The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [169]
“I promise you, Praifec, it will elevate. This is something very new.”
“The world is suddenly full of new things,” the praifec reflected. “Few of them good. But go on, Fralet—explain this ‘new thing’ to me.”
“It is a marriage, Your Grace, of drama and music.”
“Like the lustspell one hears in the streets?” Hespero asked disdainfully.
“No, Your Grace—and yes. The lustspell are narrated by song, and the actors mime the parts. I propose to have the actors themselves sing, accompanied by the orchestra.”
“That doesn’t sound substantially different to me.”
“But it is, Your Grace. Her M—the queen mother asked me to write something not for the nobility, not for the court, but for the people, to give them hope in these dark times. They are—as you say—familiar with the lustspell. But while the street performances I have seen are vulgar in content and poorly drawn, I intend to give them something that will stir their souls—as you say, uplift them.”
“As you uplifted them in Glastir, by starting a riot?”
“That was an unfortunate event,” Leoff said, “but it was not the fault of my music.”
Hespero didn’t say anything, but continued leafing through the pages.
“This triad is in the seventh mode,” he noticed.
“Indeed, Your Grace has an excellent eye.”
“Triads in the seventh mode are not to be used,” the praifec said firmly. “They have a disharmonious influence on the humors.”
“Yes, yes,” Leoff said. “Precisely, Your Grace. This is a point in the piece where all seems lost, when it appears that evil will triumph. But if you turn the page here, you see—”
“The third mode,” Hespero interrupted. “But these aren’t mere triads, these— How many instruments is this written for?”
“Thirty, Your Grace.”
“Thirty? Preposterous. Why do you need three bass Vithuls?”
“The Candle Grove is quite large. To project over the voices—but you see, also, here, where they each depart to different themes.”
“I do. This is extraordinarily busy. In any event, to shift from seventh to third mode—”
“From despair to hope,” Leoff murmured.
The praifec frowned and continued, “Is to excite first one passion and then another.”
“But Your Grace, that is what music is meant to do.”
“No, music is meant to edify the saints. It is meant to please. It is not meant to stimulate emotion.”
“I think if you just heard it, Your Grace, you would find it—”
The praifec waved him to silence with his own sheet music. “What language is this?”
“Why, Your Grace, it is Almannish.”
“Why Almannish, when Old Vitellian is perfectly suited to the human voice?”
“But, Your Grace, most of the people attending the concert do not understand Old Vitellian, and it is rather the point that they should understand what is being sung.”
“What is the story, in brief?”
Leoff related the story Gilmer had told him, including the embellishments he had added.
“I see why you choose that tale, I suppose,” the praifec said. “It has a sort of common appeal that will be popular with those for whom it is intended, and it promotes the idea of fealty to one’s sovereign, even unto death. But where is the king in all of this? Where is he in his people’s hour of need?” He paused, crooking a finger between his lips.
“How is this?” he suggested. “You’ll add something. The king has died, poisoned by his wife. She rules through her daughter, who has—against all that is right and holy—been named his successor. The town is invaded, and the people send for help from her, but it is denied. After the girl sacrifices herself, the invaders, overcome with fury, swear to slaughter the entire populace, and it is then we learn that the king’s son—whom all thought dead—is indeed alive. He saves the village and returns to take his rightful place as king.”
“But, Your Grace, that isn’t what—”
“And change the names of the countries,” the praifec went on. “It would be too incendiary to name a Hansan as the villain, given the current climate. Let the countries be, let me see—ah, I have it. Tero Sacaro and Tero Ansacaro.