The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [131]
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Fine, thank you. I thought you might need this.” She steps away and resumes her place beside Shierra.
He takes a swallow, aware of the continuing quietness, before finally setting down the empty cup by the stool and touching the strings again.
. . . from the skies of long-lost Heaven . . .
to the heights of Westwind keep,
we will hold our blades in order,
and never let our honor sleep!
He almost loses the melody as the guards finally begin to sing, and more voices join in as he continues playing.
At the end, he turns toward the Montgren group. “I’d sing your songs, too, but I must confess that I had to leave the Duchy before I learned any of them. Someone . . . anyone . . . who can work out the melody with me?”
Slowly a dark-haired man stands; it is Thoirkel. “Ser, I don’t know as I can sing much . . .”
A snicker comes from his companions.
“. . . but I do know the words to a few songs.”
Creslin glances at the Westwind faces, conscious that the cold hostility has somewhat relaxed. Creating some sort of unity among the two groups is going to be a long, tough job.
. . . the Duke he went a-hunting,
a-hunting he did go . . .
Thoirkel’s voice warbles off-key and off-tempo, but Creslin can pick up the basic melody and words, and before long stronger voices rise up in chorus.
At the end of two more songs, Creslin stands, shaking his hands. His fingers are not quite bloody. “I’ll surrender the guitar to anyone . . .”
For a moment, he is afraid that no one will take it; then a slender Westwind guard steps forward. He hands the instrument to her and walks toward the small, empty table set between the two groups.
The guard has a fair voice and a good sense of the guitar, and she begins with an old ballad.
Creslin holds his cup up, and one of the women fills it with redberry. Then he fumbles, realizing that he has no coins with him.
“I think you need not pay at your own tavern, ser,” suggests the woman with a smile. “Especially after such a lovely performance.”
Two chairs slide into place to his right, and Megaera and Shierra sit down. As he looks up, Megaera beckons to Hyel, who immediately picks up his chair and crosses the five cubits. He sets down the straight-backed and armless chair, roughed out of the castoffs from the building timbers, and sits to Creslin’s left.
“I didn’t know you could sing.” Megaera’s statement is an accusation.
“I never had a chance until now, and you never seemed to be interested,” Creslin says absently, still watching the guard on the stool.
“Fiera said that the hall guards used to sneak up outside his door when he practiced,” adds Shierra, her voice warmer than Creslin has ever heard it.
He tries to keep his mouth from opening. Fiera? Shierra? Are they related? Is that why the older woman appears familiar? “Fiera?” he finally asks. “Is she your—?”
“My youngest sister. She talked a lot about you, probably too much.”
“How is she?”
Megaera stiffens, but Creslin ignores it for the moment.
“She went with the detachment to Sarronnyn. She’ll be rotated back later in the year sometime.”
“Where did the guitar come from?” asks Hyel.
“It was mine. I left it . . . behind. Lydya—the healer—brought it. My sister, Llyse, thought I might like to have it.”
“You’ve never played in public?” Shierra smiles, as if she knows the answer.
“No. I was scared to do it, but sometimes music helps. The second song, the white-as-a-dove one, probably saved me from the White Wizards.”
“You didn’t exactly sound scared.” Megaera’s voice remains cool.
“That wouldn’t have helped much,” he responds slowly. “Besides, no one born in Westwind shows fear. Not if they can help it.”
Megaera looks to the guard captain.
Shierra nods slowly. “Feeling afraid is acceptable, but letting it affect your actions is not. That’s one of the reasons the guards are often more effective than men. Men too often conceal their fear in brashness or in unwise attacks. The guards are trained to recognize