by Emma Bull
"I'm not sure that weasel at the music store won't cheat me again."
"So go to another store and buy another set. Forget about these."
"Whistler's Corner is closed due to illness in the owner's family. Maridonci and Daughter is too far to walk in the time we've got left. Krum's baghorn shop sometimes has cittern strings, but more often doesn't. And besides—" I patted my belt-pouch. The two coppers left in it clinked rather than jingling.
"Can you at least go back to the store and find out the nature of the spell?" she said.
"That might be a good idea," I said uncertainly. It felt strange to trust the explanations of a man whose wares were so unreliable. "And I do owe him an apology for getting mad. Except, considering the way these strings have been acting, I'm still mad."
"You might have cause to be," said Iranda.
The Street of Shadows led more directly to the store than did the Street of Thieves. Most Liavekans didn't use it for a thoroughfare because it went up and over a small, steep hill. I avoided it because I'd grown up on it and my mother still lived there. I didn't know what she'd have to say to the son she'd kicked out of the house five years earlier, and I didn't care to run into her by accident and find out. It was lined with tightly packed old houses, mostly owned by young families who couldn't afford to live anywhere else. Iranda and I took it almost at a run; time was getting short.
At the bottom of the hill a little boy was sitting in the middle of the street, not crying, just looking very, very forlorn.
"What's your name?" Iranda asked him. I was carrying the cittern and panting too hard to talk; the interruption provided a welcome breather.
The boy looked up at her with eyes that seemed an impossible blue. "Sandiros," he said. His face and arms were all bruised, and his tunic and trousers were tom and covered with dirt. I couldn't make out more than two words in three of his childish tones, but it became plain what had happened: he had started somewhere up the hill, had decided to roll down, had completely lost control and fallen all the way down, and now he wasn't sure where home was but it was too far to walk.
May the Twin Forces bless me for what I must do, I recited. Someone should take care of Sandiros until his parents could be found. The Twin Forces must surely know how I tried to keep them balanced: good and evil, red and green. Over the years, I felt I had earned more green than I wanted. Now I had a chance to make it up.
I said, ''I'll walk up the hill singing. People will stick their heads out, and before you know it, you'll find somebody who knows where Sandiros lives, and we'll be done."
"Leaving me stuck with carrying the kid," said Iranda, but she picked up the boy and slung him across her shoulder. So I began to play and sing.
"One day young Sandiros was playing outside,
No sign of a camel to give him a ride,
His mother had left him to do as he would,
She patted his shoulder and told him, 'Be good.'"
The tune was an old Zhir folk song, "On Shimar Street." Heads were indeed popping out windows as I climbed the hill. One young man hanging laundry on a line stopped and watched me closely. A girl of about ten playing dice in the small yard of her house dropped her dice and followed me for a few paces. Young Sandiros was whimpering faintly. Poor kid, he must be sore all over.
A door flung open and a thin, sallow-faced woman with a paintbrush in her hand came running outside. "You!" she said to Sandiros. "Come into the house this instant!"
I stopped singing, though my hands continued with the chords to "On Shimar Street."
"And you," the woman continued in a milder tone. "Where did you learn that song? My husband is Zbir, and we courted to that song!"
"I—" I stopped playing, confused. It seemed as though I'd always known it. "I don't know. But you'd better see to your little boy. He tried rolling down the hill, and he's bruised all over."
Iranda deposited Sandiros on his feet. The boy ran to the woman and hugged her around the knees. She picked him up and held him to her, patting his back. Yes, it was possible to be a mother on the Street of Shadows and still love your son. The scene was making me acutely uncomfortable, and I looked away.
"Perhaps we should be going," said Iranda.
At that the woman seemed to come to life. "Not without telling me who you are! You've saved me countless troubles. Let me at least know your names. Oh, how can I repay you?"
"Just come to my concert tonight," I said. Sometimes it paid to be mercenary. Besides, if this evening didn't at least pay for itself, I would really be in trouble. "I'm playing at the Desert Mouse, the hour after sunset, near the Levar's Park. Bring some friends." I waved jauntily and started walking. Iranda followed.
The house I'd lived in until I was about twelve was halfway down the other side of the hill. I felt an incredible tug of feelings as we approached it: a longing to stop and look in the familiar windows, a desire to start running and not stop until I was several blocks past it. I had shown the house to Iranda in the dead of night once the previous year. She put a reassuring arm around my back. It didn't help.
In front of the house I slowed and stopped. I was thinking of the one cittern piece my father had learned, back when he was alive and I hadn't claimed his cittern for my own. The piece was called simply "Serenade," and my mother had always listened enraptured when he played it. Almost without thought, I played the first chord formation, then the second. Within four bars I had it up to concert speed and was putting my whole heart into it. Was that my mother I saw at the window? I couldn't tell—yes, it was. But I couldn't tell if she was listening.
To my left, Iranda was watching me closely. All too soon, the piece was finished. I was blinking and trying to keep my hands from shaking. They had just played through a song they didn't know, flawlessly.
Iranda walked with me down the rest of the hill. "And what," she demanded, "was that all about?"
"I don't know," I said. The impulse to try to communicate with my mother had vanished as quickly as it had come, but I still had plenty to think about. The strings. Talking to the old shopkeeper. And if this concert didn't come off, I thought, I would really be in trouble.
At the foot of the hill, we turned right. It was a two-block walk to the music store, Harps and Strings. Iranda and I entered together.
"Well, young master," said the old man behind the counter, "Is there more I can sell you? Picks? Polish?"
"Actually," I said with some difficulty, "I came to apologize for being rude earlier." The old man didn't twitch an eyebrow. "And I came to discuss the strings you sold me. I would like to trade them for another set."
"An apology given only under pressure," said the old man, "is no apology at all." I tried to return his steady gaze, but couldn't; he was right. "And I should have known you would have trouble with the strings of Libonas. You play only from impure motives."
"Impure motives?" I started to take a step forward, feeling the tension of anger in my face.
Iranda tugged at my tunic sleeve. The old man, looking a bit frightened, ducked back a step.
"I play to stay alive," I said quietly. "To make up for a childhood of being beaten and ignored. To keep from feeling worthless."
"To earn the attentions of the young women of Liavek," said the old man. "To make yourself famous while others your age are still serving their apprenticeships. To show that you're better than other people."
"I—" I clenched and unclenched my right hand, several times. He was wrong about the young women of Liavek. And he had no business saying the other two, even if he was right.
Iranda tugged even harder at my sleeve.
"I don't need your business," the old man said at last, "and I think you'd better go."
Still pulling at my sleeve, Iranda did what I could not trust myself to: she asked him a question. "Can you tell us how the strings of Libonas differ from other strings?"
Suddenly, he smiled a hard smile, all teeth and jagged edges. "Libonas himself would not have told you," he said. "
'Therefore, I will not. Young lady, I bid you a good day."
I expected the fabric of my tunic to tear, the way Iranda was tugging at it. I let her drag me outside. After a few breaths standing in the late afternoon sunshine, I thought of something.
"Iranda? You've met Brethin iv Secawin. I can't use his cittern because it's left-handed and specially built, but he has students. Maybe one of them will let me use his cittern in return for a free admission."
"I'm relieved," Iranda said. She let go of my sleeve, patted my arm once, and smiled. "I was afraid you were just going to stand there all day and fume." Then she had a second thought. "Brethin—how easy is he to find?"
"His studio's halfway across town."
"We'd better take a footcab," Iranda said. "The way you've been wearing yourself out, you won't have anything left by concert time."
We hailed a footcab only minutes later. The man between the shafts was dark of skin and hair. "Ah, a musician," he said as he stopped. "Mind if I sing while I trot? It makes the miles go faster."
"All right," I said. "Maybe you'll sing something I know."
So the cabby sang, and Iranda sang harmony, and I played and tried to find a third part. The new strings carried loudly through the streets of Liavek. We played rowing songs, and marching songs sped up a trifle, and one song I'd heard only from the Tichenese railroad workers. The cabby was right: singing did make the miles go faster. As we pulled up in front of Brethin's, we were finishing a rousing chorus of "PotBoil Blues."
The cabby accepted five coppers, two from me and three from Iranda, but graciously resisted her attempts to tip him. "My pleasure," he said with a grin. "I'm going to be a singer someday." He held up his right arm, and I realized with a shock that it ended just shy of the wrist. "There's little enough other work I can do."
The waiting room for Brethin's studio was large and well furnished. A nervous boy about two years younger than I sat on a varnished walnut bench across the room. Every so often he sneaked a look at his cittern in its leather carrying bag as if to make sure it wasn't going to walk off and leave him. The room smelled of incense. Sunlight shone on a tapestry hanging by the door. Yes, Brethin's success made him enviable. No, I couldn't hate him for it. Iranda sat next to me. She was being patient. I was glad someone could be.
Finally the door popped open and Brethin stuck his head out. "There you are, Medosh," he said to the nervous boy. "I just wanted to let you know that we're running behind schedule, and—Liramal! What are you doing here?"
"I need your help," I said. "The sooner, the better."
"I'll do what I can." He nodded a quick greeting to Iranda, who nodded back. His eyes met mine, and his eyebrows raised in a silent question.
"About Libonas," I managed to say. "And his strings. What do you know of them?"
"Give me three minutes, and I'll tell all I know." A smile crossed his face. "Keep Medosh out of trouble until then." He closed the door and was gone.
Medosh was squirming on the bench. Plainly, he was even more afraid of dealing with me than with Brethin.
"May I see your cittern?" I asked politely. It was a handy conversation-starter between two musicians.
Without saying a word, he lifted his cittern out of its bag. I handed him mine in exchange. Maybe I'd learn something from hearing someone else play it.
Medosh's cittern was old, with many cracks on both face and back. The strings were wrapped negligently around old and rusty tuning-posts. I played a chord, carefully striking each string individually. It was hideously out of tune, about the way mine had been during the argument with the old man. I readjusted the strings for what seemed like ten minutes but was probably more like two. It was useless. The strings were so old and inconsistent that when I got a chord in tune on the second fret, the same chord played on the fifth fret would be hideously off. Clearly. if I was to try and rent a cittern from one of Brethin's students, I would not ask Medosh.
Meanwhile, he was experimenting with mine. His face lit up when he strummed an A chord and got a clear, tuned, harmonious sound. Then he tried D, E7, and A again. To me, it sounded perfect. I stopped playing Medosh's cittern as he began to sing.
"The lady came from far Tichen
All dressed in silken finery,
She'd come from there, I know not when,
To tour a local winery—"
Medosh wasn't good yet, but he wasn't bad. He was the sort of student someone like Brethin wants, to make him famous as a teacher as well as a performer. Iranda and I applauded softly when he finished. His face was all smiles and excitement.
"It's wonderful, Liramal," Medosh said as he handed the cittern back. "I don't sound anywhere near that good on my own."
"Get a new one," I said. "This one doesn't begin to do you justice. Go to Whistler's Comer; they're always willing to bargain."
Brethin interrupted our conversation by opening the door. He was scowling, and I didn't know whether to take him seriously or not. "Medosh, why don't you ever play that well on your own cittern?"
A young woman eased her way past him. Her cittern was three-quarter-sized; appropriate for a small-built beginner, perhaps, but scarcely for a concert performer. She was out the other door without a word to me.
I spoke. "Brethin, what can you tell me of Libonas strings?"
Brethin answered, "Libonas was a balladeer who played the Golden Cove on Kil Beach. He was called the Fainthearted because he seemed to fear his audiences. One day he approached me and asked what magic I knew to make him less afraid."
"You know magic, then?"
"I have not invested my luck. I sent him to Wizard's Row to get a spell that would help his fear. It seemed to work for a few months. Then one day before an evening's entertainment, someone found Libonas lying dead with a pistol in his hand. I delivered his cittern and twenty sets of strings to Harps and Strings, and began to play at the Golden Cove in his place. I know little else."
"What wizard did you send Libonas to see?"
"Esculon," Brethin said shortly. "Number 12. Medosh—I think it's time for your lesson."
In ten seconds Iranda and I were sitting alone in the waiting room. The sun was getting lower in the sky.
"Libonas died," Iranda said. Her face was pale; her hand stole into mine. "What if it's a spell that absorbs the anxieties of all those who face performing? But when the spell wears off, all the accumulated anxieties hit you at once and you—you kill yourself."
"I wouldn't build up that much anxiety in ten years," I said, trying to be reassuring.
"I can go down to Wizard's Row," Iranda said with sudden decisiveness. "I can find Esculon and ask him to give me the counter-spell while you're testing the sound of the room at the Desert Mouse."
"While I'm testing the sound—then you can't take the strings with you."
"But I can find out the nature of the spell on the strings," Iranda said excitedly.
I fumbled in my belt-pouch, but my last two coppers had gone to the cabby. "We can't do it," I said miserably. "Wizards expect to be paid."
Iranda reached into the pouch at her own belt, pulled out five coppers. "And this is all I've got left," she said. "I'll tell him to expect the rest of his payment tomorrow."
I stared at her. "Iranda," I managed, "why are you doing all this for me?"
Iranda looked me straight in the eye. "Liramal, do you know that I love you?"
"Yes," I said. I felt about as uneasy saying it as I did playing for important audiences. "And do you know whether or not I love you?"
"Yes," she said steadily. "But don't worry; I won't tell anybody. Not even you. Now we'd better get to our business."
I reached the corner of Lane of Olives and Sandy Way. Hesitating just a bit, I went into the side door. The players' waiting room was right off the door. It had a red-tiled floor, seemed to be half-filled with fake weapons and costumes and props from old plays, and somehow made me feel right at home. I entered with a swagger, wishing Iranda were with me.
Thrae w
as in the waiting room, doing some last-minute straightening. She was tall, slender, dark-featured, grey-haired, and made me wish I'd known either of my grandmothers. "Liramal!" she said, a bit too poised to be called surprised. "I was expecting you. You said you'd be here early."
"I'm early enough," I said. "I want to see how the sound from these strings carries. They're new. Could you stand out in the gallery and tell me how my sound is carrying?"
"Why, certainly."
We went into the main room and I played the first verse of "The Ballad of the Quick Levars."
Thrae pondered for a few breaths. "It sounds fine," she said.
"Sounds fine from up here, too," called a man with a scrub brush in one of balcony boxes. "At least the cittern is okay. The singing could be a little louder."
"That's funny, Lynno," Thrae said. "Down here it was the other way around."
"You mean the cittern could be a little louder?" I asked her.
Thrae walked up to the edge of the stage. "The cittern was fine. The singing might have been a little too loud. You have an amazing set of lungs, Liramal; I don't think anyone in my company has better."
As Thrae wandered back into the gallery, I mused, So I should sing softer for Thrae and louder for—what's his name—Lynno. Yet I had obviously played louder for Lynno and softer for Thrae. In fact, volume—
It hit me at that instant.
The cittern had sounded softer at Mama Neldasa's because of the archers' convention downstairs. I hadn't chosen to play softer; it had simply happened. Yet riding around town with the one-handed cabby, I'd had all the volume I needed, so the cabby could sing over the sound of his own footsteps.
And young Medosh—Medosh hadn't played well because he wanted to play well, I was willing to bet. He'd played well because I would have had no patience with amateurish garbage. I'd wanted good music. I'd gotten it.