A Song for Arbonne

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  More than anything else, she knew, it had been the news from Aubry that had drawn her here. It hadn't taken long for the tidings to sweep downstairs through Barbentain and race along the great hall, where those joglars and troubadours honoured with places in the morning's pavilion were offering their performances after dinner.

  The music had stopped, of course. One did not sing liensennes of courtly, unrequited love or ribaldries of enthusiastically answered passion in the forests of Arbonne when news came of a village destroyed and women burned alive by the king of Gorhaut. Love had no place in the scheme of things in the wake of such horror.

  But if that were the case, what, in truth, was she doing here, hesitantly approaching a doorway on this upper level of Barbentain? Alain had agreed to wait a little while for her downstairs. She didn't much want to walk back to the inn alone. An old man had been murdered in an alley a few nights ago. There were too many unknown people from too many countries wandering in the darkness of Lussan during the fair. She hadn't had the courage to ask Aurelian to wait-he knew too much, after this morning. It was the first time Lisseut could remember that she'd wanted to hold something back from him. Alain was easier; they had their understandings after two seasons together now. He wouldn't even speculate.

  The horror of the tidings from Aubry had drawn her back, in a single dark leap of memory, to that garden in Tavernel last summer, when she had listened from a place of hiding on the wall and learned who the bearded northern coran was, and heard him speak with Rudel Correze of war coming with Gorhaut. Now everyone knew who he was, since this morning, and war was no longer coming, it was upon them. And the coran she had impulsively followed that Midsummer night had claimed Gorhaut's crown today.

  On that thought she almost did turn back, but she had reached a place where the wall torches lit the corridor, and she realized that the guards outside his door were watching her. One of them she knew, a coran from Vezét, from a farm not far from her father's. She wasn't sure whether she was happy about that or not.

  Having been seen, though, and almost certainly recognized, she was not about to turn and skulk away. Grateful that she looked presentable, at least, in her newest tunic bought for the fair and the vest Ariane had given her, and aware that if the guards knew her they would almost certainly also know she'd been among the selected performers tonight, Lisseut walked forward with her head high.

  "Hello, Fabrise," she said to the man she knew. "I didn't realize you were in Barbentain. Is your father well?"

  He grimaced briefly in response. "He is, I thank you. Will you tell us what you are doing here?" Formal, extremely formal. No warmth at all. They had clearly been instructed that guard duty tonight outside this door was not ceremonial. After Blaise's declaration this morning it stood to reason, and after the attack on Aubry tonight every coran in Arbonne would be on edge. Again, Lisseut wondered why she had never listened to her mother more attentively.

  She said hardily, "I thought if Blaise de Garsenc was awake he might be willing to speak with me." There was no reply at all to that. "We are friends," she added—it was almost true, in a manner of speaking—"and I wanted to see how he was. Is he sleeping?"

  For a long moment four grim corans regarded her in silence. Finally one of them, evidently concluding that whatever she was, it was something other than an immediate danger, made a wry face. "What is it," he said, addressing Fabrise, "about your women from Vezét, will you tell me?"

  Fabrise frowned. Lisseut felt herself flushing. This was pretty much what she'd feared would happen. Oh, mother, she thought. It had actually occurred to her several times during the day that it might be a good time for a visit home. She could sleep in her old bed, see people she'd grown up with, talk with her mother while they did the endless needlework in the doorway, or with her father, walking among the olive groves. It might be a good thing to do, she'd thought. It had been a long time since she'd been back, and home sometimes was a place where the heart could be eased.

  "I know this woman. She is not like that," said Fabrise of Vezét; her pulse quickened at his loyalty.

  "Nor is this a night," she said, emboldened, unwilling as ever to have someone else fight a battle for her, even a small one, "when a man of Arbonne should speak any ill of the women of his country. I will accept an apology, coran, if you offer one."

  There was a great deal to be said for the training that regular appearances in public gave one. She was easily able to outface the coran who had made that jest. He lowered his head and mumbled words that did sound contrite. He looked young, Lisseut thought. He had probably meant no real offense, though he did have a great deal to learn.

  On the other hand, what innocuous reason could she offer for being here? Truth was, the young coran was right, if not about the women of Vezét, then rather definitely about this particular one. We are friends, she had said. If a friendship could be built on a night's clandestine spying like an audrade on a garden wall followed by a rejected invitation to share her Midsummer bed. He had smiled at her two nights ago here in Barbentain. Did that count? She had even thought he was about to come over to her, before Rudel Correze had appeared at his elbow and the two men had walked away.

  That had been before this morning's challenge, though: before everything had changed. These corans in the hallway were, she made herself repeat it again in her mind, the guards appointed for a man who had claimed a throne.

  She bit her lip. Began her retreat. "It is late, I know… " she murmured.

  "He is awake," Fabrise said, "but not in his room. He went to see his sister. His brother's wife, I mean. The one who gave birth last week. I think he wanted to be the one to tell her the news."

  "Her husband was there," the coran she'd reprimanded now confided, as if anxious to make amends. "At Aubry, I mean. And also her—" He stopped with a grunt as one of the others sank an elbow in his ribs.

  The four men looked quickly down the corridor, and so Lisseut turned with them—to see Blaise de Garsenc approaching from the shadows.

  "And also her brother," Blaise said, finishing the sentence. He was walking quite slowly, limping a little; he looked pale beneath the beard and there were smudged circles of fatigue under his eyes. He came up to them and stopped, looking at the four men, not at her. "There is going to be gossip, of course, but we might appropriately leave it to others, don't you think?"

  It was mildly said, but the young coran went crimson to the roots of his hair. Lisseut actually felt sorry for him. Then she forgot about the man entirely as she met Blaise's scrutiny.

  "Hello, Lisseut," he said. She hadn't been positive he would remember her name. He seemed unsurprised to find her in the hallway outside his room.

  She took a breath and said, straining for a normal tone, "I'm not sure, do I curtsey?"

  "I'm not sure either," he said calmly. "Why don't we omit it for now? I thought I heard your voice earlier. The song from Midsummer, the woman singing in the garden?"

  "I didn't think you had listened so carefully back then," she said.

  "I didn't either," he murmured. "Evidently some of it stayed with me. Will you come in?" He opened the door to his room and stepped aside for her to enter.

  Feeling suddenly shy, Lisseut walked in. He followed, closing the door behind them. There were candles on chests beside and at the foot of the bed and on the two tables in the room. They were guttering low, though, and others had gone out. He busied himself for a moment lighting new ones.

  "There is wine by the far wall," he said over his shoulder. "Pour us each a cup, if you will." Glad of something to do, she moved to the sideboard and did so. A faint scent of perfume lingered in the air. She thought that if she tried she would recognize it; she didn't try. She carried the cups back and stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. The bed, she noticed, was rumpled, the covers in disarray. He seemed to notice this at about the same time, moving over to smooth them as best he could.

  "Forgive me," he said. "This room is in no condition to receive a lady
."

  He was being astonishingly kind, she thought. Kindness wasn't what she needed, though. She said, "Even the sort of lady who spies on you at night?"

  He grinned, though his fatigue was still evident. He came over and took his wine, motioning her to one of the chairs by the window. He sank into the other, with a half-suppressed sigh of relief.

  "You are in pain," Lisseut said quickly. "I have no right to keep you awake."

  "You won't be able to for very long," he said, somewhat ruefully. "Much as I'd like to talk, they gave me some herbal thing earlier and I'm still sleepy with it. They wanted me to have more but I said no."

  "You probably should have taken it," she said.

  He grinned mockingly. She remembered that quickness from Midsummer. It had been one of the things she hadn't expected from a coran of Gorhaut. "I wouldn't have taken you for so obedient a woman. Do you always do what you're told?" he asked.

  She smiled then herself, for the first time. "Always," she said. "I can't remember the last time I didn't obey instructions."

  He laughed, and sipped his wine. "I saw you in the troubadours' pavilion this morning," he said, surprising her again. "Ariane told me only those of the first rank are invited there. Is this new for you? Should I be offering congratulations?"

  Ariane. That was the perfume. Of course, she told herself: they would have had a council here when the tidings came. But what she was remembering was five corans in crimson escorting him away on Midsummer Eve.

  He had asked a question; Lisseut shook her head, pushing such thoughts away. She said, "Congratulations? Wouldn't that be absurd? After you didn't let me salute you?"

  His eyes were bright in the light of the candle on the table and the beard showed quite red. "Go ahead if you really want to. Curtsey and kneel. Kiss my foot three times. You'll help me get used to it." There was a bitterness she hadn't expected in his voice. He paused a moment. "I'm not a king yet, you know. I probably never will be. I'm only someone who's made a large and foolish claim because I hate what's happened to my country."

  "From what I understand of the men of Gorhaut, that's worthy of honour in itself," she murmured.

  His expression changed. "I'm not sure that isn't as much an attack as a compliment."

  "Can you blame me, tonight?"

  There was a silence. Without speaking, he shook his head. She took a quick sip of her wine and averted her eyes. This wasn't at all how she had wanted this conversation to go. She didn't really know what she had wanted, but it wasn't this. Thinking quickly, reaching for a new direction, she said, "You did miss something… unique in the hall tonight. A canzone about your morning's triumph, written at dazzling speed, rhymed in triplets, with a refrain that was simply your name sung four times on a descending scale."

  "What?"

  She kept her tone blandly innocuous. "We should be fair about that last bit, though: «Garsenc» is a difficult rhyme in Arbonnais."

  He looked pained. "You're not being serious?"

  "I'm a serious person, hadn't you noticed? It was composed by an old companion of yours, too, Evrard of Lussan."

  "An old what?" He blinked. "Evrard? He called himself that?" He looked so astonished she had to laugh. "How… how does anyone know my connection with him?"

  She was smiling now, enjoying this. "From Rian's Island? He began telling us all about it immediately after the challenge this morning. No one knew before, but as of today you are a link worth exploiting. Apparently you yourself and no lesser mortal were entrusted by En Mallin de Baude with the delicate task of assuaging Evrard's wounded sensibilities last spring. Is it true, Blaise?"

  He was slowly shaking his head, though in wonder, not denial. "I thought he was a pompous, offensive fool, but Mallin asked me to bring him back so I did. Unconscious, actually. My companion." He snorted. "We slung him like a sack of grain into a skiff. I wouldn't have been greatly distressed if he'd fallen overboard." He shook his head again, as if bemused by the memory. "I thought all the troubadours were like that."

  "And all the joglars? Do you still think so?"

  "Hardly," he said directly, not bothering to make a jest of it or a compliment, or anything at all. He met her gaze for a moment, and it was Lisseut who looked away, out the window. There was silence then for a while. She sat gazing out at the late-night stars, listening to the river. It was not a difficult stillness, she decided.

  "May I ask something of you?" he said at length, quietly. She looked back at him. "I am genuinely weary, Lisseut. I 'm afraid I m too tired to entertain you properly, I'm almost too tired to sleep, and there is a great deal to be done tomorrow. I don't know if this is an imposition, something one doesn't ask of a professional, but will you sing for me, to help me rest?" A faint smile in the flickering light. "To show me again that all of you aren't like Evrard?"

  "I didn't think you liked music." She was sorry the moment she'd said that. Why was she always challenging him?

  He didn't take offense, or else he was being very patient with her. "If I said that I regret it. I grew up with music in Gorhaut, however different it might have been. One day I will want to try to explain to you that my country is not only… what it has been made to be tonight." He hesitated, choosing his words. "I think there are… parts of the troubadour world here, courtly love, that I find unsettling. Perhaps I needed time to understand it better. I thought once it made your men weak, your women presumptuous." He paused again. "There is no weakness I have found in the men of Arbonne."

  "And the women?"

  He had been waiting for that, she realized. "The women are intolerably presumptuous." She knew that tone though, by now, and he was grinning at her again, tired as he was. She found that she could smile back.

  "I will be happy to sing for you," she said quietly. "It is no imposition. Not when asked of a friend." There, she had said it.

  He looked surprised again, but not uncomfortably so. He opened his mouth and closed it. She silently willed him to voice whatever thought he was struggling with, but all he said after a moment was, "Thank you." He rose, with a difficulty he didn't bother to hide, and limped over to stretch out on the bed. He pulled off his boots but didn't bother with the covers or his clothing.

  Nothing of any great import had been done, nothing said, but Lisseut stood up as well, feeling a warmth inside and an unexpected calm. Moving quietly about the room she began blowing out the candles. She left two burning, one on the sideboard and one on the small table by the window, and then, in the near darkness, she began to sing. Not of love or war or the goddess or the god, or anything at all of the adult world. On the night he had named himself king of Gorhaut, the night Aubry had burned, Lisseut sang for Blaise of Gorhaut lullabies of childhood, the ones her mother had sung to her so many years ago.

  Only when she was certain, from the steady rise and fall of his breathing, that he was asleep did she allow herself a last song for her own heart's easing. It was another very old melody this one, so ancient no one was certain who had written it, or even what dim, half-remembered legend or tale it recounted. It had always seemed to Lisseut to be almost unbearably sad. She had never thought she would feel it applying to her own life. But in Blaise de Garsenc's room that night, while he slept, she sang it softly for herself, and when she came to the verses at the end, she realized that she was very nearly offering them as a prayer:

  Thy table set with rarest wine,

  Choice meats, sweet ripened fruit

  And candlelight when we dine

  In Fionvarre.

  On we two the high stars will shine

  And the holy moon lend her light.

  If not here you will be mine

  In Fionvarre.

  Her uncle had taught her that song in Vezét, long before he had taken her from her father's house and offered her the life of the singers on the road. And the roads had been good to her, had given her friends and companions, a generous measure of success, fame almost, and they had led her here tonight, following, as ever, the quic
k impulses of her spirit, and now the unbidden need of her heart.

  Strangely at peace now, Lisseut realized that she had come looking for an answer in this room and she had found it after all. This was not a man whose life she had a right to share. He was a friend; she knew that now, knew that he would make some place for her in the pattern of his days, however long or short they were to be. But for more than that, more than that small place, she had no right and he no proper space in what his life had now become. The banner in the wind this morning had made this so.

  And it would be all right, Lisseut thought, as she ended the song. She was no longer a child. Life did not always or even normally grant one the wishes of the heart. Sometimes it came near, sometimes not very near at all. She would accept, with gratitude, what seemed to have been allowed her tonight—with a hope, a prayer to Rian, that there might be more such moments graciously allowed, before the goddess called either or both of them back to her.

  She left him sleeping, with the last two candles burning down and the moons long set and the river murmuring its own infinitely older, endless song far below the window.

  PART IV—Winter

  Until the Sun Falls and the Moons Die…

  CHAPTER 15

  On the night appointed there was fog at Garsenc Castle. Rolling in from the east with the darkness at day's end it swallowed up the donjon and the outer watch-towers of the castle like some mist-dragon out of the old tales of the days before Corannos moved the sun.

  Alone on the ramparts above the drawbridge Thaune of Garsenc shivered, despite the woolen overshirt and the fur vest he wore in winter. He was thinking about an oath he had sworn three months ago, a vow of fealty that had turned him from a coran of humble birth and modest future into a conspirator with a substantial prospect of dying before this night was over.