The Riddle - Alison Croggon [20]
Elenxi put up his hand to stem the tide. “Now, be fair,” he said in the Speech. “Maerad is clever, but she can’t speak Thoroldian. How can she answer all of you? Anyway, what does she know about the high policies of Innail? She is only a young Bard, and she hasn’t been there for months. We have been working hard at improving her swordcraft this afternoon, and she is tired and needs some wine. She came all this way to be taught by me, which shows remarkable good taste.”
He winked at her slyly, and Maerad, grateful for his intervention, gave him a small smile; she hadn’t understood much, but she knew they had asked about Dernhil, and the mention distressed her. Suddenly a glass full of a dark red wine was in front of her, and she was being plied with delicacies instead of questions. She clutched her glass and gulped the wine. The conversation resumed, in the Speech so she could understand it, and she sat quietly listening. After a while, emboldened by her second glass of wine, she asked the young man with the instrument, a Bard called Honas, what it was.
“It’s a makilon,” he said. “My father made this one especially for me: he’s a master crafter of instruments, famous in Thorold. It’s beautiful, yes?” He handed it to her, and she stroked the smooth, mellow wood, admiring the mother-of-pearl inlay around the soundhole and the delicate carving of its neck.
“Oh, yes, it’s lovely,” said Maerad. She let her fingers trickle over the strings, listening to its resonance. “So beautifully made. I’ve never seen one before. How do you play it?”
Honas, his face alight with obvious passion, took the instrument back and started to show her the complicated fingerings and plucking styles for the makilon. Maerad’s fingers itched to try them, and before long Honas gave it to her, placing her hands correctly on the neck and the strings. She ventured an arpeggio, marveling at the sound. Honas was beginning to be more interested in Maerad than the music, but only Elenxi, keeping discreet watch from the other side of the table, noticed this. He smiled into his beard. Maerad was completely absorbed, and had now forgotten her shyness altogether.
Maybe they weren’t so frightening, these Bards.
The most demanding studies were those in High Magery. This was something Maerad had never studied formally, although Cadvan had taught her much on their travels together. She went to Nerili’s rooms for her first lesson with a strange reluctance; she hadn’t spoken to the First Bard since the night she had arrived in Busk, and she felt apprehensive, as if she would not know what to say. Nerili took care to put her at her ease.
“Well, Maerad,” she said, smiling, when Maerad entered. “Cadvan has told me of your feats, striking down both a Kulag and a wight. It seems passing strange to be teaching you, when you have already done more than most Bards.”
That day Nerili was dressed plainly, but Maerad still found her beauty dazzling and she felt stiff and awkward. “There’s still a lot I don’t know,” she mumbled, embarrassed. “I didn’t think about anything when those things happened. It just — burst out of me.”
“So I understand. Well, we will just have to feel strange about it, no? I’m sure that will disappear once we start working.”
And so, Maerad found, it did.
They worked in a room that was clearly set aside for teaching: there were few pieces of furniture, only a big table and a bench by the wall where they could both sit, if need be. A broad window stood open in the south wall, and through it blew a wind that carried the distant soughing of the sea.
A large part of what Maerad learned over the ensuing weeks was the theoretical study of what the Bards called the Knowing, which was roughly divided into the Three Arts: Reading, Making, and Tending, each of which was intricately