The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [118]
Music was in the air. He first heard the high, sweet voice that sounded like a flageolet, but with a more haunting timber and odd glissando passages between certain notes. The rhythm was odd, too, first in two, then in three, to two, broadening to four. The unpredictability of it made him grin.
So did the underlying play of the croth and the bright comments of a push-pull. The tune seemed light and cheerful, but overall it felt melancholy, because the foundation was a slow, deep movement of a bass vithul, played with a bow.
It wasn’t exactly like any music he had ever heard, which was both exciting and strange.
They were near enough to dock before the lantern light showed him the faces of the players—four Sefry men, their broad hats set aside for night, faces like silver sculptures in the moonlight.
Two normal men came to take the bowline and tie the boat up. Ignoring his guide, Leoff stepped off onto the quay and approached the Sefry, hoping to speak with one of them. The flageolet, he saw, had no windcap; the musician was blowing directly onto the diagonal cut made into the bone—ivory?—instrument. The other instruments were standard, so far as he could see.
“Come, come,” Alvreic said. “Make haste. You’re late already.”
The musicians showed no sign that they noticed his attentions, and the song did not seem near its end.
The lanterns continued up a low hill, limning a road that led to the looming shadow of a manse. As Leoff and Alvreic made their way silently up to the estate, a voice joined the music, and everything about the piece snapped into place in a way that brought a sigh to his lips. He strained to hear the words, but they weren’t in the king’s tongue. He had a sudden, vivid image of the cottage by the sea where he had grown up. He saw his sister Glinna playing in his mother’s garden, her blond hair muddy, her face huge with smile, his father on a stool, playing a little croth.
A pile of stones, that house now. Ghosts, his father and sister.
And it suddenly seemed he did understand the words, if only for an instant.
Then the din from the manse trod over the Sefry melody. There was music in that, too, a familiar country dance that seemed heavy and vulgar after what he’d just heard. But by the laughter and shouts he made out along with it, he guessed it was pleasing to most of its audience.
Presently they reached a pair of immense iron-bound doors, which—at a sign from Alvreic to someone unseen—slowly creaked open. A doorman in bright green hose and brown tunic greeted them.
“Leovigild Ackenzal,” Alvreic said. “He’s to be announced.”
Leoff held back a sigh. So much for avoiding notice.
They followed the doorman down a long, candlelit hall to another pair of doors, which also swung open, this time to reveal a hall ablaze with lamp- and candlelight. Sounds came pouring out, music mixed with the chatter of the crowd. The musicians were at the far end, a quartet, now playing a pavane. Perhaps twenty couples were dancing to it, and easily twice as many standing about in conversation.
But as he entered the room, all that stopped, and more than a hundred people turned to regard him. The music fell silent.
“I present Leovigild Ackenzal,” the doorman announced in a clear, carrying voice. “Composer to the court and hero of Broogh.”
Leoff wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but the sudden roar of applause took him utterly by surprise. He’d performed before the public before, of course, and had received praise for his compositions. But this—this was something different. He felt his face reddening.
The lady Gramme appeared suddenly on his arm, coming from nowhere. She leaned in to peck his cheek, then turned back to the crowd. Leoff noticed someone else stepping up on his other side, a young man. He put a hand on Leoff’s shoulder. Leoff could only stand there, feeling more and more uncomfortable.
When the crowd finally quieted, Lady Gramme curtsied to them. Then she smiled at Leoff.
“I suppose I might have told you that you were the guest of honor,