Cricket's Song

by Michael A. Hooten

  With winks and waves they filed off to bed, and Cricket shook out his blanket a few feet from where Granya banked the fire for the evening. “Cook?” he asked hesitantly. “Did you really like my playing?”

  “That I did,” she said. “I’ve heard crossains and bards, many of them more skilled than you, but I have rarely heard such love in the playing. You’ll go far in this world, I think.”

  “Thank you. Good night, Granya.”

  “Good night, little one.”

  The unfamiliar kitchen, though warm, echoed with strange sounds and smelled different than what he was used to. The hard hearth stone under his thin blanket did not help, and he turned around and about, trying to get comfortable. He finally settled flat on his back, staring up at the roof beams overhead, feeling the tiredness of a day’s walking and a night’s playing start to steal over him.

  His eyes popped suddenly open, his heart pounding. He listened close for what might have awakened him, but the kitchen remained quiet. He just settled back to sleep when a shadow passed over him.

  One of the serving girls stood between him and the fire. He couldn’t see her face clearly, but he watched in fascination as she lifted her dress up over her head, letting the darkness play along the bare skin revealed. She quickly joined him in the blanket, snuggling voluptuously against him.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked when Cricket did not move.

  “Well,” he said blankly. “Um, I don’t even know your name.”

  “Aimee,” she whispered in his ear, then nibbled at the lobe.

  “Oh, hi, Aimee.”

  She slipped her hand under his tunic, fingers cold but sure along his chest. “Why are you shaking?” she asked.

  “Um,” Cricket said intelligently.

  “It’s okay, really. Everyone’s asleep.” She kissed his unresponsive lips. “Don’t you like me?”

  “I—I don’t know you,” Cricket stammered. Her fingers continued their explorations, making it hard for him to breathe. When they slipped nimbly under his belt, he jumped up. “I—you—we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  She looked at him curiously. “What’s wrong? It’s fairly obvious that you don’t like boys,” she said glancing downwards.

  Cricket felt his face get hot. “I’m just—it’s, well...” He took a deep breath. “You’re a very... beautiful girl, Aimee, and I’m very flattered, but we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Why not? Did you like one of the other girls better?”

  “No, I mean, I liked all of you—what I mean is—”

  She stood up and gathered her dress. Cricket closed his eyes but he could still see the dimples just below her back. “Please don’t be mad,” he said. “This is just something that I’m not allowed to do. Maybe, if I hadn’t played tonight...”

  She kissed him on the cheek. “If you hadn’t played, I wouldn’t have been interested,” she confessed. “You’re a strange one, but I’ll let you alone. If you ever come back, however...”

  “If I come back, I’ll play just for you.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  The kitchen was quiet again, but Cricket’s heart beat loud enough to wake the household. As he calmed down and crawled back to his blankets, he thought about how smooth Aimee’s arm had been when it slid over his stomach, making his pulse pound again. “I hope you’re watching Harper,” he muttered into the night. “At least I understand better why the bards have slipped if they have to face that all the time. And all I can say is, these blasted rules had better be worth it.”

  He slept fitfully for the rest of the night, jumping at every sound until Granya came in and stirred up the fire. He got up and ate some cold bread that the cook offered him, finishing it before the first girls arrived. He thanked the cook and the innkeeper profusely, and after finding out that Taris was another two days by foot, he took leave of them and left, crossing the stable yard on his way to the road. He said nothing when he saw Aimee climbing down from the hayloft with bright gold straw tangled in her hair, but hurried on before she saw him.

  He spent the day wondering about women as he walked along, and decided that he might never understand them. The sun shone bright, and Anlynna, the only woman he had ever known intimately, slapped against his back. Pulling out his mother’s flute, he piped a merry tune about fools and lovers, and how hard it was to tell the difference, and then turned his thoughts towards Taris.

  Chapter 4: Duncan

  Taris, the capital city of Glencairck and her crowning jewel, sat on a hill in the middle of a flat plain. One side of the hill dropped off in a sheer cliff to the Lannae river, but the city spilled down the other sides to the waterfront where boats brought cattle from the north and grain from the south.

  Cricket took a ferry across the river, trying to watch the merchants, sailors, and water all at the same time. Entering the city was even worse, since the smell—a combination of smoke, spices, animals, and garbage—and the number of people threatened to overwhelm him.

  He looked around, but had no idea which way to go. He approached the kern on watch at the gate, a large man wearing the green uniform of the Fianna. “Excuse me?” he asked humbly. “Can you tell me how to find Crossain Duncan?”

  The kern twisted his long yellow mustache as he looked down at the boy. “The teacher? Aren’t you a little young for that?”

  Cricket drew himself up to his full height, but still had to lean his head back to look at the guard. “I’m seventeen.”

  “You don’t look it.” He nodded at a passing merchant leading a train of mules. “Well, either you’re telling the truth or you’re not, and it doesn’t much matter to me either way. Crossain Duncan has his hall on Oak Avenue. That’s up this road until you see the Green Man tavern, take a left, go two streets, take a right, and keep walking until you see it.”

  “Many thanks,” Cricket said, bobbing his head.

  The kern laughed. “Well, of course. We can’t have bumpkins like you being lost all the time, can we?”

  The fian’s directions were easy to follow, and Cricket found himself outside of a large building of both stone and timber, with a sign facing the avenue that said Crossain Duncan, Teacher in gaudy lettering. Swallowing against his nervous stomach, he pounded on the door until it swung open.

  “Master Duncan?”

  “Do I look like a master, boy?” The man before him wore finer clothes than Cricket had ever dreamed of, but wore a cold and forbidding face as well.

  Cricket swallowed his wonder and shook his head. “Where may I find Master Duncan?” he asked meekly.

  “Can you read? Do you see the sign? This is where he is, boy, no mistaking. But just what did you think? That he answers his own door?”

  Cricket wanted to cry. The man obviously expected something from him, but he had no idea what it might be. Thinking frantically, he pulled Aillel’s letter from behind his belt and handed it to the man.

  The servant took it gruffly and said, “Wait here.”

  The unfamiliar city noises combined with Cricket’s nervousness, making him almost dance with his fidgets. His sharp eyes picked out small details on the street around him: the bright blue and green of a young woman’s cloak, the high voice of a tow-headed street urchin, the smell of a vendor’s sausages.

  “What are you doing, boy?”

  Cricket spun around with a jump. “I—I’m sorry,” he squeaked. “I was just looking around.”

  “Timid, aren’t you?” The servant turned suddenly and disappeared into the house. Cricket looked at the open door, confused until he heard the man say, “Well don’t just stand there boy, come on.”

  He passed through beautifully formal rooms lit by oil and beeswax into more serviceable halls of plain stone and tallow tapers. They passed a large hall where thirty or so boys ate noisily, and then passed rows of heavy, closed doors. Stopping in front of a more ornate door, the servant said, “Go on in, boy.”

  Cricket ducked his head in a nod, knocked, and went in. The room he enter
ed, bright and clean, was dominated by the large bald man sitting behind a huge desk. He had Aillel’s letter open in front of him, reading it without any acknowledgment of the boy in front of him.

  “Master Duncan?” Cricket said hesitantly.

  The man looked up, sat back, and crossed his fingers over his large belly. “Well, you certainly don’t look like much, but Aillel praised you highly. Is that your own harp?”

  “Yessir,” Cricket said. When Duncan did not respond, he swung the case around and pulled out Anlynna. Sitting and tuning it quickly, he played one of the intricate fingering exercises that Harper had taught him.

  “Very nice,” Duncan said. “Is that your own tune?”

  Cricket started to say that Harper had called it ancient, but he caught himself and said, “No sir. A friend taught it to me.”

  “Simple, but challenging.” Duncan leaned even further back and looked at the ceiling. “You present me with quite a conundrum, boy. I owe Aillel a great debt, from a very long time ago, and he has decided to redeem it by having me teach you. The problem is, I have as many students as I can handle right now.”

  Cricket held his breath. The man in front of him could doom him with a word, and there was nothing he could do about it, but at the same time, Duncan seemed to want to help.

  “How serious are you about being a crossain?” Duncan finally asked.

  Cricket spread his hands. “Music is all I know and love in the world.”

  “Are you willing to be uncomfortable? Different? An outcast from your peers?”

  “I always have been, master.”

  “Very well, then. Hoyle!”

  The sour servant came back into the room. “Put this boy in the attic. It will be his room for as long as he is willing to stay here. Give him his schedule, and the rules.”

  Hoyle bowed and left. After a moment’s hesitation, Cricket scrambled after him, trying to put Anlynna away while they walked.

  Hoyle said nothing until they climbed several flights of stairs into a musty attic with a dirty, sagging cot. “This will be your room,” the servant said. “Chores at sunrise. Every boy rotates through the scullery, the stable, and the privy. Lessons start promptly at the seventh bell. Lectures until the twelfth bell, a half-hour for lunch, and then music lessons until vespers. Supper lasts an hour afterwards, followed by studying in the library or the music hall until the ninth hour. In bed asleep by the tenth bell. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, master.”

  The man laughed harshly. “I’m just a servant, boy. Call me Hoyle.”

  “Thank you, Hoyle.”

  The man just grunted. “Get yourself settled, and follow your nose to the kitchen.”

  “Yessi­—I mean, yes, Hoyle.”

  The servant nodded curtly and left. Cricket looked around the attic, large but obviously unwanted. The roof appeared sound, but he was sure he would alternately bake and freeze with the vagaries of the weather.

  He opened the shutters on the two small windows, and started sweeping with an old broom he found in the corner. The dust made him sneeze and cough, but he kept at it until the floor was mostly clean. He pushed broken furniture, bits of cloth and rope, and the other assorted garbage against one wall. Mice scurried away from his efforts, complaining with loud squeaks about the loss of their nests, but he figured that they would rebuild fast enough. After cocking a weather-eye at the sky, he hung the stained canvas of his cot over the window sill and took one last look around. Satisfied with his work, he tucked Anlynna into a broken wardrobe and went downstairs.

  Cricket spent the next three months learning all he could. Although the curriculum was not what he expected, it managed to be thorough, especially musically. Cricket learned how to play the drums, chanter and pipes, and the cittern. He listened closely to the instruction on the differences between common songs and court music, and sat in stunned amazement as he was shown how to write the notes and words onto parchment so that the songs could be preserved in the library.

  He also studied more mundane matters that he was assured he would need eventually, such as how to find edible plants and trap small game. He also had instruction on bow, staff, and sword, so that he could defend himself, however awkwardly. Other classes covered astronomy, religion, etiquette and politics.

  As Cricket excelled, he found himself with more free time to explore the capital. Customs may have changed and dynasties fallen, but Taris remained the heart of Glencairck, and as musical as when Taliesin first founded the Academy almost a thousand years before. Cricket felt the history coursing through the worn granite of Old Town, the only part that Cathbar hadn’t destroyed in the Second Bardic War, along the narrow alleys and wide avenues where heroes and goddesses had walked before him. Even the newer sections of the city dated back to the end of the Third Bardic War over five hundred years earlier. And on every corner, and from every door, crossains and bards practiced their arts.

  “Tell me, Asael, what is the difference between a crossain and a bard?” Goram leaned on the podium while he waited for the answer.

  Cricket perked up his ears. He had just been allowed into this class on politics, and obviously some interesting things were being taught.

  “Well...” the young red-head said. “Bards are trained in the Academy and allowed to judge.”

  “Good,” said the instructor, allowing the boy to relax. “Anyone else?”

  “Bards have royal favor, and are protected by the nobility,” offered another student.

  “Correct,” said Goram. “And why is that exactly? Ah, yes, is it Cricket?”

  “Yes Master Goram. Bards have their rights by heredity and divine approval.”

  Snickers erupted throughout the class. Master Goram silenced them with a glance. “Do you truly believe that, my foolish young man?”

  “Of course,” replied Cricket. “The bards were set apart by Taliesin as a means of judging everyone, from the queen to the peasants, and his actions were approved by the three queens themselves. A bard’s loyalty is not to the monarch or to any other person, but to Glencairck itself.”

  “Many things have changed since the Taliesin’s age,” Goram said with a smile. “The queen, and anyone with power, now has more influence on the bards than they should.”

  “But they’re not supposed to,” Cricket protested.

  The smile faded. “Don’t you know anything, boy? The Academy is nestled deep in the palace, and the queen awards the stars herself. How much control do you think she has? Declan MacConn, the only decent Pen Bardd they have had since Gwydion, was kicked out because he tried to change things.”

  Cricket felt his arguments crumble away like sand. “But it hasn’t always been like that,” he protested.

  “This is not history, young man, dealing with how things used to be. This is politics; we are dealing with how things are now.”

  Cricket sat back, feeling like he had just bitten into a bright red apple only to discover a worm. Asael tossed him a friendly smile, but Cricket barely noticed. It didn’t help that Goram went on to attack the very foundations of the Bardic tradition, finally making the claim that crossains were actually the better musicians.

  Class finally ended, but Cricket waited for everyone else to leave before getting up himself. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone else, but Asael waited for him just outside the door. He eyed the boy warily. “Yes?”

  Asael offered a tentative smile. “I’m Asael. I just wanted to meet you, and...”

  “And ridicule my backwards beliefs?” Cricket said.

  Asael stepped back, holding up his hands. “No! Not at all!” He looked around, but the hallway had emptied, leaving them alone. “It’s just that, well, I really wanted to go to the Academy, but my parents are just tenants of a minor laird, and they couldn’t afford it.”

  “I know,” Cricket said. “That’s why I’m here, too. I’m sorry if I came across as rude, but I thought you were going to be like Master Goram.”

  Asael gave him a lopsid
ed grin in return. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I thought I was the only one who thought that being a bard would be better than being a crossain.”

  “Do you think we’re the only ones?”

  Asael shrugged. “Everyone here seems to parrot the views of the teachers, and they’re all like Master Goram. From the people I’ve talked to, it seems like it’s always been that way. Maybe if Declan had gotten his way...”

  Cricket shook his head slowly, thinking of Harper. “I grew up in a tiny dun in the southeast, and my first teacher believed in the old ways. I guess I yearn for the old Academy because those are the stories I always heard.”

  “There are too many people that want to go to the Academy now. Getting in depends on who you know or how much money you have.”

  Cricket nodded. “The chieftain of my dun told me to be the best in Taris so that I could find a sponsor. There are so many musicians in this city, though, that I think it would be nearly impossible to get the attention of someone who would want to.” The bells outside rang twelve times. “We’d better get down stairs if we want anything more than scraps.”

  “Do you mind if I eat with you?” Asael asked shyly.

  “I don’t care.”

  As they headed towards the dining hall, Asael said, “It’s just that, well...” He looked at his feet. “Well, I just don’t have many friends.”

  “I don’t either,” Cricket admitted, feeling a sudden liking for the red-headed boy. “Come on, let’s eat.”

  Cricket continued to excel, although he mostly repeated the views that Duncan’s instructors wanted to hear, especially when it came to bards. At the same time, he and Asael stayed up late at night, dreaming of playing on the street when the queen drove by in her state chariot. In their dreams, the queen, enchanted by their music, ordered her driver to stop. She would sit and listen while Cricket or Asael (whoever was spinning the tale that night) finished playing. Then she would beg them to come to the Academy, because she had never heard such wonderful music. When they protested their unworthiness, she would offer them gold and a title. When they continued to demure, she offered to teach them the ancient Bardic magics herself.