Sheri Tepper - Singer From The Sea

by Singer From The Sea(Lit)

  "Veswees," she murmured, so quietly as to be almost whispering. "Do you know why they won't let us sing?"

  He stared into her eyes, as though searching for something there, some keyhole into which he might put a key, perhaps. Some door he might open. "I know two reasons," he said.

  "Tell me."

  "The first reason is a simple one. Back some hundreds of years, in the time of some Lord Paramount or other, an oracle spoke to him saying that when a noble young woman sang to the seas, the reign of the nobles on Haven should end."

  "How strange."

  "That's the story, at least. The other reason is merely something I've thought from time to time. Voices, you know, are very individual. Harp music is harp music, well or badly played, but anonymous. The same could be said for piano, or violika, or cortuba. One string quartet, assuming competence on the part of the performers, is rather like any other string quartet. But if someone sings really well, the voice becomes totally recognizable, does it not?"

  She puzzled over this. "And so?"

  "And so, if a noblewoman were very talented in music, if she sang in public, if she became very much followed one might say, her loss would be greatly felt. Being known, and followed, and grieved over would be quite inappropriate for a noblewoman."

  He turned away and busied himself, saying nothing more, his very posture telling her he had said all he would say. Though she had been wondering about this ever since she began reading Stephanie's book, which referred repeatedly to singing, she let the matter drop. If Veswees was uncomfortable speaking of it, probably she herself should be equally wary. On the afternoon of the next dinner, a pale and weary-looking Aufors Leys came to visit her, bearing formality before him like an offering.

  "You have done well, my lady," he said tonelessly, with a sorry attempt at a smile. "This time there are no mortal enemies on the guest list, and your seating plan has been quite thoughtfully worked out."

  "Lady Alicia helped me," she said, fighting her desire to reach out and touch him. He looked so sad, and his arms were so close. She could move one hand, only a little, and it would rest on his. She clasped both hands firmly in her lap, cleared her throat, and looked up at the ceiling. "She's been very kind."

  "Your dressmakers worked out well?" he asked, making an attempt at conversation.

  "Two of them made gowns for me. The woman did two very pleasant ones, beyond reproach as to taste and fabric, though rather dull. They are no doubt superbly covenantly."

  A smile barely flickered at the corners of his mouth.

  "Craftsman Veswees finished a very dramatic gown for me to wear tonight, and he's working on two more. Father is quite annoyed at the cost, of course. I don't think he understood quite what he was getting into, coming here to Havenor. Things were much less expensive in Langmarsh."

  "The provinces are much less expensive, yes. And preferable not only for that reason."

  Long silence, while Aufors shifted from foot to foot and stared at the wall and Genevieve remained a statue graven in stone: Woman, looking at her clenched hands.

  "Is there anything else I can do for you, my lady?"

  "Oh, Aufors," she cried, unable to contain herself. "Even though I said we must be proper, I hoped you would go on being my friend."

  He reached for her hands, squeezed them painfully in his own, and said in a husky voice, "Never doubt it for a moment, Jenny. But don't let me show it, for if I do, my words can only lead me directly to your lips."

  Stunned by his words, she drew back, jerking her hands from his amid a flood of feeling that was totally foreign to her. It was like a drunkenness, a tottery feeling, as though both her legs and her brain had lost their blood supply, which had suddenly gone heatedly elsewhere in a frightening maelstrom of feeling. It was as though something clutched her there, clutched and squeezed! She was fainting, drowning, and it took all her strength not to fall forward into Aufors's arms. Instead, she grasped the arm of her chair and flapped the fingers of her other hand at him, as though shooing chickens, meaning go away, oh, go away, what have I done? He gave her a look of tragic intensity and went to gasp for breath outside the room, while she, inside the room, did the same.

  Some small gibbering thing inside her laughed in hysteria, drawing her attention to what was obviously meant by a "twitch of the loins!" Good heavens! Was this lust? Was this what Carlotta felt for Willum, or Barbara felt for almost anyone? This incapacitating need? This wanting to be near, to be held, to be... well, that, yes, the act she had been instructed in then taught to unthink but which she found herself thinking of all too clearly! This wouldn't do! It couldn't do. Not now. Not here!

  By evening, several hours' struggle plus a good deal of determination had somewhat restored her poise, which was essential, for at this dinner Yugh Delganor was again a guest, and tonight, he would be seated at Genevieve's right. Despairingly, she had asked Alicia to sit once again at her left.

  "My dear, I shall be glad to be there. Are we to have entertainment?"

  Genevieve nodded. "A play. A repertory company is traveling up from Merdune, and Father has arranged for them to do a comedy for us."

  "No doubt Prince Yugh will want to know when you'll be ready to start your duties here at the palace. We've done the gardens, the greenhouses, the stables, and one gallery, and you've learned it all, leaving us only the other galleries to do."

  "I'll try to learn quickly," Genevieve replied, mimicking the Duchess's meaningless public voice and inconsequential words, designed to put any listener to sleep through sheer vacuity. "We wouldn't want the Prince to become impatient with me."

  She hurried as she dressed, realizing with a pang that she wanted to get downstairs as quickly as possible, for that was where Aufors was undoubtedly striding about, arranging last minute details. She forced herself to slow down, taking several deep breaths and assuring herself that she was still only a mouse in the wings, a watcher of all the confusions and entanglements that were going on among other people. Soon she would observe Yugh Delganor's play, and she would remember to crouch very small in a corner if she were to avoid being drawn into the story and made a central part of it.

  The attempt to drag her onto center stage was not long in coming. The Duchess faced Yugh Delganor across the table. She attempted conversation, only to have each attempt quashed by a chill monosyllable or two. Even her conversation with Genevieve was stifled by the Prince's manner.

  Finally, just before dessert, the Prince spoke. "You are looking well."

  Though the words were complimentary, he was looking at the Duchess as though he had discovered a fly in his soup.

  "I?" said the Duchess, surprised.

  "I was speaking of the Most Honorable Marchioness, Lady Genevieve," he replied, turning his face toward her and continuing in a measured and utterly toneless voice, "You are a very good addition to our company here at court, my lady. Everyone speaks your praises. I am so greatly moved by your beauty and grace and modesty that I shall obtain from your father permission to ask your hand in marriage."

  At that moment a small silence fell, one of those that occurs intermittently in even large gatherings. The words, "... to ask your hand in marriage..." hung in that silence like the last reverberations of a bell. Genevieve did not reply. She sat in gelid paralysis, her wineglass held halfway to her mouth, her eyes fixed on the red shiver of its contents. The only thought she had was of her mother's voice: the hard road. Her whole being rejected it. It could not be this road. Not possibly. This she could not do!

  The silence stretched, then broke into chatter, through which the Duchess Alicia could be heard to say with a tinkling laugh, "Your Highness, surely this is neither the time nor the place. If you are jesting, it is unkind, and if you are not, it is inappropriate to make such a statement in the midst of dinner, when the Most Honorable Marchioness cannot so ignore her duties of hospitality as to give your announcement the consideration it deserves."

  Genevieve found her tongue and forced herself to laugh
in her turn, lightly, dismissively. "I'm afraid the Duchess is right, Your Highness. This would be an extremely awkward time for me to pay attention to any such very surprising flattery."

  "You are surprised?" he asked, eyebrows lifted. "I had thought your father might have speculated with you?"

  "Oh... no, sir, he has not."

  "Well then, you're quite right that the matter is untimely." And he turned to the woman on the other side and asked her about her son, while under the table, the Duchess laid a hand on Genevieve's quivering knee as she might lay a hand on a horse's neck to calm it.

  "Wait," she whispered, smiling, "just wait. Smile back at me. Don't let them think you're shocked. Just smile, murmur, take a sip of wine, that's it. When everyone leaves, I'll stay behind."

  The last course seemed interminable, and when the guests left the table it was only to reassemble in the conservatory where a stage had been set up. The players were brought on with appropriate fanfare, performing their buffoonish play about a group of vampires who were of the nobility and would drink only noble blood, the bluer the better. Genevieve did not think it funny, but then, she scarcely heard a word of it. Seemingly, some others in the room did not think it funny either, for while some of the younger ladies and gentlemen laughed heartily, the older men did not do so. Even in her confusion, Genevieve guessed that she and her father had once again, through ignorance, transgressed some canon of taste.

  The Prince excused himself and departed during the interval. Others of the older nobility left early, also, and it was a lower ranking, much diminished, though more uniformly appreciative audience who saw the final curtain with a spatter of applause and a spate of chatter. As the last guests departed, Genevieve stood beside her father, bidding them farewell. The Marshal was much as usual. He did not seem to be aware of what had happened during dinner, or that the Prince had disapproved of the entertainment. Genevieve did not enlighten him. Instead, she snatched up a shawl and slipped out onto the terrace where Alicia waited for her, wrapped in a great fur cape.

  "What can I do?" Genevieve cried. "I can't do this, Alicia. Yugh Delganor is old. He smells old. All during dinner I smelled him, like mouldy soil in old cellars. All during dinner, I felt him, like craylets crawling on my skin, slick and slimy and strange. If I marry him, I will die, Alicia. I know it, the way I sometimes know things. And I'm sure he meant it!"

  Someone made a noise beside the house.

  "Who's that?" whispered the Duchess, startled.

  A shadow detached itself from the house and came swiftly toward them. Aufors.

  "Did he say what I think I heard, Jenny? Is that old man wanting you as a wife?"

  Her tears were sufficient answer, and he drew her close, wrapping her in his arms.

  "Well," said the Duchess, with a breathless laugh. "That answers one little question I've been interested in."

  "I don't know what to do," muttered Aufors, over Genevieve's head. "I'm bound to the service of the Marshal, and though this would be... a hideous fate for Genevieve, he will no doubt approve it heartily as fostering his own ambitions."

  "Hush," said Alicia. "Now is not the time. We must play for time. You must go back inside, both of you. Do whatever you usually do at bedtime. Wait for the house to settle. Then, Aufors, you bring her to the stable gate of my own house. Genevieve, bring whatever you would need for a journey in the wilderness, stout shoes, warm clothing, you know what she should bring, Colonel Leys, for you have fought in evil weather on hard terrain..."

  "I'll bring my own kit as well," he said grimly.

  "No," Alicia interrupted him. "No. She must not be thought to have gone away with you, Colonel, or you with her! That could mean danger and disaster for you both: for her from her father, for you from the Prince. When morning comes, you must be here in the house, as surprised as everyone else. Now, let us get back inside, before the Marshal misses either of you."

  "Is this the right thing?" cried Genevieve. "The Prince has not asked Father yet. We don't know what Father will say."

  "My dear child, you do know what your father will say." The Duchess fixed her with a steady gaze, at which Genevieve flushed, shivering. "If you are to have time to consider this matter, you must be gone and be known to be gone before the Prince makes a formal request and before your father makes a commitment of any kind." Her voice became ominous, weighty: "For if he makes a commitment to Yugh Delganor, he will be expected to keep it at the cost of his life or yours, or both."

  Aufors grimaced. "She's right, Genevieve. If your father says yes, both you and he will be totally bound by that promise. That much of the covenants is well known! Far better move while you and he still have some freedom of action. When the household is asleep, meet me in the stables. Dress warmly and bring only what you must have with you. I'll make up a small pack of travel necessities for you."

  He ran along the house and around the corner, to return through another door, while the women returned to the terrace, the Duchess pulling Genevieve along like a little wagon, she trundling obediently, weighed down by so many feelings of mixed horror and anger that she could not form any intention to do anything at all.

  "What has my foolish daughter been up to, dragging you out into the night?" bumbled the Marshal, with a frown at Genevieve. "Most thoughtless of her."

  "It was I who took her out into the night," said the Duchess, laying a pale hand against her own forehead. "The conservatory was so warm, I was suddenly taken a bit faint, Lord Marshal. Now, if you'll be so kind as to summon my driver."

  In moments she was gone, not without sufficient chatter to distract the Marshal from Genevieve, which allowed her to flee to her room, like a rabbit from a blundering hound. There Delia helped her with her clothes, distressed by the sweat on her forehead and the way her hands shook.

  "What's the trouble, my lady? You're looking peaked. Did something go wrong? Wasn't the food good?"

  "The food was wonderful, Delia. I'm just tired. These dinners seems to affect me like running for miles or riding all day. When they're over, I feel wrung out. Pull the pins from my hair. I'll let it down and brush it. You go on to bed, it's late and you rose earlier than I."

  Delia went away, with only a normal amount of nursemaidish grumble and instructions. Genevieve braided her hair in a long plait, as she usually did at bedtime, but then wrapped it into a tight knot at her neck, pierced it with enough pins to hold it fast under any circumstances, dressed herself warmly, put her nightgown on over the clothing, and finally packed a small bundle that included a change of shoes and clothing, her comb and hairbrush, and a few little bits of jewelry that might be used instead of money. That made her think of the Duchess's coins, and she tucked the small sack into the full sleeve of her cloak, which she hung in the armoire. Then she lay down, the covers drawn to her chin.

  After a time, the Marshal's footsteps came down in the hall. He paused at her door, it opened a crack, he peered in, then he shut the door and moved on.

  She remained still, in turmoil, her mind chattering like birds in a tree, saying six things at once, none of them helpful. If her mother had meant this particular hard road, then she had a duty to stay where Delganor could do... whatever he was going to do. But what if she only thought so, and her mother had meant something else? She had no way to judge. Surely she could take a little time to judge?

  When the house had been silent for some time, she took off the nightgown, replaced it with the heavy, hooded cloak, and slipped down the long hallways and out through the kitchen, easing through the heavy outside door that was often left unlocked because it opened only into the walled and gated yard. Just inside the stable she sat on a pile of hay that had been forked down from the loft to be ready for the stable boys in the morning. When Aufors found her, she was slumped in exhausted sleep with her bundle close at her side.

  He shook her. She came awake, eyes wide, mouth open, and he put a hand across it at once. "Shhh."

  "Where have you been?" she whispered.

  "
Hiring passage on the packet that goes down the Reusel at dawn."

  "That'll take me along Wantresse. I'm well known there."

  "If you were going, you'd be known, yes. But you're not going."

  "I thought you said..."

  "I bought passage as I'd already planned to do. I made quite a fuss about the young lady who was going to Reusel-on-mere. No doubt someone will discover her there, but it'll be another woman who's meeting her new husband, an old friend of mine, for a bit of a honeymoon. He's from Sealand and she from Upland. I'm paying for the trip as a present, they've never heard your name, and making such a project of it is a bit of legerdemain, a red herring."

  "And I?" she asked, getting up to brush the hay from her cloak.

  "We'll know better after the Duchess tells us what she has in mind."

  They rode double on Aufors's horse, Genevieve behind him, holding him tightly, wondering at the feeling this embrace caused within her. She had no time to reflect on it. The Duchess was waiting for them, together with a tall, bulky man, middle-aged and half-bearded, who regarded Genevieve with grave curiosity.