McKillip, Patricia A. - Song for the Basilisk

by Song For The Basilisk(Lit)

  She twisted the peg on the picochet, plucked the string. "I wasn't paying attention," she confessed. "My hands feel like wood in this heat." She paused, pulling up the loose neck of her blouse, which had slid halfway to one elbow. "Justin—"

  "What?"

  She looked at him, drew breath. "Justin," she said again.

  A brow quirked. "Well, what?" he asked, amused and mystified.

  "I may have to—I may not be able to play here for a while."

  Both brows went up; a line formed between them. She put her hand on his arm. "Why not?" He was no longer almost smiling. "Are you tired of us?"

  "No—that's not—Justin, of course not. It's just that—"

  "Just tell me."

  "I received a message from Veris Legere, the Master of Music for Pellior House. I am to see him in the morning."

  "For what?" he asked bewilderedly. "To teach Her Pruneface the picochet?"

  "To discuss the autumn festival, he said. I'm not sure what he will want me to do. There is always an opera—"

  "Opera." He said the word cautiously, as if it could crack a tooth. "You mean he wants—"

  "I don't know yet, but he might, and this might be my last night here."

  His face flushed suddenly. "You'd leave us?" he demanded incredulously. "To play opera for that malignant warlock's birthday?"

  The loathing in his voice startled her; it ran far deeper, she realized, than Hexel's, who could set aside his aversion long enough to play the prince's music. She said, distressed, "I'm sorry. I would miss playing here. With you. But I am responsible to the school—I can't always choose the music I play."

  "Any begger in the street can choose the song he sings." His face was suddenly grim, the face of the stranger who lived life in a different Berylon, who heard music she did not know. "Say no."

  "I can't. I can't offend Pellior House. The Tormalyne School exists because Arioso Pellior permits it to exist."

  He was silent, studying her, still unfamiliar. "You want this," he said. "This festival."

  "I want—" She paused, then simply nodded. "I want its music." She met his eyes. "And I want you. And I want the music I play here, in the smoke and heat and noise. Is that wrong? If I can only play this music here, is it wrong to love it? Or if I can only play the lavandre under the Basilisk's eyes—is that wrong? Should I not play at all? Should you not love me because I play it?"

  "No," he said, startled. "Don't go that far."

  "But it can go that far. If we let it."

  He was silent again, his head bowed, his eyes hidden. Behind them, Yacinthe and Iona waited, impatient and curious, for them to finish their lovers' squabble. He said finally, carefully, "I do understand. More than you think. Be careful in the Basilisk's house."

  "I'll do what I'm told. In matters of music. I don't see what trouble I could get into."

  "That's how the basilisk kills. You don't see it until it looks at you."

  She gazed at him, puzzled, troubled by what he did not say. He sighed, his face loosening, and touched her cheek. "We'll miss playing with you."

  She kissed him quickly. "I'll see you when I can. No matter what. Give me that note again."

  Justin lifted his pipe. Yacinthe's hands danced over her drums. " 'The Ballad,' " she announced, " 'of the Trapper Who Trapped Himself.'"

  On the bridge, the trapper abandoned his wagon and began to run. Caladrius, cornered by torch fire and the broken edge of the wagon, with a pile of reeking furs at his feet, saw the trapper's choices: the guards at the gate, or a quick leap into the gorge. The guards might show more mercy; they had not yet seen why the trapper was running, only that he had left a mess in the middle of the bridge. He was a soft, heavy man; the three guards caught him easily, dragged him through the wagon and out the back. Faced with a firelit pool of weapons and the basilisk rampant everywhere he looked, his quivering face drained the color of suet.

  The guards silently questioned the lord of the House, who said with extreme irritation, "Kill him."

  The standard-bearer ventured a protest. "My lord, it might be better—"

  "Kill him! Get him out of my sight! Now!"

  They dragged him, struggling and incoherent, to the bridge wall; a couple of riders dismounted to catch his legs. Caladrius, breathless, his heart hammering, saw the trapper's face just before they rolled him over the wall and into the gorge: his eyes, protruding in terror and astonishment, pleaded senselessly with the moon beyond the fire. Then he dropped, transfixing them all with his scream echoing up from the sides of the gorge before rock and water swallowed him.

  Caladrius seized the torch at his back. The movement broke the gorge's spell; guards, turning, remembered him. He leaped into the wagon as they began shouting. He left the torch on the wagon floor. Fire swarmed over the remaining furs, found fat, and blazed a bright gate across the back of the wagon. It began to pick at the wagon's bones as Caladrius slid out the front. The oxen, shifting uneasily at the smoke, began to drag the burning wagon. They caught his eyes with their protruding, senseless gazes. He heard himself make a sound, an inarticulate protest at their demand for life. But he paused to fumble with their harness; freed, they managed a quicker pace. Water swallowed all but the most furious voice behind the wagon. He would, he thought, remember that voice: it followed him as he walked, trailed by fire and oxen, through the Tormalyne Gate into Berylon.

  The narrow, winding streets were quiet for the moment, except for the tavern beside the bridge, its thick windows smoldering with smoky light. Amid the muted, chaotic noise that seeped out of it, came the last sound he expected to hear.

  It reached into his heart, stunned once more by death and memory, and pulled him like a hand into the Griffin's Egg.

  Giulia, stroking long, husky notes of lament for the trapper, was remembering her grandfather on the farm. Taciturn even for a northerner through an entire winter after her grandmother died, he mourned through his picochet. So he had taught Giulia the inarticulate phrases of the heart. Engrossed in memory, hearing him speak in her playing, she thought at first that his fingers loosened the bow in her hands, his fingers coaxed the instrument from her. Then she heard the stranger's voice.

  "Please," he breathed. "Just this one. Please." He was, Giulia realized with astonishment, begging to play her picochet. Some drunken, homesick farmer, she thought at first, and then, still astonished: Why not? No one had ever asked before. She relinquished it and rose. He sat quickly, his head bowed against the long neck, the way her grandfather had played it. She moved to one side, leaned against the wall, listening. He seemed tentative at first; his hands were shaking badly; he did not drive the bow hard enough. Someone tossed an empty tankard at the squeals he made. And then he found the strength he needed, and struck fire from the picochet.

  She listened, her eyes on the floor, until a sudden disturbance blew through the door. Raising her head, she saw basilisks in the shadows. She watched, surprised. They had not come to drink. They pushed through the crowd, searching. Voices flared; a pitcher was broken. Through it, the cold north winds sang out of the picochet, the ghost of someone looking back on his life, singing beyond his death. Giulia dropped her eyes again, found the bottom of the picochet and the stranger's boots. The picochet was patched there; so were his boots. She lifted her eyes slowly along the line of light running down the dark wood, polished by the hands that had held it. Her eyes stopped at his hands, lingered, then rose more quickly to his face.

  It was half-hidden behind the picochet. But it seemed oddly familiar, a face out of the past, though whose past she could not remember. Some composer carved in white marble, some painting, hanging in a practice hall, of that lean face, with its clean wolf's jaw and broad, strongly molded bones. She could not see his eyes; the shadow of the picochet cut across them. His short, silver-gold hair looked as if he chopped at it haphazardly with a pruning knife.

  The tavern door slammed behind the last basilisk. The ballad came to an end. The stranger rested his face against t
he long neck of the picochet a moment, as her grandfather had done, as she herself did, as against a lover's face.

  Then his eyes flicked through the tavern. He rose, still searching, and turned swiftly. He leaned the picochet carefully against the stool and brought Giulia her bow.

  "Thank you," he said. She saw his eyes then, so dark they held no color, powerful in their directness. The guards, she realized, had come looking for him; he had hidden himself within his playing. He had stopped trembling, but his haunting face was harrowed, colorless.

  "Who are you?" she asked in wonder. He only gave her the memory of a smile and disappeared into smoke and shadows before she could ask another question.

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  Chapter Two

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  Giulia made her way backward down the marble corridors of the Tormalyne School of Music. Busts of composers, musicians, patrons of the art watched her out of white, pupilless eyes from their niches. Doors opened and closed between the busts, loosing delicate sighs of music, energetic outbursts, sudden collisions between instruments. Someone sang a scale; flute notes leaped up broken chords. A phrase was repeated over and over, pure and liquid, on a glass harmonica. "Magister Dulcet," she kept hearing. "Just one moment. Giulia!"

  "I have to go," she said desperately to Hexel Barr, who had sprung like a clockwork figure out of his workroom. He ignored that, calling her stubbornly until she turned again, still walking, students laden with books and instruments dancing out of her way.

  "I need your help," he insisted. "Now, Giulia. For just one moment. I have one idea, one puny, weak, starveling idea for this opera, and if it is worthless, I can't go on. Someone else will have to be found."

  "Hexel, you always say this—every year—and then you—"

  "This year I mean it. I am a desert. A wasteland. Barren."

  "And then you produce something wonderful—"

  "Because of you," he said adamantly. "Because of you. My muse."

  Behind her a young student snickered. "Not now," she said tersely. "Find another muse until tonight. I must go."

  "Giulia." A viol player, passing, touched her arm. "Don't forget, we are rehearsing this afternoon before supper."

  "I won't." She gazed at the graceful, limpid-eyed woman, who was holding her viol in both arms like a lover. "Why," Giulia pleaded, "can't you be Hexel's muse instead?"

  She only laughed. Giulia, moving, heard her name again, saw her youngest students through an open doorway, surrounded by copper pipes, nails, plant pots, upended buckets, vases, beer mugs.

  "Come and listen," they begged. "Is this what you wanted?"

  "Try glass," she suggested. "Something light. And you have no reeds. Remember: even grass sings."

  She escaped finally into the street, to be confronted by a small, exquisite carriage with basilisks painted on the doors. She hesitated. A page swung open the door, bowing deeply.

  "Magister Dulcet?"

  She entered, speechless.

  The Master of Music for Pellior House met her in one of the appointment chambers within the palace. It was a small room, striped with white and crimson marble. Lily and rose lay underfoot, on the marble floors; they grew in the patterned marble hearth, up striped pillars, along the walls. Only the ceiling, painted gold, and the crimson velvet curtains and chairs, were not made of stone. It was as cold and quiet as a tomb.

  "I know your reputation and your work," Veris Legere said. "And you know the needs of the house. Something elegant, traditional, elaborate but not lengthy, sumptuous but never gaudy, a touch of drama for the singers to display their skills, and of course a happy ending." He paused a moment, expressionless; beneath his silver hair, his face seemed ageless and devoid of humor. But Giulia knew that his lack of expression could express a great deal. "One stipulation. The Lady Damiet will sing an appropriate role, as a birthday present for her father."

  Her Pruneface. Giulia kept her face still. "I see."

  "I'm sure you do."

  "I don't know the Lady Damiet's voice. The appropriate role would be—?"

  "The maiden, the princess, the virtuous young woman—in short, the heroine."

  "I see."

  "She has a vigorous but untrained voice. Her range is limited, but it will be adequate."

  "And her ear?" Giulia asked cautiously.

  "She has two," the Master of Music said with precision. "Beyond that I cannot speculate. You ask me why we have a sudden need for a music director for the festival."

  "I didn't. I do." She paused, guessing. "I don't."

  "Berone Sidero was advised of Lady Damiet's determination to sing. Within a day or two he decided to become afflicted with some elusive malady curable only by several months of peace and quiet in the provinces."

  "Oh."

  "Your health is good?"

  She hesitated; he lifted one silver brow. "Yes," she said finally, and the brow descended. He smiled unexpectedly.

  "Good. The prince has mentioned your name once or twice. I thought that someone who plays the picochet in a tavern on Tanners Street and the prince's music in a consort from the Tormalyne School might be capable of dealing with the unusual demands of this festival."

  She felt her face warm with horror, thinking of her piecemeal costumes, the beer-drenched floor. "How did he—"

  "The prince's interest in music is broad and not always formal. He pays attention to detail; he encourages me to do so. You mentioned the picochet to him. He grew curious. When he cannot see and hear for himself, he uses others' eyes and ears. Sit down." He opened the door, spoke to someone. She sank onto a hard oval of crimson velvet, seeing Justin suddenly, with her in the Griffin's Egg, hearing his acrid, pithy comments about the Basilisk. No one could have understood him in that din, she decided. And if she were not in trouble for listening, he would not be for speaking…

  "Now that I have persuaded you," Veris said, rejoining her, "let us begin to deal with practical matters. I have sent for chocolate, cakes, and the director's notes for the last decade."

  Two hours later Giulia left him, her arms full of notes, her head cluttered with names and dates, one of which demanded that instead of playing with Justin in the Griffin's Egg the following week, she teach Lady Damiet to sing.

  "And of course," Veris had said, "we must have the music. The drama itself. As soon as possible. How is Hexel faring? As usual?"

  "Hexel has no ideas, he is uninspired, he tears his hair, he is surrounded by crumpled paper, his music is trifling, he can't think of a plot, and he is a barren wasteland."

  "As usual."

  She met Justin in the tavern across the street from the school, where he waited, hunched over ale, to hear how she fared in Pellior Palace. She told him, eating hastily before her afternoon classes. He listened silently, picking at a splinter in the table, his brows twitching together now and then.

  He said only, to the splinter, "Then I won't see very much of you for a while."

  She put her hand on his wrist, feeling heartbeat and bone, holding him as if for balance between two worlds. "Only for a while. I'll come to you when I can." He raised his eyes finally; she read the question in them. Her hand tightened. "Yes. I need you. I need to know you will be there. Or will you be too angry with me?"

  "No," he breathed, turning their hands to find the milky skin beneath her wrist, that never held the southern light. He kissed a vein. As he raised his head she still saw silent questions in his eyes; these she could not answer yet. She linked their fingers, raised his hand to her mouth, wondering eerily who around them watched the magister and the tavern musician out of the Basilisk's eyes.

  Returning to the school, she taught lessons on the harpsichord and the lavandre, then listened to her young students beat on their plant pots and copper pipes with stones, shoe heels, and strands of glass beads. She rehearsed a duet for a performance at Marcasia Palace. She ate supper quickly, then hid herself in a practice room with the l
avandre and her picochet, which she played softly, caressing the notes out of it, thinking of Justin. Her thoughts wandered, after a time, to the stranger who had hidden from the Basilisk's guard within its music. He knew its voices, those that sang, those that wailed, those that whispered and threatened and cajoled. But he had finished her ballad for her and vanished, without explaining, into the night. Perhaps he will return, she thought, and then: But I will not be there.

  "Giulia!" Hexel flung open the door of the tiny practice room. Her bow jumped; the picochet screeched. He winced. "How can you bear to share the world with that demented instrument?"

  "Hexel," she exclaimed, returning from the tavern to the school. "I am to direct music for the autumn festival. Go away and finish your opera and bring it to me immediately—we have no time to waste."