The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [35]
“Yes,” Leoff said. “I know what you mean. That’s how it is with me. But I’ve never met—Can you start again, Mery?”
She nodded, put her hands to the keyboard, and played it again note for note.
“You must learn to write your music down,” he said. “Would you like to learn that?”
“Yes,” the girl said.
“Very good. You’ll have to do it yourself. My hands are…” He held them up helplessly.
“What happened to them?” Mery asked again.
“Some bad men did it,” he admitted. “But they aren’t here anymore.”
“I should like to see the men who did that,” Mery said. “I should like to see them die.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he said softly. “There’s no sense in hatred, Mery. There’s no sense in it all, and it only hurts you.”
“I wouldn’t mind being hurt if I could hurt them,” Mery insisted.
“Perhaps,” Leoff told her. “But I would mind. Now, let’s learn to write, shall we? What’s the name of this song?”
She looked suddenly shy.
“It’s for you,” she said. “‘Leoff’s Song.’”
Leoff stirred from sleep, thinking he had heard something but not certain what it was. He sat up and rubbed at his eyes, then winced as he was reminded that even so simple a task had become complicated and somewhat dangerous.
Still, he felt better than he had for some time. The visit from Mery had helped him more than he cared to admit to himself, certainly more than he would ever admit to his captors. If this was some new form of torture—to show him Mery again and then take her away—his tormentors would fail. Whatever the usurper had said to him, whatever he had said back, he knew his days were numbered.
Even if he never saw the girl again, his life was already better than it would have been.
“You’re wrong, you know,” a voice whispered.
Leoff had begun to lie back down on his simple bed. Now he froze in the act, uncertain whether he had really heard the voice. It had been very faint and raspy. Could it be his ears, turning the movement of a guard in the corridor beyond into an indictment of his thoughts?
“Who’s there?” he asked quietly.
“Hatred is well worth the effort,” the voice continued, much more clearly this time. “In fact, hatred is the only wood some furnaces will burn.”
Leoff couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. Not from inside the room and not from the door. Then where?
He got up, clumsily lighting a candle and searching the walls as he stumbled about.
“Who speaks to me?” he asked.
“Hatred,” the reply came. “Lo Husuro. I have become eternal, I think.”
“Where are you?”
“It is always night,” the voice replied. “And once it was quiet. But now I hear so much beauty. Tell me what the little girl looks like.”
Leoff’s eyes settled to one corner of the room. Finally he understood and felt stupid for not guessing earlier. There was only one opening in the room besides the door, and that was a small vent about the length of a kingsfoot on each side, too small for even an infant to crawl through—but not too small for a voice.
“You’re a prisoner, too?”
“Prisoner?” the voice murmured. “Yes, yes, that is one way to say it. I am prevented, that is, prevented from the thing that means the most to me.”
“And what is that?” Leoff asked.
“Revenge.” The voice was softer than ever, but now that Leoff was closer to the vent, it was very clear. “In my language we call it Lo Videicha. It is more than a word in my language—it is an entire philosophy. Tell me about the girl.”
“Her name is Mery. She is seven years of age. She has nut-brown hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a dark green gown today.”
“She is your daughter? Your niece?”
“No. She is my student.”
“But you love her,” the voice insisted.
“That is not your business,” Leoff said.
“Yes,” the man replied. “That would be a knife to give me, yes, if I were your enemy. But I think we are not enemies.”
“Who are you?”
“No, that is too familiar, don’t you see? Because it is a very long answer and is all in my heart.”
“How long have you been here?”
A harsh laugh followed, a small silence, then a confession. “I do not know,” he admitted. “Much of what I remember is suspect.