Song for a Lost Kingdom, Book I

by Steve Moretti

  “I got it, Dad!” she said, forcing herself to try and sound cheerful. “Mr. Lang offered me a position with the NAC Orchestra, said I might even get to do a solo.”

  “Oh Adeena! We’re so happy for you! You deserve it!” he gushed. “So you played that music we sent you on your cello?”

  Adeena reflected on the question.

  “I did,” she said after a moment. “But actually, I used the Duncan Cello, from the gallery, at work.” She paused again, considering how much she should tell him. “Dad, there is something special about that instrument and about the music Grandma sent me.” Adeena choked a little on the word ‘Grandma’. But she felt an overwhelming need to tell someone about her ‘dreams’.

  “Something special? You mean about the music or the cello?” her father asked.

  “Well both, actually. It’s almost like they know each other,” Adeena said her voice trailing off. “And there’s something else too.” She hesitated remembering Philippe’s reaction to her story. “I had the most intense dream… afterwards.”

  Her father didn’t respond. He was quiet and she wondered if her heard what she had said. “Dream?” he finally offered.

  “Yeah, dad. Almost like a story you would tell me,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “I was playing the Duncan Cello, but as another woman. She was from the past, I think.”

  “Really? Who? Who was this woman?”

  “Katharine. I became this Lady Katharine Carnegie in my dream,” she replied, wishing she could see the reaction on his face. “And I was singing, really powerfully. I or Katharine maybe, was singing words that I had been thinking about for a long time, and …”

  She stopped wondering how crazy she must sound.

  “And what?” her father asked gently. “Adeena?”

  She hesitated, unsure how much to say. “And,” she said doubtfully thinking this must sound so silly. “I was in a castle performing for Katharine’s brother George and another brother, uh Sir James. I think he is a Captain?”

  “Sir James Carnegie?” he asked.

  “I guess, I don’t know, maybe,” she replied, closing her eyes, thinking back. “It all felt so real. I’ve never had a dream like that, where I can remember ever little detail.” Her voice dropped into a frightened whisper. “Dad, I don’t know what’s going on. I had that dream twice. Both times I was playing as Katharine, but for different people. I think I might be losing it…” She stopped and felt a tear rolling down her cheek.

  Her dad was quiet. He must have sensed she was crying. “Take a deep breath, Pumpkin, you’re okay,” he said in a comforting tone. “Start at the beginning and tell me everything you can remember, about your dreams.”

  WILLIAM HUNG UP after his call with Adeena.

  He stood frozen for a moment. Jackie, puzzled by the long silence, glanced up from the sink where she was drying the dishes to see William staring into the distance, lost in thought.

  They had just finished lunch at his mother’s cottage where they were working on getting Margaret Rose’s things packed up and putting her affairs in order.

  “What on earth was that all about?” Jackie inquired, having listened to one side of a very peculiar conversation. “Thank God Adeena finally got that stupid conductor to give her a spot with the orchestra. But, what did she say happened after? I didn’t get that part.”

  William pursed his lips, still puzzled by everything he had just heard. “Yup, she got the job alright, with the NAC orchestra. Thank God, she worked so hard for it.”

  “She did. I’m so happy for her,” Jackie agreed, putting the last of the glasses and cups away. “But what was all that stuff about dreaming and singing? And did I hear, something about soldiers or a Captain?”

  William hesitated for a few seconds before responding. “Remember the score we sent to Adeena last week, just before Mum died? Had to arrange the overnight courier? Well after she played it for the NAC conductor, Lang, I guess she had a couple of very vivid dreams.”

  “Vivid dreams? Really? More than one?”

  “I think so. It was after she played the score, and oh by the way, she used the Duncan Cello. You know the one I was telling you about? The one from over here in Scotland?”

  His wife nodded, looking more perplexed. “Yeah. So what about it?”

  “So, she says that after she played that music, on that cello, she dreamed she became Katharine Carnegie! She played for Katharine’s brother George and for Sir James Carnegie and . . .”

  William suddenly stopped and bit his lip, staring at this wife blankly.

  “And what?” Jackie demanded.

  “The diary. You know the one Mum took from Kinnaird?” he muttered, getting up from the sofa. His mind was racing. “Didn’t he mention something about a brother? Wasn’t it George?” He looked over at her, wide-eyed now. “Did you see it? The diary?”

  “There’s something on Mum’s nightstand,” Jackie replied. “You said we had to take it back to Kinnaird, remember?”

  William hurried into the bedroom and found the leather-bound diary sitting on the nightstand. He opened it, trying to find the passage his mother had made him read to her in the library at the castle. Jackie stood in the bedroom doorway, staring at him as he thumbed through the pages.

  “What was that date?” he said. “I think it was August . . . 16 or wait. Here it is, 6 August, 1745.”

  He slowly read the entire passage. He raced across the words in disbelief.

  He whistled to himself. “Wow,” he said quietly. “Oh my God!”

  “What? What is it?” Jackie demanded.

  “You better listen to this,” he said, adjusting his glasses and reading to his wife directly from the diary.

  ‘Kinnaird, 6 August, 1745.

  “Kinnard will soon be mine. Arrangements now in progress are going well. Tonight I returned from my glorious dayes in Flanders with the officers in my regiment and we were welcomed by my brother George, who arranged a feast of mutton, pies and ale, along with musical merriment.

  “You see! It was George!” he said, looking up at Jackie.

  “Yeah okay, keep going,” she replied impatiently.

  “Arrogant Sister Katharine travelled from Aberdeen to play for me on a new violincello from maestro Duncan of Upperkirkgate that George was able to secure through his merchant associates.

  Jackie interrupted. “The Duncan Cello?” “I think it might be, but wait,” William responded. “It gets better.”

  “But that she, a woman and mine own sister too, would play an instrument so clearly in the domain of men, was scandalous and altogether unacceptable. Katharine’s insolence was intolerable. She told me that ‘I could not forbid her from doing anything.’ But alas, she is sadly mistaken in her naïveté.

  William looked at Jackie. Was she thinking the same thing as him?

  “Would you just keep reading, please?”

  “Sorry,” he said, looking down again the diary, continuing his narration.

  “Even worse, the song Katharine played this eve seemed to intoxicate my officers, and she used their reaction against me. For tho’ it was indeed miraculous, it also the most seditious song ever heard, and played on such a lewd instrument too! Katharine said it was a composition that she herself wrote, and she could perform it ‘wherever and whenever’ she pleased. She performed and sang as though possessed by spirits that talked directly of the Jacobite traitors and their young Pretender.

  We had sharp society afterwards, and her hot temper served no useful design. Her delirium was evident when she used her foul Abeerdeen dialect, calling me a ‘Jerkoffe’- possibly a Jacobite curse of some sort.

  Jackie smiled at this, but her face was contorted in confusion. William paused a moment. “Keep going,” she implored.

  “When I warned her never to perform the cantata again, lest it embolden the traitors amongst us who would destroy the Union, she refused. In her fury she inquired if I was ‘King Konge’ a line of royalty I am ignorant of, but I believe w
as meant as an insult to my person.

  I forbade her from ever playing that instrument again and to find something more suitable for a lady ~ a cittern. I had her score confiscated and placed it in my keep, where it will remain and cause no more harm to the preservation of the Union.

  “King Kong?” Jackie repeated, looking over William’s shoulder at the diary.

  “Let me see that.”

  10

  THE SECURITY CLEARANCE Tara requested for Adeena had been denied.

  There was no reason provided by either the Ottawa Police or the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. There was just a simple “X” in one of the checkboxes beside the “DENIED” option on the form for Level I Security Clearance Certificate in regards to ‘Adeena Rose Stuart’. Getting that certificate was a requirement of the insurance company for any person with private access to the Duncan Cello.

  Tara had worried this would happen. She wondered what sort of a file there might on Adeena, who had suffered more than a few brushes with the law during her stormy teenage years.

  As Tara left her office to deliver the bad news, she recalled one awful summer night in particular, soon after they had both turned 18. Adeena had gone to a party that ended wildly out of control. Kurt - the boyfriend Adeena swooned over and Tara loathed - had invited his mates from the avant-garde rock band that he and Adeena had formed. They in turn invited their friends, and it seemed to Tara, most of the entire Grade 12 class at Nepean High School, to a backyard pool party at his sprawling Westboro house. His parents of course, were out of town for the weekend.

  By the time the police arrived, the flashing lights of their cruisers washing over the whole neighbourhood, Kurt’s house and the party, were in shambles. There was a motorcycle in the pool, and the police arrested a couple of kids dealing drugs. Adeena was charged after getting into a nasty catfight with one of the other girls, who told the police she wanted to press charges.

  Tara had stood up for her friend, telling the police that Adeena was acting in self-defence when she punched the “bitch” in the head and knocked her into the pool. The fact that Adeena then jumped into the water to bite said “bitch,” was harder to explain.

  Oh Miss Adeena…

  Was she the sister Tara had never had? She had certainly created enough trouble for both of them. Tara’s parents would never put up with the stunts Adeena pulled. A Greek father and an Indian mother – you just don’t fuck around with them. They were results people – one a lawyer, the other a deputy minister in the government, and they made it clear they had zero tolerance for teenage nonsense.

  Tara had just accepted that as a fact of Indo-Greek life.

  As she strode towards Adeena’s office, Tara mused how she had vicariously lived her teenage years through her best friend. She had nursed Adeena through bad relationships, lectured her on drugs, booze and sex, and helped her deal with problems that seemed to follow her around every corner. And she had been there after the prom when Adeena overdosed and lay near death in the hospital for two long days and two even longer nights.

  Surviving her best friend’s teenage years had been exhausting. Tara had sacrificed so much as Adeena’s eternally patient guardian angel, that she never had the chance at introspection, to figure who she was, or what she wanted from life.

  Maybe when I hit thirty, she thought with a smile as she reached Adeena’s office. I’ll quit my job, travel to Greece and track down the God of Debauchery, or a rugged guy that looks a lot like him. I’ll get drunk, smoke cigarettes and have an orgy for a whole month.

  Tara walked into Adeena’s office and braced herself. “Dee – you’ve been a naughty girl. I can’t get your security clearance approved.” She tried to strike a sympathetic tone. “I’m going to keep working on it, but I’ll need your help.”

  Adeena sat engrossed on her computer. She didn’t react the way Tara had expected. “Jerks,” Adeena finally responded without taking her eyes from the computer screen.

  Tara sighed. “Well, until I can find out what skeletons they’ve unearthed, you can’t be alone with the Duncan Cello. We’ll have to keep the music technician around to play it for now. You’re not authorized.”

  Adeena looked up at Tara blankly. “Really?” she said, releasing a sigh of disgust before turning back to the screen, peering closely at the web page she had been absorbed in studying.

  Tara always had a hard time understanding her friend. Why did she attract problems to herself like moths to a floodlight? Why couldn’t Adeena learn that dreams usually turn out to be fantasies that lead you over a cliff? Why did she always choose the rockiest road? The one that led nowhere or to a place of pain, misery?

  Is that why she can’t get a Level I Security Certificate? Tara thought. Is she just a pathological rule breaker? Tara looked at her best friend, her ‘sister’ and unfortunately, the subordinate she was supposed to ‘manage’. Adeena sat reading the computer screen, ignoring Tara as if she wasn’t even there.

  That trip to Greece sounds really good, Tara thought. “How’s your research going for the exhibit?” she finally offered. “You like the name we came up with? Art of Rebellion?”

  There was a pause and Adeena finally turned her head and looked serious. “I do,” she replied still absorbed by the article on the screen. “Did you know the Duncan Cello had a direct role in the rebellion, the 1745 Jacobite uprising?” Adeena had a far-away look in her eyes. “I didn’t really know about it before, but I’m starting to get it now. I feel very connected to it somehow.”

  Tara studied Adeena. She always took everything to an impossible level. “You do? Why?” Tara replied. Then she noticed the reflection on Adeena’s hand. “What’s this?”

  “It’s from Philippe.”

  “You’re wearing it on your right hand?”

  Adeena looked down and took the ring off. “I shouldn’t be wearing it on any hand.” She closed her fingers around it and stared at the ground.

  Tara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You said no?”

  Adeena nodded. Tara moved closer and touched Adeena’s shoulder. “He loves you. I thought you…”

  “It’s not him.” Adeena interrupted. “I’m not ready, or I’m not …” She paused, looking up as if searching for an answer.

  “Or, you’re not what?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. Maybe, not ready to be his wife,” she sighed.

  “Why? Is there somebody else?”

  Adeena hesitated. “It’s my music, Tar. I’m so focused right now. I’ve think I’ve finally found my voice.”

  Tara bit her lip frowning. Music was always tied to heartbreak for Adeena - from two-timing Kurt and their punkish band that went nowhere, through ten years of auditions with bad endings and projects.

  “Dee, will that really make you happy?” Tara started, forming the outline of another counselling session in her head. “I thought you were paddling over Niagara Falls with this whole music thing?”

  “I was. But yesterday I got invited to the join the NAC Orchestra.”

  Tara’s heart jumped. Finally, after all these years. “What? You didn’t tell me that!”

  Adeena smiled and Tara leaned over the chair and wrapped her arms around her. “Congratulations!” She felt such pride for her friend. Adeena had been through so much to finally get to this day. The NAC orchestra! It always seemed like a wild dream that would end in crushing disappointment.

  A tap on the open office door interrupted them. It was Tara’s new assistant Pablo, on his second day at work. His wife was an old friend, and Tara had given the young art history graduate a term assignment as a favour to her.

  “Ms. Kormos,” he said, looking like he had important news. “They really need you to look at something for the new exhibit.” Then he added with a sense of urgency. “They want you to come and see it, right now.”

  Tara motioned for Adeena to follow her. “Thanks Pablo, we’re on our way.”

  TRAVELLING EXHIBITS AT the National Gallery of Canada
brought in much needed revenue to the institution. Hopes were high that the Art of Rebellion, featuring the Duncan Cello which had received so much media coverage, would be a smashing success, both artistically and perhaps more importantly, financially.

  Adeena had managed to get the star artifact of the show back to the Gallery on Saturday morning without incident, thanks to Michael. She knew it wasn’t fair to flirt with the young clerk who worked the weekend shift in security. But no crime was committed, Adeena rationalized. No one was harmed through her using an instrument that needed to be played everyday and that seemed to belong to her anyway.

  “Like the sign?” Tara interrupted as they approached the entrance to the area of the gallery where temporary exhibits were staged.

  Adeena studied the huge hanging banner - a photograph of the Duncan Cello trimmed to the contours on the right side. It was so large that it dominated the three-storey glass atrium. An even larger version hung outside the gallery. The lettering was simple, written as if in haste, with the splotched ink drops of a sloppy quill:

  Art of Rebellion - Art de la rébellion

  The silhouette of a bayonet-tipped musket served as an accent under the lettering. The background imagery was a landscape painting of the misty Scottish Highlands. Adeena stared at it for a moment thinking about Katharine Carnegie and her two brothers, George and the Captain, and of course the young man James Drummond. She had just been reading about them online in her attempt to sort out the characters of her ‘dream’.

  The people she had met were all real. And Kinnaird was real. How could she have dreamed of historical characters and places she was completely unaware of last week? Had she heard it all before and simply forgotten?