“Morning,” Brate drawled.
“Water,” was all Lord Conway could gasp out. Brate sidled to the hut and returned with a cup in his hand for the weary traveler. Conway gulped it down, splashing the front of his high-collared shirt. Brate kept himself from sneering, instead keeping his dislike of the Lord hidden beneath an impassive expression. Composing himself, the Lord took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face and mouth before looking at Brate in the eye.
“I need to borrow your horse, lad, for my return home.” He coughed and delicately wiped his mouth with his handkerchief again. Brate turned and spit to the side.
“That’s why you came here?” he asked, masking the irritation rising in his voice.
“Ah, no. I hear you can sing like a seraph, my boy. I need to, ah, borrow your talents for a dinner I’m hosting in three days. My daughter has come of age, you see, and I promised her a celebration. All the Lords will be there. It will be good exposure for you.”
It would at that. Yet the term “borrow” bothered him.
“It will cost you, my Lord,” he said. “I can’t leave my farm for nothing.”
“Yes, of course. You see, I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for your reputation, lad.” His eyes flashed for an instant. “My own preference wouldn’t be for a farmer to sing for my tables.” The flash was gone, and anger roiled in Brate’s stomach. Patience, that was the key to controlling your temper, his Ma had said. One day, all things would right themselves out, and the Lords would sup at the same table as the commoner.
“Then why not ask someone else?” Brate took a step back, reaching for Fin’s ears and rubbing them between his fingers.
“Via insists it be you,” he answered. “She won’t have anyone else... she was very specific.”
Via must be his daughter and had heard of him from the village. The anger simmered to pride. “Be that as it may,” Lord Conway continued, “how much for your services, my young minstrel?”
“Six frills,” Brate said, naming an exorbitant amount of money. The Lord didn’t even blink.
“Done.” They shook on it, and satisfaction replaced the anger. That had been almost too easy.
“Your horse?” the Lord asked. “You can bring him back when you come for the party. Sadly mine lost a shoe on the way here. I must retrieve him and take him to the forgemaster.”
“My horse is unavailable,” Brate replied. “He has come down with the snortings. You may use my mule, and I apologize for the inconvenience.”
The look on the Lord’s face almost made Brate laugh. The Lord swallowed and said, “My thanks, Hightower.”
Brate watched the Lord of Meadow Grove disappear down the road, lopsided on the mule. Something burst forth from his soul, an amusement that couldn’t be contained. Brate laughed until he couldn’t breathe. Even the cows stopped their grazing to look at him quizzically. Composing himself, Brate went into his hut, shaking his head. What would his Ma have done? Probably thwacked him on the ear with her fingers for being rude. Yet despite that, she probably would have laughed, too.
TIME PASSED ONE AGONIZING second after another, and Brate trudged through them like he was battling a smog, the rank waters slowing him. When the third day dawned, he tested the instrument in his hands. Plucking the bungle’s ten strings, he tightened them to the right tune and then slung it across his back. He left the hut for Lord Conway’s estates.
Fin watched him go, a forlorn look on his shaggy face. The sad dog probably thought Brate might not return, just like Father and Ma before him. He wished there was some way to settle the dog’s nerves, but when he looked back, the dog had already laid on the ground, head resting on his paws. Satisfied, Brate focused on the task at hand.
The Lord’s estates were two miles north of the village, and the village itself was a few miles from Brate’s hut. All the sprawling land, from Brate’s to the eastern Wall’s farm, to the western foothills, belonged to the Conway family. What must it be like to be born to the high bred, those whose wealth seemed so great it was beyond comprehension? However, the Conways were only considered a middling family in the Green Lands, though he found it hard to imagine anyone else who could hold more lands and wealth than they.
His father had once told him of the Lands to the east, and the shining cities of the Broken Lands. He had spoken of the Great Plains, stretching as far as the eye could see, and the Midlanders who dwelt there. You were either dirt poor, with barely a frac to your name, or you were wealthy and pompous, with the world at your fingertips.
He would see it all one day. He would dine in the halls of the Flatland King in the Bright Lands, playing for his court. He would see the mermaids bursting from the sea, their beauty beyond description. It was said that one glance at a mermaid would cause a man to fling himself into the ocean and drown, just to be with her. He would then make it through the web to the lands of the Jin’tai and learn their secrets and dazzle them with his skill. They would throw their knowledge at his feet.
His musings were cut short as he ventured onto the land of the Pallow brothers, eyes alert for any sign of them. They were fierce and protective of their stock, and the lowing of their cattle filtered around the bend in the road.
Sure enough, he saw the livestock grazing to his left. Instead of the brothers, the smallest of them all, their sister Moe, was sitting under a tree, fiddling with a stick. She saw Brate coming down the road and leapt to her feet, a toothy grin filling her face.
“Brate!” she screeched, running to him. Only two years younger than him, yet a bit addled in the head, Moe had struck up a friendship with Brate over the years. They kept it a secret from her brothers, who surely would have protested and made life even more miserable for him.
“Morning, Moe. Where are your brothers?” he asked, searching for the surly brutes among the cattle.
“Gone,” she answered, shrugging. She grinned at him again and swatted him with the stick. One of her front teeth had been knocked out. When he had asked her about it, she had shut her mouth tight and refused to tell him how it had happened. It was probably the work of one of her brothers who snagged it accidentally, yet knowing their natures... maybe it hadn’t been an accident.
“Good,” he answered. “Look, I have to be on my way. Don’t tell them you saw me.”
“Wanna come,” she answered, pouting and crossing her arms, not budging from the road.
“You have to stay and watch your cattle,” he told her, but she shook her head, red hair tossing about her dark face.
“Don wanna. Boys watch ‘em. Wanna come with you.”
“I have to go to Lord Conway’s estates,” he told her, and the darkness that flashed across her face let him know he had used the right reasoning. “You don’t want to go there, right?”
“No.” She shuddered. “Lord is a bad man.”
“Yes, so stay here.”
“Okay.”
Brate patted her on the shoulder and moved around her on the road. As he walked on he felt her eyes on his back, but as soon as he rounded the next bend, the feeling dissipated. He hoped she would keep her mouth shut, and judging from the past, she probably would. If the brothers found out Brate was gone from his land, they might try to steal some of his sheep. Fin would try to ward them off, but there wasn’t much one dog could do against five large, gruff men.
As he traversed the road, something moved in the underbrush to his right. A faint stirring, and then the snapping of a twig as if from a medium-sized dog.
Watch your stock, Brate, Gillum Castlelong had told him not a fortnight ago. There is something in these woods. Sheep have gone missing, their bones found picked clean. You’re far south... maybe it won’t get to your place. But mind you, the stories are the Rift is opening again. And we all know what that means.
Brate didn’t know what that meant, except it wasn’t ever good. The rumors were of dark beasts, the madness that took your mind, and the Liar reaching his grasp into the sphere of man. Inklings, really, more tha
n rumors. Ever since the last Steward had nearly burned the Lands to the ground, the Rift had stayed closed. At least, as far as anyone knew.
The snap startled Brate again, and he jumped back as a doe raced across his path. Heart pounding, he caught a laugh in his throat. He had been afraid of a deer? His heart settled into a soft rhythm once more, and his thoughts of the Rift faded.
As Brate continued his journey, he sang to warm up his voice. He could sing well, and the girls in the village seemed to think he was handsome. It seemed that most people fell under an enchantment as soon as he opened his mouth. Maybe it was the timbre or the pitch of his voice, or maybe both. Whatever the case, he knew he could charm anyone who listened. Even the birds fell silent as he passed and sang the Lost Song of Meladoria in Common. It didn’t sound as good as when sung in the Early tongue, but the translation was well enough.
The village came upon him almost in secret, and he shook himself out of his daydreams and song. Clamping his mouth shut, he skirted the forgemaster’s shop. Gillum Castlelong pounded a hot blade with a hammer, sweat glistening off his taut arms. The huge man glanced up from his work and grinned at Brate before turning back to the flames. Gillum was a good man, with an easy-going manner endearing him to most of the people in the village, except the Pallows. But that was normal around here. Nobody got along with them much, if at all.
The village was small, and even though it was only mid-morning, it was still bustling with activity. The old spinster, Ma Gorgetrek, had a line out her door of women waiting to see her. Most were probably there to get their medicines and have the old healer check on their pregnancies, predicting whether the babes would be healthy at birth or not. The tavern beside her had a few patrons even though it was early, and as he passed, Brate craned his neck for a glance inside. He was old enough by Westlandian standards to try the firedrink, but he had seen how his father had been addicted to the stuff. Bit by bit, it had stolen his time, money, and affections. What was the draw to down a huge tankard of the foul-smelling brew that burned as it went to your belly? It defied common sense.
As he approached the outskirts of the town, a mop of red hair exited the moneyteller’s store. Brate ducked and turned, entering the temple doors to his right, peeking out to watch Forstran Pallow saunter down the road. The man took his time, and Brate glanced behind him into the temple, wishing he hadn’t entered.
The drake’s whispered prayers behind him at the altar made him nervous. Three boys, not much older than him, bowed prostrate before the looming Star, its eight dimensions sparkling in the light. His Ma had told him the Star represented the eight characteristics of the Creator, although Brate couldn’t remember all of them. Love, Grace, Truth, Virtue... what were the rest? His father hadn’t been one to put much stock in the teachings of the drakes. Instead, Father’s religious fascination was honed toward the Covenwitches whose mystery and dark aura gave Brate a shiver whenever he saw one, which thankfully wasn’t often.
Forstran was out of sight, and Brate scurried out of the temple and down the road, jogging through the village until he left it behind. If he had been a praying man, he would have asked the Star for Moe to keep her promise and not tell her brothers he had left his farm. Instead, he hedged his bets that she would keep her mouth shut.
Chapter Four
Brate Hightower
The Lord’s estate sprawled across a beautiful stretch of land, bordered by a forest expanding up the side of a small mountain. Brate paused on the road. His vantage point allowed him to see the valley and observe the mansion that looked miniscule from far away. The beauty of the estates never ceased to amaze him. Usually the Lord sent collectors to take the tax from his landworkers, but on some occasions, Brate brought the tax himself.
On the road behind him, a carriage rumbled. Stepping aside, he watched as it swept down the road. It was nondescript, painted with black pitch, dark curtains covering the windows. He had seen such a carriage once before, pulled by black horses much like the ones bearing toward him.
Covenwitches. Why had the Lord invited some to his daughter’s celebration?
The carriage swept past, leaving a swirl of dust in its wake. Brate covered his mouth with his sleeve until the dirt settled once more and then followed the grooves left by years of traveling wheels. He adjusted the strap of his case which carried his instrument. The bungle wasn’t heavy, but traveling for several miles with it slung on his back made it heavier with every mile that passed.
Sweat trickled down his brow, and Brate lifted a hand to wipe it away. It seemed this summer was especially hot, and he had heard Ma Gorgetrek saying it had been the hottest in fifty years. That seemed a bit extreme to him. Nonetheless, he would trade one of his good sheep for a tall glass of water and a cool breeze.
As he approached Lord Conway’s mansion, his feet grew heavy and nausea rolled in his stomach. He didn’t belong here. It was a tickling in the back of his mind, and the closer he approached, the stronger it became. He stopped dead in his tracks on the front yard, gazing up at the towering house before him, heart hammering in his chest. He couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. In his mind he pictured the six frills, but still he was transfixed. As if on cue, the white door opened wide and Lord Conway stepped through. When he saw Brate, his eyes narrowed and he gestured for Brate to come closer.
Too late to turn around now.
He picked up his pace and climbed the stairs leading to the front door.
“There you are!” Lord Conway said, grabbing Brate’s arm and pulling him in. “Don’t bother with the servant’s entrance...” he muttered something indistinct and continued dragging Brate through the entryway, down a long and bright corridor, and finally into a large dance hall. Brate had no time to protest before he was hit with the scent of roasting pig. His mouth instantly watered.
Before him, the room stretched on, filled with people feasting. The tables were arranged around a large dais prepared for the entertainers. Even now a joker did tricks, delighting a table of young women seated the closest to him, who giggled behind their fans. Seated next to them were what appeared to be the young women’s parents, talking quietly, trying to pretend they didn’t find the joker entertaining. At the end was a dark clad witch, eating her food with poise. Brate almost turned around and dashed from the hall, but the scent of roasting meat and the promise of coin in his pockets propelled him forward.
Lord Conway was irritated, complaining about Brate’s tardiness as he led him to a table full of wine and all manner of drinks. A bucket of ice, the large cube starting to melt, glistened with condensation. Brate’s jaw dropped. Ice in this heat? How had he managed that? It must have cost a fortune. A servant stood behind it, knife in hand, ready to cut the ice into smaller bits for the drinks. Lord Conway must have seen his gaze, for the man dragged Brate over to the table, huffing, “Come, come, get refreshment and fill your belly as quick as you can. March spritely, lad!”
Brate quaffed the wine handed to him, ice chips and all. He got a second draft and then was passed off to another servant who ushered him to a table off to the side, where the entertainers sat. Sitting beside a rather large, ponderous man, Brate ate as quick as he could while the joker finished his act. With a bow and flourish, the joker descended to a scattering of applause.
“You’re up!” the servant said, gesturing to the stage. Brate stuffed the last bit of bread into his mouth and ascended the stairs to the platform. There was a seat brought for him, but the hall remained abuzz with light chatter and clinking of forks against plates. For a moment he had a chance to see who was present.
Many a Lord dotted the hall, and considering there were only thirty in the Green Lands, it was a feat indeed for Lord Conway to have brought them together. Brate counted six with their entourages. But what made him the most nervous was the witch, whose eyes were fixed on him with curiosity. She was pretty, with her hair pulled back in a simple bun, and her black dress fitting every groove of her frame. She couldn’t have been much older than
him, maybe by six or seven winters. If she hadn’t been a witch, he probably would have tried to wink at her at some point during his performance. Instead, he suppressed a shudder and dropped his eyes.
Brate tested the strings of the bungle, playing some scales before he cleared his throat and started to sing. The song was familiar, sung throughout the halls of many estates, yet the room quieted. The music was upbeat, and as his fingers flew across the strings, the notes and rhythm flooding his soul.
He picked up the pace, tapping his foot in beat. With a flourish, he held out the last note and then plucked the last string. Silence filled the hall. Soon, voices called out for more, and he looked up to see the table of girls staring at him with adoration. Which was Lord Conway’s daughter? No matter, he smiled at them all.
He played three more well-known songs, and then ended his set with The Ballad of Ortonfrohn. His Ma had taught it to him in the ancient tongue, and instead of translating it to Common, he sang it in the original language. Once again the hall quieted.
It told the story of a young man who had ventured to the Southern Islands, only to lose his life to the sea, entranced with the mermaids he saw there. Yet after his death, he had incarnated to a merman because of his love for the golden-haired Ortonfrohn, whose beauty was said to have no rival in any Time. There they remained still, dancing in the waves together until eternity.
As he finished, his voice ringing soft yet strong, the hall erupted in thunderous applause. Standing, he bowed low and exited the dais. The applause continued until he was forced to do one more ditty, this time something familiar once again. Several times this happened, until finally Lord Conway intervened and brought on the next entertainer.
Exhausted, his voice strained, Brate drank once again and began to finish his meal.
“You sing beautifully,” a deep yet feminine voice said behind him. The hair on the back of his neck stood up, and he turned, the roasted pig a lump in his mouth. Swallowing, he looked the witch in her eyes.
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