Fire - Kristin Cashore [38]
She sat in her bedroom one day, playing a cheerful tune, a song for dancing, but something in her mood slowed the tempo and discovered sad parts in it. Eventually she found herself switching to a different song altogether, one that was manifestly sorrowful, and her fiddle cried out its feeling.
Fire stopped and lowered the instrument to her lap. She stared at it, then hugged it against her chest like a baby, wondering what was wrong with her.
She had an image in her head of Cansrel in the moment he had given her this fiddle. ‘I’m told this has a nice sound, darling,’ he’d said, holding it out to her almost carelessly, as if it were an inconsequential bit of rubbish that had not cost him a small fortune. She’d taken it, appreciative of its handsomeness but knowing that its real value would depend upon its tone and feeling, neither of which Cansrel could be any judge of. She’d drawn her bow across its strings as an experiment. The fiddle had responded instantly, wanting her touch, speaking to her in a gentle voice that she’d understood and recognised.
A new friend in her life.
She’d been unable to hide her pleasure from Cansrel. His own gladness had swelled.
‘You’re astonishing, Fire,’ he’d said. ‘You’re a constant source of wonder to me. I’m never more happy than when I’ve made you happy. Isn’t it peculiar?’ he’d said, laughing. ‘Do you really like it, darling?’
In her chair in her room, Fire forced herself to look around at the windows and walls and take stock of the present. The light was fading. Archer would be coming back soon from the fields, where he was helping with the plowing. He might have some news about the ongoing search for the archer. Or Brocker might have a letter from Roen with updates about Mydogg and Murgda, or Gentian, or Brigan, or Nash.
She found her longbow and quiver and, shaking off memories like loose hairs, left her house in search of Archer and Brocker.
THERE WAS NO news. There were no letters.
One monthly bleeding passed for Fire, with all its attendant aches and embarrassments. Everyone in her house, in Archer’s house, and in the town knew what it signified whenever she stepped outside with an entourage of guards. Eventually another passed like the first. Summer was near. The farmers were willing potatoes and carrots to take hold in the rocky ground.
Her lessons progressed much as usual.
‘Stop, I implore you,’ she said one day at Trilling’s, interrupting an earsplitting clamour of flutes and horns. ‘Let’s begin again at the top of the page, shall we? And, Trotter,’ she begged the eldest boy, ‘try not to blow so hard; I guarantee you, that shrieking noise is from blowing too hard. All right? Ready?’
The enthusiastic massacre began once more. She did love the children. Children were one of her small joys, even when they were fiends to each other; even when they imagined they were hiding things from her, like their own idleness or, in some cases, their talent. Children were smart and malleable. Time and patience made them strong and stopped them fearing her or adoring her too much. And their frustrations were familiar to her, and dear.
But, she thought, at the end of the day I must give them back. They’re not my children - someone else feeds them and tells them stories. I’ll never have children. I’m stuck in this town where nothing ever happens and nothing ever will happen and there’s never any news. I’m so restless I could take Renner’s horrible flute and break it over his head.
She touched her own head, took a breath, and made very sure that Trilling’s second son knew nothing of her feeling.
I must find my even temper, she thought. What is it I’m hoping for, anyway? Another murder in the woods? A visit from Mydogg and Murgda and their pirates? An ambush of wolf monsters?
I must stop wishing for things to happen. Because something will happen eventually, and when it does, I’ll be bound to wish it hadn’t.
THE NEXT DAY,