by Tanith Lee
The sight of the rats, or maybe it was finally the unheard yet experienced glamour of the piping, caused the entire vociferous crowd to break into silence.
At which, of course, the music became audible.
But it was not like music anymore. It was like the river, the sky, the country. Like the pulses of the crowd beating, the drums of life itself, and the sun spinning on the blades of space and time. More music than a single piper could produce from the slender reed of a single pipe.
When suddenly the music stopped, everyone was left floundering, as if cast abruptly out of a great sea. Or as if they had all gone deaf.
Cleci became aware that the veiled statue of Raur had been carried out of the temple, and was shocked she had not previously noticed. Now Raur sat there on his garlanded stretcher, balanced on the priests’ shoulders, still as everything else. As if he, too, had been entranced by the pipe.
The Piper lowered the instrument slowly. He looked about Cleci could not help admiring him for his magnificent poise, assurance and charm with so many hundreds of eyes fixed on him. Then one of the rich men bellowed, and everyone instead looked at him. It was the miller.
“How,” demanded the miller, choleric in the face, not poised at all, nor very assured, certainly not at all charming. “How did you steal our rats out of their cages?”
There was a small ripple of bemused agreement, and someone else shouted from the crowd: “And how did he loose my dads’ riding-ass and all?”
Then a welter of voices. How this, how that
The Piper just waited for them to finish. Which, inevitably, they did. Then the Piper said to the people of Lime Tree, in a voice that carried without shouting: “You try to lock everything up in a cage. Your animals and your hearts. But love will always get out. Love, or hate. Somehow.”
Cleci shut her eyes. She held the words to her like a precious stone. She did not understand them, but she clung to them. Then she heard the Piper say, “So tell me now. Do I lead you in the dance, or not?”
And Cleci screamed, at the top of her lungs: “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Then clapped her hands to her burning cheeks, opening wide her eyes in horror. But it was all right, for the whole crowd had cried out at exactly the same moment that she had, and the same words. Even the miller had, though he looked perplexed, and he turned immediately to the priests and spoke to them. The priest who was the miller’s son nodded, and stepped forward, raising his hand for attention. He called to the Piper nervously.
“We’re willing to elect you to play for us, to the honor of Raur. But what will you want paying?”
“Whatever you think I deserve,” said the Piper.
“Oh, come now. That’s an invitation to haggle.”
“Don’t be afraid,” said the Piper. “I won’t ask for anything you can’t give me.”
And he smiled that smile that was only fourteen years of age, and his eyes were several centuries old.
One of the priests squeaked, and Cleci saw the white rats from the temple cages had also somehow got free. There were about fifty of them, and they were scampering through the priests’ robes and over their toes, to get near the Piper.
“Raur himself, it seems has chosen you, pre-payment or not,” said one of the older priests, and his face had relaxed. A slow warm sigh passed over the crowd, and at that moment the rim of the sun dazzled right up over the temple roof.
—
They carried Raur along every street, through every alley, across every square. By the doors and the bannered windows. Beneath arches, where ribbons and flowers danced with them. Round the two wells. Up the stairs. Not a treading place of Lime Tree was left untrod. The priests strode over it, and the men walked, and the Maidens and the women danced. The boys banged their tabors and the priestesses shook bells. And before them all, the Piper went, neither striding nor dancing nor walking, but something of all three. And the pipe sang like the voice of the day, like the voice of the earth itself.
By noon they came to the big square where the meat was roasting and the bread popping crisply out of the ovens. No one was tired. Somehow their feet kept tapping or making little dance steps. Then the jars of wine were brought. Even the Maiden’s drank the wine. A furry rat came and sat on Cleci’s arm, and she fed it, loving the way it held discs of pastry in its paws, nibbling the food like a squirrel.
Birds lay thick as strange summer snow on the ledges and roofs. Dogs played chase and battle over each other’s backs. Lizards basked fearlessly. No one quarreled. The baker allowed the butcher should have the best cut of the meat. The butcher insisted the baker should have it. The miller’s daughter said to Cleci, shyly, “You are much prettier than any other girl here.” And she made Cleci take her own waist ribbon of blue silk, three inches broad, and quite flawless.
Then they went on, and the pipe, which somehow had never ceased to play—or had they only imagined it had not, for of course the Piper would have stopped playing to eat and drink too—soared up like a golden bird, and all the golden birds soared after it.
The sun lay on the streets in shining coins. Cleci ran dancing, hand in hand with the Miller’s daughter and the baker’s daughter.
When the Procession broke from the town and saw the fields, stretching like yellow forests away into the blue sky, they laughed for gladness. It was all so exotic, and so new to them. Though they had seen these things every day of their lives, they saw them now for the first time.
They danced through the fields, garlanded with sunlight. Now the priests were dancing too, though all the marble weight of Raur was on their shoulders. Wild flowers were painted on the wheat. The Maidens brushed them with their fingers, but did not tear them up. Cleci touched the blossom in her hair, and her eyes filled with tears because she knew that, though it died, the blossom forgave her for plucking it without need. And she looked back for her mother in the great shimmering, dancing crowd that seemed to have been spangled with gold dust. When Cleci could not see the washerwoman, instead she called to her from inside her head: I love you. I do. And she visualized her mother’s tired, irritable face smoothing out, as it had never really been smoothed since the day Cleci’s father died. But then the dance whirled even individual caring from her mind.
Of all the paths among the fields that might be trodden, they did not miss one with their treading. They crossed the river, and the far fields were loud with their music and voices. And then they went up to the terraces where the vines bloomed in soft crimson rust, and the Piper led them between the stocks.
Baskets of sweets, of grape’s, and skins of wine were passed along the Procession. They made no pretense of stopping now. They were less wearied than they had been at midday. Weariness was unknown to them. They could dance forever.
And the priests were laughing now. Everyone was. Or was it the pipe which laughed?
And then, the day began to go. It was curious, for it had seemed the day, too, would last forever. But still, it was a lovely departure, the sun folding itself under a wide pink wing, a violet light filling the enormous sky, and stars like bright birds coming to hover in that enormity.
Then the torches were lit. The Lime Treeans put their god down on the grassy slopes between the vineyards and the wheat fields. They lay on their elbows on the fragrant back of the world, and watched the last stain of sun linger on the river below, and the village beyond the river. And the village flamed softly like a burning rose in the moment before the dusk drank up the sun.
Do I live THERE? Cleci asked herself in wonder. In so beautiful a place?
A dog lay over her knee, and she kissed its head.
And then she thought about the music of the pipe, and how, rather than making them listen, it had made them see and feel and know. And now Cleci knew so much, she knew that the world belonged to her, and she must love it and cherish it so that it might love her also. And she knew she would live forever, even after her body had died. And she knew that she, and all men and women, and all beasts, and all forms of life,
had been born simply in order to be happy.
Then the pipe stopped.
In the great stillness she heard the evening breeze flying low over the slopes. She sat on the grass, and smiled, as if she had just woken from a miraculous dream which she would never forget. And there was no face in all the crowd, wherever she glanced, that looked any different from her own. She felt then younger than the youngest child, and older than the hillside.
The Piper was standing about halfway up the hill, and he was clearly visible. The breeze lifted strands of his hair tenderly, and set them down. His face was radiant and still as the dusk. Yet his eyes, which were the dusk’s color, glowed and shone. They were full of untold emotions. Emotions that perhaps no human had ever felt. And although he stood above her on the hill, Cleci was slightly puzzled as to how she could see all this so well from such a distance.
Some of the priests, and all Lime Tree’s important men were walking slowly toward the Piper. They walked as they would have walked after a good dinner, contented, savoring.
Cleci heard their voices through the medium of the same intense clarity as had shown her the Piper’s eyes.
“Well, Piper. I take it all back. You’re a find, and no mistake. I’ve never known such piping.”
“Never felt so good after the Procession, either. Where’s the blisters I always get?”
“Ah. And where’s my wife’s swollen ankles?”
“On her feet?” innocently suggested the butcher, and the rich men burst out in childish guffaws, slapping each other on the back.
“There’s more to come, more dancing yet,” said the baker. “There’s the bonfires to be lit, and the best wine to be drunk. But I say we should pay you now, to reward you for this fine day’s work.”
“Is that your only reason?” inquired the Piper. His head was raised, as if braced for a blow. There was a sudden strange tearing in his face, as if he knew an ancient, but well-remembered stab of pain.
“Oh, just for good measure,” said the miller. “You know what they say: Once you’ve paid the piper, you can choose the tune.”
“Not,” said the miller’s priest son, with anxious courtesy, “that the tunes you already played for us were not singularly splendid.”
“State your fee,” said the vintner. “Whatever you like. Gold if you want—I’m sure we’re all agreed. I’ll even throw in a jar of my best ruby.”
“Yes, gold. And as much bread as you can carry.”
“One hundred gold pieces, I say. And the pick of my forge.”
“One hundred and fifty. And the pick of my stable—the best white ass for you to ride.”
Then came a long nothing of soundlessness. The wind died, the dog sprang abruptly from Cleci’s knee. She held her breath, and, as by the river in the westering sun the first time she met him, she felt a dreadful shameful fear.
She could hardly bear the Piper’s face, so rare, so young, so old, so braced against agony. His whole body seemed braced against it now. As if slowly he were being wrenched apart, or beaten, or pierced by thorns, or iron nails.
At last he said, softly, his voice carrying to the edges of the sky, “I don’t want any of that.”
The rich men chuckled, uneasily now.
“You’re not saying that you’ve played for free?”
“No. I’m not saying that.”
“Never heard one turn his nose up at gold before.”
“What I want is better than gold.”
The priests seemed to draw together, their faces closing, their eyes watchful. The rich men still blustered.
“Well then,” said the miller. “Come along, lad. What do you want?”
Everyone on the slope seemed to realize the miller’s awful gaffe. Even he. He should not have called the Piper “lad.” But the Piper, in his slow invisible anguish, only said: “Don’t you know what I want?” He turned his head, and looked at them gravely. In that vast crowd on the darkening hill, he seemed to miss no one. And when he looked in Cleci’s eyes, she grew cold. “Do you truly not know? Are you truly so blind? Can you really only see commerce and cages? Only pray to save your goods or to fill your bellies? Could you never pray merely from the joy of being alive? That,” he said and, turning, he pointed toward the veiled statue of Raur, which stood there shrouded and inanimate in the gathering darkness, “that is the symbol of your limitations. Don’t you want to be free?”
“But Raur is beautiful,” Cleci whispered under her breath. But she knew now he was not so beautiful as life, nor as the Piper, nor music, nor the land itself. Raur meant security, but not joy. Or not true joy, which only the Piper could teach them.
The crowd rustled. Some were getting to their feet, and some huddling down. Overhead the sky was almost black.
“Choose,” said the Piper. “The cage, or the world.”
The miller shouted at him: “Today was a festival. You’re all right for Festival Days. But we can’t carry on like this every day. There’s work to do. Money to make.”
“Look at the flowers,” said the Piper, quietly. “Look at the stars. How gorgeous they are, and how well they live. And are they making money, do you suppose?”
His voice smiled, but you could hear there was a knife in him, in his very soul. “Corrupter!” bawled one of the priests. “Blasphemer!”
Other priests took up the cry. All at once, most of the crowd was thundering. Only here and there someone wept, usually a woman.
“The fee I wished for,” said the Piper, and even over the din they heard him, “was to win your love away from that statue of a rat, which is not any kind of god, whatever you may say.”
Screams of outrage roiled on the slope. Again the Piper spoke, and again they heard him.
“But you won’t pay my fee, will you? You won’t open your cage and follow me.”
From somewhere a stone whirled over the sky and aimed to smash the Piper on the cheek, then another and another. A rain of stones and clods of earth flailed around him, and then ended, because none of the missiles had hit its mark. Like frightened wretches who have pulled the tail of a chained lion, only to find the chain is unfastened, the crowd collapsed on itself. The priests flung themselves down the hill to the feet of Raur the rat god. They tugged off his veil, and there he was, in all his marble magnificence, for the people to cling to. He would keep them sane and safe. He would drive off the rats and make sure that the granaries were full, and that some would get rich and all could dream of it. He would ensure there was always a profit to bicker over, someone better off to be jealous of, someone to cheat, someone to hate. And if any struck you in the face, Raur the rat would be sure to lesson you that you in turn must strike them back.
“Save us!” The priests and people yelled to Raur, clasping his chilly smooth sides.
Cleci remembered how she had hidden her rough hands from him, embarrassed to be poor.
The Piper watched the people on the hill, silently. And, just as before, his quiet spread to them, and their noise went out like the flames that were somehow going out on all the torches.
“I can’t force you,” he said at length. They all heard him, and most of them shuddered. “There would be no point in that.”
“Our god is protecting us,” someone screamed.
“Go away, you evil magician. Take your devil’s music and go.”
The Piper turned. It was odd. He appeared to be limping. Perhaps one of the stones had hit him after all.
All the stars seemed to die.
From the depths of the crowd, a woman squealed spitefully: “He’s just a great tall insolent child. A wicked child that needs whipping.”
At that, the Piper turned back. His face was a white blank that seemed to have no features.
“Am I to be wicked for you?” he said softly. “Yes, perhaps I can be. I’d forgotten that. As for children… I couldn’t lead you aside from your ugly rat god. But it seems a pity to me your children should be enslaved to him, as you are. I think I will take your children away from y
ou.”
On the hill, empty of day, of winds, of stars, of kindness, the crowd trembled.
“Yes,” said the Piper. “My fee. Not your gold, and not your love. Your children I’ll have.”
Someone whimpered.
Cleci stared, but the Piper was not on the hill any more.
Then she felt a sharp pinch on her arm. The miller’s daughter hissed at her: “Why, you little thief. You’ve stolen my ribbon. Give it back, or my daddy will have you ducked in the river.”
Cleci tore the blue ribbon from her waist and threw it at the miller’s daughter. Cleci jumped up before she knew what she was doing. She ran away, up into the night-black vineyards.
—
The only light in the vineyards seemed to be Cleci’s own dull whitish dress. No moon showed, and no stars. The black sky must be choked by black clouds. The vines hung around her, also black. Once she turned her foot, and looked down and saw a silvery thing. One of the priestesses’ bells, dropped during the Procession.
The day seemed a hundred miles away, and she knew he was nearer. She had only, it seemed to her, to wish to find him, and she would do so. But she was afraid. She could not bear to find the Piper, though she had come looking for him. She cried, and rubbed her eyes on her hair and her sleeves, till the scent of her tears blotted out the sweet tang of the grapes.
“Don’t cry,” he said to her eventually, out of the dark.
“Why not,” she said. “You have spoiled everything.”
She was so afraid of him, she did not become any more afraid from speaking to him in this way, though she understood by then he was supernatural, and a god.
“I regret the spoiling,” he said from the darkness, “but I would do it again.”
“Why must we love you, and not Raur?” she demanded. “Why?”
“You know why. Of them all, you know.”
“Yes… because he’s only a stone. But you are—”
“Yes. I am.”