McKillip, Patricia A. - Song for the Basilisk

by Song For The Basilisk(Lit)

  He heard Veris draw breath. The door opened then; he looked up and saw the Basilisk.

  Arioso Pellior was speaking to someone, his face half-turned; Caladrius remembered his voice. His gold hair had lightened; beyond that he seemed to have changed little. Veris bowed when the prince glanced across the room. Caladrius, frozen, did not. The reptile eyes met the raven's, had begun to narrow when Caladrius bent his head stiffly, belatedly. Still he felt the Basilisk's glance, as if those eyes had scored his bones.

  "My lord," he heard Veris say. "I believe I have found our librarian."

  A woman laughed lightly. Caladrius kept his eyes lowered, listening to their footsteps, which continued to cross the room. Fingers touched stray notes in passing from the harpsichord. She said, "He dresses like a farmer, and has no manners."

  "He is a northerner, my lady."

  "Taur will not be pleased. Fortunately, he never comes here." Their footsteps seemed to be aimed at the doors in the opposite wall.

  "See that he is suitably attired," the prince said briefly.

  "Yes, my lord."

  He murmured something; the woman laughed again. Caladrius let his eyes flicker upward; their backs were to him; they had nearly reached the open doors. The woman's hair was the rich gold that the Basilisk's had been once. Her voice, he thought, could melt gold with its charms; her mockery seemed light as air.

  She turned, before she followed the prince through the door, looked back at him as if she heard his thoughts.

  She was gone before he remembered how to breathe. Veris Legere took the scroll out of his hands and replaced it in the case. "The Lady Luna Pellior," he said dryly, before Caladrius remembered how to speak. "The prince's older daughter. Very like her father in all ways. Before you leave, I will give you money. When you return in the morning you will be dressed discreetly in black and your hair will be trimmed. Your boots will not be seen here again. You will become familiar, in time, with the need to bow your head upon occasion, Master Caladrius."

  "Yes," he breathed. "That's not a gaze I'd want to offend twice."

  Veris dropped a hand on Caladrius's shoulder. "You've seen the Basilisk's eyes and lived, Master Caladrius. It may not happen twice."

  It has, he thought starkly. But never again. I will not live to survive him. She would see to that. His child. His mirror.

  "Master Caladrius."

  He bowed his head to the music of Tormalyne House in its glass prison. He thought he left the palace alone, but he found the image of Luna Pellior burned, like a quick glimpse of the sun, behind his eyes.

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  Chapter Four

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  Giulia stood in the music room at Pellior Palace, studying the four broad oval paintings on the ceiling as she listened to Damiet Pellior sing. The paintings depicted the Birth of Music, the Meeting of Voice and Song, the Marriage of Time and Harmony, the Children of Music Playing the Twenty-seven Courtly Instruments. Casting her eyes up frequently to the charming roil of pink flesh, discreetly draped linen, coy glances, rapt, well-fed faces, she was able to maintain an expression suitable to her task, which, she decided grimly, must be to introduce both Time and Harmony to the Lady Damiet, who did not seem to recognize either one of them.

  "Good," she said briskly as Damiet finished a scale: which, Giulia was not certain. "You have a range adequate for—well, adequate. Very adequate."

  Damiet gazed at her, already not listening, having forgotten, possibly, why Giulia was there. She herself might have stepped down from one of the paintings: Voice, perhaps, or Harmony descending to earth, picking more appropriate clothing out of the small, fat hands of the Children of Music along the way. She was tall, plump, and quite fair, big yet graceful; she watched Giulia out of blue-gray, slow-blinking eyes when Giulia spoke. So far she produced a bewildering impression that the words that came out of Giulia's mouth had not the remotest relationship to anything Giulia thought she had put into it.

  "Do you know," Damiet asked, "what I am to wear? I think I should change my costume for every song, and I want one of them to be yellow. Please tell Magister Barr he must write a yellow song for me."

  "Magister Barr is not a dressmaker. He is a composer and a dramatist. He won't care what color you wear, as long as you sing it well."

  "So far he has given me nothing at all to sing."

  "You have a scale. Many scales—"

  "Yes, but he didn't write them. I don't think. Not for me."

  "For you," Giulia lied extravagantly. "If you would sing another—"

  "I just did; they're all alike." She blinked again at Giulia, her heavy, creamy face not so much obstinate as oblivious. Giulia went to the spinet, a black so lacquered it glowed like satin, inlaid with flowers of wood and ivory.

  "Please. Listen." She touched a note. "Sing."

  "Sing what?"

  "This note."

  "Just that?"

  "Is it too difficult?"

  "Oh, I doubt it," the Lady Damiet said. "There is only one."

  Giulia struck the note again. It spun itself out with amazing purity in that cold room. She waited. The note parted into overtones and died away. She lifted her head, incredulous, and caught the fixed, blue stare.

  "Do you think you will be finished soon?" Damiet asked. "I have never liked this room; it is too pale. You do well in it, though, with your dark hair."

  Giulia sat down on the spinet stool. The first evening, she thought. The first hour. And I want to claw my hair over my face and wail to wake the dead. Hexel will be furious. He will flee Berylon to join Berone Sidero in the provinces…

  "Lady Damiet," she said desperately, "perhaps you might sing what you would call a yellow song for me. So that I can explain to Magister Barr. I can't think of one myself."

  The blue eyes became faintly surprised. "Can't you?"

  "Not one."

  "But then," Damiet said, inspired, "you always wear black." She stopped, swallowed; her eyes grew fixed, slightly crossed. She opened her mouth. A page, entering the room with his arms full of scrolls, stopped dead at her first note. He shivered, hunched over the scrolls, and backed out, making small, birdlike noises. Giulia bit her lip and stared pleadingly at the beautiful, benevolent, androgynous face of Song, who extended a loving hand to the opening lips of Voice, whose eyes, like Damiet's, seemed faintly crossed in concentration. Giulia closed her own eyes quickly, and clenched her fists.

  "Perhaps," she said carefully, "if I play it with you, I will understand yellow better."

  Damiet sighed. "I do hope, Magister Dulcet, we will not have to go through this for every color."

  "I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid we will."

  They progressed after a fashion from yellow to blue, which Damiet expressed as an innocent version of a raw ballad Giulia had played at the Griffin's Egg. A blue to match my eyes, Damiet had explained. Giulia, not quite envisioning the shade, had her repeat phrases so that, she told Damiet, she could play them back to Magister Barr. She accompanied Damiet with one finger and a chord now and then, and tried to keep Yacinthe's raucous voice out of her head.

  "One more verse," she said. "I've almost got it. Light blue."

  "A smoky blue," Damiet corrected, sighing. "With cream lace. You will remember the smoke? You see it in my eyes? Magister Dulcet, I hope you won't confuse the colors."

  "I'll write them down," Giulia promised. " 'The Shepherd's Dawn' for your yellow costume, and 'Pass the Pot' for the blue. Smoke."

  The blue eyes fixed her once again, their marble gaze becoming slightly glassier, as if Giulia had hit an impossible note and caused a swath of linen to crack and drift down from one of the rosy figures overhead.

  "Magister Dulcet, the song is called 'Sweet Bird Awaken.' Not 'Pass the Pot.'"

  "Of course," Giulia said quickly, and was caught again, by the eye of Veris Legere as he stood quietly listening across the room. She felt herself flush richly. How long he had bee
n there, she had no idea. He nodded slightly to her, his face impassive. He stood among the long ebony shelves and glass cases that held music and courtly instruments; someone knelt behind him, gently placing an armful of manuscripts onto a shelf.

  "Do you think," Damiet asked, "we might go on to mauve? It is one of my best colors, and it will do for the sad scene—there is always one—just before everything resolves itself by chance and ends happily. Of course I will wear white, with pink rosettes, for the final song."

  "A mauve song, then," Giulia said, her hands poised on the spinet keys. "And then the white, and then I'll leave you."

  "But Magister Dulcet, there are other colors."

  "I'll come for them soon. Perhaps you could practice them."

  "Why?"

  "It is considered good for the voice. You'll want to sing your best for the prince's birthday."

  The Lady Damiet pondered this. "I always sing my best."

  "It is like dancing. The more you practice, the easier the steps—"

  "Dancing," Damiet said inarguably, "is done with the feet. Not the voice. Singing is far easier; there is nothing to trip over. Do you know 'The Dying Swan'? It is a mauve song."

  She opened her mouth. A swan, shot out of the air by a hunter's arrow, thudded heavily onto the marble floor, shedding blood and feathers. It sang its death throes. Veris Legere coughed dryly. A scroll flipped and rolled, was caught and shelved. The man behind Veris Legere rose; Giulia caught a fleeting glimpse of his face as he turned. Her eyes widened. The swan shrieked and died.

  "Mauve," Damiet said.

  They were romping through white festooned with rosettes when the man returned with more scrolls and a stack of manuscript paper so fragile it scattered a litter of brown flakes in the wake of air. Giulia, absently playing a child's song, studied his back. It looked sturdy enough, under the discreet black he wore, to have wrestled music out of the picochet. The height seemed right; the light hair was far tidier than she remembered. The boots looked too new. Anyway, what would a picochet player last seen in patched boots in a tavern be doing shelving manuscripts in the music room at Pellior Palace? Then he moved behind a case to put the music down and she saw his face, with its harsh, elegant lines, and his eyes as dark as the bottom of a well. She felt a sudden chill of horror. You were just in the Griffin's Egg hiding from basilisks, she protested silently. And now you are in the Basilisk's house…

  Damiet had stopped singing. Giulia looked at her, still playing. Damiet's mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but nothing came out. She had just seen her audience; perhaps, in surprise, she had forgotten the words.

  "'Merry in the break of day,' " Giulia prompted. Damiet looked at her blankly, then brought her attention to bear across the room again, where the men stood, caught and waiting.

  "I am sorry, my lady," Veris said gravely, "for disturbing your song. Your white song."

  Damiet neither moved not spoke; Giulia wondered starkly if she were about to throw a Pellior-sized tantrum. Then she gestured, a flick of fingers within the folds of her skirt.

  "Bring the stranger to me. If he is going to listen to me, I want to know his name."

  "Of course, my lady," Veris said, and led the stranger to Damiet. He must have seen Giulia before she had noticed him; his eyes, flicking to her, held no surprise. "Lady Damiet, may I present Master Caladrius. He will be assisting me, as librarian, with the music from Tormalyne Palace which was rescued from it, and somehow forgotten."

  Damiet extended a languid hand. A beat too late for exact courtesy, the librarian touched the air beneath her fingers, bowed unskillfully over them.

  "Lady Damiet," he said. "You must pardon my manners. I never learned many. In the north."

  You learned to read music, Giulia thought. In the north.

  "My brother Taur says there are no manners at all in the provinces," Damiet said, with unexpected civility. Her eyes, unblinking and still faintly unfocused, glistened slightly. "I will teach you, Master Caladrius."

  "And this," Veris Legere said in the silence while Master Caladrius seemed to grapple with responses, "is Magister Giulia Dulcet, who is directing music for the autumn festival."

  "We have met," the librarian said swiftly as Giulia wondered. He took her hand, held it a moment, warmly, in provincial fashion. "You let me play your picochet."

  Veris lifted an eyebrow. "You have surprising talents, Master Caladrius."

  "I learned it from my father. To play for the crops."

  "To play for the crops," Giulia said slowly. "That's how my grandfather put it. On the farm." She smiled suddenly. "You have me speaking that way again. In fits and starts."

  Damiet made a rare, graceless movement beside her, a rustling fidget of skirts. "What," she asked frostily, "is a picochet?"

  "It is an ancient instrument," Master Caladrius ex plained. "Much loved by farmers. My lady."

  "So you are a land baron's son, Master Caladrius."

  "I'm hardly that, my lady."

  "Well, you are hardly a peasant. I will ask my father to find me a picochet. You will teach me to play it, Master Caladrius." The idea left Giulia groping; there was not a flicker in the librarian's opaque eyes. Damiet continued, "Now I am learning to sing opera. I will not be singing these songs, of course. Magister Barr is writing music for me. Tonight we are simply choosing the colors of my costumes."

  "So I gathered," Veris murmured, a pinprick of amusement in his eyes.

  "I am to be the heroine," Damiet continued, holding the librarian's attention with her unblinking gaze, her deliberate voice. "I will sing the most important songs, as a present to my father on his sixty-fifth birthday."

  "He will be pleased. I'm sure," the librarian said a trifle shortly. Unaccountably, Damiet did not take offense.

  "You must come and hear me sing again. I still have other colors to explain to Magister Barr. Perhaps you would have suggestions for me. As to color." She paused; they gazed at her wordlessly, transfixed in varying degrees of bewilderment. Above her, the Children of Music played sweetly in unheard realms; Song awakened the music in Voice; she turned her eyes to him, opened her lips, and brought him out of herself. Damiet's white fingers linked; her lashes descended, rose. "Veris Legere will see that you are here, the next time I sing with Magister Dulcet."

  They all shifted then, still transfixed, making small movements, discreet noises, to struggle free.

  "We still have white to get through," Giulia said breathlessly.

  "I will be pleased to help in any way that inspires you to sing," Veris murmured. "Master Caladrius will be sorting scrolls here for some time."

  Damiet extended her hand once again, her full lips parting slightly as she watched the fair, trimmed head bend over it. Giulia searched his face as he straightened, found neither humor nor calculation in it, nor any interest whatsoever. There seemed only the expressionless darkness. Damiet folded her hands again, and breathed more audibly, her eyes following the librarian as he returned to his manuscripts. She loosed him finally, looked at Giulia. Her fine, pale skin was flushed, Giulia saw; her eyes held a brighter sheen; in the depths, expression struggled to form.

  "I will sing the white song again," she said. "From the beginning. You must tell Magister Barr that the white will be a very special song. Very special. There must, beyond doubt, be a happy ending."

  Giulia sank down on the spinet stool, barely seeing the keys her fingers touched, barely hearing Damiet as she envisioned scenes of the impending disaster: the furious father, the obstinate daughter refusing to sing until she is promised her happy ending, no one able to provide one, Hexel in despair, the music director in disgrace, the festival in ruins, the librarian counting his bribe and leaving the city, or, more probably, languishing in a torture chamber beneath the palace until he is finally forgotten and the prince's daughter finds her ending far too late for anyone except herself. Giulia thought, torn between laughter and despair: I had better tell Hexel to put a librarian in the plot.

  But
, she thought more coldly a moment later. He is not a librarian. He is still a stranger. A farmer who studied with bards. A man hiding from basilisks behind my picochet. Who exactly has Damiet Pellior fallen in love with?

  Damiet finished her song and reminded Giulia: "White."

  Above her the courtly instruments played a final flourish.

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  Chapter Five

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  Reve Iridia received Caladrius coldly at first, not knowing him: the stranger in black at her door. She turned away disinterestedly, leaving Kira to shut him out.