Ansset thought of Mikal, wondered what he was going through. It was not vanity but recognition of the truth when Ansset concluded for the hundredth time that Mikal would be frantic, yet bound by pride and the necessities of government to show nothing at all. Surely, though, surely Mikal would spare no effort hunting for him. Surely Mikal would come and take him back.
The floor rocked gently as they walked down the wooden corridor. Ansset had long since decided he was imprisoned on a ship, though he had never been on a boat larger than the canoe he had learned to row on the pond near the palace. The amount of real wood used in it would have seemed gaudy and pretentious in a rich man's home. Here, however, it seemed only shabby. Peasant rights and nothing more.
Far above he could hear the distant cry of a bird, and a steady singing sound that he imagined to be wind whipping through ropes and cables. He had sung the melody to himself sometimes, and often harmonized to it.
And then Master opened the door and with a mocking bow indicated that Ansset should enter first. The boy stopped in the doorframe. Gathered around a long table were twenty or so men, some of whom he had seen before, all of them dressed in one of the strange national costumes of the past-worshipping people of Earth. Ansset couldn't help remembering how Mikal mocked such people when they came to court to present demands or ask for favors. All these ancient costumes, Mikal would say as he lay with Ansset on the floor, staring into the fire. All these ancient costumes mean nothing. Their ancestors weren't peasants, most of them. Their ancestors were the wealthy and effete from boring worlds who came back to Earth hunting for some meaning. They stole the few peasant customs that remained, and did shoddy research to discover some more, and thought that they had found truth, As if shitting in the grass is somehow nobler than doing it into a converter.
The great civilizations such people claimed to belong to were petty and insignificant to those who had come to think on a galactic scale. But here, where Ansset looked closely into their rough faces and unsmiling eyes, he realized that whatever these people's ancestors might have been, they had acquired the strength of primitiveness, and they reminded him of the vigor of the Songhouse. Except that their muscles were massive with labor that would have astonished a singer. And Ansset stood before them soft and white and beautiful and vulnerable and, despite his Control, was afraid.
They looked at him with the same curious, knowing, lustful look that Master had given him. Ansset knew that if he allowed the slightest hint of cringing into his manner, they would be encouraged. So he stepped farther into the room, and nothing about his movement showed any sign of the embarrassment and fear that he felt. He seemed unconcerned, his face as blank as if he had never felt any emotion in his life.
Up on the table! roared Master behind him, and hands lifted him onto the wood smeared with spilled wine and rough with crumbs and fragments of food. Now sing, ye little bastard.
And so he closed his eyes and shaped the ribs around his lungs, and let a low tone pass through his throat. For two years he had not sung except at Mikal's request. Now he sang for Mikal's enemies, and perhaps should have torn at them with his voice, made them cringe before his hatred. But hatred had not been born in Ansset, nor had his life bred it into him, and so he sang something else entirely. Sang softly without words, holding back the tone so that it barely reached their ears.
Louder, someone said, but Ansset ignored him, and soon the jokes and laughter died down as the men strained to hear.
The melody was a wandering one, passing through tones and quartertones easily, gracefully, still low in pitch, but rising and falling rhythmically. Unconsciously Ansset moved his hands in the strange gestures that had accompanied all his songs since he had opened his heart to Esste in the High Room. He was never aware of the movements -In fact, he had been puzzled by a notice in a Philadelphia newspaper that he had read in the palace library: To hear Mikal's Songbird is heavenly, but to watch his hands dance as he sings is nirvana. It was a prudent thing to write in the capital of Eastamerica, not two hundred kilometers from Mikal's palace. But it was the vision of Mikal's Songbird held by all those who thought of him at all, and Ansset did not understand, could not picture what they saw.
He only knew what he sang, and now he began to sing words. They were not words of recrimination, but rather the words of his captivity, and the melody became high, in the soft upper notes that opened his throat and tightened the muscles at the back of his head and tensed the muscles along the front of his thighs. The notes pierced, and as he slid up and down through haunting thirdtones, his words spoke of the dark, mysterious guilt he felt in the evenings in his dirty, shabby prison. His words spoke of his longing for Father Mikal (though he never spoke his name, not in front of these men), of dreams of the gardens along the Susquehanna River, and of lost, forgotten days that vanished from his memory before he awoke.
Most of all, though, he sang of his guilt.
At last he became tired, and the song drifted off into a whispered dorian scale that ended on the wrong note, on a dissonant note that faded into silence that sounded like part of the song.
Finally Ansset opened his eyes. Even when he sang for an audience he neither liked nor wanted to sing for, he could not help but give them what they wanted. All the men who were not weeping were watching him. None seemed willing to break the mood, until a youngish man down the table said in a thick accent, Ah but thet were better than hame and mitherma. His comment was greeted by sighs and chuckles of agreement, and the looks that met Ansset's eyes were no longer leering and lustful, but rather soft and kind. Ansset had never thought to see such looks in those coarse faces.
Will ye have some wine, boy? asked Master's voice behind him, and Husk poured. Ansset sipped the wine, and dipped a finger in it to cast a drop into the air in the graceful gesture he had learned in the palace. Thank you, he said, handing back the metal cup with the same grace he would have used with a goblet at court. He lowered his head, though it hurt him to use that gesture of respect to such men, and asked, May I leave now?
Do you have to? Can't you sing again? It was as if the men around the table had forgotten that Ansset was their prisoner. And he, in turn, refused them as if he were free to choose. I can't do it twice. I can never do it twice. Not for them, anyway. And for Mikal, all songs were different, and every one was new.
They lifted him off the table then, and Master's strong arms carried him back to his room. Ansset lay on the bed after the door locked shut, his Control easing, letting his body tremble. The last song he had sung before this had been for Mikal. A light and happy song, and Mikal had smiled the soft, melancholy smile that only touched his face when he was alone with his Songbird. And Ansset had touched Mikal's hand, and Mikal had touched Ansset's face, and then Ansset had left to walk along the river.
Ansset drifted off to sleep thinking of the songs in Mikal's gray eyes, humming of the firm hands that ruled an empire and yet could still stroke the forehead of a beautiful child and weep at a sorrowful song. Ah, sang Ansset in his mind, ah, the weeping of Mikal's sorrowful hands.
8
Ansset awoke walking down a street.
Out of the way, ya chark! shouted a harsh accent behind him, and Ansset dodged to the left as a cart zipped passed his right arm. Sausages, shouted a sign on the case behind the driver.
Then Ansset was seized by a terrible vertigo as he realized that he was not in the cell of his captivity, that he was fully dressed, though not in the clothing of the Songhouse. He was alive and free of his captors and the quick joy that realization brought was immediately soured by a rush of the old guilt, and the conflicting emotions and the suddenness of his liberation were too much for him, and for a moment too long he forgot to breathe, and the darkening ground slid sideways, tipped up, hit him-- Hey, boy, are you all right? Did the chark slam you, boy? I got the number of the cart. We can get him! He's comin' around and to. Ansset opened his eyes. Where is this place? he asked softly.
Why, this is Northet, they said.
How far is the palace? Ansset asked, vaguely remembering that he had heard of Northet as a suburb of Hisper.
The palace? What palace?
Mikal's palace-I must go to Mikal- Ansset tried to get up, but his head spun and he staggered. Hands held him up.
The kit's kinky, that's what. Mikal's palace. It's only sixty kilometer, boy, should I have 'em hold supper for you? The joke brought a burst of laughter, but Ansset had regained Control and he pulled away from the hands holding him and stood alone. Whatever drug had kept him unconscious was now nearly worked out of his system. Find me a policeman, Ansset said. Mikal will want to see me immediately.
Some still laughed, but others looked carefully at Ansset, perhaps noticing that he spoke without an Eastamerican accent, that his bearing was not that of a streetchild. Who are you, boy? one asked.
I'm Ansset, Mikal's Songbird.
They looked, realized that the face was the one pictured in the papers; half of them ran off to find authorities who could handle the situation, while the other half stayed to look at his face, to realize how beautiful his eyes were, to hold the moment so they could tell about it to their children and grandchildren. I saw Ansset himself, Mikal's Songbird, they would say, and when their children asked , What was Mikal's Songbird? they would answer, ah, he was beautiful, he was the most valuable of all the treasures of Mikal the Terrible, the sweetest face you ever saw, and songs that could bring rain out of the sky or a flower from the deep of the snow.
They reached out, and he touched their hands, and smiled at them, and wondered how they wanted him to act-embarrassed at their awe, or accustomed to it? He read the songs in their voices as they murmured, Songbird, and Thank you, and Lovely. And decided that they wanted him to be poised, to be beautiful and gracious and distant so their worship would be uninterrupted. Thank you, Ansset said, thank you. You've all helped me. Thank you.
The policemen came, apologizing effusively for how dirty their flesket was, that it was the only one in the station, and please take a seat. They did not take him to the station; rather they took him to a pad where a flit from the palace waited. The Chamberlain got out. Yes, it's him, he said to the police, and then reached for Ansset's hand. Are you all right? he asked.
I think so, Ansset said, suddenly aware that something might be wrong with him. He was inside the flit; the doors closed; the ground seemed to push up on him and he was airborne, heading for the palace. For Mikal.
9
The child is becoming impatient, said the Captain, I really don't give a damn, said the Chamberlain. And Mikal is also impatient. The Chamberlain said nothing, Just stared back at the Captain.
All I'm saying, Chamberlain, is that we have to hurry. The Chamberlain sighed. I know. But the child's a monster. I was married once, you know.
The Captain hadn't known, but did not care. He shrugged.
I had a boy. When he was eleven he was mischievous, a little devil, but so transparent you could see through him no matter how he tried to deceive. Even when he tried to conceal his feelings, you could tell exactly what he was trying to conceal. But this boy.
They train them to school their emotions in the Song-house, the Captain said.
Yes, the Songhouse. I marvel at their teaching. The child can hide any emotion he wants to. Even his impatience-he chooses to show it, and then shows nothing else.
But you have hypnotized him.
Only with the aid of drugs. And when I start mucking around in his mind, Captain, what do I find?
Walls.
Walls. Someone has built blocks in his mind that I can't get through. The Captain smiled. And you insisted on conducting the interrogation yourself.
The Chamberlain glared. To be frank, Captain, I didn't trust your men. It was your men who were supposed to be guarding him that day.
It was the Captain's turn to get angry. And you know who ordered them to keep completely out of sight! They watched the whole thing through ops and couldn't get there before they had taken him off underwater. The whole search was just a second too late all the way!
That's the problem, the Chamberlain said. A second too late.
You've failed at the interrogation! Mikal wants his Songbird back! I will interrogate the boy!
The Chamberlain glowered a moment, then turned away, All right. And much as it pains me to say so, I honestly hope you succeed.
The Captain found Ansset sitting on the edge of a couch that flowed aimlessly around him. The boy looked up at him without interest.
Again, the Captain said.
I know, Ansset said. The Captain had brought a tray of syringes and slaps. As he prepared the first slap, he talked to Ansset. Trying, he supposed, to put the boy at ease, though whether the boy was nervous or not was impossible to tell.
You know that Mikal wants to see you.
And I want to see him, Ansset said.
But you were held for five months by someone who was probably not a friend of the emperor.
I've told you everything I know.
I know it. We have recordings, I think we know everything about what you did in the evenings. Every word the crew of the boat spoke to you. You're a marvelous mimic. Our experts are studying the accent of the crew right now. Your memory of the faces has our artists busy reconstructing them. Everything you've told us has been in perfect detail. You're an ideal witness.
Ansset showed no emotion, not even a sigh. Yet we go through this again.
The trouble is, Ansset, what went on during the days. You have blocks-
The Chamberlain's told me. I knew it already.
And we must get behind them.
I want you to. You have to believe me, Ansset said. I want to know. I don't want to be a threat to Mikal, I'd rather die than harm him. But I'd also rather die than leave him.
The words were strong. The voice was flat and empty. Not even a song in it, Is that because of a commitment from the Songhouse? I'm sure they'd understand.
Ansset looked at him. Captain. The Songhouse would accept me back at any time.
Ansset, one of the reasons we can't get through the blocks in your mind is because you aren't helping.
I'm trying to.
Ansset, I don't know how to say this. Most of the time your voice is natural and human and you react like any other person might. But now, when we need to communicate with you more than ever before, you are frozen. You're completely unreachable. You haven't shown an emotion since I came in here.
Ansset looked surprised. The very fact of even that mild reaction made the Captain's breath quicken in excitement. Captain, aren't you using drugs?
The drugs are the last resort, Ansset, and you can still resist them. Perhaps whoever put the blocks in your mind gave you help in resisting them. The drugs can only get us partway into you. And then you resist us every step of the way.
Ansset regarded him a little more, as if digesting the information. Then he turned away, and his voice was husky as he said, What you're asking me to do is lose Control.
The Captain knew nothing of Control. He only heard control, and did not understand the difficulty of what he was asking,
That's right.
And it's the only way to find out what's been hidden in my mind?
Yes, said the Captain.
Ansset was silent a moment more. Am I really a danger to Mikal?
I don't know. Perhaps whoever took you found you as hard to cope with as we have. Perhaps there's nothing hidden in your mind, except a memory of who the kidnappers were. Perhaps they had meant to hold you for ransom, then realized they'd never get away with it alive and spent the rest of the time trying to conceal who they were. I don't know. But perhaps behind those blocks are instructions for you to kill Mikal. If they wanted to pick a perfect assassin, they couldn't do better than you. No one but you sees Mikal every day in intimate circumstances. No one has his trust. The very fact that he pleads with us to bring you to him, to hurry the interrogation and let him see you- You can see what a dang
er you might be to him.
For Mikal's sake, then, Ansset said. And the Captain was astounded by how quickly Ansset's Control broke. Tell Mikal, said Ansset, as his face twisted with emotion and tears began to flow, that I'll do anything for him. Even this. And Ansset wept, great sobs wracking his body, weeping for the months of fear and guilt and solitude. Weeping at the knowledge that he might never see Mikal again. The Captain watched, incredulous, as for an hour Ansset could not communicate at all, just lay on the couch like a little child, babbling and rubbing his eyes. He knew that from the observation stations the other interrogators would be watching in awe at how quickly the Captain had broken through barriers that even drugs had not been able to breach. The Captain felt a delicious hope that the Chamberlain had been watching, too.
And then Ansset became relatively calm, and the Captain began the questioning, using every clever trick he could think of to get behind the barriers. He tried every indirection he had ever heard of. He tried all the dazzling thrusts that had shattered walls before. But even now, with Ansset cooperating fully, nothing could be done at all. Not even in the deepest trance was Ansset able to speak what had been hidden in his mind. The Captain learned only one thing. He asked, while questioning around the skirts of one block, Who placed this barrier here?
And Ansset, so deep in the trance that he could hardly speak, said, Esste.
The name meant nothing to the Captain at the time. But that name was all he got. An hour later he and the Chamberlain stood before Mikal.
Esste, Mikal said.
That's what he said.
Esste, Mikal said, is the name of the Songmaster of the High Room. His teacher in the Songhouse.
Oh.
These blocks you have so lovingly spent four days trying to break were placed there years ago by his teachers! Not by kidnappers only in the last few months!
We had to be sure.
Yes, Mikal said. You had to be sure. And we're not sure now, of course. If the barriers were placed in his mind by his teacher, why can't he remember how he spent his days daring his captivity? We can only conclude that some blocks come from the Songhouse, and some blocks from his captors. But what can we do about it?
Songmaster Page 13
