At the instant the candle’s flame drowned in its shrunken puddle of wax, she stopped, rose to her feet, bowed, and retreated into the cart. The boy and the girl—her apprentices, I imagine, and I was flabbergasted that she’d have two of them60—yanked on some ropes on either side of the stage, and it closed up neatly.
“Come back tomorrow!” the boy shouted. “We’ll be here again tomorrow!”—which of course gave lie to their assertion that it was a sight the audience would never see again.
I went back to Teo, who scarcely seemed to notice that I’d been gone, and I sat on my blanket and stared at nothing until Teo asked me why I was crying,61 and whether I could stop doing that and start hawking the stars-in-the-marsh, since folks were beginning to wander around again.
So they’re going to be there tomorrow. She’s going to be there tomorrow. Mistress Chant.
Another Chant.
* * *
60. Really? Seriously? Even from the beginning? How many times are you going to disparage me for my teaching practices? They have nothing whatsoever to do with you. There’s nothing whatsoever in all our teachings that says a Chant should only take one apprentice at a time. My own grand-mistress had three for a brief time—one was getting close to ending their apprenticeship, and they helped teach my mistress-Chant and her apprentice-brother. They were family. And you, time after time, spit on that as if I’m doing something wrong.
61. Oh for heavens’ sake.
EIGHTEEN
Please, please, please don’t let her be there tomorrow. Please don’t let her come. If there is anything in this world or a higher world that might feel sorry for me, please don’t let her come to the Rojkstraat tomorrow.
My master told me I’d likely never meet another Chant—though now that I think of it, maybe that’s not what he meant. There aren’t very many of us (though how would we know that for sure?), but . . . Maybe he meant I’d never meet another one who was willing to take on an apprentice,62 because that’s what I was when he told me. I was just about that girl’s age . . .
I don’t know what he meant, I guess. And it’s too late to ask him now, even if I weren’t inclined to leave town in tears were I to find out he was here. Her being here is bad enough.
Another Chant. By the sand and sea and sun, I never even imagined I’d meet another one. Perhaps . . . Should I introduce myself? Is there etiquette? Honestly, I’d rather stay in my rooms until I hear she’s left town.
I’m being torn in two. What would I even say to her, if I were to say something to her?
Hello, I’m a Chant too.63
Hello, my name is Chant.64
Hello, Chant. I’m Chant. Will you understand me? Can you tell me what’s wrong with me? Can you help me?65
You’re a Chant. Please, tell me what I’m doing wrong. Is it supposed to hurt like this? Does it ever stop?66
Oh, damn my eyes, all of that sounds stupid.
I won’t say anything to her. Chants don’t stay in one place for very long, and she looked like she had a system. That cart, how smooth and quick and well-practiced their motions were . . . They’ve done this a thousand times. They’ve designed their lives around traveling, to go from place to place frequently and in comfort.
In comfort.
Chant and I never traveled in carts like that, besides occasionally hitching a ride on the back of a passing farmer’s wagon. We never dressed in fine clothes like that. We never carried so many belongings with us—nothing like those instruments her apprentices had, for one thing, and I saw glimpses of other things inside. Since I was fourteen and left home to chase the horizon, I’ve only owned one pair of trousers and two tunics at a time. One pair of boots. One cloak. One bag, to carry food for the road. One small knife, one small tinderbox. And Chant carried even less than that. Only the stories in his head and the clothes on his back. He went into the world with the faith that he could catch himself with his wits and his quick tongue alone, and nothing else.
I wonder what he’d think of her, if he saw her.
No, I don’t wonder. I know. He’d sniff and purse his lips in that way he had. He’d call her a pretentious upstart. He’d tell me that she cared about things that don’t matter—purple carts, and baggy silk trousers, and purple brocade vests all sewn with gold sequins—rather than the important things, the stories. He’d hold his arms out to show me; he’d say that he’s never needed peacock-finery to keep an audience’s attention. He wouldn’t like her. He didn’t really like anyone, I don’t think.67
I hope she leaves soon. I hope I never see her again.
I’m going to see her again, aren’t I? I hope I don’t make a fool of myself in front of her.68
* * *
62. No, he meant you weren’t likely to ever meet another one, period. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that the two of us stumbled onto, and you squandered it because of your pathetic broken feelings. We’ll never have this again. Why didn’t you care?
63. I would have said, “By Shuggwa’s Eye, are you really? Come, brother-Chant, let me embrace you!”
64. I would have said, “And so is mine. Well met, brother-Chant. We should talk.”
65. I would have listened. I would have tried.
66. No, it’s not supposed to hurt. It hurts because you’re not doing it right, because someone screwed you up and you haven’t done anything to fix yourself.
67. And even after everything, that matters to you, doesn’t it? It still matters what he thinks, or what he would have thought if he’d been here for you like he should have been.
68. Oh, don’t worry. You definitely did.
NINETEEN
I dreamed again last night, after I came home from the Rojkstraat: in this one, my foot slipped on something, and the water closed over my head in a rush, and I was flailing and drowning and grabbing at the roots of the stars-in-the-marsh to haul myself above the surface, but the roots tangled around my hands, around my legs, and I—
I woke up, and by the distant noise of the public room below, I thought it must have only been an hour or two that I was asleep. I couldn’t bear the thought of trying to sleep again so soon, so I went downstairs and sat at the bar and stared dully at the back wall with the full intention of exhausting myself with waiting—if you stay up late enough, eventually your eyes mutiny against the rest of your body and you can trick yourself into a dead-deep, dreamless sleep.
The aleman knows, by now, to ignore me, and the Pezian merchants were making a racket on the other side of the room again and taking up all of his attention anyway. I sat there, waiting for the sandpaper grit in my eyes, thinking of . . . her. She told stories like she was sipping wine from a brimming cup, like the people in the crowd were offering up baskets of bread and fruit for her to eat, like they offered up their own hearts, instead of snatching for hers.
Abruptly, I turned to the aleman. “Heer Ambroos,” I said urgently.
He looked over. “Need something, Chant? A drink?”
“I’ll give you a tale in trade for a glass of peket.” Why not? Seeing her, listening to her, had shifted something inside me.
Ambroos was dubious. He’d heard my stories before, flat and dull and not at all worth even a thimble of peket. “I’d prefer coin, if it’s all the same to you,” he said, which should have been a relief.
“I’ll take the deal,” someone said, sliding onto the bar stool next to mine. “A glass for each of us.” It was that Pezian, the one from before, the flirt who had listened even when all the others had drifted away. “Sounds like a great bargain to me,” he added with a boyish grin.
“I’m afraid I’m not in the mood for flattery today, you should know,” I said, suppressing a wince when I heard how stiff and cool I sounded. “I was only going to practice something on Heer Ambroos.”
He paused for a mere moment and smiled. “Oh. All right. No flattery, got it.” I glanced at him as Ambroos pushed our cups in front of us, each containing a finger of caramel-colored liquor. I’ve always had
a knack for people, for sensing good intentions. I wish I was equally as good at sensing bad ones, but those get complicated. But this person, this bright-eyed Pezian with the boyish smile and flirt written behind him in letters of fire ten feet tall . . . He’d hesitated. And then, a little awkwardly, as if he were still practicing a new dance step he’d just learned, he’d made a choice. A deliberate one. And . . . sincere. It struck me as odd. He was obviously unaccustomed to being declined—he was young and lovely and rich and of good family, and I didn’t need to be a Chant to see that. And he was unaccustomed to accepting it with such good cheer, but he was practicing that now. Intentionally. I only spotted it because I’ve been trained to watch people so closely, to pick up tiny cues, ones maybe they didn’t even notice they were giving away.
“Would you like me to leave?” the Pezian asked when I hadn’t said anything for a moment. “I was just joking about the bargain, you know. Here, I’ll go.”69 He stood up in a rush, his smile turning apologetic and still so very careful. “Tell your tale to Heer Ambroos as you’d meant to. The drink is on me.”
“Sit,” I said. He’d do. He wanted to listen, and he was polite enough to be sent off with a word if he turned out to be too much trouble.
He sat, and I brought the cup of peket to my lips and drank, studying him over the rim of it and wondering once more if I could figure out how to tell a story by taking something rather than giving something away, the way Mistress Chant seemed to.
I lowered my cup, rolled it between my palms. “A very long time ago and half the world away . . .” I told him “The Trout of Perfect Hindsight” as the bar emptied and Ambroos wiped down all the counters and tables, locked up the doors, and banked the fire. I mostly watched the Pezian boy, but I saw Ambroos, too, the way he tilted his ear towards me, the way he smiled now and again. He finished his work long before I finished the tale, and came back to lean against the bar with his cloth slung over his shoulder, quiet and attentive. “That’s a good one,” he said when I finished. “Why don’t you tell that one more often, instead of the others?”
“What’s wrong with the others?” asked the Pezian.
Ambroos shrugged. “They’re not as good. You been practicing, Chant?”
“Something like that,” I said, after a moment where I forgot again that I was Chant. It . . . hadn’t felt like anything. Hadn’t hurt, hadn’t wrenched at me like I’d expected. It had been hard before, some of the times when I’d told stories in the public room, when I first arrived in Heyrland. There had been drunk people (regulars of the inn, I know now) who knew that I knew stories, who demanded a particular tale from me and then watched me like a pack of dogs might watch a dripping slab of fresh meat. It hadn’t gone well, those other times. I’d resented them for their interest and attention—and yes, I know that was ridiculous—and so I’d flattened myself, deadened the story so they wouldn’t care about it. That, that had hurt. But this? Just numb. Intellectually mechanical, like an automaton, rather than anything that tugged at some heartstrings. I suppose it’s an improvement—better to be numb, a blank page, than to feel sick or spiteful. It was like . . . washing clothes, or cleaning a fish, or braiding straw for a new pair of shoes.70
“Well, keep practicing, then. In the meantime: Out, gentlemen,” he said. “If you’re going to sit up all night, do it in your rooms.”
I pulled myself onto my feet. “Good night,” I managed.
“Maybe you could give me a bottle of something?” the Pezian said to Ambroos. “Some of us might get thirsty again if we’re awake for too much longer.”71 He cast me some kind of glance, but my sight had grown blurry with weariness and I was already moving towards the door. Last thing I heard as I reached the steps was Ambroos snickering at something under his breath—maybe something the Pezian had said. I didn’t dream any more.
* * *
69. Hm. This offer of graceful retreat is to his credit, even if you’re right about him learning it intentionally. A gentlemanly skill.
70. It’s not a heartstrings kind of story, though. I don’t know what you expect.
71. Sweetheart, he was trying to buy you a drink. Just like before, when you were tending the bar.
TWENTY
The Trout of Perfect Hindsight
A very long time ago and half the world away, there was a fisherman named Zaria, who lived in a drafty thatched-roof cottage halfway up a mountain. Living alone, he dressed as he liked, and did as he liked, and ate as he liked.
One day, he decided that what he would like to eat was a big pot of fish stew, so he took his pole and his basket and went a little ways down the mountain to a pond he knew of, where he thought the fish must grow big and fat and very tasty.
Zaria cast his fishing pole into the lake seven times, but felt not even a nibble on his hook, and every time he pulled in his string, even the bait was still firmly attached. Zaria scratched his head and scowled. The day had worn on to evening, and Zaria’s stomach panged with hunger. He could not bear the thought of walking all the way back up the mountain to his little cottage with nothing to show for the day’s work, so he decided to cast his line out one more time.
Just as he was about to, he saw something large moving beneath the water. He scrambled back from the edge, and a beautiful silvery-rainbow speckled side breached the surface. A rolling round eye looked right up at him.
“Lightning strike me where I stand!” cried Zaria. “What I wouldn’t give to get that beauty in my pot!”
“You oughtn’t say such things,” said the fish, gurgling from under the water. “Someone might hold you to it.”
“Might they?” Zaria said, edging forward carefully so he could peer into the water. “And what do you know of such things, fish?”
“Enough,” said the fish. “I know of bargains and regret.”
“Do you indeed?” said Zaria. “How did you come by that knowledge?”
The fish bobbed up to the surface and peered right back at Zaria with its big round eye. “When I was very young, a thousand years ago, a flaming stone fell from the sky and crashed into the woods nearby. It shattered into pieces and several of the pieces fell into the pond. They glowed with a light that was not a light, and they stank of a smell that was not a smell, and they itched with thorns that were not thorns when you swam too close to them. I swallowed the shards, and became what I am, and when I dreamed, the great sea god, the King-of-Fishes, swam up out of the depths and told me of things that no other fish has known.”
“You’re a magic fish,” Zaria said, to be sure he understood. “A heaven-stone fell here and granted you magic powers. Is that right?”
“Right enough, if you’re an idiot,” said the fish.
“I probably am,” said Zaria, who felt himself a reasonable man. “But how would I know? You can help me, then, since you’re the smart one here.”
“What obligation have I to help you?”
“I’m a stranger in need on your doorstep,” Zaria said. “You wouldn’t turn me away, would you?”
“I suppose not,” the fish replied. “What is it that you need?”
“I’m terribly hungry, and I was hoping to catch some fish for stew. Do you know where I can find any?”
“There’s no more fish in this lake,” he said, full of regret. “It was getting rather crowded, what with how large I’m getting. But that’s what comes of magic powers.”
“Sorry, what does?”
“Hindsight,” said the fish. “That’s my magic power and my great knowledge of the world. I have perfect hindsight.”
“Ah,” said Zaria, who was suddenly no longer entirely sure that he was the stupid one of the two of them. “So how’s that work?”
The fish sighed again. “As even an idiot might expect. As soon as I act on a decision, I have the supernatural wisdom to see every part of where I went wrong and how I should have done it differently. But my curse is that I cannot use my powers in advance. I only know what I should have done after I do it.”
�
��Huh,” said Zaria, thinking wildly about the pot he had at home and the amount of stew that could be made with even a single steak from this fish. “How about that.”
“Yes. So now I see I shouldn’t have eaten all the other fish in this lake, you know? I ought to have left a few to keep me company.”
“How terribly lonely that sounds,” said Zaria. “And what an awful shame.”
“Indeed,” said the fish, sighing a great and wistful sigh. “So now you see my plight.”
“Yes,” said Zaria. “You’ll probably starve.”
The fish jerked in the water, looking wildly up at Zaria. “Wait a moment! What?”
“Well, won’t you?”
“Of course not; I can eat the bugs that land on the surface of the water. I can eat small birds, too. In the spring there will be ducklings.”
“What about when you eat all of them? Then there won’t be anything left and you’ll waste away to nothing. Even your magic powers won’t save you from that.”
The fish jerked again. “Is that true? Is it?”
“It sounds right, doesn’t it?” said Zaria innocently. “But I could help you if you liked, if you agreed to help me.”
“How?” said the fish.
“There’s another lake, only a couple miles away. It’s bigger, and it has more fish in it. I could carry you there, and then you could help me catch some of them for my stew.”
“All right,” said the fish. “How shall we accomplish this?”
Zaria picked apart his wicker fish basket and formed it into a large, loose cage or harness, which would support the huge bulk of the fish while hanging from Zaria’s shoulder on the basket’s old strap. Zaria indicated to the fish that he should jump into it, and the fish did so. “I just have to make sure you’re secure,” said Zaria, and tightened several of the ties so the fish could not even squirm.
Immediately the fish went very still and said, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.” He said nothing more.
A Choir of Lies Page 6
