The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [70]
“. . . guards . . . hassling, hassling, hassling.” He hears the voices of the other prisoners in the wagon.
“It’s one of their cherished pleasures, Deiter. Wine, women, and song, you remember? No wine here. The only women are other guards, and they’re tougher than the men. And you know how the wizards feel about song.”
The nameless man sets his boot on the bottom of the top bunk and prepares to climb up. No women? What about the healer? And song? But he does not ask. There is too much he does not know. Finally he puts his foot on the edge of the bottom bunk.
“Careful there, silver-top.”
“Sorry.”
He climbs toward his bunk and the planked roof of the wagon, where he wiggles into the narrow space and removes his other boot. Then he attempts to stretch out and sleep. His muscles ache, though not nearly so greatly as when he remembers first carrying the stones.
Although the soreness in his heel has disappeared, the low whispers of the other prisoners persist, and sleep does not find him.
“A song . . .” hisses a voice.
The silver-haired man eases to the edge of the cramped bunk, looking down.
Redrick sits on the narrow space next to the bottom bunk of the opposite row, glances from one side of the wagon to the other, clears his throat softly, swallows, then looks toward the open doorway and the blackness beyond. Like three others in the wagon, he half sits, half leans, between the lower bunk and the narrow floor space that separates the twin row of pallets upon hard wooden frames.
“Go on . . . a song,” insists the older man with the hairless and tanned skull, the one with arms like small trees.
“A song?”
“A song.”
“Shhh . . .” hissing from a top bunk. That noise’ll have the wizards’ men back here as fast as storm bolts.”
The single lamp flickers in the wind that gusts through the doorless opening in the wagon.
“Shit . . .” The mutter comes from the bottom bunk, the lowest in the stack of three beneath the nameless man.
Redrick glances nervously toward the emptiness outside and clears his throat once more. Then, without strings, without flute, his thin voice, as clear as a mountain stream at dawn, creeps through the wagon, one note, one word, at a time.
Ask not the song to be sung,
or the bell to be rung,
or if my tale is done.
The answer is all — and none.
The answer is all — and none.
Oh, white was the color of my love,
as bright and white as a dove,
and white was he, as fair as she,
who sundered my love from me . . .
Even in the flickering light of the lamp, the singer appears drawn, as though each word is a struggle against an unseen opponent, each note an arrow thrown against a white-red flame that seeks to consume it.
To the silver-haired man, those fragile notes climb like silver ghost-lights from the singer toward the flat plank roof of the wagon, lights more intense in their insubstantial glow than the yellow flame of the lamp itself. He extends a hand, cupping it around a single ordered vibration.
Tweet! Tweet!
Redrick’s voice falters, halts . . .
The note shatters into less than dust, and the nameless man stares blankly at the emptiness between his palm and his fingers, feeling tears welling in his eyes. Tears? For a fragment of nothing?
“So . . .” rumbles the gravelly voice of the road soldier. “Singing, is it? Such a happy little group here. And who was singing?” The white wand he carries twists toward the thin man with the reddish-blond hair. “You again? Still the troublemaker?”
Redrick does not look at the soldier.
The wand jabs at the singer. “Move. The wizards want to see you. You know what they think about singing here.”
Slowly, Redrick slouches to his feet.
“Now, my fine singer!