The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [61]
“Those are forms, Majesty. Within those forms, such sublime things could be done—”
“I don’t understand. Why does the Church object to your philosophy?”
And now Leoff knew he must choose his words very carefully.
“Because some members of the clergy confuse habit with doctrine. There was a time before the invention of the hammarharp—it was hardly a hundred years old. Two hundred years ago, it was unheard of for two voices to sing different parts, much less four, yet hymns in the Church are now routinely written in four parts. And yet, for whatever reason, for the last hundred years, music has changed not at all. It has inertia, and familiarity. Some people fear change—”
“I asked you to be specific.”
“Yes, Majesty. Forgive me. Take, for instance, the separation of instrumental and vocal music. The music of the Church is of the voice only. Instruments never accompany a requiem. A concerto, on the other hand, never has a human voice added to it.”
“Minstrels play and sing,” the queen said.
“Yes. And the Church mislikes it. Why? I have never been shown a written doctrine to explain it.”
“Then you want to compose for both the voice and instruments?”
“Yes! It was done in ancient times, before the reign of the Black Jester.”
“He banned it?”
“Well—no. He encouraged it, actually, but like everything else he touched, he corrupted the form. He made music a thing of terror—torturing singers to scream in unison, that sort of thing.”
“Ah,” the queen said. “And when the Hegemony defeated him and imposed the peace, they banned such music because of its association, just as they banned everything else associated with the Black Jester.”
“Including artifice,” Leoff said. “If all such bans were still in affect, the malends that drain your Newland would never have been invented.”
The queen smiled again. “Don’t think the Church didn’t try to stop that,” she said. “But to return to your own assertion—you say music has the power to move the human soul, and now you mention the Black Jester. It is said that in his reign, music was written which drove whole nations to despair, which could provoke madness and bestial behavior. If so—if music can move the human soul toward darkness—is it not better that it remain, as you say, sterile and harmless?”
Leoff unclasped his hands and sighed. “Majesty,” he said, “the world is already full of the music of despair. Songs of woe are always in our ears. I would counter that with joy, pride, tenderness, peace—and above all, hope. I would add something to our lives.”
The queen looked at him for a long moment without showing a readable expression. “Move my soul,” she said finally. “Show me what you mean. I will judge how dangerous it is.”
He hesitated a moment, knowing this was the moment, wondering what to play. One of the stirring airs he had written for the court at Glastir? The victory march of Lord Fell?
He had chosen that last, and set his fingers to the keyboard, but something else happened. He began playing the thing he had been avoiding, the part that had already formed in his head. Softly at first, a song of love and desire, a path to a bright future. Then the enemy, discord, terror, dark clouds blotting the sun. Duty, grim duty but through it all, the melody of hope returned again and again, unconquerable, until in the end, after death and grief, only it remained, triumphant despite everything.
When he finished, he felt his own eyes were damp, and he gave silent prayer to the saints for what they had given him.
He turned slowly from the keyboard, and found the queen staring at him. A single tear was working down her cheek.
“What is it called?” she asked softly.
“I have never played it before,” he said. “It is a part of something larger, a distillation of it. But I might call it the ‘Tale of Lihta.’ ”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I see why the Church does not like your music,” she said. “It does indeed move the soul, and they would claim our souls as their own. But the saints speak through you, don’t they, Leovigild Ackenzal?