Last Song Before Night

by Ilana C. Myer

  A rose caught Darien’s eye that was unlike the rest: in the night, it looked almost black. As blood would look by moonlight, Darien thought, and unsheathed his knife to cut it from the thorns.

  “Let’s hope the merchant doesn’t notice the theft of his precious red rose,” said Marlen. “His only one.”

  Darien smiled. Only an Academy graduate would be so metaphoric in his choice of words—alluding not just to the flower, but to its intended recipient. “Follow me,” he said. He wondered why he had felt compelled to share this experience with Marlen, who, though his closest friend, was unlikely to understand. But it was too late to reconsider. They approached the cherry tree where he and Rianna had assigned to meet.

  “How long are we to wait?” Marlen asked. He spoke in undertone, though it was unlikely that his words would reach the house from this distance. That and the music of the fountain colluded to mask their voices.

  Darien shook his head. “Why, did you have other plans tonight?”

  “I might have.”

  “It would do you good to practice ‘The Gentleman and His Love.’ I noticed you kept slipping up on one of the chords.”

  Marlen flung back his hair. “I play it exactly as it ought to be played, Aldemoor,” he said. “You’d do well to practice not smirking when we sing it. The audience is not to know it is satire until well into the third verse.”

  “I can’t help it that your bad playing amuses me,” said Darien. He grinned as he said it.

  They passed the time amiably trading insults for what seemed quite a while before the door to the house opened, and a slim white figure appeared on the steps. The moon was silver on her long hair. And then she was running, dress and hair flowing behind her as she tripped into his waiting arms. She wore a nightdress, Darien saw, and was momentarily scandalized. But she couldn’t know, he reminded himself; there had been no mother to teach her.

  “There you are,” he breathed into her hair. It was whisper-soft and smelled of jasmine, a summer scent. After a moment, he released her and presented the rose. She smiled, and even in moonlight he could see her flush. He knew Marlen would note this, and the chaste brevity of their embrace, and want an explanation. That part of it Darien didn’t want to tarnish with too much exposure to his friend’s mockery.

  “Where can we go to talk?” he asked.

  She looked down, her lower lip curling almost in a pout. “My father’s plans changed at the last moment. He’s home. Last I saw, he was even awake in his study.”

  “Awake? Now?”

  “There was—there was a murder tonight,” she said. “An associate of my father’s, in his own garden.”

  “His garden?” Marlen said sharply. “That is strange.”

  “You two have not been introduced—apologies,” said Darien. “Rianna Gelvan, meet Marlen Humbreleigh … thorn in my side since our Academy days.”

  “Pleasure,” Marlen said lazily, and kissed her hand. Rianna looked startled, but nodded and drew back her hand, her composure a testament to her impeccable upbringing. Well, almost impeccable, thought Darien. With a high neck and long sleeves, she had no doubt thought her nightdress proper enough. The less proper implications were a nuance that had not penetrated the high walls of this garden.

  Though it seemed a killer had managed to penetrate a different garden that same night.

  Darien shook his head. Strange things happened in the capital. He had lived isolated on the Academy Isle too long, his only occasional respite the nearby village—and even that was against the rules. He and Marlen had since traveled to many towns and cities in the past year, but none compared in complexity or size to Tamryllin, the queen of them all.

  “Do you think it will interfere with the Fair?” asked Rianna. Her eyes were round.

  “The death of a merchant? Surely not,” said Darien. “Sounds to me like someone had a grievance against him.” He clasped her hand. “Don’t fret, love. The contest will happen. And Marlen and I are the best, and are sure to win.”

  “Humility is not a trait in which we excel at the Academy,” drawled Marlen.

  “Oh shut up,” said Darien and laughed. “No use denying the truth, is there?”

  “All the same, there’s some stiff competition,” Marlen pointed out. “The contest brings the best people from all over the country. We know most of the people from the Academy, but there could still be surprises.”

  “Like if Valanir Ocune were to participate,” Rianna said with sudden sparkle, and it was all Darien could do not to beam proudly. He flung his arm about her shoulders as if claiming a prize; when she leaned into him, he thought she felt fragile, like a bird.

  “That would be unfair,” Marlen conceded. “Luckily, he is said to be wandering in Kahishi somewhere. Being the world’s greatest Seer must be a demanding job.”

  “Didn’t he ever win the Silver Branch?” asked Rianna, her head on Darien’s shoulder.

  “No … Valanir never entered the contest,” said Marlen. “Tales have it that he didn’t want the Branch, didn’t even want to become Court Poet. Of course, that may have been just sour grapes, since he and Court Poet Gerrard were rivals.”

  Rianna shook her head. “I doubt the Seer Valanir Ocune has time for sour grapes,” she said reprovingly, as if he had uttered heresy.

  Darien smiled. “You’d be surprised what even the greatest men have time for.”

  “As our presence here at this hour would indicate,” Marlen said with a bow. “Listen, I want to get into the house and see the space where we’ll be performing at the ball.”

  “But you’ve seen it,” said Darien. “We already performed there.”

  “Yes, but I need to see it again,” said Marlen. “Any chance your father is asleep yet?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rianna, confused. She leaned on Darien’s arm as if for support. “It seems … a risk.”

  “So much the better,” said Marlen.

  At last they agreed that Rianna would return to the house to see if her father and the servants were sleeping. And indeed, the silence within was absolute. To make certain she checked the study, and even ascended the stairs to confirm that her father’s bedroom door was closed.

  “Thanks,” Marlen said when she returned. “I’ll be just a moment.”

  Darien shook his head. “I don’t know when you became one of those poets,” he said. “The space, is it.”

  “It matters,” said Marlen, and vanished into the house.

  “Well that gives us a chance to be alone for a moment,” said Darien, and kissed Rianna’s cheek. “I only wish we were really alone—I would sing for you.”

  “Soon?” she said, and rested her head on his chest. He was the first man she had loved, Darien realized, not for the first time. He was sometimes awed when he considered this. “You will at the ball, won’t you?” she said. “Even if no one knows it’s for me.”

  “I will,” he said. “All my songs now are for you.”

  * * *

  DARIEN felt a silence come over him when Marlen returned, after he had clasped Rianna’s hand for the last time and watched her disappear into the house. In silence they crawled through the opening and into the alleyway.

  It was only when they reached the streets near their inn that Marlen asked, a note of rare uncertainty in his voice, “So what’s different this time?”

  Darien knew what he meant. So often had they helped each other in the game of seduction, seldom competing since their tastes were different. Marlen’s women tended to be unhappily in gilded marriages, dissatisfied as caged snakes. Darien gravitated to smiles, to laughter. But Rianna took him to a different place. Her eyes were still as the pools in the woodland of Academy Isle, and stirred within him a similar quietness.

  “I think I love her,” he said, shaking his head. “A Galician girl.”

  “Other than that,” said Marlen, dryly, “what’s the problem?”

  “She’s promised to another,” said Darien. “One of much more impressive lineag
e than a youngest son of Aldemoor. And her father made mention of a winter wedding.”

  “Sounds like you’ll need to move fast,” said Marlen. He looked unusually contemplative, gazing straight ahead, his long fingernail tracing the smooth carnelian stone set into his Academy ring. Perhaps that was why he did not ask Darien the obvious question: How could he be considering marriage? Darien, of all people? Only Marlen himself was worse suited for it. They had never made a formal pact, but both had assumed that the next ten years of their lives would be spent much as the previous one had been: traveling, singing, adventuring. Marriage meant one woman, one bed, one home.

  But Darien thought he’d never wanted anything more in his life than he wanted Rianna Gelvan now. Even if it meant one home. Life with her could be an adventure, lit by the gold of her hair.

  “If only we had those lost enchantments the Academy masters liked to go on about,” said Darien. “I could magic Rianna away from this place.”

  Marlen laughed. “If we had powers, Darien, you could likely conjure up an ideal woman of your own.”

  “A terrifying thought,” said Darien. “That could be a song—of a poet who uses enchantments to create his ideal woman, the havoc that ensues. There is always havoc—at least in songs—when you get your heart’s desire.”

  “Is there?” said Marlen. “I’d risk it. Though it wouldn’t be some girl.”

  Darien was only half-listening. “I’ll tell you what I need to do,” he said. “That Silver Branch is worth as much as a kingdom.”

  “You think the merchant will approve your suit if we win?”

  Darien wagged his finger at Marlen in mock reproof. “No, my Lord Humbreleigh,” he said with exaggerated courtesy. “When we win.”

  CHAPTER

  2

  ALL her life, music was a secret. It was what you stole to the cellar at midnight or the deep pine woods to play, or sing. Verse was composed in greater secrecy still, by light of a single candle after dark. Even then, Lin had to hide the burned-out candle the next day, smuggle it out to the midden heap under cover of night.

  But now music was a drinking song in a tavern performed to crowds of rough men, or more recently, a stately ballad sung to lords at their firesides. And tomorrow … tomorrow would be more than either of those things, much more.

  In the humidity of the night, the streets were choked with the scents of summer flowers. Here in the capital of Tamryllin, music was like a dancer in the fullness of her youth wearing little to conceal her beauty, flaunting everything. To Lin, it seemed profligate to make something lush and voluptuous that was meant to be a mystery.

  It was her northern upbringing, she knew; a chill she carried within her into this decadent and too-beautiful southern city. She had never expected to see it for herself. The imperial buildings by the water, glistening white as if polished a thousand times. The parade of art, from the gilded splendor of the king’s palace to the sculptures and frescoes that adorned even the humblest temples.

  The white city by the sea, it was once named, in a song made long ago by Edrien Letrell himself. The great Seer had loved the capital. Now poets named Tamryllin “the White City” for Edrien, because of words spun one night by light of a single candle. Such was the capacity of one man to influence others, centuries after he himself had died.

  “Tonight is important,” Leander was saying. He had dragged her into the tiny room they shared. “You can’t wear—that. We will need to buy you a dress. Perhaps on credit? I don’t know.”

  Lin was grateful that he did not comment on the sorry state of her clothes. For the better part of a year she had been wearing the same shirts and trousers that she had stolen from her brother’s wardrobe.

  “Leander,” she said in a calming tone, “I have a dress. Look.” She untied the bundle that lay on the bed they shared, shook free billowing folds of corn-colored silk. She stroked them with the back of her hand, and a rush of memory welled from the feel of the fabric, the bergamot scent that wisped in the air like smoke.

  Leander looked awestruck. “I always said you were highly born.”

  “You have,” she said. “An oversight on my part.”

  “In your disguise?”

  She ignored the question. “Did the approvals come in yet?”

  Leander nodded. “I stopped by the office just now. The songs are approved—we can sing them tonight.”

  “Good,” said Lin. “I wasn’t interested in recycling our old material. So we’ll meet back here in an hour to rehearse?”

  “Why? Where are you going?”

  “To get some air,” said Lin, and then almost laughed despite herself. Their inn was situated in the tanning district—the reason they could get a room to themselves—and the air was thick with the stench of the trade.

  But her business took her away from the tanners, down an alleyway shortcut she had discovered weeks earlier. Only a month they had been living in Tamryllin, absorbing the atmosphere and excitement of the Midsummer Fair … and the contest. The last time it was held, Lin had been eleven years old and unaware of its existence. Nickon Gerrard, long established now as Court Poet to the king, had been green in power. It was difficult to imagine such a time.

  Now she was at the heart of it all. This was the worst time of the year, the locals grumbled, but Lin could tell they were proud. At midsummer, thousands of merchants, traders, performers and artists from around the world converged upon the capital city. Spices and silks from Kahishi, wool from the northern hills, damask and jacquard from the southwest, jade and alabaster from the farthest east, where it was perilous to go … and through it all the wine would flow, or so Lin had been told.

  The alleyway was a narrow passage that snaked between walls of stone. The windows in the walls began very high, and were dark holes. Down some narrow, winding stairs, she found herself at a square, where an ornate fountain graced the joining of three avenues. It was sculpted with the arcane symbols of the tanning guild. Here was where the district began, and by taking the street to her left, she was leaving it behind.

  During one of her night walks around the city she had discovered a temple, but had never entered. But tonight she was to sing in the presence of the king and—even more unsettlingly—the Court Poet.

  Lin entered through bronze doors and was met with a curtain of incense and candle fumes. She had expected the place to remind her of home, had in fact been steeling herself. But it was simpler than the chapel to which she was accustomed, and brighter, as if the southland sun could pass through stone. The marble sculptures of the Three were lit with a soft gold-toned light, not the bloodless white that she recalled.

  An old woman wrapped in a shawl knelt before the statues, bent in prayer. She made no sound, and the room was still.

  The Three gods: Estarre, Kiara, and Thalion; brother and sisters. Estarre terrifyingly beautiful, sword upraised in a gesture of salute or challenge. Thalion like a male version of her, a sword in one hand, but a huge book in the other, and an emblem of balance scales carved into his helmet. These things—the book, the scales—were what linked him with his other sister, Kiara. Chill-eyed, shrouded in robes. Her distaff held close, along with the secrets of the earthly world. She stood to the left of Thalion, Estarre to his right. There was significance in this, also.

  Nearby, one of the candles had blown out in its sconce. A wisp of smoke danced a lazy spiral upward, vanishing before it could reach the mosaics that adorned vaulted ceilings far above.

  Lin’s mother had worshipped Estarre to the exclusion of the other two, which—if anyone outside the family had known—could have meant a charge of heresy. But of course, no one would ever have told.

  It was Kiara to whom Lin turned, as all poets did in Eivar. She lit a candle and set it down at the altar amid a sea of tiny flames. Each of them the same, as if all the dreams and desires of people were indistinguishable from one another. The prayer of a female poet, perhaps the only one in Eivar, no different from a mother’s prayer for her sickening
infant or a farmer’s prayer for a good harvest.

  Or in this particular part of the city, the prayer of a tanner. Lin smiled.

  A brisk sound in the silence: footsteps behind her. Lin swung around. She recognized the poet who stood there—tall and dark-haired, an ironic smile perpetually tugging at the corner of his mouth as if he enjoyed a private joke. Or perhaps that was just when he saw her.

  “Good day, Marlen Humbreleigh,” she said, softly so as not to disturb the woman who prayed.

  “It’s you,” he said without lowering his voice. “Here to pay tribute to Kiara, I suppose.”

  “It must be your perceptiveness that makes you such a successful poet.”

  “Oh, I like that!” Marlen said, and laughed. “Like ice. Very good. Well if you must know, I’m here for the same purpose. We have a performance tonight.”

  “As do we,” Lin said. “If you don’t mind, Marlen, I’d like to pray in silence.”

  “We’re at the Gelvan ball,” said Marlen. “How about you?”

  She sighed. “We are, as well.”

  Marlen narrowed his eyes, his mask of indifference slipping for a moment. “How did a ragamuffin girl get that, I wonder.”

  “The same way an arrogant, spoiled lord’s son does, I’ll wager,” said Lin, and heard, as if from far away, the cold anger of her mother in her own voice. It was always with her, a flame that she tried to hold in check under ice.

  And what would Lin’s mother have made of this man? Lin thought she might know, but was not comfortable with the thought.

  Meantime, Marlen had recovered his good humor, or at least the appearance of it. “I’ll be seeing you tonight then,” he said with a grin. “I can’t wait to see how you look in your best shirt and trousers, my dear.”

  Lin knew Leander would be furious that she had “antagonized” this paragon of success in the poets’ world—for that was how he would see it. Turning away, she knelt before the statue, bent her head, and shut her eyes as if she were alone. It was easy to forget about Marlen once she had closed her eyes. The silence returned, marred only by the guttering of candles.