's guardsmen tapping weapon butts in time against the tile.