Song for the Basilisk

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  He descended to the tavern, noisy with students and laborers, and already stifling at midday. He ate roast beef and brown bread, drank bitter ale, his head lowered, taciturn as the farmer he seemed. He longed with sudden intensity for Hollis’s company, and put the longing aside ruthlessly to think. The young man who had called himself Griffin Tormalyne had had a secret; perhaps it was that secret which had tried, so ineptly, to bring arms into the city. The name had not been forgotten; it had become dangerous. To whom? he wondered. Perhaps she would know, his old magister, with her seeing eyes. He was startled out of his musings by the young man sitting down opposite him at the broad, scarred plank.

  “You’re Giulia’s picochet player!” he exclaimed. Caladrius gazed blankly at the good-humored, blue-eyed face under a tangle of pale gold. “Do you remember?” he persisted. “You played with us in the Griffin’s Egg. Giulia wondered who you were.”

  “Giulia.” He took a bite, chewed silently, and found, beneath the terrors and chaos of the bridge, calm hazel eyes within a limp, sweat-streaked fall of dark hair. “Is that her name.”

  “Giulia Dulcet.” He added mysteriously, “We lost her to Pellior House. To the Basilisk’s birthday party. My name is Justin Tabor. I play the bass pipe.”

  “Yes.” He stretched a hand across the table, noticing then that the blue eyes were reddened with late hours, smoke, beer; the wild hair looked permanently tangled. He felt his own face ease slightly. “I remember the hair.”

  “Can you play with us again?” the young man asked impulsively. “We’ve gotten accustomed to the picochet; it’s the only thing louder than the tavern. We’re at the Griffin’s Egg nearly every night. We can pay, if you’re looking for work.”

  “I am,” Caladrius said, after another bite. “But I left my instrument behind me. In the north. I’m a stranger here. I don’t understand. Why you lost Giulia.”

  The rakish gentleness on Justin’s face slipped like a mask; someone older, harder, inhabited that face. “She went to play music for the Basilisk. Arioso Pellior. Every year on his birthday, he gives us all a present. A feast. Music. The streets are dressed in ribbons and banners; Berylon turns into a festival. He bribes us to forget, and shows us at the same time that we have no power in remembering.”

  “You’re too young to remember,” Caladrius commented, and the untroubled musician reappeared, hiding his private face.

  “The House remembers,” he said briefly, and bit into the meat pie cooling in his hand.

  “Perhaps when I’m settled,” Caladrius said, intrigued by the hints of bitterness, of secrecy. “When I find another instrument.”

  “What kind of work are you looking for?”

  “Almost anything. I’ve done many things.”

  “Can you read music?”

  “Why?” Caladrius asked, arrested mid-bite.

  “They’re looking for a music librarian at Pellior Palace. To catalog the music collection from Tormalyne Palace that strangely refused to burn. My cousin Nicol was trying to persuade me.” He brooded a moment at his pie, then looked up to catch the expression that had glanced through Caladrius’s eyes. “I don’t blame you, I don’t want it either. Most likely,” he added with his mouth full, “for entirely different reasons. You must be used to mortaring stones together. Tossing seeds around. Watching things grow.”

  “Or not.”

  “Well, they must have grown once, the way you play. Isn’t that what they say? It brings up the crops? Giulia told me that. If you do get work and your instrument back, come and find us again. You can find Giulia across the street at the music school. You left before she could talk to you. You’re the only other picochet player she’s heard in Berylon.”

  Caladrius, making a sudden decision, replied absently, “It’s not an instrument for the city.”

  “No. She grew up in the provinces on her grandfather’s farm.”

  “Did she? So did I. Grow up north.”

  “Maybe you knew each other.”

  “No.” He dropped a coin on the table and rose, looking down at Justin. “Which way is it?”

  “What?”

  “Pellior Palace.”

  Justin swallowed too quickly. “That way,” he said when he could. “Four streets over and then down Tigore Way. Half a mile or so past Tormalyne Palace. You’ll recognize that. It’s been dead for thirty-seven years.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been kind. I’ll find you again. When I have a picochet.”

  He was nearly out the door when Justin got to his feet and shouted, “Wait! I don’t know your name.”

  The familiar midday din in the tavern fell to a sudden hush. Caladrius, turning, faced inquisitive eyes all over the room, attention focused on him for no reason at all except that a young man, crying out a question, held them suspended in his curiosity.

  He said to the city of Berylon, “My name is Caladrius.”

  The tavern resumed its noisy flow, burying his name beneath words like a stone beneath water. Only Justin, caught in Caladrius’s glance as the door swung shut, hesitating before he sat, seemed puzzled as by a song he had once heard that had just haunted him again.

  Tormalyne Palace lay in the bright, drenching light like the immense, blinded, sun-bleached corpse of some fabled animal. Caladrius tried to pass without looking at it, afraid he might stop in the middle of the jostling crowds and howl like a dog, tear cobbles from the street to wring sorrow out of stone. It loomed beyond his lowered eyes, insisting, until he finally looked, and was stopped. Memories swarmed through him; he could not see beyond the ghosts haunting him. Something struck him lightly: a passing lute angled across the back of a magister’s black robe. The red-haired lute player, lost in his own furious thoughts, did not notice the man he had brought back from the dead. Caladrius lowered his head, took one step, and then another, and felt the fingers of fire and bone slowly loosen their hold around his heart.

  He did not remember Pellior Palace. It was likely that he had never seen it: the rulers of Pellior House had paid court, for four centuries, to Tormalyne House. It rose white as bone above its placid gardens, banners spilling out of its windows, its turrets painted gold. Basilisks prowled the front gate. They demanded his business brusquely, laughed at his worn boots, his unkempt hair. Then, with nothing better to do than swelter in the sun, one walked through the cool trees into the palace.

  Sometime later he returned, and opened the gate.

  Veris Legere, he was told, would see him.

  Veris Legere saw him in a small room of green-and-cream marble. He was a slight, aging man, unperturbed, it seemed by his complete lack of expression, at the sight of a farmer in Arioso Pellior’s palace. He did, for a moment, search for appropriate words.

  Caladrius said, while he looked, “Forgive my appearance. I just walked down. From the north. I’m looking for work. I studied awhile with the bards. On Luly.”

  Veris Legere found his voice, a hint of expression. “The bards of Luly,” he said slowly. “I forget, sometimes, that they are more than a legend.”

  “They may be, by now,” Caladrius said steadily. “No more than a legend. It was many years ago. But they teach in ways to make you remember.”

  “Yes. So I’ve heard.” If he heard more than that, of fire on the rock, nothing in his cool eyes suggested it. “What did they teach you?”

  “Various instruments. Poetry and songs. To read and write words and notes.”

  “Did you compose?”

  “A few things.”

  “Who told you that the House needed a librarian?”

  “A young man in a tavern.” Veris Legere raised a questioning brow. “A musician. I mentioned that I need work. He remembered this. He did not expect me to be interested.”

  “The musicians of the Tormalyne School would rather play it than catalog it. The collection to be cataloged is quite large and very old. It was taken from Tormalyne Palace after the fall of the House.”

  “The palace burned.” He found reason then to be gr
ateful for the provincial abruptness. “The music did not?”

  “I believe it must have been moved. To the dungeons, perhaps. It was moved here with equal haste, that I can tell from the disorder. Whoever brought it here forgot it, or was unable to tell anyone who thought it important. The prince’s daughter Luna discovered it in various old chests and cupboards. Much of the music was written by members of Tormalyne House. Their names told us where the collection had come from. Some of the music is so old it flakes under the brush of air. It must be put in order, as far as possible, by composer and date. You would need to learn something of the history of the House.”

  “May I see it?” The passion he could not hide in his voice, Veris took for a music lover’s; a faint smile surfaced in his eyes.

  “Some of it has been moved into the music room. It is usually empty, at this time of day. Come.”

  “I’m not—I can’t—” He gestured at his dust.

  “You made it this far, Master Caladrius, in those clothes. Arioso Pellior does not question my judgment in matters of music.”

  The music room, as he had predicted, was empty. It was a vast cave of filigreed marble, all shades of white but for the solemn black strip that ran along the base of the walls. Cases of wood and glass stood back-to-back in ranks along one side of the room; they held instruments and music. Veris led him to the line of cases along the wall, opened one. Scrolls and flat manuscripts filled it in a disorderly pile. Veris lifted a brown scroll gently and handed it to Caladrius.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “It’s old.” He unrolled it carefully, his hands trembling slightly. “Song,” it was titled simply at the top. At the bottom it was signed “Aurelia Tormalyne.” “Someone of the House wrote it. There is no date. I would have to know when she lived. It is written for a single instrument in the middle ranges. Possibly to be sung. Perhaps there are words, somewhere.” The scroll was shaking badly; he felt Veris’s eyes move from it to his face. He let the scroll roll itself. “I’m sorry,” he told the cold marble floor. “It’s a thing that happens. When I want something very badly.”

  He heard Veris draw breath. The door opened then; he looked up and saw the Basilisk.

  Arioso Pellior was speaking to someone, his face half-turned; Caladrius remembered his voice. His gold hair had lightened; beyond that he seemed to have changed little. Veris bowed when the prince glanced across the room. Caladrius, frozen, did not. The reptile eyes met the raven’s, had begun to narrow when Caladrius bent his head stiffly, belatedly. Still he felt the Basilisk’s glance, as if those eyes had scored his bones.

  “My lord,” he heard Veris say. “I believe I have found our librarian.”

  A woman laughed lightly. Caladrius kept his eyes lowered, listening to their footsteps, which continued to cross the room. Fingers touched stray notes in passing from the harpsichord. She said, “He dresses like a farmer, and has no manners.”

  “He is a northerner, my lady.”

  “Taur will not be pleased. Fortunately, he never comes here.” Their footsteps seemed to be aimed at the doors in the opposite wall.

  “See that he is suitably attired,” the prince said briefly.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  He murmured something; the woman laughed again. Caladrius let his eyes flicker upward; their backs were to him; they had nearly reached the open doors. The woman’s hair was the rich gold that the Basilisk’s had been once. Her voice, he thought, could melt gold with its charms; her mockery seemed light as air.

  She turned, before she followed the prince through the door, looked back at him as if she heard his thoughts.

  She was gone before he remembered how to breathe. Veris Legere took the scroll out of his hands and replaced it in the case. “The Lady Luna Pellior,” he said dryly, before Caladrius remembered how to speak. “The prince’s older daughter. Very like her father in all ways. Before you leave, I will give you money. When you return in the morning you will be dressed discreetly in black and your hair will be trimmed. Your boots will not be seen here again. You will become familiar, in time, with the need to bow your head upon occasion, Master Caladrius.”

  “Yes,” he breathed. “That’s not a gaze I’d want to offend twice.”

  Veris dropped a hand on Caladrius’s shoulder. “You’ve seen the Basilisk’s eyes and lived, Master Caladrius. It may not happen twice.”

  It has, he thought starkly. But never again. I will not live to survive him. She would see to that. His child. His mirror.

  “Master Caladrius.”

  He bowed his head to the music of Tormalyne House in its glass prison. He thought he left the palace alone, but he found the image of Luna Pellior burned, like a quick glimpse of the sun, behind his eyes.

  Four

  Giulia stood in the music room at Pellior Palace, studying the four broad oval paintings on the ceiling as she listened to Damiet Pellior sing. The paintings depicted the Birth of Music, the Meeting of Voice and Song, the Marriage of Time and Harmony, the Children of Music Playing the Twenty-seven Courtly Instruments. Casting her eyes up frequently to the charming roil of pink flesh, discreetly draped linen, coy glances, rapt, well-fed faces, she was able to maintain an expression suitable to her task, which, she decided grimly, must be to introduce both Time and Harmony to the Lady Damiet, who did not seem to recognize either one of them.

  “Good,” she said briskly as Damiet finished a scale: which, Giulia was not certain. “You have a range adequate for—well, adequate. Very adequate.”

  Damiet gazed at her, already not listening, having forgotten, possibly, why Giulia was there. She herself might have stepped down from one of the paintings: Voice, perhaps, or Harmony descending to earth, picking more appropriate clothing out of the small, fat hands of the Children of Music along the way. She was tall, plump, and quite fair, big yet graceful; she watched Giulia out of blue-gray, slow-blinking eyes when Giulia spoke. So far she produced a bewildering impression that the words that came out of Giulia’s mouth had not the remotest relationship to anything Giulia thought she had put into it.

  “Do you know,” Damiet asked, “what I am to wear? I think I should change my costume for every song, and I want one of them to be yellow. Please tell Magister Barr he must write a yellow song for me.”

  “Magister Barr is not a dressmaker. He is a composer and a dramatist. He won’t care what color you wear, as long as you sing it well.”

  “So far he has given me nothing at all to sing.”

  “You have a scale. Many scales—”

  “Yes, but he didn’t write them. I don’t think. Not for me.”

  “For you,” Giulia lied extravagantly. “If you would sing another—”

  “I just did; they’re all alike.” She blinked again at Giulia, her heavy, creamy face not so much obstinate as oblivious. Giulia went to the spinet, a black so lacquered it glowed like satin, inlaid with flowers of wood and ivory.

  “Please. Listen.” She touched a note. “Sing.”

  “Sing what?”

  “This note.”

  “Just that?”

  “Is it too difficult?”

  “Oh, I doubt it,” the Lady Damiet said. “There is only one.”

  Giulia struck the note again. It spun itself out with amazing purity in that cold room. She waited. The note parted into overtones and died away. She lifted her head, incredulous, and caught the fixed, blue stare.

  “Do you think you will be finished soon?” Damiet asked. “I have never liked this room; it is too pale. You do well in it, though, with your dark hair.”

  Giulia sat down on the spinet stool. The first evening, she thought. The first hour. And I want to claw my hair over my face and wail to wake the dead. Hexel will be furious. He will flee Berylon to join Berone Sidero in the provinces…

  “Lady Damiet,” she said desperately, “perhaps you might sing what you would call a yellow song for me. So that I can explain to Magister Barr. I can’t think of one myself.”

  The blue
eyes became faintly surprised. “Can’t you?”

  “Not one.”

  “But then,” Damiet said, inspired, “you always wear black.” She stopped, swallowed; her eyes grew fixed, slightly crossed. She opened her mouth. A page, entering the room with his arms full of scrolls, stopped dead at her first note. He shivered, hunched over the scrolls, and backed out, making small, birdlike noises. Giulia bit her lip and stared pleadingly at the beautiful, benevolent, androgynous face of Song, who extended a loving hand to the opening lips of Voice, whose eyes, like Damiet’s, seemed faintly crossed in concentration. Giulia closed her own eyes quickly, and clenched her fists.

  “Perhaps,” she said carefully, “if I play it with you, I will understand yellow better.”

  Damiet sighed. “I do hope, Magister Dulcet, we will not have to go through this for every color.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I’m afraid we will.”

  They progressed after a fashion from yellow to blue, which Damiet expressed as an innocent version of a raw ballad Giulia had played at the Griffin’s Egg. A blue to match my eyes, Damiet had explained. Giulia, not quite envisioning the shade, had her repeat phrases so that, she told Damiet, she could play them back to Magister Barr. She accompanied Damiet with one finger and a chord now and then, and tried to keep Yacinthe’s raucous voice out of her head.

  “One more verse,” she said. “I’ve almost got it. Light blue.”

  “A smoky blue,” Damiet corrected, sighing. “With cream lace. You will remember the smoke? You see it in my eyes? Magister Dulcet, I hope you won’t confuse the colors.”

  “I’ll write them down,” Giulia promised. “‘The Shepherd’s Dawn’ for your yellow costume, and ‘Pass the Pot’ for the blue. Smoke.”

  The blue eyes fixed her once again, their marble gaze becoming slightly glassier, as if Giulia had hit an impossible note and caused a swath of linen to crack and drift down from one of the rosy figures overhead.

  “Magister Dulcet, the song is called ‘Sweet Bird Awaken.’ Not ‘Pass the Pot.’”