by Fran Jacobs
"To teach you," he said. "You said you wanted to learn and now that you've admitted you're bored, I think this is a good as time as any to start."
"All right," I said, "but you have to forgive me if I'm a tone deaf idiot."
"You just have to be patient and willing to learn," Teveriel told me. "And then you'll at least be a passable bard." He handed me his lute, curling my fingers around it to show me how to hold it.
It felt odd, awkward, to hold this bright and shiny wooden object in my hands. Teveriel always made it seem easy and natural, which it really wasn't, I quickly discovered. I could put just a little of my difficulty down to my frozen hands, which made it harder to grip the lute or get my fingers into the right place on the strings, but most of my ineptitude had to go down to the fact that I was just clumsy. It was harder than it looked to make the instrument produce anything that sounded even close to a note. A couple of times I saw Teveriel wince and a look crossed his eyes that I could only assume was him struggling to fight off his temptation to grab the lute out of my hands and storm away from me.
After perhaps two hours of Teveriel trying to teach me the basic chords and showing me how they looked on a musical score, that he sketched into the dirt illuminated by the firelight, I managed to produce something that sounded almost how it should.
"Finally!" Teveriel exclaimed, with a roll of his eyes. "I was beginning to think you were a lost cause."
"If you were a better teacher," I grumbled, "it might not have taken so long."
Teveriel just grunted. "Well," he said gruffly. "I'm going to bed." He snatched the lute back from my hands and stroked it, as if it were a baby that I'd hurt, somehow, just by holding it. "We can try this again tomorrow."
"Yes," I said softly. "If you're sure. I wouldn't want to damage your precious bard ears with my terrible playing."
"Not terrible," Teveriel said, climbing under his blankets, shivering. "Just not very good." He grinned at me, as if to take the sting from his words. "But I'm sure that you'll get better."
"You're just saying that," I said. "You don't think that at all."
"I wouldn't waste my time on you if I didn't at least hope, Candale," Teveriel replied. "Good night."
"Good night."
"It didn't sound that bad," Trellany said, when Teveriel was safely asleep.
"No?" I smiled. "Thanks. It's harder than it looks."
"Yes," she said. "I gathered that."
I turned away from her, curling up beneath my own blankets. It took a while, shivering in the cold night air, but I finally fell asleep with the sound of the fire popping in my ears.
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Chapter Thirteen
TALIRA
The next few days were fairly uneventful, until we decided to stay in another tavern, the Enchanted Harp. It was much finer than the King Sorron. I had my own bed to sleep on, not a pallet on the floor, and a choice of what to eat for supper. Yet they worked Teveriel so hard that neither Trellany nor I saw him the whole evening, except for when I took him a few mugs of ale. I was asleep when Tev finally did come up to bed, somewhere in the middle of the night. I was woken by the sound of him trying to get undressed while using his hands as little as possible, because they had stiffened and cramped from hours of playing without rest. I helped him to get undressed and beneath the blankets, before going to wake Trellany to see if she had anything for the pain.
Tev was out of action for the next week, or so, while his hands slowly recovered, which meant we couldn't take shelter in a tavern, as we simply couldn't afford to pay full price for our rooms, and Trellany and I had to help him to do more or less everything. It was embarrassing at first, not to mention awkward, but we didn't have a choice. Teveriel couldn't use his fingers properly and it was in trying to help us that he had ended up in that situation. We owed it to him to help him out. I was just grateful that it remained dry, which at least meant our awkward situation wasn't totally unbearable.
But mid-afternoon, on the ninth day after leaving Carnia Castle, the sky opened and it started to rain. Heavily. A strong wind picked up, too, forcing us to seek shelter in the next available tavern that we came to, the Golden Ox. Thankfully, Tev's hands had recovered enough for him to be able to offer his services as a bard again and the innkeeper, Jelanna, was happy to let us stay in exchange for Teveriel's playing. Business was slow that time of year, she told us, she was glad to have the company and, if Trellany and I were willing to pull our weight, we could stay as long as we wanted and wait out the storm. Although I was sure that the wind and the rain wouldn't last more than a day, I was happy to accept her offer. Anything was better than trying to sleep outside in the cold. Just listening to the sound of the wind howling around the small tavern and the rain rattling against the glass windows convinced me of that.
For the first few days we were the only guests and everything was much the same. Outside, a storm blew while inside I helped Jelanna's daughter, Krystia, in the kitchen, to cook and clean, while Trellany worked with Jelanna's son, Trystan, mending things around the house. Teveriel slept, while all this went on, and when he woke I continued my bard training for a couple of hours, before I went to help prepare the supper. By the evening I was so exhausted that I tumbled easily into sleep, leaving Teveriel to entertain our hosts. White Oaks barely crossed my mind. I didn't even have time to think about why I was headed there and was so far away from my home and family.
And, even though I had to work, I still enjoyed being in the Golden Ox. Jelanna always had a smile for me and would sometimes ruffle my hair as she passed or tease me about my beard or clumsy lute playing. Krystia was fun to work with, always joking and teasing me, or playfully pelting me with vegetable peels or splashing me with soapy water. I actually found that I enjoyed cooking and, of course, the simple pleasure of being able to have a bath, when I wanted to and that I could sleep in a proper bed and eat hot food.
But a part of me couldn't help but feel a little bit jealous at the warmth and ease with which Jelanna and her family interacted with each other. I couldn't tease my sister, or chase her around the room with a wet cloth, the way that Tystan had chased Krystia one afternoon, not without risking a lecture on proper appearances from my father. I certainly couldn't come down to supper with my shirt hanging out of my breeches and my feet bare, as Trystan did most evenings. I just couldn't be as carefree in my home, around my family, as Trystan, Jelanna and Krystia could in theirs. I knew that part of it was because there were no guests around and that was something else I envied because, in Carnia Castle, there was always someone around. Servants, courtiers, or visiting dignitaries, who were always quick to cast a disapproving eye over me if I was seen to behave less than how they thought a prince should. Even in my parents' private suite there were often servants present which made what I said, or how I behaved, strained and carefully considered. Jelanna and her family had no idea how lucky they were.
On our fourth night in the tavern, three people came to stay, two men and a woman. It was the first time I'd ever seen what it was like to have to wait on people and cook for them, and the experience was far from pleasant, but mostly because the guests were rude and hard to please. They seemed to think that, as they were the only guests, they could demand whatever they wanted for supper and that Krystia and I would then cook it for them. They also seemed to think that Teveriel was their personal bard who would play whatever they demanded of him for as long as they wanted. They barely gave him a chance to draw breath once he had started playing and, when I took him a mug of ale so he could have a quick break, they seemed to think that made me a servant and that they, too, could order me around. One hard look from Trellany's green eyes soon stopped that and I was able to slide away, gratefully, back into the kitchen where I hid with Krystia for the rest of the night, leaving poor Teveriel and Jelanna to the mercy of the three guests.
Thankfully the guests left early the following day, riding out into the bitter cold and howling wind that
still showed no signs of letting up. I watched them go, my face pressed against the glass window, glad that it wasn't me out there and that things could get back to the way that they had been before they'd interrupted.
But the quiet, peaceful atmosphere only lasted another few hours before it was completely shattered.
I was relaxing in front of the fire in the taproom reading one of Jelanna's books, taken from her limited library, when the tavern door opened and a woman entered, bringing half the rain in with her. She wasn't much to look at, not at first. Short, slender, with soaking wet, brown hair tied back from her face, dressed in woollen, homespun farm clothes of earthy browns and greens, wrapped heavily in a cloak. She looked no different from any other patron to this, or any other, tavern, only she held a long, carved wooden stick before her. It took me a few minutes, of watching her move the stick slowly from side to side in front of her before she took a step, to realise that she was blind.
I got to my feet.
"Can I help?" I asked softly. "Would you like to sit by the fire?"
She lifted her head to look at me. Most of her face was masked by the thin piece of dark purple gauze she had wrapped around her eyes to mask her blindness. It struck me as being a little strange that the gauze was such a pretty colour and so delicate, when the rest of what she was wearing was homespun and plain. "Yes," she said, "thank you." She gave me her arm, which I took carefully, and slowly I led her towards the hearth. "I'm Talira," she told me.
"My name is Kal," I said.
"Kal?"
"Yes." Her woollen cloak was soaking wet; she must have been freezing. "Would you like me to hang up your cloak for you?"
"Yes," she said, "thank you. I would."
I helped her out of her cloak and lay it over the back of the next nearest chair, planning to leave it there while I went to fetch a rack to hang it on so it would be closer to the fire. But as I turned to leave her she caught my elbow.
"Do you have a boy here?" she asked.
"A boy?"
"Young, about seventeen, with violet eyes and dark curly hair."
I swallowed back a lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. "No," I said, in a voice that croaked.
"You sound anxious," Talira told me. Before I had a chance to say, or do anything, her slim, chilled, and wet hands were pressed against my face. I stood there, not really sure what else I could do, and those hands moved across my face, touching my nose, my cheeks, my mouth, my eyes, with gentle, delicate, curious light touches. When she was done she rested her hands in her lap. "It's you," she breathed softly. "I've dreamed of you. You're a little hairier than you are in my dreams, but you're definitely the one."
"You've dreamed of me?" I whispered incredulously. The words slipped out before I had a chance to think, to take stock of this strange situation.
"Ever since I was a child." She gestured toward a nearby chair. "Please sit. Please talk with me."
"No," I said tightly. "No, I can't. I have work to do. Food to prepare, rooms to clean, that sort of thing. Someone will come to wait on you."
"This isn't your tavern," the woman said. "You don't belong here."
"Yes," I said. "I do."
Her hands caught mine and she turned them over, running her fingers over my fingertips. "No calluses," she said. "No marks of a hard day's work. This isn't your life." She tilted her head. "I don't know the name of the boy I saw, even though I have dreamed of him many times, or what he was doing in the tavern. I just know that he didn't belong there. Just as I know that you don't belong here either."
I shook my head. This was starting to unsettle me. She had dreamed of me? Was she a prophet? There were so many questions that I wanted to ask her, but, at the same time, I wanted to run away and forget all this. "You're blind," I said finally. "You can't see. How can you know that you saw me in your dream?"
Talira laughed. "You don't believe in tact," she said.
I felt my face grow hot. "I'm sorry," I began.
"No," she said. "Don't apologise." She held onto my hands and drew me down to sit opposite her. I let her sit me down, but perched on the edge of my seat, ready to leave as soon as she let go of my fingers. She didn't. "I see with my fingers, Kal, and when I touched your face just now I knew that you're the boy I dreamed of."
"But you ... you can't be sure of that."
"No," she agreed, "not completely. I can't be sure that your hair is dark or your eyes violet, but I know that you have the features of the boy I saw from my dreams and you're here, in this tavern, when he was supposed to be. But, there might be another boy here who more closely resembles the youth I saw. Is there?"
"No," I whispered.
"Then it is you that I saw in my visions. You're the one I came here to see."
"Visions?"
"I'm a seer and I've had visions of you for years. At first they were blurry and unclear, but when I was thirteen I took one of my mother's pins and pushed it into my eyes ..."
I stared at her in shock as she said that so calmly. I had heard of the practise before but it was a different thing to actually meet a woman who had blinded herself and at such a young age. How had she been able to do it? To take a pin, bring it close to her eyes and then push it in? And, after doing one eye and feeling that pain, she had then gone and done it to the other! It didn't bear thinking about, and yet, I couldn't get the image out of my head. It transfixed me and I wondered, with sick fascination, what lay beneath her purple gauze wrap.
"Afterwards," Talira continued, as though what she had just said was the most natural thing in the world, "when the pain had gone, everything was so much clearer for me. There were no more distractions, nothing but the visions." She tilted her head. "And I could see you so much more clearly. I saw you as a child, being thrown from your horse and breaking your arm. I saw you looking much like you do now, in a dark place with bars on the windows. The sunlight that streamed through them was patchy and pale and you were crying. And I have dreamed of you as a much older man, laughing as you held a child in your arms."
She had seen me in a dark place, with bars on the windows? A cell, a prison cell? What could I have done to end up in such a place? My mind raced. I didn't need to hear this, not on top of everything else that I had heard about the Seer. I swallowed back a lump of fear and tried to relax my hands so that she couldn't pick up how worried I was. "T-they don't sound like prophecies to me," I said, my voice shaking. "It just seems that you dream of a boy."
"Not all visions are powerful or obvious. Some are small and seem insignificant. It doesn't mean that they're any less important or that they won't come true. You will realise that one day, seer."
"I-I'm not a seer," I whispered.
"Yes, you are. You may not know it yet, but you are. In my dreams you called yourself the Shadow Seer."
I felt a sudden chill run through me, even though I was sitting so close to the fire that I could still feel its heat against my face, pressing through my clothing. I couldn't believe this was happening, that she had just called me this, the Shadow Seer. This woman who might not know of the signs, who certainly could not know that Mayrila was my mother, still knew that I was a prophet. How many other people knew who I was? Would I ever be able to keep this secret, or was I just fooling myself about it?
"I knew that you would be powerful," she went on, "a king among prophets, and I wanted to meet you. Then a few nights ago I dreamed about you again, here in this tavern, and I saw myself here, with you." She laughed and released my hands. "It was an odd experience to see myself in my own vision, but it gave me comfort because I knew that I would be here with you, come what may." She settled back in her chair, turning her face towards the fire, holding her cold hands before it. "I only wish that the weather would have been better for this."
"I wouldn't have been in this tavern had the weather been better," I said quietly.
"No," she agreed. "I suppose not." She rubbed her hands together and then let out a comfortable sigh. "Where are the others?"
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"What others?" I asked.
"You won't be alone," Talira replied. "Sometimes when I saw you, I saw others with you, your companions. There was a bard and a warrior with hair the colour of fire." She blew on her fingers as she rubbed them together again. "A twin, a girl who can't speak, and a prince who isn't a prince." She turned back to face me. "Haven't you met them yet?"
"No," I said.
"You will." She sounded so assured, so confident. "The bard, the prince and the mute will mean the most to you, I think. Two of them will be of your blood and the third just someone close to you."
"You have seen all this for me?" I asked. "You have foreseen what I will go through? Why can't you have just foreseen what I will see, so that I wouldn't have to see anything at all?"
Talira laughed, a soft, gentle laugh, not mocking. "Oh," she breathed. "Oh, Kal, I wish it were that simple. You are such a powerful prophet. You are the sun and everyone else is just candlelight. You will see things so much clearer than anyone else ever could. Anyone can look at a cloud and see a cloud, but not everyone can see the dragon that cloud could be. You can. You can see the dragons."
"Is there any way that I can stop this?" I whispered thickly. "Stop my visions, or the visions that other people have had for me?" I found myself holding my breath while I waited for her to answer and it seemed like an agonisingly long time, until Talira finally replied.
"I don't know," she said honestly, making my heart sink. "I imagine if I hadn't come here today, then the prophecy I'd had of you would not have come true, but, I did come here today. I've never heard of a prophecy being stopped. I think they will happen no matter what you do. And I don't understand why you would want to change what you can see and what has been seen for you. Life is hard, Kal. Isn't it better that we should know what will come then we should live in fear? Our visions are a gift!" She tilted her head, her blind wrapped eyes looking my way, unseeing. "Even what I have seen happen to you, that which is hard and painful, will be worth it for this gift, just as taking my eyes was worth it. I don't understand why you would want to stop this or change anything. Why would you want to do that?"