Cricket's Song

by Michael A. Hooten

  “Well,” Wylla said slowly, “You do still have the money Duncan paid you. You could take a room in town, or use it to strike out on your own.”

  “The Pen Bardd said I would be a renegade.”

  Byrn smiled sadly. “It seems that you continue to be a problem, as you have from the start. I doubt he’ll be entirely happy no matter what you do.”

  Cricket left several hours later, with nothing resolved in his mind. Instead of going back to the bard’s quarters where everything reminded him of Serca, he left Taris entirely and walked in the moonlight to Uislign. He thought of going to Gorsedd Ogham, but his memories still made him shy away from the place, so he found a small clearing with a brook babbling nearby.

  He sat against a tree and pulled Linnaia out of her case. “I always end up alone,” he murmured as he tuned. He spent a moment just running his hands over the smooth wood and sharp strings of his truest lover. Harper came to mind, but the old man had not taught him how to deal with a broken heart.

  He coaxed a song from his misery, as wild as the turmoil inside. He fed magic into the notes, lighting the glen with more than moonlight. He gave the surrounding trees the illusion of giant men and women dancing around him, waving their hands in time with the wind. The women bowed first to one man, then to another, then to no one. When all the giantesses put on Serca’s face, Cricket changed the melody.

  The ghosts faded, but the magic remained, calling another audience. Glowing eyes appeared in the trees, then feral faces began creeping into the clearing. Foxes and rabbits, squirrels and owls, all sat around the bard, watching him with inhuman patience.

  A wild wolfhound joined the group, her pups tumbling around her. Cricket laughed; Trust a child not to be able to sit still, he thought. One of the puppies tottered closer, and sat watching the harpist, head cocked to one side.

  Cricket released the magic slowly, seeing animals scamper away suddenly at the recognition of their mortal enemies. The wolfhound pup stayed where he was, and the mother came up to the bard, sniffing curiously. He felt a moment of fear: up close, he realized how big she was, towering over him like a small horse. She sat back on her haunches and regarded him for a moment; Cricket stopped playing.

  She went back and nuzzled her pup, but he didn’t stop watching the bard. She came back and sniffed Cricket again, yapped once, then gathered the rest of her children and disappeared into Uislign.

  Cricket held out his hand, and the puppy came over to lick and bite it. “Did I call you?” the bard asked softly. The pup whined and scratched at his boot. “Well, I don’t know what to do with you, little one. I am lonely; I could use a friend. Are you what I need?”

  He laid Linnaia aside and scooped the puppy into his arms, receiving a tongue bath for his efforts. Cricket held the squirming animal at arm’s length. “Will you run away one day when I need you?”

  The puppy yapped and snapped at Cricket’s nose. “Alright,” the young man said, holding him close and scratching behind the ears. “Alright, we’ll try it.”

  Chapter 17: Elhonna

  Cricket took his place among the queen’s bards teulu, but he also took Wylla’s advice and found a room in a boarding house on Thatcher Street. The puppy, by virtue of his huge paws and protective nature was named CuChulainn after Glencairck’s greatest hero.

  Between his new duties and training the pup, Cricket did not have time to miss Serca much. He still woke in the middle of the night sometimes, thinking he was in a hayloft, reaching for her from the fog of memory. CuChulainn would lift his head and thump his tail until Cricket woke up enough to pet him. Thankful for the dog’s presence, the young bard would push aside his pain and go back to sleep.

  He had been in the queen’s service just over a month when she summoned him for the first time late one evening. He followed the page into a part of the palace that was unfamiliar, but only for a moment. He had been there, years before: the queen’s private apartments. But instead of the grianan, the page showed him to her bed chamber.

  Thick rugs covered the stone floor, a cheery fire burned in the cavernous fireplace, and posts covered with carvings of fantastic beasts held up the curtains of the wide bed. Elhonna sat in front of a small table to one side, brushing her long red hair. Cricket could not find a safe place for his eyes; the Pen Bardd had told him that playing for the queen would be part of his duties, but he felt uncomfortable seeing her in such an intimate setting. It did not help that she wore a simple dress that flattered her curves.

  Cricket bowed low and said, “My queen. What would you like me to play?”

  She continued brushing her hair. “Please, when we’re alone, call me Elhonna or my lady,” she said. “And play something soothing. It’s been a difficult day.”

  Sitting on the padded stool by the fire, Cricket tuned Linnaia and began “The Rose Above the Lake”.

  “No love songs,” she gently reprimanded him. “Love is at least a portion of my problems.”

  “As my lady wishes,” he murmured, switching to an ancient song of peace, the notes falling like soft rain.

  “I like that,” the queen said after a moment. “What is it?”

  “‘Day’s Dawn’,” Cricket replied. “Gwydion wrote it not long after winning the support of the faerie king and returning safely to our world.”

  “Accomplishing the impossible,” the queen sighed. She set down her brush and rang a small bell. A maid servant came in and quickly braided the long, shining tresses. When she was finished, Elhonna dismissed her and went to her couch near the fire, laying back and putting a hand over her eyes. “Advise me, bard.”

  “Yes, my lady?” Cricket said, continuing to play.

  “My councilors are pressuring me to choose an heir, even though I am young and healthy. They say that it would set the minds of the people at rest.”

  “Were something to happen to you, the country could be plunged into war,” Cricket said.

  “True. But who should I choose? There don’t seem to be many that I would trust to rule after me.”

  Cricket shrugged. “Have a child,” he suggested.

  She looked at him with wonder. “You’re serious, aren’t you? What an interesting concept.”

  “It is the traditional way of finding an heir,” he said.

  “And yet you are the first to think of it. Very good.” She sighed. “But I do not have a consort to father such an heir.”

  Cricket wrestled with prudence for a moment, but his bardic training won. “You are rumored to have many lovers,” he said. “Who fathers the child does not have to be known.” At her shocked expression, he quickly added, “This is merely a suggestion, my lady, a thought to maybe stir your mind in new directions. I would have to advise against it in the end.”

  Elhonna chuckled wickedly. “Yet you are the only person impudent enough to make such a suggestion.”

  “I am a bard, my lady,” he reminded her. “It’s my job to proclaim what others fear to whisper.”

  Cricket soon found himself playing and advising the Ard Righanna four nights out of the week. She sent summons at odd hours and for various reasons: sometimes she needed something to distract her, sometimes she wanted official advice or an opinion on policy, but often she just wanted to chat. He met her in her bed chamber, her grianan, her council chambers, or anywhere she happened to be at the moment.

  Elhonna was a woman of many moods, many of them beyond Cricket’s power to ken. He simply tried to serve her, discovering a woman who needed to be in control, and had trouble asking for help. He loved her not only as his sovereign but also as someone he liked as a person as well.

  They shared an unlikely bond: loneliness. Although Cricket did not have much of a social life, especially after Serca, and the queen took a new lover every time the whim hit her, both felt an emptiness that they acknowledged but never openly discussed.

  “How is CuChulainn?” she asked.

  “Up to my waist and still growing,” he answered. “How is Lord Ruan?”

&
nbsp; “Back in Airu with his wife, I’m afraid.”

  “You knew he couldn’t openly become your consort,” Cricket said.

  “I know, but still...” She looked into a memory and licked her lips. “He certainly was talented.”

  “My lady, please,” Cricket complained.

  She laughed at his discomfort. “I thought a bard listened to everything.”

  “It doesn’t mean we want to,” Cricket said with a grimace.

  After the Harvest Fair and Samhain, the court moved to Salwick. The first snow had come early, laying a blanket of white across the landscape, but the Ard Righanna and her noblemen made a procession that mocked the weather, traveling slowly with much singing and laughter.

  CuChulainn, now over three feet tall at the shoulder, stayed close to Cricket’s horse, his huge paws giving him good purchase on the snow. The bard himself rode several furlongs behind the queen, playing a light tune on his flute.

  An outriding kern flushed a rabbit which streaked across the snow. CuChulainn followed the brown blur with his eyes, whining softly. When no one else made a move, Cricket said, “Go.”

  The dog raced after the animal, sending up clouds of powder. The rabbit dodged, but CuChulainn recovered quickly. When the rabbit tried to turn again, the dog got a paw under it, tripping it and bringing it down. Fresh blood stained the snow and steamed in the frigid air; a few people cheered the success of the hunt, but most barely noticed.

  The queen was one that did, however. She called Cricket to her side and said, “That’s a fine hound.”

  “He is that.”

  “Fit for a queen.”

  Cricket did not meet her glance. “He is not mine to give.”

  Several people gasped, and Cricket automatically named them in his mind: two minor lords, and the wife of Lord Jaryd. People with pretensions, riding in a cluster behind the queen. Ewan MacDougall also rode close by, looking on with seemingly casual interest.

  “Perhaps you would accept a gift in return,” the queen suggested.

  “I’m sorry, your Majesty, but the dog does not belong to me.”

  Her eyes flashed dangerously. “Do you feed it? Does it sleep with you? Does it obey you?”

  Cricket looked at her calmly, although his stomach trembled. “All that and more, my queen. But he could turn on me at me at any moment, and if I tried to control him, or give him away, against his will, then I promise that my blood would be as bright as the rabbit’s.”

  “Then you are not the master?”

  The Pen Bardd sharpened his gaze, but Cricket ignored him. “And he is not the slave.”

  The queen considered this for a moment. “What if he chose to leave?”

  “Then I would be sad, and hope that he would return.”

  “You must have great faith, Cricket.”

  “Me, your Majesty?” He feigned shock. “I hold my breath every morning, wondering if the sun will rise.”

  Elhonna laughed, dissolving the tension. People resumed their conversations, and Cricket fell back in line, where CuChulainn joined him, licking his chops. The young bard ignored the speculation about him that swirled about the edges of his perception, and the hard look that the Pen Bardd directed at him. Instead, he thought of what had just happened. He had felt the pressure of magic like a mist against his ear. It had teased and tickled, trying to sap his will, and it had come from the Ard Righanna.

  The accommodations at Salwick, though not as extensive as the palace in Taris, were certainly more luxurious, and Cricket hated them. He missed his plain room on Thatcher Street, with its comfortable smell. It did not help that the chief steward had taken a personal dislike to CuChulainn almost immediately and banished him from coming inside. So Cricket found himself spending most of his free time in the stables playing with the dog. When the Mid-Winter Festival began, with its attendant bards and crossains vying for the queen’s attention, he even began sleeping in the hayloft with CuChulainn beside him.

  After the festival ended, Elhonna summoned him. He took Linnaia, but the queen stopped him as he was tuning. “I want to clear up any misunderstanding about the dog,” she said.

  Cricket shrugged, plucking a harp string. “There’s nothing to clear up.”

  “But I’m afraid I may have offended you.”

  The bard cocked an eyebrow at her. “Indeed? Well, will you pay my honor price if I am insulted?”

  The queen relaxed. “Very true,” she said. “But I still feel bad. You are one of my truest friends, Cricket, and I didn’t want you to think I was shunning you. After all, I’ve barely seen you since we arrived.”

  Did he feel a wisp of magic? “My lady,” he said, “I am well aware that mid-winter is a busy time for you, with musicians of all stripe and skill trying to turn your ear. I did not think anything was amiss.”

  “But you’re sleeping in a barn.”

  “I missed my dog.”

  She shook her head. “You need a lover.”

  “I know you have many to spare,” Cricket said, “But I hardly think that any of them would be my type.”

  “I was thinking of a woman.”

  Cricket began playing softly. “There have been offers. Taysla, the smith’s daughter, has been especially persistent.”

  “I know her,” Elhonna nodded. “She’s a beautiful girl.”

  “She’s annoying. She giggles too much.”

  Elhonna shrugged. “So enjoy her for her less annoying aspects and then move on.”

  Cricket smiled. “That’s not me at all.”

  “It would do you good.”

  “Well,” he said brightly, “What would your majesty like to hear?” And he refused to talk anymore about it.

  Cricket continued sleeping in the stables with CuChulainn, and winter dragged quietly on. The court moved back to Taris as soon as the roads cleared after the first thaw, and Cricket returned to his room on Thatcher Street gratefully.

  Even CuChulainn seemed happy to be back, prancing about and shaking the quilt with his teeth. “Salwick was rough, eh boy?” Cricket said, wrestling with the big dog. CuChulainn let go of the blanket and started licking his face.

  “Alright already!” Cricket laughed, pushing him away. “I love too, but your breath stinks!”

  CuChulainn barked once and continued to bathe his friend.

  Spring made both of them restless, and Cricket arranged to take a few days off in the month before Beltain. He took CuChulainn to Tailtiu, a royal forest on the other side of Uislign, where they hunted deer with the queen’s permission.

  The big gray dog, hair shaggy with winter growth, had finally stopped growing after reaching the size of a small pony, and he reveled in the action. The first two days he seemed content simply to race his quarry, tongue lolling happily while the bucks he paced rolled their eyes in fear and tossed their antlers. Cricket laughed as he watched, thankful that he had thought to bring food enough for several days.

  The second night, lying beside the fire, Cricket said, “Tomorrow is the last day, boy. If you don’t bring home a deer, everyone will laugh at you.”

  CuChulainn snorted at what other people thought and continued to chew on the dried fish Cricket had given him. He looked up suddenly, ears alert. Standing, he walked over to Cricket stiffly, all of his hair on end and a low growl in his throat.

  Staring into the darkness, Cricket wondered if he should pull out Linnaia, his only real weapon. He reached for the harp just as a shadow appeared at the edge of the light.

  Cricket thought it was a bear at first, but as the figure came into the circle, he realized that it was simply the biggest man he had ever seen. Twice as tall as Cricket, and more than three times as wide, he carried a rowan staff as thick as the young bards’s thigh. He wore no tunic, but his long, tangled black beard covered his hairy chest, with the end tucked into his belt.

  Cricket could feel the magic all around him, and guessed that his visitor was something other than human.

  “Well, little one,” the big m
an said. “It looks like your hunt has been unsuccessful.”

  Cricket stood slowly and bowed. “My hunt has accomplished its goals,” he replied. “Fresh air, and a chance to escape the confines of the city for awhile.”

  “Noble goals,” the man rumbled. “But a deer would be a better reward.”

  Cricket smiled and put a hand on CuChulainn’s neck. “My hound and I were just discussing it.”

  Glancing at the dog, the man grunted, “He is a wise animal.” He squatted on the ground and began tracing a pattern with the end of his staff. Looking up after a moment, he said, “Perhaps you would like to hunt with me tomorrow? My realm is not far, and is full of fat game.”

  Cricket felt the rush of wings and the grip of ghostly talons on each shoulder, and a name entered his mind. “Regretfully, I must decline,” he replied. “The hosts of Faerie are dangerous, especially when generous. The Dagda is rumored to be the most honest, but I must heed the wisdom of the ancients.”

  “It’s what we deserve, I suppose,” the giant snorted. “Very well, then, I will simply tell you what I came to tell you: beware, for there are those who array themselves against you.”

  “A riddle?”

  “A warning,” the Dagda replied.

  “Why would a warrior of Faerie warn a simple bard?”

  A smile appeared above the beard. “You are anything but simple, and others know it as well as I.”

  “Would this involve the faerie woman who is known as Fairlin?”

  “She is one. But there are people of your own world, too.”

  Frowning, Cricket said, “Can you give me a name?”

  “I cannot. There are some who would say that I’ve told too much already.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  The Dagda sighed. “The point is that of any warning: to alert you to danger.”

  “But you won’t tell me what the danger is exactly.”

  “Are you always this disrespectful?”

  Cricket thought of the past season and grinned. “It would seem so.”