Elfsong - Elaine Cunningham [4]
The skald and the elf made a strange pair as they elbowed their way through the milling crowds. Kerigan was heavily muscled and broad of chest, and he stood nearly seven feet tall on incongruously thin, bandy legs. His helm was decorated with a broad pair of antlers; that his bulbous nose, and his whisker-draped jowls brought to mind an image of a two-legged moose. The skald sang to himself as he walked, and his voice was a fog-shattering bellow that harmonized perfectly with his uncouth appearance. Wyn's progress through the crowd was silent and graceful, and his manner so refined that to all appearances he did not notice the stares leveled at his rough companion, nor did he seem aware of the admiring gazes his elven beauty elicited. Wyn possessed the golden skin and black hair common to the high elf people, and his large, almond-shaped eyes were the deep green of an ancient forest. His ebony curls were cropped short, and he was elegantly turned out in butter-soft leathers and a quilted silk shirt the color of new leaves. Even his instruments were exceptional. In addition to his silver lyre, he carried a small flute of deep green crystal, which hung from his belt in a bag fashioned of silvery mesh.
The two ill-matched musicians squeezed into the courtyard just as the herald's horn announced the concert's beginning.
"Where'd you like to sit?" boomed Kerigan, his voice clearly audible above the crumhorn's blast.
Wyn glanced around. Not an empty seat remained, and precious little standing room. He knew that this would not deter the brash skald. "An aisle seat, perhaps a few rows from the front?" hesuggested, naming the area that Kerigan would have chosen regardless.
The Northman grinned and plowed forward through the crowd. He bent over two half-elven bards and whispered a threat. The bards obligingly abandoned their seats, their faces showing relief to have escaped so easily. With a sigh, Wyn made his way toward the beckoning Northman. At least Kerigan had acquired the seats without drawing steel-probably a first for the Northman, noted Wyn with a touch of wry amusement
Wyn's face lit up when the first selection was announced: a gypsy ballad about a long-ago alliance between the Harpers and the witches of Rashemen. The tale was told entirely in music and dance, and few were the artists who could master the intricate steps and gestures that spoke as plainly as words.
Applause rang through the courtyard as the musicians filed onto the platform-small, swarthy people carrying fiddles, simple percussion instruments, and the triangular lutes known as balalaikas. The storyteller was a young Rashemite woman, tiny and fey, dressed as was customary in a wide black skirt and embroidered white blouse. Her feet were bare, and her dark hair had been tightly braided and wrapped crownlike around her head. She stood immobile in the platform's center as the music began with a rhythmic, low-pitched plinking from the huge bass balalaika. At first the storyteller spoke only with compelling dark eyes and small gestures of her hands, but one by one the instruments joined in, and her movements quickened as she danced the tale of magic and intrigue, battle and death. The story-dancing of the Rashemite gypsies held a unique magic, and this woman was among the best Wyn had seen. Yet something about the performance struck him as not quite right.
The problems were subtle at first a misplaced gesture of the hand, a sinister note in the wailing of the fiddle. Wyn could not guess how this had occurred; the faire's ballad performers were carefully screened, and only the best, most authentic storytellers were selected.
Within moments, Wyn realized that the classic tale had been significantly altered. The Harper theme, a wandering arpeggio that was usually played by the soprano