Beyond the Shadows - Brent Weeks [104]
Leaning his head down as if oblivious to them all, he began playing as only Quoglee Mars could play. For years, he knew, students of music would test their hand against this. Could they manage this overture in the time their tutors told them Quoglee Mars had played it? And some of them doubtless would crash through it with Quoglee’s speed, and afterward, their tutors would tell them the difference between hitting notes and milking them.
Quoglee played impetuosity and youth, fervor and passion, sudden flares of anger, tempestuous, never slowing. Around that driving center, he wrapped sweetness, and love, and sorrow, pride against love, scaling higher and higher, with tragedy following a step behind.
Then, before the resolution, he stopped abruptly.
There was a moment of silence. The cretins were all looking at him, silent, expectant, not knowing if they could clap yet. He dipped his head, not even this perturbing him.
The applause was thunderous, but Quoglee held up a hand quickly, silencing it. The room held perhaps two hundred nobles, at least a hundred hangers-on, and dozens of servants. Miraculously, there were still no guards, and what speaking Quoglee had to do, he had to do without interference. “Today,” he said in his stage voice, which carried better than a shout, “I wish to play something new that I’ve written for you, and all I ask is that you allow me to finish. This song was commissioned by someone you know, but someone who is more special than you know. It was, in fact, commissioned by the Shinga of your Sa’kagé. I swear every word of this song is true. I call it the Song of Secrets, and your Shinga wishes me to dedicate it to Queen Graesin.”
* * *
“That’s plenty far, Sergeant Gamble,” Scarred Wrable said, stepping out of the shadows in a doorway that connected one of the side rooms with the Great Hall. With a practiced hand, he slid an arm between the sergeant’s rich cloak and his back and cut through leather to bring the point of a dagger to rest against the man’s spine. “There’s nothing in there that interests you.”
“What are you bastards doing in the Great Hall?”
“No theft, nor murder, and that’s all you need to know, Sergeant.”
“It’s Commander Gamble now.”
“It’ll be the late Commander Gamble if you move that hand another inch.”
“Ah. Point taken.”
“In case you’re thinking of raising an alarm, you might want to take a careful look around the room and tell me what you see.”
Commander Gamble looked. Eight royal guards were in the room. Six of them were conversing individually with young male noblemen that the commander didn’t recognize. The two others were stationed on either side of Queen Graesin and not talking to anyone, as they were commanded not to while guarding the queen. However, another group of three nobles near them did seem especially vigilant now that Commander Gamble studied them. He cursed aloud. He’d had no idea the Sa’kagé even had so many wetboys. “Let me guess that if anyone raises the alarm, you have orders.”
“If you cooperate, not only will you and all these men live, but no one will blame you afterward. You might even keep your job.”
“Why should I believe you?” Commander Gamble asked.
“Because I don’t need to lie. I’ve got two dozen friends and a knife in your back.”
Two dozen? Commander Gamble chewed on that for a moment. “Well then,” he said. “Why don’t we get a drink? I’ve got a special bottle—down in the kitchens.”
Food paused, poised inches from open mouths, forgotten. Servants froze in the act of collecting glasses. For a moment, no one even breathed.
In a city of fatal secrets, Quoglee Mars had told