Sighing, he wiped his mouth happily across the back of his sleeve. “What do you play then, lute?” I nodded. “Have any idea what you’ll use to woo us?”
“That depends sir. Has anyone played ‘The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard’ lately?”
Stanchion raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat. Smoothing his beard with his free hand, he said, “Well, no. Someone gave it a whirl a few months ago, but he bit off more than he could swallow whole. Missed a couple fingerings then fell apart.” He shook his head. “Simply said, no. Not lately.”
He took another drink from his tankard, and swallowed thoughtfully before he spoke again. “Most people find that a song of more moderate difficulty allows them to showcase their talent,” he said carefully.
I sensed his unspoken advice and was not offended. “Sir Savien” is the most difficult song I had ever heard. My father had been the only one in the troupe with the skill to perform it, and I had only heard him do it perhaps four or five times in front of an audience. It was only about fifteen minutes long, but those fifteen minutes required quick, precise fingering that, if done properly, would set two voices singing out of the lute at once, both a melody and a harmony.
That was tricky, but nothing any skilled lutist couldn’t accomplish. However, “Sir Savien” was a ballad, and the vocal part was a counter melody that ran against the timing of the lute. Difficult. If the song was being done properly, with both a man and a woman alternating the verses, the song was further complicated by the female’s counter harmony in the refrains. If it is done well, it is enough to cut a heart. Unfortunately, few musicians could perform calmly in the center of such a storm of song.
Stanchion drank off another solid swallow from his tankard and wiped his beard on his sleeve. “You singing alone?” he asked, seeming a bit excited in spite of his half-spoken warning. “Or have you brought someone to sing opposite you? Is one of the boys you came in with a castrati?”
I fought down laughter at the thought of Wilem as a soprano and shook my head. “I don’t have any friends that can sing it. I was going to double the third refrain to give someone the chance to come in as Aloine.”
“Trouper style, eh?” He gave me a serious look. “Son, it’s really not my place to say this, but do you really want to try for your pipes with someone you’ve never even practiced with?”
It reassured me that he realized how hard it was going to be. “How many pipes will be here tonight, roughly?”
He thought briefly. “Roughly? Eight. Maybe a dozen.”
“So in all likelihood there will be at least three women who have earned their talents?”
Stanchion nodded, watching me curiously.
“Well,” I said slowly. “If what everyone has told me is true, if only real excellence can win the pipes, then one of those women will know Aloine’s part.”
Stanchion took another long, slow drink, watching me over the top of his tankard. When he finally set it down he forgot to wipe his beard. “You’re a proud one, aren’t you?” he said frankly.
I looked around the room. “Isn’t this the Eolian? I had heard that this is where pride pays silver and plays golden.”
“I like that,” Stanchion said, almost to himself. “Plays golden.” He slammed his tankard down onto the bar, causing a small geyser of something frothy to erupt from the top. “Dammit boy, I hope you’re as good as you seem to think you are. I could use someone else around here with Illien’s fire.” He ran a hand through his own red hair to clarify his double meaning.
“I hope this place is as good as everyone seems to think it is,” I said earnestly. “I need a place to burn.”
“He didn’t throw you out,” Simmon quipped as I returned to the table. “So I’m guessing it didn’t go as badly as it could have.”
“I think it went well,” I said distractedly. “But I’m not sure.”
“How can you not know?” Simmon objected. “I saw him laugh. That must mean something good.”
“Not necessarily,” Wilem said.
“I’m trying to remember everything I said to him,” I admitted. “Sometimes my mouth just starts talking and it takes my mind a little bit to catch up.”
“This happens often, does it?” asked Wilem with one of his rare, quiet smiles.
Their banter began to relax me. “More and more often,” I confessed, grinning.
We drank and joked about small things, rumors of the masters and the rare female students who caught our attention. We talked about who we liked in the University, but more time was spent mulling over who we didn’t like, and why, and what we would do about it given the chance. Such is human nature.
So time passed and the Eolian slowly filled. Simmon gave in to Wilem’s taunting and began to drink scutten, a powerful black wine from the foothills of the Shalda mountains, more commonly called cut-tail.
Simmon showed the effects almost immediately, laughing louder, grinning wider, and fidgeting in his seat. Wilem remained his same taciturn self. I bought the next round of drinks, making it large mugs of straight cider for each of us. I responded to Wilem’s scowl by telling him that if I made my talent tonight, I would float him home in cut-tail, but if either of them got drunk on me before then, I would personally thrash them and drop them in the river. They settled down an appreciable amount, and began inventing obscene verses to “Tinker Tanner.”
I left them to it, retreating into my own thoughts. At the forefront of my mind was the fact that Stanchion’s unspoken advice might be worth listening to. I tried to think of other songs I could perform that were difficult enough to show my skill, but easy enough to allow me room for artistry.
Simmon’s voice drew me back to the here and now. “C’mon, you’re good at rhymes…” he urged me.
I replayed the last bit of their conversation that I’d been half listening to. “Try ‘in the Tehlin’s cassock,’” I suggested disinterestedly. I was too nervous to bother explaining that one of my father’s vices had been his propensity for dirty limericks.
They chortled delightedly to themselves while I tried to come up with a different song to sing. I hadn’t had much luck when Wilem distracted me again.
“What!” I demanded angrily. Then I saw the flat look in Wilem’s eyes that he only gets when he sees something he really doesn’t like. “What?” I repeated, more reasonably this time.
“Someone we all know and love,” he said darkly, nodding in the direction of the door.
I couldn’t see anyone I recognized. The Eolian was nearly full, and over a hundred people milled about on the ground floor alone. I saw through the open door that night had settled outside.
“His back is to us. He’s working his oily charm on a lovely young lady who must not know him…to the right of the round gentleman in red.” Wilem directed my attention.
“Son of a bitch,” I said, too stunned for proper profanity.
“I’ve always figured him for porcine parentage myself,” Wilem said dryly.
Simmon looked around, blinking owlishly. “What? Who’s here?”
“Ambrose.”
“God’s balls,” Simmon said and hunched over the tabletop. “That’s all I need. Haven’t you two made nice yet?”
“I’m willing to leave him be,” I protested. “But every time he sees me he can’t help but make another jab in my direction.”
“It takes two to argue,” Simmon said.
“Like hell,” I retorted. “I don’t care whose son he is. I won’t go belly-up like some timid pup. If he’s fool enough to take a poke at me, I’ll snap the finger clean off that does the poking.” I took a breath to calm myself, and tried to sound rational. “Eventually, he’ll learn to leave me well enough alone.”
“You could just ignore him,” Simmon said, sounding surprisingly sober. “Just don’t rise to his baiting and he’ll tire of it soon enough.”
“No,” I said seriously, looking Simmon in the eye. “No, he won’t.” I liked Simmon, but he was terribly innocent at times. “
Once he thinks I’m weak he’ll be on me twice as thick as the day before. I know his type.”
“Here he comes,” Wilem observed, looking casually away.
Ambrose saw me before he made it to our side of the room. Our eyes met, and it was obvious that he hadn’t expected to see me there. He said something to one of his ever-present group of bootlickers and they moved off through the crowd in a different direction to claim a table. His eyes moved from me, to Wilem, to Simmon, to my lute, and back to me. Then he turned and walked to the table his friends had claimed. He looked in my direction before he took his seat.
I found it unnerving that he didn’t smile. He had always smiled at me before, an over-sad pantomime smile, with mockery in his eyes.
Then I saw something that unnerved me even more. He was carrying a sturdy squared case. “Ambrose plays lyre?” I demanded of the world in general.
Wilem shrugged. Simmon looked uncomfortable. “I thought you knew,” he said weakly.
“You’ve seen him here before?” I asked. Sim nodded. “Did he play?”
“Recited, actually. Poetry. He recited and kind of plucked at the lyre.” Simmon looked like a rabbit about to run.
“Does he have his talent?” I said darkly. I decided then that if Ambrose was a member of this group, I didn’t want anything to do with it.
“No,” Simmon squeaked. “He tried for it, but…” He trailed off, looking a little wild around the eyes.
Wilem lay a hand on my arm and made a calming gesture. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and tried to relax.
Slowly, I realized that none of this mattered. At most, it simply raised the stakes for tonight. Ambrose wouldn’t be able to do anything to disrupt my playing. He would be forced to watch and listen. Listen to me playing “The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard,” because now there was no question as to what I would be performing tonight.
The evening’s entertainment was led by one of the talented musicians from the crowd. He had a lute and showed that he could play it as well as any Edema Ruh. His second song was even better, one that I’d never heard before.
There was a gap of about ten minutes before another talented musician was called onto the stage to sing. This man had a set of reed pipes and played them better than anyone I had ever heard. He followed by singing a haunting eulogy in a minor key. No instrument, just his high clear voice that rose and flowed like the pipes he had played before.
I was pleased to find the skill of the talented musicians to be everything it was rumored to be. But my anxiety increased a proportionate amount. Excellence is excellence’s only companion. Had I not already decided to play “The Lay of Sir Savien Traliard” for purely spiteful reasons, these performances would have convinced me.
There followed another period of five or ten minutes. I realized that Stanchion was deliberately spacing things out to give the audience a chance to move about and make noise between the songs. The man knew his business. I wondered if he had ever been a trouper.
Then we had our first trial of the night. A bearded man of thirty years or so was brought onto the stage by Stanchion and introduced to the audience. He played flute. Played it well. He played two shorter songs that I knew and a third I didn’t. He played for perhaps twenty minutes in all, only making one small mistake that I could hear.
After the applause, the flutist remained on stage while Stanchion circulated in the crowd, gathering opinions. A serving boy brought the flutist a glass of water.
Eventually Stanchion came back onto the stage. The room was quiet as the owner drew close and solemnly shook the man’s hand. The musician’s expression fell, but he managed a sickly smile and a nod to the audience. Stanchion escorted him off the stage and bought something that came in a tall tankard.
The next to try her talent was a young woman, richly dressed with golden hair. After Stanchion introduced her, she sang an aria in a voice so clear and pure that I forgot my anxiety for a while and was ensnared by her song. For a few blessed moments I forgot myself and could do nothing but listen.
Too soon it was over, leaving me with a tender feeling in my chest and a vague prickling in my eyes. Simmon sniffled a little and rubbed self-consciously at his face.
Then she sang a second song while accompanying herself on a half-harp. I watched her intently, and I will admit that it was not entirely for her musical ability. She had hair like ripe wheat. I could see the clear blue of her eyes from where I sat some thirty feet away. She had smooth arms and small delicate hands that were quick against the strings. And the way she held the harp between her legs made me think of…well, the things that every boy of fifteen thinks about incessantly.
Her voice was as lovely as before, enough to set a heart aching. Unfortunately, her playing could not match it. She struck wrong notes halfway through her second song, faltered, then recovered before she made it to the end of her performance.
There was a longer pause as Stanchion circulated this time. He milled through the three levels of the Eolian, talking with everyone, young and old, musician and not.
As I watched, Ambrose caught the eye of the woman on stage and gave her one of his smiles that seem so greasy to me and so charming to women. Then, looking away from her, his gaze wandered to my table and our eyes met. His smile faded, and for a long moment we simply watched each other, expressionless. Neither of us smiled mockingly, or mouthed small insulting nothings to the other. Nevertheless, all our smoldering enmity was renewed in those few minutes. I cannot say with certainty which of us looked away first.
After nearly fifteen minutes of gathering opinions, Stanchion mounted the stage again. He approached the golden-haired woman and took her hand as he had the previous musician’s. The woman’s face fell in much the same way his had. Stanchion led her from the stage and bought her what I guessed was the consolation tankard.
Closely on the heels of this failure was another talented musician who played fiddle, excellent as the two before him. Then an older man was brought onto stage by Stanchion as if he were trying for his talent. However the applause that greeted him seemed to imply that he was as popular as any of the talented musicians who had played before him.
I nudged Simmon. “Who’s this?” I asked, as the grey-bearded man tuned his lyre.
“Threpe,” Simmon whispered back at me. “Count Threpe, actually. He plays here all the time, has for years. Great patron of the arts. He stopped trying for his pipes years ago. Now he just plays. Everyone loves him.”
Threpe began to play and I could see immediately why he had never earned his pipes. His voice cracked and wavered as he plucked his lyre. His rhythm varied erratically and it was hard to tell if he struck a wrong note. The song was obviously of his own devising, a rather candid revelation about the personal habits of a local nobleman. But in spite of its lack of classic artistic merit, I found myself laughing along with the rest of the crowd.
When he was done everyone applauded thunderously, some people pounding on the tables or stamping as well. Stanchion went directly onto the stage and shook the count’s hand, but Threpe didn’t seem disappointed in the least. Stanchion pounded him enthusiastically on the back as he led him down to the bar.
It was time. I stood and gathered up my lute.
Wilem clapped my arm and Simmon grinned at me, trying not to look almost sick with friendly worry. I nodded silently to each of them as I walked over to Stanchion’s vacant seat at the end of the bar where it curved toward the stage.
I fingered the silver talent in my pocket, thick and heavy. Some irrational part of me wanted to clutch it, hoard it for later. But I knew that in a few more days a single talent wouldn’t do me a bit of good. With a set of talent pipes I could support myself playing at local inns. If I was lucky enough to attract the attention of a patron, I could earn enough to square my debt to Devi and pay my tuition as well. It was a gamble I had to take.
Stanchion came ambling back to his spot at the bar.
“I’ll go next, sir. If it’s all right with y
ou.” I hoped I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. My grip on the lute case was slippery from my sweating palms.
He smiled at me and nodded. “You’ve got a good eye for a crowd, boy. This one’s ripe for a sad song. Still planning on doing ‘Savien’?”
I nodded.
He sat down and took a drink. “Well then, let’s just give them a couple minutes to simmer and get their talking over with.”
I nodded and leaned against the bar. I took the time to fret uselessly about things I had no control over. One of the pegs on my lute was loose and I didn’t have the money to fix it. There had not been any talented women on stage yet. I felt a twinge of unease at the thought of this being the odd night where the only talented musicians at the Eolian were men, or women who didn’t know Aloine’s part.
It seemed only a short time before Stanchion stood and raised a questioning eyebrow at me. I nodded and picked up my lute case. It suddenly looked terribly shabby to me. Together we walked up the stairs.
As soon as my foot touched the stage the room hushed to a murmur. At the same time, my nervousness left me, burned away by the attention of the crowd. It has always been that way with me. Offstage I worry and sweat. Onstage I am calm as a windless winter night.
Stanchion bade everyone consider me as a candidate for my talent. His words had a soothing, ritual feel. When he gestured to me, there was no familiar applause, only an expectant silence. In a flash, I saw myself as the audience must see me. Not finely dressed as the others had been, in fact only one step from being ragged. Young, almost a child. I could feel their curiosity drawing them closer to me.
I let it build, taking my time as I unclasped my battered secondhand lute case and removed my battered secondhand lute. I felt their attention sharpen at the homely sight of it. I struck a few quiet chords, then touched the pegs, tuning it ever so slightly. I fingered a few more light chords, testing, listened, and nodded to myself.
The lights shining onto the stage made the rest of the room dim from where I sat. Looking out I saw what seemed to be a thousand eyes. Simmon and Wilem, Stanchion by the bar. Deoch by the door. I felt a vague flutter in my stomach as I saw Ambrose watching me with all the menace of a smoldering coal.