The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [41]
The main thoroughfare to the castle wound through the city as if it were a great snake crawling up the hill. Leoff propped his back against the wagon to sit for a better view as they jounced past chapels of ancient marble streaked and decayed by a thousand years of rain and smoke, houses with steepled roofs stabbing skyward, low cottages with white walls and red trim crammed tightly together save where narrow alleys divided them. Most buildings were of two stories, with the upper stories overhanging a bit—some few were of three.
They rolled into another plaza, in the center of which stood a weathered bronze statue of a woman with her foot upon the throat of a winged serpent. The beast coiled and writhed beneath her boot, and her face was as cold and imperious as the north wind.
Near a hundred people were gathered in the square, and for a moment, Leoff thought it a mob, but then he heard a bright soprano and pulled himself up farther. On the broad pedestal of the statue, a troop of players was performing, accompanied by a small ensemble of instrumentalists and singers. The instruments were simple—a lesser and bass croth, a drum and three pipers. When Leoff arrived, a woman had just finished singing as another woman in a green gown and gilt crown acted out her words. The player seemed to be addressing a man on a throne. Leoff had missed the words of the song, for the crowd roared in response and drowned her out, but the tune was a simple one, a well-known tavern ballad.
The man on the throne drew himself up, grinning stupidly.
“Hold a moment,” Leoff said. “Can I hear a bit of this?”
Artwair shot him an ironic look. “You may as well have your introduction to the court, I suppose. The lady in green represents our good queen Muriele, I believe.”
The man coughed, as if to clear his throat. Down among the musicians, a chorus of three men sang.
He is the King,
Ha, ha, ha,
He is the King,
Tee, hee, hee
What shall he do,
Ha, ha, ha
Touched by the Saints,
Tee, hee, hee
The player broke off into the helpless laughter of an idiot and gamboled a bit while the chorus repeated its verse. A ridiculous figure in a huge hat joined the “king” in his dance.
“Our good king Charles,” Artwair said wryly. “And his jester.”
The instruments fell silent, and the player acting the king suddenly spoke what seemed to Leoff to be gibberish.
A sinister figure in black robes with a long, ridiculous goatee ran onto the stage. He fawned up to the queen. He did not sing, but spoke in a theatrical fashion that resembled chant.
“Let me interpret!” the black-robed figure cried. “Good Queen, your son has proclaimed, in the voice of the saints, that I should be given the whole of the kingdom. That I should be handed the keys to the city, that I should have leave to fondle your—”
The audience finished his sentence for him in a roar.
“Our beloved praifec Hespero,” Artwair explained.
“What’s this!” A group of three men dressed as ministers rushed up, tripping and bumbling into one another. Below them, a chorus began singing,
Here, here are nobles three
Who claim the Praifec wrong, you see
Charles speaks in Fing, not Churchalees,
And they say that his thoughts are these . . .
They paused, and the music changed meter, became a rather jolly dance.
Raise the taxes,
Draw the gates,
Bring them damsels, bring them cakes
War’s a bother
They don’t see,
They are nobles foolish three!
The “nobles” covered their eyes, and the chorus began another verse as they capered around the queen.
“Our wise and beloved Comven,” Artwair said.
The queen drew herself up in the midst of this.
“The Queen implores!” she chanted. “Is there no one to save us in our time of darkness?”
The chorus then launched into a song of loss and mourning for the queen’s children, while she danced a pavane for the dead, and the other songs came back as counterpoint.
“Is that the sort of thing you compose?” Artwair asked.
“Not really,” Leoff murmured, fascinated