After several refrains, the feeling in the crowd’s silence changed. No longer did they wait for the lad to falter, but now sat in growing wonder at how the plain song had been given fresh life, the frantic pace of it seeming to express a common angst.
Belamae began to tap the table in front of him in half notes, striking a rhythm to the lad’s song. The crowd began to do likewise, softly knocking on tables or clapping their hands—one beat for every eight notes the boy played.
Wendra joined them, feeling as though she were helping the young man create, while showing support and approval. The lad looked up with surprise in his eyes, drawn momentarily from the world that had become him and his mandola. When he settled his focus back to his instrument, he widened his feet beneath him, as though he’d need the added balance, and hunkered more deeply over his fretboard.
And he played like Wendra had never seen a man play.
She heard frustration and loss and anger and disappointment in his notes. She also heard hope just beneath the music itself. His hands flashed over his strings, and when she heard the occasional erring note, it sounded appropriate, as if to say a field hand makes bad choices in a hard life.
But those were few. The song became a blur, and the pounding and clapping became a clamor. It all spiraled together, feeling like a song offered by them all, rising, quickening.
Until the young man began to falter. Not a lot. Just missing a note here and there. Dragging the rhythm, but not in a purposefully musical way.
Wendra spared a quick glance at Belamae, whose eyes showed a resigned concern. She looked back at the mandolist, listening closely through the din. The pace he’d played up to was remarkable. And slightly beyond his ability to control. The rhythmic dance of his two hands fell out of time. The boy pushed on, fighting through his performance, making his efforts all appear purposeful. There was a strong measure of raw emotion in what he did, how he played. And most of the tavern was alive with the energy of it. Only a few seemed unmoved, watching the way Belamae watched.
Finally, the young man stopped, panting, and clasped his hands together as if he might squeeze rhythm back into them. It left him looking like one in prayer, or perhaps begging alms. His face, though, held a hint of confusion, as if he asked himself how he’d lost control. But only a hint, as the crowd erupted in praising shouts and applause.
Under his breath, Belamae whispered, “Oh, my boy.”
“What?” she asked. “They were all clapping. All he did was falter a bit at the end.”
Belamae’s reply surprised her. “He’ll have no offer to study at Descant. Not yet. Not from this performance.”
“But he moved this crowd. You saw it. He’s got talent. Why no invitation?”
He turned to her, a thoughtful expression on his face. Then he showed her a patient smile. “Of course moving an audience is a fine aim. A very good thing in and of itself. But don’t confuse that with being a musician. Some pluckers do well in front of a crowd. They seem to shine a titch brighter when folks are watching. Nothing wrong with that. But I care more about the music you make when no one is watching. Is it honest then? Is it right?” He paused a moment, as if clarifying his thoughts. “A musician, some would argue, can sell a song with more than notes. But you can’t fool yourself. When you make song in your private chambers, there’s no thrum and rattle of the tavern, no flowing liquor, no ready mind for escape. In your own rooms, there’s just you and the song.”
“Meaning what?” Wendra argued. “That you must be perfect in private?”
“Of course not.” He patted her hand warmly. “Some call it the difference between musician and musicianship. I think it’s closer to say the difference between musician and performer. Both are a treat. But they’re not always the same. Mind you, I’m not saying one is best.”
“Then what are you saying?” Wendra was now watching the young man under the scrutinizing eyes of the tavern crowd.
Belamae gave her hand a light squeeze, drawing her attention back. “I’m saying that a performer can get a crowd tapping their feet. But played or sung in private, that same song may not hold up. Only you know—when no one is there to shout your praises—if the song is worth a tinker’s damn.”
The young man cradled his mandola close and stepped slowly from the stage. Without a word to anyone, he made his way through the patrons and vanished from the tavern. A kind of stunned silence held for a while. Slowly, conversation returned, but more subdued than before.
Speaking as one to himself, Belamae said, “Stretch your limits, yes. But don’t go beyond them. Don’t compromise the song. Especially not to please a crowd.”
The Maesteri sat back when the tavern returned to its usual hum of activity. As he stared at the place where the lad had stood, he said, “But don’t worry for the boy. The song broke down. But he had such marvelous intention, didn’t he? I think he’ll get to Descant soon enough.”
They each took a drink of their brandy, Wendra more deeply than Belamae. A bitter-smooth plum flavor lit fire in her throat and belly. And Belamae began to explain.
“We’ve spoken about sound. It has natural behavior, and we do well to understand it before applying our intentions.” He waved a finger at the stage. “Intentions are what we mean when we make music. This is where the gift of Leiholan takes root. For meaning to occur, there’s conceptualization by the musician, the performance itself … and comprehension by the interpreter.”
“What if there’s no one to hear the song? Does it still have power?” Wendra asked.
Belamae gave her a puzzled look. “Everything, my dear, everything is an interpreter. You, me, this table”—he knocked it with his knuckles—“the glasses we hold, the liquor inside them.”
Wendra spared a look at her brandy glass. Because everything has a resonant signature.
He smiled, and returned his attention to the stage. “Let’s focus on vocal music. Meaning bursts forth when language is uttered. But true meaning has less to do with the words themselves, and everything to do with intention. We call this ‘shotal.’ You see, powerful meaning occurs when shotal is communicated regardless of the lyrics or story a musician is trying to tell.”
Belamae began singing a sharp, angry note on an open “ahh” sound. He then stopped and sang a lullaby that sounded like a cooing baby. “Do you see? You understand my meaning with no words. My intent is clear.”
Wendra nodded, excited to understand explicitly what she’d only ever intuited before.
“Shotal strikes the vibration in all creation.” Belamae smiled with his own enthusiasm.
“Did the mandolist’s song have meaning?” Wendra said, unable to shake the feeling of his failure.
Before the Maesteri could respond, a song rose up from the stage several strides away. By silent consent they turned and watched a flutist play a fine tune, by turns fast then slow. She added a percussive quality to the performance by blowing into her instrument in bursts. Wendra quite liked it. And so did the crowd, which broke into applause before she was even through playing. When the woman finished, she looked over at Belamae, who smiled warmly and shook his head.
This happened twice more: once with an older man who sang in a powerful baritone that resonated throughout Rafters like a sounding horn, and again with a woman who played a rather mean fiddle. Each received gracious applause, and then looked over at the Maesteri, whose smile showed genuine appreciation, approval even, as he shook his head.
“Are these auditions?” Wendra asked.
Before Belamae could speak, another voice lifted from the stage: a Descant student standing in front of the tavern, easing into a gentle air. It was Telaya. Her name hadn’t been on the slate. She might not be Leiholan—a fact that Wendra knew rankled her—but Telaya’s musicianship was impeccable. With perfect clarity and pitch, she caught the attention of Rafters’ patrons as she sang the first notes of “Fit Men Do Not Wait.” This song might have been as old as “Green Fields.” But it had an entirely different lyrical mess
age.
With strong alto notes she sang a chanting staccato, emulating a march with her music. The familiar fight song quickened the blood of even the elderly, who rose to their feet with the others as if hearing their realm’s ballad of fealty.
Song selection, Wendra guessed, had much to do with a musician’s success in a performance tavern. Telaya had chosen an anthem of the people, one that caused them to feel a common bond. But partway into her rendition of “Fit Men,” she began to improvise the lyrics. Her words brought an unpleasant frown to Belamae’s usually kind face.
The time of meek and patient hands
Has passed and you will rue this day,
If ever on your blitheful way
You dare not taint your regent’s lands.
In marble halls like kings of old
They feast on firstlings and grow quite fat,
While you dine near where you have shat
And take your drippings cold.
Telaya’s song fanned the flames of civil unrest that were spreading through the city. A Recityv guard slipped backward through the Rafters crowd and out the door, wisely excusing himself before he became the object of mob rancor.
A few leaguemen in their dark russet cloaks were among the many tavern patrons. They stood with the people, gratified but with watchful looks in their eyes, as Telaya’s song turned again—her voice louder, her words more accusing.
Monarchs alone are not your foe;
You now neglect some in your midst.
Right here in slums where you resist
Lives music that might bring kings low.
But it is held above your heads,
As if like children you don’t deserve
The blessing that it might preserve,
If it were shared with those who’ve pled
To have the song to share with you—
Belamae grabbed Wendra’s arm, an iron grip belying the man’s age. “Listen close. Telaya is a gifted musician, but she is not Leiholan—something she wants more than anything. She believes we keep it from her. She’s grown bitter, and would use the tide of dissent in the city to try and seize Suffering.”
Softer, and seemingly to himself, he said, “I didn’t think she would go this far.”
He squeezed Wendra’s arm again, as if focusing them both. “We’re moments from a mob forming and storming Descant. It wouldn’t take much to incite the League to join them; they’re openly critical of our purpose already. Fighting could spread across Recityv; we’d have little support from the city watch. Our only option would be—”
Telaya’s words rose to them:
And whether Suffering could heal your wounds
Its melody belongs to you—
“What do you want me to do?” Wendra asked.
He gave her a hard look. “Sing,” he answered.
Wendra stared back, fear rippling through her.
“Shotal,” Belamae added. “Make them understand you; make them understand us.”
“What song?” The only Leiholan songs she knew how to use wouldn’t serve her here.
“Shotal,” he repeated, then pushed her out of her chair.
She stood and moved quickly, trying to make sense of all this. She rushed up beside Telaya, who gave her a surprised, angry look, but kept at her song:
No, don’t be fooled by tired men,
Who hold tradition like cambric dress.
It is a selfish foolishness
We must uproot if e’en we rend.
Wendra mentally sorted through all the songs she knew, briefly thinking that the tune from her song box might serve her here. But that didn’t feel right. She glanced back at Belamae, whose face peered through the gloom with a desperate severity. Her brief training jumbled in her head—onomatopoeia, vowel clusters, phenomimes, psychomimes, velarized vowels, unvoiced stops, frictives. But finally, she pushed it all aside, and simply began to sing a solitary note.
Initially, it came like accompaniment to Telaya’s song. Then it sounded like a duet, and she could see excitement rise on the faces of the hundreds gathered here at Rafters. Slowly, she began to find a melody line, standing there beside the woman who would tear down Descant to have its prize for her own.
Shotal.
Wendra didn’t bother to find words. She sang whatever series of nonsensical vowels came into her head.
Beside her, Telaya began to sing more loudly, perfectly executing every note. The woman’s strong song resounded throughout the tavern, resonating in its own way with every standing patron who felt run-down or cheated or hopeful of a better lot.
How do I combat this?
The crowd began to chant something. She couldn’t quite make it out.
Telaya sang on, guiding them: “After we have found its song—”
Intention. They need to understand Suffering.
Then she heard it clearly: “Burn Descant. Burn Descant.”
Wendra gave Belamae a last look, then turned to the crowd and let her note ascend in pitch and volume. It grew coarse in her natural dysphonic technique. Her one note heightened to a scream that drowned Telaya’s perfect pitch. But she didn’t leave it there. In the heights of her song, she began to shout in melodic rhythms, the strain still nothing but unintelligible syllables.
Except that she meant them. Every note she sang came with intention. And the crowd ceased its chant. Telaya tried to reassert her song, drawing on her considerable talent. Wendra turned to face her, crying out in the heartache of Suffering. The emotional force of it dropped the woman to her knees. Wendra swung back to the crowd, now making eye contact with everyone she could, singing to them individually.
She thought of Penit crying as he was carried away by Bar’dyn. She thought of other children dropped by Tahn’s arrows. She thought of a stillborn babe that would never hear the lullaby she’d written especially for it. They were the cries of lost motherhood. Those thoughts formed the notes, and came out in a kind of improvisation she could never have imagined. She sang not a single known word, but she knew that, like tuning forks resonating with each other, these people understood her.
Then she changed her song, and made them understand that Suffering was their defender. That it did an awful work they should be glad they didn’t have to do themselves. She gave implicit meaning to her sounds that they should appreciate those who performed this labor, and leave them to it.
There is some business you leave others to do, because it’s heartbreaking, and because we’re not all able or willing to sacrifice ourselves to it.
Her rough screams rang throughout the tavern, ascending into its tall rafters. Her song came in dense waves, speaking of war and lament and scorn, and the thin preservation they all shared from the same.
Wendra could feel the resonant power of what she sang. A new texture to her ability, where she chastised without tearing apart.
At last she gave all her energy to a long, powerful note that came out sounding something like, “SHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!”
The sound of it lingered over them long after she had ended her song. The silence that followed was equally deafening. They understood. She could see it in their faces.
Then, slowly, they began to applaud. First one. Then another. Soon all of them, in a thunderous rush like she’d never heard.
When she’d made her way back to Belamae, he gave her an uncertain look. “Thank you,” he finally said. A crooked grin followed. “That’s what we call putting the fist in the glove. It won’t be the last time it’s needed, either. Telaya isn’t alone among Descant Lyren. It’s simply worse than I feared.”
He looked over Wendra’s shoulder. She turned to see Ollie. The fellow’s eyebrows went up in a silent question.
Belamae nodded. And Wendra had an instant suspicion.
“You knew,” she said, both angry and confused. “You knew the mandolist. And you knew that Telaya would bully her way onto the stage. Was it all a performance?” She jabbed a finger toward the footboards.
Belamae showe
d her a fatherly smile, replying carefully. “I only made sure they didn’t keep you from standing beside her to offer your song. But yes, I knew who would play … and why.”
She glared back at him. “You could send Telaya away from Descant. Why do you tolerate her?”
“She’s an excellent musician. Marvelous desire for intention, if a bit misguided.” He gave a patient smile. “I don’t give up on good musicians. And now I have a new training approach for her. Besides, she has some interesting ideas. Particularly, she’s trying to help us understand why Leiholan singers are failing at Suffering.” His smile faded, and real concern rose in his face. “You might have heard: Another Leiholan fell ill today in the Chamber of Anthems.”
Wendra hadn’t heard, having slept most of the day after her evening on the docks. The news unsettled her, even as she still shook from her performance … and from what could have happened if she hadn’t been able to control it.
“I’m sorry to hear it.” She pointed toward the stage. “But you play a dangerous game, Belamae. They might have gotten hurt. I might not have kept control.…”
He returned a grave look. “Training Leiholan is a dangerous endeavor.” It was all he said the rest of the evening.
CHAPTER SIXTY
A Hard Choice
I’m not one who’s ever believed in the Charter. Still, it’s curious that in its disregard we’ve come to a point where a single choice can be regarded both noble and immoral.
—From Governing Dynamics, an open dialogue had each Endnigh in the College of Philosophy, Aubade Grove
A light mist hung in the air, touching Roth’s skin with a chill as he waited outside the Sodality meeting hall. Losol was nearby, as were a few other leaguemen, all discreetly out of sight. Distantly, he heard the voices of sodalists talking, arguing, deciding. They’d been at it three hours. Roth was patient. Important conversations took time.
A loud crack sounded half an hour later—a gavel perhaps. And shortly, sodalists began streaming from the doors. Roth kept a close distance, watching for Urieh Palon. It wasn’t hard to see that the Sodality had moved fast to name him First Sodalist for Vohnce—the mantle of leadership hung on the man like a diver’s weight.
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