Trial of Intentions

by Peter Orullian

  One of the astronomers spoke reverentially. “She shouldn’t have done it.”

  Tahn looked in the direction of the man. “I wish she hadn’t,” he said. “But that’s selfish of me. She escaped the Scar. In some ways, even then, I was a little jealous.”

  He turned again to Rithy and Polaema. This topic of self-slaughter held an awful poignancy for them. For Tahn.

  Nanjesho had had a unique warmth about her. She’d never divided her attention. If she was taking to Tahn, the world could do what it liked; she remained focused on what she and Tahn were talking about. He’d seen the kind of mother she’d been to Rithy—patient, encouraging. And he’d seen the unique love she and Polaema had shared. Since he’d never known his own mother, it was the first loving relationship he’d ever witnessed.

  But Succession had taken its toll. And she’d walked into her own Scar.

  Believing that his old friends now understood, Tahn meant to get started. “I understand the mercy of death. But wouldn’t it be better if it was the last option?” With a firm voice, he began to declare what he wanted to do. “I want to prove Resonance is the unifying principle of Continuity. I want to use Succession to prove that principle is true. And once we’ve done that, I want to use it to strengthen the Veil. Keep the Quiet at bay.” He paused, softening his tone. “I want to help those like Tamara,” and Nanjesho, and Devin … and Alemdra, “believe there’s a good reason to be here for tomorrow.”

  The astronomy discourse theater came alive with a vibrant resolve Tahn could feel. They kept a silent respect for what he’d shared. But it was clear they wanted to help for new reasons. It was everything he’d hoped for. Gratitude filled him until he thought tears might come. These new friends would begin preparing for the astronomy argument—which would come last—as he went through the other colleges in succession.

  When he looked over at Rithy and Mother Polaema, he could still see a hint of reservation. But it was different this time, from what he’d seen and sensed before. It wasn’t about the past. Or, at least, about the past alone. The pressures of Succession were many. It wasn’t only Nanjesho who’d felt its sting. The process had been known to cripple many of those who’d failed. Cripple them mentally. Emotionally. One tended to succeed at Succession only if he gave his whole self to it. Which came with a very real risk if the argument was lost. That was the concern he saw in his friends’ eyes. It wasn’t about Rithy’s mother. It was about what it could do to Tahn.

  But as the moment stretched on, their faces showed tentative smiles. They would support him. Despite the past. It was maybe the greatest act of faith he’d ever seen.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  A Dangerous Endeavor

  Unschooled Leiholan takes the stage, you see. Sings something in a tongue none of us has ever heard before. We understand the song, though. In our guts, we understand. And some hearts couldn’t suffer it. Eighteen people drop dead in their pork stew. Don’t tell me music isn’t dangerous.

  —Witness account suppressed by the League of Civility in its investigation of several simultaneous deaths reported by Rafters tavern patrons

  Evening in the Cathedral Quarter came on with raucous laughter, the shouts of men and women ready to gamble coin, and music wafting on the air like strains of a great, nightly symphony. Musicians of every stripe were either on their way to a venue, warming up, or currently performing. And tonight, in the company of Belamae, Wendra was in the Quarter to hear music.

  After the events on the docks the previous night, she’d gotten the women to safety and quietly slipped back into Descant. Those things played in her mind as they set out this night. But not for long. Belamae’s excitement for their outing in the Quarter was infectious, and they were soon talking and walking as two friends with someplace to be.

  “There are the main roads of the Quarter,” Belamae explained. “‘First stops,’ the music jokesters like to say. Usually larger performance taverns. Lots of seats. Liquor bought in casks. Not bad for that, but it leaves less space for curated selections: what we call ‘music drinks.’ Libations found only deep inside the Quarter.”

  They moved at a leisurely pace through the crowds.

  Belamae gestured here and there. “Recityv has thirteen other music ‘quarters.’ And for the most part, you’ll only find pay-to-play establishments in them. Musicians generally put up three plugs for fifteen minutes of stage time. The bigger places, where the crowds are larger, get four. Even field hands and butchers and farriers, who work ten days to earn three plugs to rub together, will buy time if they think they have the musical finesse to mount a stage.” He nodded in appreciation. “It’s true, though, that a fine performance can earn back double what is paid to play. Performance tavern folk can be generous when they think the coin is earned.”

  Then he paused a moment in the midst of the bustle, making sure she was listening to his next words. “Here in the Cathedral Quarter, musicians don’t pay for stage time. And patrons come for more than entertainment and distraction. Folk here, they come to hear musicians play. Not just watch, or, by silent gods, ignore the music while they eat and look for bed company.”

  Wendra suppressed a smile, and they started to stroll again.

  Belamae continued as before, giving her this private tour. “And folk who come to hear musicians play, they understand false notes and poor rhyme. If your need is a tune to dance to, go somewhere else. Maylains perhaps. Or Scrodulan Street.” He raised a finger, as one clarifying a point. “But even the music in these districts is generally better than you’ll find in other cities, save those with conservatories of their own.”

  She wanted to ask about other conservatories, but didn’t interrupt Belamae, who was lively tonight like she hadn’t seen in a good long while.

  “But, music in the other quarters of Recityv happens in formal establishments, where concerts are announced days or weeks in advance.” He shriveled his nose comically. “These concerts became affairs, events where people who can afford Hidan silk and the satins of Masson Gulf like to be seen. Vapid things,” Belamae said with a bit of distaste.

  “The best thing the other quarters produce musicwise is musicians with enough salt to play here.” He raised a hand to indicate the Cathedral Quarter. “And that happens with enough frequency to make them tolerable.” He laughed.

  Wendra looked around at the slum.

  Belamae put an arm around her shoulder. “I see the way you look at it. Yes, it’s the laborers’ district. But it’s the harbor for those who take care in the craft and consumption of music. And that’s what counts.”

  “No argument from me,” she said. “But, if I were to argue, what would I say?” she asked, and smiled.

  “You’d say that in Recityv’s musical heartbeat, musicians have largely one aim: to be asked, or have their petition accepted…” he paused, drawing it out, “to train at Descant. It isn’t about coin. And it isn’t about patrons, either. Those are worthy enough outcomes of solid musicianship. But those are to be had in other places. Not the Quarter. Here it’s about the music. Here, about Descant.”

  They strolled a few minutes more, walking unhurried through street after street, hearing instruments and voices carry through doors and windows. Wendra began to feel a sense of place, and folded her arm around the Maesteri’s as they ambled along.

  Belamae hadn’t summoned her for another lesson during the day. Instead he’d waited until dusk, and then led her on this tour of the slum and music enclave to a place known as Rafters—another performance tavern. It sat back off the main streets. She began to look forward to quite an evening of music, and enjoyed the anticipation.

  Out front sat two heavyset men on bar stools eyeing down those who wished to enter. They collected a copper plug from those who sought the opportunity.

  Belamae paid the admission, and led Wendra through the crowd toward the stage. The Maesteri received several deferential nods, which he graciously returned. And more than a few eyed Wendra, wondering openly about
her. There was a little jealousy in many of those who stared after her, several of whom held instruments. Though just as many showed a different spark of interest, like hope that she might be performing, given her companion.

  From more than one table she heard whispers, all generally saying the same thing: The Maesteri’s here. It’s gonna heat up tonight.

  He stopped three times to exchange pleasantries and clasp hands with men and women. These folk struck her as being rather like Belamae, probably music instructors. Or perhaps they were simply fixtures here at Rafters—like the Maesteri himself, it seemed. Soon they reached the stage, and moved to the right, where they passed a large slate, written on in cream-colored chalk. The night’s playbill. It looked like nine different performances were scheduled. Belamae read down the list with excitement. Behind them, the room buzzed with anticipation from patrons a drink or two into their evening. She couldn’t help but smile, and began tapping her own foot.

  Then he led her up a short set of stairs and around to the side stage. Tucked just out of view from the crowd sat a table adorned with a small wicker basket filled with baguettes of pumpernickel, rye, and dark-grain breads. A generous bowl of whipped butter rested beside the basket. And behind it all, two empty chairs.

  Belamae motioned in a gentlemanly manner for her to choose a seat. After she’d done so, he sat beside her and exhaled with delighted expectation. “Here we are.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better out front?” she asked, more than a little confused.

  “Oh, no, no. Out there we’d get caught up in the enthusiasm of the crowd. We’d hear the resonances of the room. We’d be more inclined to share a word with the next table. We’d miss the musicians’ faces when they fret before taking the stage.” He pointed across from them, stage right, where several musicians were tuning and running scales.

  A dozen questions jumped to mind. But before she could ask, the Maesteri smiled and explained. “Back here, we get the unencumbered view and sound of the performance. No enhancements. Just whatever music they’re making. We hear it flat.” He ran a straightened palm through the air in a slow horizontal motion. “This way, we pick up intonation. We catch the places where the musician struggles. And when it’s good from backstage”—he tapped the table, indicating the little nook they now occupied—“it’s superb.” He showed her a beaming smile.

  Wendra nodded, as a mandolist began taking the stage.

  A moment later, two glasses of a velvety, sharp-smelling brandy were brought without the need of an order. Hardly looking away from the onstage musician tuning his mandola, Belamae said, “Board says Goffry’s back in the city.”

  Their server leaned down, putting his head squarely in Belamae’s line of sight. “So he is, you strummer.”

  “You know I only pick my strings,” Belamae replied.

  It sounded like a rote greeting, as the two men settled into shared chuckles. Wendra assumed some metaphor at work in the exchange, but whatever it was escaped her. It gladdened her, though, to see Belamae in such fine spirits. He had color in his skin and the glimmer back in his eyes. He seemed truly at home here.

  “Wendra, this is Ollie, Rafters proprietor, rag-handler, insatiable gossip, and music … er, tone-deaf aficionado.”

  The man made a shallow bow. “A right fine pleasure. Though, you could find better company in a barn. You see where we sit him.”

  Wendra smiled.

  Then Ollie turned back to his old friend. “Goffry spent some time down in Dalle, I hear. Comes back to us with some tricks, he thinks. All he gave me for his set selection was notation keys. A bit o’ pomp in ’im now. All Dimn-like.”

  Belamae nodded. “He’ll draw a crowd, though. You’re not hating that. Man’s got a talent for loud.” He patted Ollie’s elbow. “The slate also says there’s a pair of pageant wagon players taking the boards. What’s the story there? One of them offer you a kiss?”

  Ollie’s smile brightened briefly then fell down quite a lot. “Said they wanted to sing something from the Slaternly Cycle. I haven’t heard that since I was a kid. League won’t allow it anymore, neither. I wrote ’em up on balls alone.” He mimed putting their names on the slateboard.

  “Good news is the Reconciliationists have stopped recruiting sopranos out of the Quarter. Bad news is it seems their own music conservatory is doing right well. Can’t say how many good voices are now singing to dead gods, but it makes one want to weep.”

  “Or convert,” Belamae quipped.

  Ollie laughed hard twice. “Well, hold your praise. I’ve had more than my share of Rykian Church fellows in here scouting for canters. The whole world’s turning their music skyward. Whatever happened to a good ole dirty-time jam-all?”

  The Maesteri sat back for a moment, looking into his friend’s face, as though the question had been a serious one. “Most musicians are too rehearsed these days. They play a thing to death before they stand up to play it for someone else. They know all the songs, and so haven’t anything of their own.”

  A strange silence settled over them in their little backstage nook. Then Ollie’s brows rose, his lips pursed, and he nodded as if it was the truest damned thing he’d ever heard.

  “Harnell’s closing it out tonight, I saw.” Belamae nodded, approving of each selection as another man might test and approve of his glass of wine. “And Cris is first, I see,” he said, motioning toward the mandolist.

  “He’s gonna make another run. You sittin’ here’s not gonna do much for his stage hands.” Ollie held out his hand, splay-fingered, and made it all trembly.

  The Maesteri shook his head. “I think that part’s behind him.” He then handed Ollie a coin. “Don’t argue on the change. You’re a damn sight better to these kids than they get on the main roads. That matters. Now get off the stage, I can’t see.”

  Ollie stared at the full handcoin in his palm, looked like he meant to argue, then smiled and did as he was asked, nodding to Cris that he could begin whenever he liked. The lad thanked Ollie, and continued to tune.

  “Tonight’s lesson, my dear: sound versus meaning. Lend an ear.” Belamae leaned forward in his chair, ignoring his glass, awaiting the song.

  The mandola player finished tuning his instrument, then looked up tentatively at the large crowd. In a broken voice he announced, “‘Green Fields,’” before quickly returning his eyes to his fretboard. He fingered his first chord and took a visible breath as the tavern quieted.

  He strummed once. Let it ring out to silence. Then began a fingerpicking pattern across the twelve coursed gut strings. Wendra could hear the pairs of gut had been tuned mostly in octaves. Though she thought she heard a few tuned to harmonic fifths. The young man began to move through a progression of chords, his right hand continuing to pick a rhythmic pattern with each new combination of notes.

  But as focused as he seemed to be, the player made a bad job of his song. Wendra could see his heel bouncing, not in time to his music, but with a nervous twitch. And he missed more than a few notes, unintentionally playing muted strings and striking some that sounded sour against the rest.

  Perhaps worst of all, he seemed unable to find a tempo. And quickly the crowd began to call for him to get off the stage.

  Wendra stole a glance at Belamae, and saw an intensity in him she couldn’t name. Perhaps it was the Maesteri’s patience for bad musicianship from earnest musicians. But she couldn’t quite read him.

  A wet rag flew out from somewhere on the floor, hitting the boy in the face. A patron wouldn’t likely be carrying a rag; this would have come from a tavern worker.

  “Why doesn’t he stop?” Wendra asked. “Before they get more hostile?”

  Belamae didn’t answer.

  A few of the patrons had walked near the stage and begun to heckle the lad. “Go home to your mother’s teat and your ‘green fields.’ The city’s no place for such poor fingers.”

  Then a glass hit the young man in the side of the head, breaking apart and splattering him with liquor. A dea
fening roar of laughter followed.

  Wendra shot to her feet. “It’s a damned song. What right have you—”

  Belamae pulled her gently but firmly back to her seat. Her anger continued to mount, even as the Maesteri said, “It’s a performance tavern. The crowd is what the crowd is. The boy knew what he was up against. Now, patience yet.” And he returned his attention to the mandolist.

  The player had stopped plucking his strings. Liquor soaked his shirt and instrument. A small runnel of blood ran from his ear into his collar. The mandolist’s dejection seemed only to cause greater ridicule and mocking laughter.

  She wanted the young man to slip away and save himself the embarrassment. It was then that she noticed the hems on his clothes. While she couldn’t be sure, she’d have wagered that the wide gathering stitch and rough weave belonged to a field hand. Not someone who’d grown up on Recityv streets. She’d have bet her last coin he was here trying to improve his lot. Get into Descant and out of the muck fields.

  Another thought then struck her. Maybe he wasn’t doing any of this for himself. Maybe he was doing it for his family. Wendra’s coarse music began to rush in her blood.

  Then the boy’s heel stopped shaking. And in the midst of the shouts and laughs, he started once more to play.

  His first notes couldn’t be heard above the noise. It took several moments for the crowd to realize they hadn’t shunned him from the stage. The silence that followed had the feeling of a serpent ready to strike a hapless animal.

  But this time, and with liquor dripping from sodden hair across the strings he played, the young man did not falter. She knew “Green Fields.” It was a common tune, an old one, meant to strike a contemplative tone. She’d always taken it as a song men and women of the field sang to convince themselves that their lives weren’t dire. A kind of self-deception, perhaps.

  However, the young man ran at the tune with abandon. The fingers of each of his hands worked in a complicated dance that hastened, exposing the lie of the song’s composition. It might take a simple theme, but the song itself was anything but.