Bard city blues, p.7
Bard City Blues, page 7
“Xolgoth has told you he excels at all his endeavors.”
“I want to excel! But the Bardic Guild’s built so many walls for bards to climb. Find a teacher. Pay for lessons and housing I can’t afford. Survive until Southack agrees to sponsor me. Even then, all it gets me is a Guild audition. And if I pass that, I’m still competing against all the other Guild bards for gigs.” I sighed. “I just want to play music, Xolgoth.”
“It is the fate of the weak to suffer the commands of those who seize the lash.”
“I’m not weak. You don’t know what I gave up to get here. Hours of practice while my friends were out having fun. Scrimping and saving for lessons, my guitar, the journey to Lackmore. And then there was my mother…”
“Your mother?” Xolgoth rumbled.
I hesitated, staring into his gelatinous depths. It was the first time he had ever asked me a question—the first time, really, he’d indicated he was actually following our conversations, not just using them as an opportunity to deliver threats and pronouncements.
“Do you want to know about my mother?”
“She sounds like a creature of great wickedness. Tell Xolgoth how she flensed your delicate heart.”
I picked up a tumbler and rolled it between my hands, back and forth. It clicked rhythmically against the glass gauntlet. “She isn’t wicked. In fact, she’s painfully fair. ‘The laws apply equally to high and low alike, Gally.’ I can still hear her say it.”
“Xolgoth is above rules.”
“Not to Mother, you aren’t. Nobody is.” I sighed. “Even when the rules are wrong.”
“Xolgoth senses an impending monologue, and demands feeding before it begins.”
I pushed the tumbler into him, grabbed the stack of bowls, and fed him those, too. “Up in the highlands, where I’m from, there aren’t lawyers and juries. There’s no city watch. Instead, we have judge investigators. In the summer they travel from town to town, in the winter they stay home and hold court, but either way it works the same. Folk bring their complaints, and the judge investigator—well, she investigates, then she judges. Her word is as good as law, back home. Better than law. Judge investigators are the foundation the community is built on.”
“Your mother holds the lash of power,” said Xolgoth.
I nodded and fed him another glass. “My mother, her father, his father, his mother… You might call it the family business. So naturally, Mother assumed I would do the same. After all, I’m her firstborn. And in the Chaparral family, that’s what firstborns do.”
“Xolgoth infers that you threw off the chains of tradition.”
“Eventually. But not for a long time. From the moment I could talk, Mother took me on the circuit with her every summer and made me sit in court every winter. She indulged my interest in music, but she always considered it a hobby. Even when I was practicing six hours a day.” I pushed my glasses up. “Well, suffice it to say she spent years training me to replace her. She would quiz me, test me, make me hunt for evidence and interpret clues. I was almost as sharp an investigator as she was.”
“Until you spurned her wishes, and chaos reigned in the halls of power!”
I laughed, a little ruefully. “The day I told her was certainly chaotic. I’ve never heard her scream before, so she was somewhat hard to understand—”
“Her mind was shattered! Her dream in ruins! Her dynasty, dissolved!”
“—until she disowned me. That was perfectly clear.”
Xolgoth quivered into silence. I looked away, feeling my face heat up, and busied myself pulling spoons from the dish pile until my hands were full. I pushed them into Xolgoth one by one, then turned back for more. We carried on tacet for a while, until the counter was clear and only a few particularly stubborn stew bowls remained inside Xolgoth.
“She spat you out of the family,” he said. “You did not beg to be reabsorbed?”
“I don’t want to be a judge investigator,” I said. “I want to be a bard.”
“You are a fearless creature, Gally.”
“Thank you.” I smiled. “I like you too, Xolgoth. I think you know I’ll never stick my hand in you, but you’re my friend anyway. People out there…” I gestured vaguely at the kitchen door. “They don’t see you, they see who they want you to be. The moment you come up short—”
“You are spat out most cruelly.”
“Exactly. People only want you until they don’t want you anymore.” I pulled the glass gauntlet off and dropped it on the counter. “Well, I think the dishes are conquered. Thanks for chatting with me. I hope you had a good meal.”
“Thromli says you will play music tonight. This pleases Xolgoth.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t—wait, it pleases you?” It was hard to envision Xolgoth as a fan of the arts.
“Xolgoth knows of the Bardic Guild and its many rules. The Guild holds the lash. It pleases Xolgoth to imagine Gally the fearless creature sowing chaos in the halls of power.”
I shook my head. “They don’t care if I play a few songs at an unlicensed tavern. Regardless, I’m not playing tonight. I have nothing prepared.”
“Xolgoth fails to see the problem.”
“Well—if I play poorly, or pick the wrong songs, I’ll humiliate myself. I’d rather wait until I’m properly ready, that’s all.”
“You are afraid.” Xolgoth sounded disappointed. “Are you not Gally the fearless creature?”
“I’m not afraid, I’m being prudent. I might not get another opportunity like this.”
“Xolgoth commands you to shove a thumb in the eye of fear.”
“I’m not—”
Xolgoth quivered in agitation. “Thumb the eye, fearless creature! You did not quail when your own mother spat you out. Do not quail now!”
“But—”
“Thumb the eye!”
“Gally!” Thromli shouted from beside his stew pot. His face was brick red. “Lords Above, lass, there’s those of us tryin’ to cook in this kitchen. Keep it down or get out there and play already!”
“Sorry.”
“Xolgoth has no thumbs,” said Xolgoth, a little sadly.
The door opened and Skotleivo clattered in with an overloaded tray on each bony arm. “Slacking off again?” She eyed me—well, eye-socketed me—up and down and sighed. “What d’you expect with all that meat weighing you down? Come on, shake a tailfeather. I’d be dying out there if I weren’t already dead.”
“I can’t. I’m performing tonight.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them—but I didn’t want to. As I spoke I felt the familiar heat rush up my calves, tingle in my stomach, and settle in my chest. That intoxicating potion of ambition, anxiety, and most of all, joy.
I was playing music tonight.
“There’s a lass,” said Thromli.
“Thumb the eye!” cried Xolgoth.
“I get half your tips,” said Skotleivo.
The barroom was even riper and noisier than when my shift began, but I was pleased to see the crowd had only grown. Even better, there was no sign of Alix. I smiled at the thought of her slinking away, thinking her plan to trick me into performing had failed. Helping, indeed!
I nodded to Freda, who ignored me, and waited until Bim the dwarf rose uncertainly from his barstool and staggered off in the direction of the privy. I grabbed the stool and made my way to my corner.
Luckily it was vacant at the moment. I set the stool and my case down, pulled out my guitar, and set about checking its tuning. As I plucked at the strings and adjusted the tuning pegs, however, my hands felt stiff. I set the guitar down and blew into them. No help—I was perfectly warm thanks to all the bodies packed into the room, but working the kinks from my hands would take half an hour of careful warmups. I needed a faster solution.
I made my way to the bar and waved Freda down.
“Hi, would it be possible to get a bowl of warm water before I play?”
She threw her rag on the bartop. “I told you,” she said to no one in particular. “It never ends with these bards.”
“It’s just that my fingers are cramping,” I said. “I’ll be fine once they loosen up. I’ll be terrible if I play with stiff hands.”
“Oh, for all the Lords.” Freda picked up her rag just so she could toss it down again. “We don’t sell water. Have you seen the water in this neighborhood? You can’t drink that.”
“I don’t want to drink it—”
“Publican!” came a voice at my shoulder. A copper middie clattered on the bartop. “Two pints of your cheapest. And a bowl of warm water on the side.”
It was, of course, Alix, who hadn’t left—only gone to change. She wore a country riding outfit in dark tweed, a high-collared jacket and tight jodhpurs tucked into gleaming knee boots. The yellow bandana was knotted like an ascot around her neck. She leaned her elbows on the bartop and watched as Freda testily poured two mugs of ale. “Gally girl.”
Torn between irritation and gratitude, I decided to mind my manners. “Thank you. I hate playing without a proper warmup.”
Freda dropped our ales on the bar. “I’ll have to go to the kitchen for the water.”
“I can wait,” said Alix.
Grumbling, Freda snatched up Alix’s copper piece and disappeared through the kitchen door.
“Been well?” Alix asked me.
“In the hour since I saw you?”
Freda returned with a cloudy glass bowl of steaming water, which she set on the bar with a thunk. A sigh of pleasure escaped me as I dipped my hands in. “Oh, that’s heaven.”
Bim staggered past and Alix handed him our ales. “So you can unclench. I’ll make a note.”
Heat rose so quickly to my face I was sure she spotted it before I looked away. I was letting her get to me again. I stared fixedly into the bowl, watching my hands, but soon enough they were bright red and tingling and I had to draw them out. I sighed even deeper than before, looked around for a cloth, couldn’t find one, and dried them on my sweater.
“All right,” I said. “Ready.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
ULDOR’S GHOST
I returned to my corner and took up my guitar with pleasantly loose hands. A sense of anticipation had settled over things—crowds are like that, they have a way of knowing when the show’s about to begin—and the barroom quieted. I took one last glance around the room, but there was no sign of Chill.
Behind the bar, Freda caught my eye. She pointed at me, made a motion as though she was distributing something, and gestured at the casks on the wall beside her.
You. Sell. Ale.
I settled my guitar on my knee. If I had to improvise a setlist, at least I knew where to start. “The Traveler’s Drink” might not be the most original choice, but it was a surefire crowd-pleaser, particularly among rogues and dipsomaniacs. I picked out a spritely introduction on my guitar and sang a bold, simple tune:
Oh dwarves will drink the finest ale they brew in wooden casks
And humans like a little beer when resting from their tasks
The halflings drink whatever’s handy, morning, noon, and night
And elves will sip a dewy droplet spiked with silver light
A half-elf likes it half as strong, a goblin likes it green
But a traveler turning down a drink’s a thing I’ve never seen
Throughout the barroom, heads were nodding in time to the song. A few customers even had their glasses raised. It was working, and—I scanned the room—I’d covered all the various peoples present, with the exception of Fhraff and the other orcs.
If there was a line for orcs, I’d never heard it. I had half a mind to improvise one, but Fhraff wasn’t watching or listening, he was engrossed in a whispered conversation with Tails. So I repeated the last line a few times, shifting the chords beneath it and adding little flourishes, until a quarter of the room was singing along.
I ended with a last grandiose strum of the guitar. Applause broke out, mostly from those who’d sung along, and one call of “again!” Alix, leaning on the bar with glass in hand, winked. But Freda was glaring at me, red in the face. She slapped her rag down on the bartop and stormed over to my corner.
“Play a sad one.”
“What?” I said. Surely she wasn’t giving me performance notes after just one song.
“Play a sad one. Why didn’t you play that one from Friday?”
“You can’t lead off with a sad song. You have to win the audience over first, get them on your side. Once you have them, then you can—”
“Don’t want to hear it, bard. Play a sad song or get back to the kitchen.”
My cheeks felt hot, as did the back of my neck, and I wondered if Freda could see my face reddening. I smoothed my hair down and gave her the most insouciant shrug I could manage with a guitar on my lap. Apparently satisfied she’d made her point, she headed back to her post.
I did a quick and somewhat irritated scan of the room. If I hadn’t had their attention before, I certainly did now. At the hearth, Brother Tappleblatt shook out his pipe into the ashes and began repacking it. Bow and Nose Cabbage were watching intently, as was Alix. Only Fhraff and Tails seemed uninterested. Their conversation, while still conducted in whispers, had taken on the rhythms of an argument. I couldn’t see Fhraff’s face, since his back was to me, but Tails looked openly distressed.
I untied my ponytail and began redoing it to buy a moment to think. If Freda wanted a sad song, she would have one. They had seemingly never heard “Highland Hearth” in Lackmore—they certainly wouldn’t know “The Reaper’s Wind.”
I reset my hands on my guitar, plucked a few melancholy chords, and sang.
My only son has gone away
My son has gone a-roaming
I walk the fields he used to play
And stare into the gloaming
I only wish that he had stayed
The reaper’s wind is moaning
He took a soldier’s oath one day
And now a sword he’s holding
’Neath a field where hundreds lay
In armor dank and mould’ring
He ended on a bitter blade
The reaper’s wind is moaning
The barroom was silent, save for the sound of quiet weeping. At a few tables, customers pushed their drinks away to make space to lay down their heads. Somewhere above us, a bell tolled the hour.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stood, scraping his chair on the stone floor. His craggy face was seamed with scars and a tear glittered in his one eye.
“I’ve got to apologize to me son!” he cried, and ran for the stairs.
I smiled to myself. There were six more verses to go.
Scowling, Freda stomped out from behind the bar and over to me. “Not like that! What are you, mad?”
“You said—”
“Pack your lute and get out—”
The bang of a chair hitting the floor cut her off. Fhraff was on his feet, looming over Tails, who sat cowering and staring up at his huge orcish companion. Fhraff reached out one plate-sized hand, grabbed Tails by the lapel, and lifted him from his seat. “I oughta kill you, you little cheat!”
He hauled Tails across the table, scattering dishware in all directions. Bowls rolled off the table. A glass hit the floor and shattered. A few nearby patrons leapt back in alarm. Then Freda was there, pulling on Fhraff’s humped bicep with both hands.
“No fighting! No fighting! Put him down!”
Fhraff stared down at her with a snarl curling his lip. Then, suddenly, his face cleared as though he’d just remembered where he was. “Oh. Yeah. No fighting.”
“Out!” Freda barked.
“Freda—” said Tails.
“Out! The both of you, and stay out until your mamas crawl up from their graves to beat some manners into you!”
The barroom was silent as Fhraff and Tails slunk under the portcullis and up the stairs. I heard the creak of the door opening and the whine of the wind. A gust rolled down the stairwell, carrying a handful of snow that fluttered to the floor.
The fire went out.
I squinted in the sudden dimness. The few torches scattered around the tavern still gave light, but it was patchy, and half the room lay in shadow.
“My painting!” shouted Freda. She stood in the center of the room, pointing rigidly at the wall behind the bar.
And—it couldn’t be—yes, her beloved painting was bulging like a sail in wind, tugging at the nails that fixed it to the wall. It came free with a ripping sound and fluttered violently across the barroom. Freda leapt for it as it sailed over her head, clutching with both hands, but it gave an upward lurch and evaded her grasp. As it dove toward the hearth, fire flashed along the floor beneath it and new flames leapt up in the grate. And the painting—I could describe the movement no other way—hurled itself in.
“It’s Uldor’s ghost!” shrieked Bim the dwarf, and fainted.
Brother Tappleblatt leaned over the hearth and stared into the flames. The whole room seemed to hold its breath.
He shook his bald head. “It’s gone,” he said. “Burned to ash.”
The slap of boots on stone drew the crowd’s attention as Freda recrossed the room, returning to the bar. But she didn’t go behind it. She stopped by the stool where Alix sat frozen with her glass to her lips and dropped a heavy hand on the post rider’s shoulder.
“You,” said Freda. “You did this.”
For the first time, Alix was speechless. She looked at Freda’s hand on her shoulder, looked up at Freda’s face, and looked back at the hand. Gently but firmly, she pushed it off.
Freda set her other hand on Alix’s other shoulder. “Oh, no. Not that easy. You cheated me.”
