A Choir of Lies

by Alexandra Rowland

  And when I wasn’t flirting with him, we traded things that weren’t quite stories, mostly about Hrefnesholt and Pezia, and our childhoods. He told me about the Acampora Bank, headquartered in Lermo, with six branch offices in Marsania, Ponterosso, Tono, Stradenze, Serta, and Bolifetto. His family is very rich, and very influential, and very well-known, and he stands to inherit, apparently, exactly none of it. “I’ve got the name and the looks, but that’s all,” he told me. “I’m really just a minor cousin—I’m lucky to have even that much. I don’t get an allowance like my cousins who are closer to the center of things do, except when I’m traveling with the family and things can be considered business expenses. I won’t inherit land or property or business interests, even. My father’s just a clerk at one of our countinghouses, and . . .” He laughed bitterly then and dropped his arm from my waist, shoving both hands into the pockets of his simarre and staring down at the cobblestones as we walked slowly down the canalside. “I’m going to be a clerk too,” he said at last. “Unless I spontaneously manifest some kind of useful talent. But I won’t. And even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s too late. Remember what I said about siblings and cousins last night. About family seeing right through you. Except sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they only see who you were a year ago, or five years ago, and they never get around to noticing that you’ve changed.” He forced a smile, tense and as unhappy as I’d been a few days ago. “They’ve already decided that they know what I’m like. They might try to tell you, actually, if they notice me spending any time with you. Just . . . be warned, and take it with a grain of salt, and if they say anything that alarms you, at least give me a chance to explain myself before you decide I’m not worth your time.”258

  “I will. But about the rest of it, couldn’t you learn a trade of some kind? An apprenticeship, or . . . There are universities in Pezia, aren’t there? Good ones.”

  “Hah. Too late for that too. I had a chance and I wasted it. I was supposed to be studying rhetoric. They’d thought I might make something of myself in politics. But I was stupid, and I didn’t realize how things were, in the family. I thought having the name was enough; I thought it counted for more than it does. I thought it would suffice to keep me in favor.”

  “What happened?”

  “Every three months, they’d send me money for my room and board and tuition, and I . . . lied about how much I needed and spent it on other things. Drink, gambling, fancy clothes. The family found out, of course. Sent some cousins to drag me home, where I found out exactly how tenuous my position really was. Of course they wouldn’t send me back to university after that.” He laughed weakly. “I just thank the gods I’ve never had trouble getting laid for free, because if I’d spent the money in brothels, I probably could have kissed the family name goodbye too. They wouldn’t have tolerated that kind of indignity. It wouldn’t do, not for an Acampora.”

  “But they tolerated the gambling?” I asked, skeptical. Gambling sounds like a worse offense than brothels do to me.

  “Only because I was usually winning.” He glanced at me. “That was the rest of the long story, by the way. The other reasons I’m trying to be better. I had the reasons I mentioned last night, and they’re important, but it’s . . . mostly selfish.” He winced. “The only chance of saving myself from a life of wasted opportunities and dreary tedium and scant fortune is to prove, somehow, that I’m different. That I learned a lesson and I want to turn over a new leaf.” He shook his head. “It probably won’t happen. But that’s the last chance I’ve got, so . . .” He shook his head, suddenly. “I’m ruining it, aren’t I? Being maudlin. I don’t even know why I told you all that.”

  “I’m a Chant,” I said automatically. “It’s my job to be someone that people tell things to.”

  “Oh? I suppose working in a tavern is a good place for that.”

  “It would be, most of the time. Lately, I’ve been . . . not myself. I haven’t wanted to watch people or notice things about them. But now I’m fine!”

  “Oh, good, that’s a great relief. If we swing by the printer’s shop, I’ll cancel the order I put in last week. I decided I needed some engraved invitations to hand you next time I was flirting with you, just to make sure you noticed what I was doing.”

  I laughed and shoved him a little with my shoulder. “Not like that—it’s more . . . looking at a person and seeing something about their character. Deep things.”

  “All right, tell me something about . . . her.” He nodded to a person across the canal, either a vrouw or a vroleisch by the way she was dressed—a faded blue skirt and a newer-looking cream shawl. Her back was to us, so all I could see of her were her rather red-toned neck and arms, which looked very strong. She had a deep basket on her arm, holding groceries: bread; a large parcel wrapped in paper, which was probably a fish; a few other items.

  “She’s a laundress,” I said.

  “You’re so sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oi!” Orfeo shouted. “Mevrouw, pardon me!”

  “Don’t bother her,” I said. “She’s busy.”

  “Mevrouw, can you direct us to the launderer’s? We’re lost!”

  She’d turned at Orfeo’s call and studied us. “You looking for van der Wel’s, Vinck’s, or Zendman’s?”

  “Either. Do you have a recommendation?”

  “Go to Zendman’s,” she said. “Down the way you came, on this side of the canal, and turn right at the next corner.”

  “A thousand thanks, mevrouw! You are a goddess of mercy! Should I tell them who sent us?” She shrugged and turned away. “Well, that was inconclusive,” Orfeo said. “Too bad.”

  “A laundress,” I said again. “She knew where three launderers’ shops were, and she had an opinion about which was the best—her skirt is old but her shawl is new, and she’s feeding her family bread and fish for dinner, so she’s not of a social class to be sending so many of her things out for cleaning that she’d become a connoisseur. She was too tired to care about your flirting, and her skin was red from working in the heat, which means she just got off work. Also, did you see those arms? Only launderers and farmers have arms like that, and we’re in the middle of a city.”

  “Her skin could have been red because she’s hot,” Orfeo objected.

  “Why’s she wearing a shawl if she’s hot? She’s a laundress. Trust me; I’m a Chant.”

  “You’re an Ylfing,” he replied, taking my hand again and squeezing. “And I concede defeat. Tell me something of yours now. Not a Chant thing, another Ylfing thing.”

  So I told him about going to the Jarlsmoot, the enormous competition between all the villages that happens once every three years, where everyone who has been named jarl of their village (by being the most valuable person with the greatest variety of abilities) comes together to try their skills against each other. I told him how it worked, how the winners of all the dozens and dozens of competitions would be recorded, and how, at the end, all the jarls would discuss who among them made the most impressive showing, and that person would be named the great-jarl.

  “What kind of things do people compete in?”

  “Everything—there’s athletic ones: running, jumping, climbing, archery, javelin-throwing, rolling a barrel of beer up a hill, and so on. And there’s material skills—weaving and carving and fishing, for example.” I nudged him. “There’d be something for you, certainly.”

  He nudged me back. “Aren’t there any competitions for someone like you? Storytelling or memory?”

  “Not to be named the great-jarl. But at the end of the Jarlsmoot, one of the villages hosts a huge party, and everyone drinks—there’s drinking competitions, of course, and there’s competitions in singing and dancing and telling stories and jokes. And riddling! And the winner of that is named the chief skald, and at the next Jarlsmoot, their village hosts the party. I apprenticed as a Chant because I thought . . .” I felt a tremor in my vibrant m
ood and realized that maybe it was more delicate than I had realized. “Well, I thought that then I might be the best at stories, and I might be chief skald at the Jarlsmoot someday.259 But I’m not even Hrefni anymore, not really.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve been too many places. I lost the things that made me who I am. Like my name. That’s all part of being a Chant, you know. You don’t get to be yourself anymore. I told you about that last night.”

  Orfeo nodded. “Let’s go find that dancing?”

  “Yes,” I said, relieved not to be talking about it any further. “Dancing. Yes.”

  We didn’t find music until the light faded and the sun set, but when we did it was at one of the biggest inns, near the docks on the eastern side of the Shipshome District. It was an inn for merchants and their clerks, for ships’ officers and their deputies, for foreign diplomats newly arrived to the city. We gave up our weapons to the attendant at the door—I only had my little old knife in its leather sheath, but Orfeo had a lovely matched pair, one markedly bigger than the other, fine things with faceted green spinels at the pommels and the centers of the crossguards, and elaborately embossed gilt scabbards.

  “We used to stay here, my family and I,” Orfeo said into my ear so I could hear him over the din of people talking and dancing. “But it’s noisy and expensive, and it never felt like a home. Too many people.”

  It was crowded, to be sure, but the musicians were good, and there were a half dozen people pouring drinks at the bar just as fast as the patrons could down them.

  We danced. In some places, it’s uncouth to dance with the same person more than twice in a row, but at least in this inn it didn’t seem to matter at all. The musicians were clearly accustomed to a great deal of variety in their audience, and they had an inclination to please each of them and the ability to match—they played a Heyrlandtsche fjouwer and Vintish bransles and Avaren jigs, which Orfeo and I muddled through very clumsily off to the side of the dance floor so that we wouldn’t get in anyone’s way, giggling all the while as we tried to copy what everyone else was doing. At the next song, Orfeo lit up and he whispered, “Oh, this one I know! This is Pezian.” He took my left hand in his right and we . . . walked.

  “Is this what Pezians call dancing?” I whispered, trying not to laugh.

  “It’s stately and dignified,” he whispered back sternly, though his eyes twinkled.

  (Steps to amoroso, for my own future reference: Four steps forward, hand in hand and apparently by necessity looking deeply into each other’s eyes. Drop hands; the Lead progresses four steps forward, looking longingly back over their right shoulder like a lover tragically separated from their sweetheart, hand outstretched back to the Follow, who stands in place. Lead turns back; both point their right foot, sweep it around to the back, and sink into a deep bow or curtsey (which Orfeo tells me is called a reverence).260 The Lead returns, passing the Follow’s right shoulder (obviously looking deeply into each other’s eyes for as long as possible), circles around behind them. The Follow goes forward four paces and turns; the Lead repeats the return. Both circle: once clockwise without touching, then once counterclockwise clasping left hands; reverence. The Lead switches their hand from the left one to the right, and then they’ve arrived back at the beginning and they do the whole thing over again. I think this dance is for people who have some kind of forbidden secret longing for each other. It’s kind of boring otherwise, unless you have someone like Orfeo to dance with—I was biting back my laughter the whole time, and Orfeo knew it, the imp, and all he did was make even more ridiculous faces at me. I don’t think this so-called dance261 is supposed to be funny like that.)

  We made it home eventually, and Orfeo invited me up to his room again, where we piled into bed, and I wrapped him up in my arms and whispered not-quite-stories of one sort or another into his ear, and—

  And I don’t think I should put anything else about all that on paper!262

  It was the best day I’ve had in a long time. And Orfeo is wonderful.

  * * *

  250. Thank all the gods.

  251. Do you want to take Lanh Chau off my hands, by any chance? I have a feeling the two of you would get along, if he hadn’t already decided you weren’t worth his time.

  252. I don’t care for it. I prefer teas and tisanes.

  253. Oh—yes, that is a respectable establishment. I nearly chose to stay there myself, but I had an acquaintance who recommended the Rose and Ivy. I’ve heard of the Sun’s Rest, though—I’ve been told the food is excellent.

  254. I’m getting bored—lovely this and lovely that, and oh how charming, and ah how wonderful. How much longer does this go on?

  255. If there are children and a bridge over water with a current and bits of twig or grass, they will invent this game. This game is a force of nature. Literally every child in the world knows this game.

  256. I don’t believe you, and I don’t think Orfeo believed you either.

  257. Ah, see? You weren’t happy; you were manic.

  258. I just don’t know about this one. With some people I’ve known, this would send me running for the hills. And with others, they really had been represented wrongly and it was worthwhile to get to know them.

  259. Shit, now I’m wondering if your master knew about that. If that was, perhaps, a factor in why you didn’t go home for the rites.

  260. I’m glad to see you thinking in a more Chantly way (learning culture and things with the evident intention of remembering them), but I still can’t feel easy about it being written down. . . .Actually, I suppose I can begrudgingly be fine with this. I just stopped to ask Arenza. I was trying to get her to agree that it was strange and uncanny, but she says that there are several popular books written by famous dancing-masters in Pezia. She couldn’t say whether you’ve done it in a similar style to theirs, as she’s never read any herself, but she recalls that when she was young, one of her cousins was apprenticed to a dancing-master and used to practice the patterns in the kitchen every evening with one of those books laid open nearby for reference. So since the Pezians are already writing them down themselves, I guess I can’t find harm if you do it too. It’s like the script of a play, isn’t it? Written down, but performed aloud. (Still strikes me in an uncomfortable place, but I suppose that’s my problem and that I may well be wrong in this specific, individual situation.)

  261. “So-called dance,” though, hah! I have to agree; the Pezians wouldn’t know real dancing if it kicked them in the teeth. Even the peasants dance sets and figures, though theirs are a bit more lively than the stately stuff the upper class do.

  262. Thank the gods.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Mistress Chant is angry at me again.263

  I woke up this morning with Orfeo, and he nearly made me late for my duties at Sterre’s shop. When I finally managed to pry myself out of his arms, I went up into my attic room for fresh clothes and to scribble a few pages about what happened yesterday, and then I rushed off. The clock was chiming, so I ran the rest of the way to Sterre’s shop and arrived flushed and breathless and felt again that delicious realness and presence in the world that Orfeo had brought me to.

  Sterre took one look at me and asked if I’d just come from a brothel, and when I stammered and blushed, she sent me off to the alley to splash cold water from the rain barrel on my face and comb my hair until I looked presentable. She shoved a parcel wrapped in brown paper into my arms when I came back inside and, pushing me into her office, said, “A uniform for you. Change into that. Quick, heerchen!”

  I changed as quickly as I could, groaning when I unwrapped the package and saw the clothes inside. Just outside the office, Sterre was scolding one of the clerks: “If you’re sick, you should have sent word! What kind of employer do you take me for, that you think I would hold it against you? No, you must go home at once, and straight to bed. And here—six duit to send out for hot soup.”

  I emerged from her office, stiff and uncomfortable and
feeling more than faintly ridiculous in that getup, but Sterre glanced me over, beamed, and declared me absolutely perfect, which smothered any objections I might have come up with. We piled into her carriage (a tiny, cramped thing it had to be, to navigate the narrow canalside streets), and we went to Stroekshall.

  It was busier than I’d ever seen it, and the carriage could barely cram through the crowds. It was no less crowded for us inside—Sterre had had the carriage’s benches removed, and every bit of free space not occupied by our bodies was piled with the last crates of stars-in-the-marsh, all that remained of the current shipment. We even sat atop them. This was for safety, Sterre said. She didn’t trust the slavering crowds, and she was ferociously suspicious of bandits or rioters seizing the carriage and its precious contents.

  “Today’s going to be special, Chant,” she said. I almost didn’t answer—in only twenty-four hours I’d gotten accustomed to being called Ylfing again, to having my name spoken sweetly, or kissed into my mouth, or breathed into the dark like a prayer. Who was Chant? Not me.

  “Yes, mevrol,” I said. I wondered if I should tell her to call me Ylfing too, but it didn’t feel quite right yet. I didn’t long for her to know my name the way I had longed for Orfeo to know it.

  “I need you in top form, got it?”

  “Of course, mevrol. I’m ready.”

  “Did you get some sleep last night?” she asked pointedly, and I blushed again.

  “Yes. Enough. I’m rested, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Mm,” she said, then nodded, apparently satisfied. “It’s good to see you with some color in your cheeks, heerchen. Young people like you ought to be taking advantage of your youth while you have it.”