“I thought we were working on songs not fit for celibates,” I laughed.
“Oh, not for the festival. I just want to know it,” she said. “Is it something from the monastery?”
“Yes,” I said, “but it's not forbidden to lay singers, if that's what you mean. Certainly I could teach you. But I doubt it will play as well in the Golden Chain as ‘The Lady Knight-at-Arms.’ ” Being asked about the monastery reminded me of Turl and Torrin. “By the way,” I said, “did you notice who was at the screened table last night at supper? That merchant I met at the White Cat. He keeps asking me questions.”
“What sort of questions?” Hwyn said. “Do you think he suspects—”
“Nothing of that sort,” I reassured hurriedly. “Questions about me, my education, what languages I know. I don't think he even noticed y— noticed we were together.”
She caught the slip, smiling sardonically. “Sometimes there are advantages to being beneath notice.”
“Well, if he didn't notice you last night, he has no ear for music,” I said.
“Is he still trying to hire you to tutor his son?”
“More like toying with the idea. He'd be mad to suggest it seriously, with nothing to tell him what I'd been or what I was running from but a patched clerical cassock.”
“All the same,” Hwyn said, squinting at me as if to see into me, “he'd be right if he did. He could trust you. And you'd be good at it.”
It seemed a strange thing to say, unless she were having second thoughts about our partnership. Small wonder if she were; I could not deny that she bore the greater weight of both work and song. “Well,” I said uncomfortably, “that may be so, but he'll never find out.”
On our third evening in the Golden Chain, as I was bringing the locals their fourth or fifth beers, I heard the door bang open and a familiar voice call, “Well, ex-priest, I hope you've saved some of that for us! It's thirsty weather.” Turl and his sons swept into a table just quitted by a handful of students. I was grateful when Hwyn launched into one of the seafaring songs I'd taught her, so that I could join in singing and be unable to answer questions as I brought the merchant strong beer for himself and small beer for the boys.
Later in the evening, however, as I brought him the fish course and retrieved the empty soup bowls on a broad tray, Turl said without preamble, “You're from a sea-trading family, aren't you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “More beer?”
“One more, yes. But tell me, did you learn that new mathematical navigation?”
“It's not so new, really,” I said.
“Would that mean yes?” Turl probed.
I nodded, frowning at the scarcely touched beet soup in Torrin's bowl—a fine table-leaving, but difficult to claim at the busiest part of the evening without eating in front of the customers, which was forbidden to us. The scullion would get it. I sighed hungrily, and met the merchant's probing eyes again. “Yes, sir. Why are you interested?”
“Why not?” Turl countered, unanswerably. I turned away to carry the dirty bowls to the scullery and the empty tankards to the cask for refilling. At a nearby table, Hwyn was amusing the guests with a rare display, juggling a plate, a spoon, and a seedcake. I had passed her before Turl called after me, “Why not take an interest in the son of Garmund the Sea-Trader?”
I might as well have been struck in the face. I whirled around, tray in hand, to answer him, crashing into Hwyn and sending her and the things she'd been juggling, as well as my own tray of unfinished bowls of beet soup, careening into a table-full of well-dressed burghers. Hwyn began cursing loudly, and the burghers, beet soup dripping down their costly brocaded jackets, sprang to their feet, calling for the innkeeper. The next thing we knew, we were thrown out into the street, Trenara crying after us. Hwyn screamed back at the innkeeper that if he didn't pay us for eight hours' labor, she could sing satires about his inn as well as any other. In the end, we were lucky to be allowed to gather up our things before retreating into the night.
“I'm sorry,” I told Hwyn as we wandered toward the temple courts for the night. “That one was all my fault.”
She shrugged. “We're even, then. It's hard to lose today's pay, with the night so nearly through; but tomorrow's the festival, and we'll have better work to do.”
“We missed the table-leavings,” I said.
“I have a few morsels in my pockets,” said Hwyn, “though I've been unlucky enough to miss those seed-cakes. We'll survive till tomorrow—and then there may be bread given out at the temple door. Meanwhile, we can claim a decent sleeping spot— no small feat, with the holiday crowd—and practice our songs for tomorrow.”
“Not ‘The Captain and the Mermaid,’ so close to the temple,” I laughed.
“Well, I think we could sing that one in our sleep,” Hwyn said, giving me one of those lopsided smiles that I was coming to like so well. “Meanwhile, you can finish teaching me the Dawn Chant to the Rising God.”
“All right,” I said. “I guess there are some rewards to being thrown out of work, after all.”
“By the way,” Hwyn said, “what did that merchant say that startled you so?”
“My father's name,” I said.
“How did he know?”
I shrugged. “I never met this fellow before, I'm sure. He may have traded with my father. I didn't think I looked that much like the old man.” But why not, I thought: even in Torrin's pensive face were the lines of Turl's complacent one.
“I suppose you've strayed far from your father's world,” Hwyn said.
“Not far enough, apparently,” I said. “What do you think of this for a campsite?” I gestured to a lilac bush spreading over a little hollow in the temple grounds. The roots would be lumpy under us, but if the heavy moisture in the air turned to rain, we would be sheltered.
Hwyn nodded approvingly, and we hurried to claim the hollow before any of the other travelers spotted it. We sat down to share the greasy bits of meat and cheese Hwyn had stashed in her pockets, stuffed into bits of mangled bread-roll. None of us had our fill, but there was hope for the morning, and we soothed ourselves with song far into the night.
As I taught Hwyn the Dawn Chant to the Rising God, my hands were busy with the needle and thread. Hwyn had insisted I strengthen the pouch for the Eye of Night with the thread the tailor had given us, adding a patch of the precious red cloth to nest the Raven's Egg more securely. When I had done that, and we had changed to more secular songs, I began making a little sleeve of the rest of the fabric, testing out the cloth for size on Hwyn's arm, then stitching mostly by touch in the dying light.
By the time Hwyn finished the seventh of the “Battles of Calenholt” and I finished the sleeve, it was pitch-dark, the waning moon half veiled in cloud. “I'd better put off attaching this till tomorrow,” I said. “I wouldn't want to slip with the needle right against your shoulder.” Just then song spilled from the temple again: the Night Chant to the Hidden Goddess. This time Hwyn knew more of the verses than I did.
“Where did you learn all those verses?” I asked.
“Places like this,” she said. “Sleep now; we'll want to get an early start tomorrow.”
4
THE UNLUCKY WORD
On the first day of the festival, the longest day of the year, I woke to the sight of Hwyn bending over me, looking at me curiously. I was about to ask what was the matter when the sounds of the morning hymn began drifting out of the temple. As if by unspoken agreement, we both sang with the unseen priests, our voices at first thick and clumsy with sleep, but gradually gaining strength and assurance. By the time we finished we were singing out boldly, and we had an audience. Thus began our Feast of the Bright Goddess.
We scarcely paused for food, and we collected more coins for the first morning's song than for twelve hours' toil in either inn. We left off singing only to follow the crowd to the courts of the solar temple for the noon rites of the Bright Goddess, praising her for her gifts of flowers and fruit, grain and
gladness and song. When the high priestess sang the goddess's call to all living things to arise and grow, Hwyn stood with her head tipped back, her face glowing, rapt as a child too young to remember the last feast, drinking it in as if for the first time. Trenara flowed into a stately dance, oblivious of the worshipers she bumped and jostled, lost in a world no one could fathom. As for me, I had eyes only for them: these unearthly wonders who shared table-leavings with me.
All afternoon and into the late midsummer twilight, the festival crowd seemed almost as taken with them as I. Though we could not persuade Trenara to dance while we were singing, even her quiet presence, beautiful as she was, seemed part of the spectacle we brought to the Feast of the Bright Goddess. As for Hwyn, though passersby looked uneasily at her and away again, her voice could not be ignored even among the many minstrels at this festival of song. The crowd showered us with applause and honey-cakes, and sometimes with coins; and we sang longer hours than we'd worked, too delighted to be weary.
When we finally sank to sleep for a few hours on the same corner of the market-square where we'd been singing, it was with a sense of triumph. I had no doubt the remaining three days of the festival would be as successful as the first one; we could fill our pockets with coins, buy what we needed for the journey, and make unhindered progress northward. On the second day of the festival, when buying and selling were allowed to resume, I began scanning the stalls in the marketplace for things we might need for the journey north: warmer clothes, sturdier boots, a cooking-pot, a better knife than the one I carried. I bought nothing yet, awaiting Hwyn's counsel, for she had traveled more by land and knew the ways of the roads. Nonetheless, I spent a farthing—three hours' toil at the White Cat—to have my old knife sharpened. The rest, I thought, could wait till our true prosperity came in.
But the afternoon did not go as we'd planned. We had scarcely retuned our voices after the noon rites when a passing drudge, distracted by our song from the path before his feet, tripped and fell, kicking our cup of money over so the coins rolled out of sight, and tumbling an armload of heavy crockery right over Hwyn.
“Sky-Raven's Bones!” she cursed.
The drudge cried out sharply, and pulled a hunting knife from his belt.
“Hwyn!” I thrust myself between them as Trenara shrieked and the assailant snarled with rage. “You, boy,” I spat, “what do you think you're doing?”
“Step aside or, gods help me, I'll cut through you to get to her!”
“Madman!” I had only my eating-knife, but I drew it out as a better weapon than my bare hands.
It was fortunate, then, that another voice broke from behind the boy: “Klem! Hothead, what are you up to now?” The attacker turned to see, and I took the opportunity to seize his arms from behind. The newcomer—the drudge's master, as I surmised— asked us, “What trouble has my boy been making here?”
“He dropped a load of crockery on my partner and then, instead of asking her pardon, he pulled a blade on her,” I answered.
“She swore by—by—a thing I cannot name,” the wretch protested.
The master put a weary hand to his temple. “Klem, you mad dog, put your knife away.”
“But—”
“Now, Klem. Do you think you can leave this place alive if you harm a minstrel in the Festival of Song?”
The man's arms slackened in my grasp. At last he dropped the knife. I pocketed it, then stepped back to show that if he left us alone, I would return the courtesy. I collided with Hwyn behind me, and reflexively put a protective arm about her shoulders, as though she were the child she sometimes seemed. The too-ready tears sprang to her eyes.
The merchant approached to claim his servant. “Has this wastrel hurt you, songbird?”
“No,” Hwyn said, “only frightened me. And it seems I frightened him first, unwittingly. Klem,” she addressed her astonished enemy, “what do you know of—of what I swore by?”
The servant's eyes widened, and his mouth opened, but he could not seem to summon the words.
“He's as superstitious as a child,” the merchant said. “He's from Kreyn; they're all like that there. If you don't stumble on his bugbears and goblins, he's a good enough fellow, but it seems you've said an unlucky word. I'm glad he didn't harm you. My name is Edwold; will you come with me to a tavern and let me recompense you for your fright?”
Hwyn nodded, but a hush was on her, and as far as I could follow her cross-eyed gaze, she seemed to be looking at crazy Klem rather than his master.
Edwold seemed to notice it; he turned to the servant and said, “See, Klem, these are peaceable folk. Can't you come share a meal with them in peace, and give them a chance to prove your forebodings wrong?”
“Klem,” Hwyn said, “I swore as people do in St. Fiern's Town—at least, in the hottest fury. But if you know a reason why it is wrong to swear thus, tell me, and I will mend my ways.”
At that Klem's face softened. “I almost killed you,” he whispered.
Hwyn nodded. “I know. I need to know why.”
“You're not even angry?” said Klem.
Hwyn shrugged. “I'm a peculiar type of fool. I see you thought you were doing right, and now I'm more curious than angry.” She put out her hand and after some hesitation Klem took it, squeezed it for a moment, then let it go.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I see I must have been wrong.”
“Well, come along, then,” Edwold said. “A few rounds of ale, and all will be forgiven and forgotten.”
We followed him eagerly enough. On the way Hwyn leaned close to me. “You protected me,” she murmured wonderingly. “Thank you.”
“Someone has to,” I said, “since you won't protect yourself. Why are you taking this so calmly?” But she only shrugged and smiled as Edwold led us into the Lark Tavern.
It was a good inn—far better than either of the ones we'd slaved at—and Edwold was a generous host, so that the feast set before us was enough to ease many hurts, and the ale plentiful enough to loosen even Klem's tongue. When his hunched shoulders relaxed, Hwyn took it as her cue to question him: “Tell me frankly, Klem, why it was wrong to swear by that thing you will not name.”
He scrutinized her a moment, perhaps trying and failing to read her purpose in her eyes. At last he spoke: “To swear by a thing is to call it.”
“That is often so,” Hwyn admitted. “But what if I do call it? Was not the—the bird I spoke of—was it not a friend to our kind? The priests say that it spread its wings between heaven and earth when the sun would have scorched the earth barren.”
“I too have heard that tale,” Klem said cautiously. “And yet they say that its second flight will be the coming of the great darkness.”
“That may be true,” Hwyn said, “but seeds send out roots in darkness. A child grows in the darkness of the womb. Children fear the dark, but we cannot, to comfort them, hold the sun bleeding on the horizon and refuse the night.”
“Do you call my people children?” Klem bristled.
“I am taken for a child so often myself that the word has no sting for me anymore,” Hwyn said. “And I fear the dark as well, but I expect no good to come of fearing it.”
Klem shook his head. “I cannot answer you wisely. I only know what I have heard from childhood, passed down from mouth to ear. But the Lady of Kreyn—the Guardian of Day— has in her chapel a speaking stone that, I have heard, prophesies strange fates to follow the Bearer of Night, who summons the bird into our land at the end of things. The Guardian of Day could answer you.”
Hwyn laughed. “And would this great lady spare any words for a vagabond like me?”
Klem blushed. “I suppose not.”
“And I would not advise you to try,” Edwold said. “It is the cruelest town I ever visited.”
Klem protested, “It is my home!”
“And what kindness did you ever know there? What did you take with you from Kreyn but whip-scars and bad dreams?”
“My master there was a hard one,
” Klem acknowledged. “But the place is no less home to me. Still,” he turned to Hwyn, “Master Edwold is right: I would not advise you to travel there. The Guardian is wise, but proud, and might not see what you are.”
“A priestess, surely,” Edwold put in.
I leaned forward to hear Hwyn's answer, but she only smiled. It was Klem who framed an answer: “More than that, I think: she is one of those that the gods ride hard, a prophet or a lunatic. Hwyn, I'm sorry I attacked you. As I remember with a cooler head, not even the prophecy can excuse me—for it speaks of one who calls the bird into Kreyn, and you have never been there.”
“Then there is peace between us?” Hwyn said. “I am glad of it.”
“You are a generous foe, to be sure,” he said.
“You are a strange one to remark on my generosity, Klem,” Hwyn said softly. “You have come into servitude through your own generosity, and been betrayed by the one you saved.”
Klem's eyes widened. “Do you see further?”
She nodded. “You think that by going back you can mend what remains; but do not go back. The one you love most has left. You will not find him there.”
“Will I ever see him again?”
Hwyn sat silent a while, then spread her hands apologetically. “I don't know. I sense him seeking something; he may be seeking you or seeking himself, for all I can see. The gift is not at my command: it comes as it will, a glimmer of light, then nothing.”
Edwold, discomfited, changed the topic to music, and we talked of inconsequential things until the meal was over and we staggered back into the streets, drunk and well fed, to rejoin the festival. But Hwyn's attention flagged, and even her singing seemed to lack its usual fire, as if her mind were far away. I managed to secure her agreement to buying a cooking-pot with some of our earnings, but even preparing for the journey north seemed far from her mind.
The Eye of Night Page 7
