The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [21]
If he still had a royal appointment.
His thoughts on the matter were interrupted by the sudden breathy voice of a recorder. It was so clear and beautiful, it might have been real, but he’d lived long enough with his gift to know it was in his head.
A melody began, and he smiled as his body relaxed and his mind went to work.
The malend was teaching him its song.
It came easily, first the alto recorder, the wind coming along from the east across green plains. And now the drum, as the wheel—saglwic?—began to turn, and croths—plucked here rather than bowed—began playing the melody in unison with the flute. Then joined the low strings of the bass croths, the vast waters beneath the earth responding, but still all melody, of course—and now water flowing into the canal, a merry trickling on a flageolet, as the malend became the union of air, earth, water, and craft.
Now the variations began, each element acquiring its own theme—the earth a slow pavane on the deep instruments, but on the pipes a mad, happy dance as the wind quickened, and the strings bowing nearly glissando arpeggios . . .
He blinked. His candle had gone out, and it was pitch-black. When had that happened?
But the concerto was finished, ready to go to paper. Unlike the melody in the hills, the dance of the malend had come to him whole.
Which was perhaps why he only now realized that someone was in the room below, talking.
Two voices, and neither belonged to Gilmer Oercsun.
“ . . . don’t see why we had got picked to do this job,” a voice said. It was a tenor voice, scratchy.
“Don’t complain,” another said. This one was a booming baritone. “Especially don’t complain around him.”
“It’s just that I wanted to see,” the first replied. “Don’t you want to be there, when they bust through the dike, and the water goes all a rushin’ out?”
“You’ll see it,” the baritone replied. “You’ll see it well enough. You’ll be lucky not to swim in it.”
“Yah, I suppose. Still.” A cheerful tone crept into his voice. “But won’t it be fun, rowing a boat over all of that down there? Over the roofs of the houses? I’m going to row right over . . . what was the town?”
“Where the girl said you had a nose like a turtle’s prickler?”
“That’s the one.”
“Reckhaem.”
“Right. Hey, a turtle’s prickler is the best she’ll be getting, after tonight.”
“Still better than yours, from what I’ve heard,” the baritone said. “Now let’s be done here. We’ve got to burn every malend for four leagues before morning.”
“Yah, but why?”
“So they can’t pump the water back up, you dumb sceat. Now, come on.”
Burn? Leoff’s heart did a triple-quick-step.
The top of the stairway suddenly appeared, an orange rectangle, and he smelled burning oil.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PRAIFEC
ASPAR WHITE FOUGHT TO draw a breath, but he felt as if a giant hand were clenched around his throat. “Sceat, this can’t be right,” he managed to gasp out. “Winna—”
Winna rolled her blue eyes and shook her honey locks. “Hush, Asp,” she admonished, “don’t be such a kindling. Haven’t you ever worn a Farling collar before?”
“I’ve never worn any damn sort of collar before,” Aspar grunted. “What’s the point?”
“The point is, you’re in Eslen, in the royal palace, not tramping through a heath in the uplands, and before the next bell you’re going to see His Grace, the Praifec of all Crotheny. You’ve got to dress for the occasion.”
“But I’m just a holter,” he complained. “Let me dress like one.”
“You killed the Black Warg and his bandit band, alone, with nothing but your bow, ax, and dirk. You fought a greffyn and lived. You mean to say now you’re afraid to wear a simple set of weeds?”
“They aren’t simple, I look stupid, and I can’t breathe.”
“You haven’t even seen yourself, and if you’ve got enough breath to whinge so, I’d say you’re doing fine. Now here, come to the mirror.”
He raised his eyebrows. Winna’s young face was broad with smile. Her hair was caught up in a black net of some sort, and she wore an azure gown that—to his mind