The Singing

by Alison Croggon

  Maerad felt a strange sorrow welling up inside her. "Nobody owes me anything," she whispered. "Nothing at all. I owe everything to Innail."

  "My dear, we'll argue the point tomorrow," said Silvia. She settled Maerad back down beneath the coverlet, stroking her brow, and Maerad felt weariness washing over her, a great wave that rolled her into the warm darkness. In a moment she was asleep.

  Silvia sat on the bed for a while watching Maerad, her brow creased and troubled. Then she sighed heavily, and stood up and left the room.

  It was a week before Maerad found the strength to remain out of bed for a whole day. All the same, she nagged to be released from the Healing House; she felt uncomfortable languishing there among others who were much more badly wounded than she was. After a stern examination, Silvia cautiously agreed that there seemed nothing wrong beyond extreme exhaustion and permitted Maerad to move back to Silvia and Malgorn's Bardhouse, to the chamber that she thought of as her room.

  Here, where she had first discovered what it meant to be a Bard, Maerad lay in bed and obediently ate the meals that were brought to her, listening to the gentle voice of the fountain outside. From her bed she could see the top branches of a plum tree. The tips of its fingers were just beginning to redden with the promise of blossom, reminding her that it was almost a whole year since she had first come to Innail.

  On the second day after the battle, Maerad had insisted on going to the Great Hall to pay her respects to the dead, and had got her way only after a heated argument with both Cadvan and Silvia, who were worried that she might collapse.

  "I don't care," said Maerad stubbornly, her mouth set in a determined line. "If I get tired, I can just rest. It's not very far. I'll go by myself, if you don't help me."

  Finally, Cadvan had sighed and agreed, even to her insistence that she walk; Maerad claimed it was foolish to ride such a short distance. Silvia wrapped her in a thick felt cloak, and with Cadvan supporting her arm, Maerad had made her way to the Great Hall. Although it wasn't far, it took them a long time to get there; Maerad had to stop every few yards to rest, and by the time they arrived, her entire body was trembling with strain. There was a long line of mourners filing through the hall, but when they saw who had arrived, a rumor swept around the crowd and people started craning their necks to see her. Those nearest stepped back to make way for her, and some bowed or even fell to their knees. Many people looked simply awed. Perhaps because Cadvan was looking so fiercely protective, no one dared to approach and speak to her.

  Maerad was utterly disconcerted, and her hands fluttered out before her, asking the people to stand up. She turned to Cadvan, a flush of embarrassment high in her cheeks.

  "Why are they doing that?" she murmured. "They don't need to ... not here ... I mean, people gave their lives ..."

  "Maerad, it's no use being embarrassed," Cadvan said. "You have another name now, the Maid of Innail. There are already songs about what you did. You'd better get used to it."

  "But it's not me," said Maerad, feeling distress mounting inside her. "I mean, yes, there was the Landrost, but I was one of so many others. It makes me feel like ... well, like a fraud..."

  "No, it's not you. You and I know that. But Maerad, you must understand, people need stories. You fought the Landrost and you won—that's a wonderful story. And if you don't recognize yourself in that story, it doesn't mean, either, that the story isn't true. People here will tell their grandchildren that they saw you. Be gracious, my lady, and accept their thanks. They need to thank someone for being alive."

  Maerad looked down at her feet, burning with embarrassment.

  "Chin up," said Cadvan. He smiled with a sudden irrepressible mischief, and for a moment all the lines of care vanished from his face. "You were the one who wanted to come here. I did warn you. Are you going to have to admit that I was right, after all?"

  Maerad met the challenge in his gaze, and straightened her back. Her legs were trembling with the effort of walking from the Bardhouse, but she moved steadily through the Great Hall, leaning heavily on Cadvan's arm, and stopped by each of the dead to bow her head, asking Cadvan to read the name embroidered on each red cloth. Most were names she didn't know, but some made her catch her breath: Casim, with whom she had melded to make the weatherwards against the storm, was one of the dead, and there were others whom she recognized from her time in Innail.

  When Maerad finished the round of 4Ke hall, she was in tears, and even her pride couldn't keep her on her feet. So much death, so much sorrow was more than she could comprehend. Someone brought a chair so she could sit down, her face in her hands, while the mourners crowded around at a respectful distance, vying for a glimpse of her. She didn't argue with Cadvan when he mindtouched Indik and asked him to bring a mount to take her back to the Bardhouse, and she had to be carried upstairs to her room. When she was back in bed, her head scarcely touched the pillow before she was asleep again.

  After that, Maerad didn't argue about her enforced rest. And in truth, it was a welcome respite after the hardships of the previous year; for this short space of time, she let her worries float away. It was very pleasant not to think, and to be fed and bathed and fussed over as if she were a child. When she had been a child, she thought, she had had precious little of it.

  Indik, Malgorn, and Silvia were frequent visitors, and Cadvan spent many hours in her room, talking or just reading quietly in the corner. He was pleasant company, undemanding and attentive. He was taking advantage of their enforced idleness to plunder the Innail Library, searching for any further clues about the Elidhu or the Treesong or the spell that the Nameless One had used to bind himself to life, but so far with no luck at all. Sometimes he took out a book of poems or stories and read them to Maerad just for the pleasure of it, and she lay back and listened with her eyes closed. These times seemed to her to be among the loveliest of her life: in this pleasant room, far from hunger or cold or peril, she felt the ease and intimacy of their companionship.

  When Maerad felt her strength at last beginning to return, she tried to speak to Cadvan about what had happened to the Landrost. She had avoided thinking about it for the past few days, and her sleep had been deep and dreamless. But one night she dreamed again of the Landrost and the Winterking, dark and troubled dreams that she could not remember, and she woke consumed by a fear she couldn't name. That day she haltingly attempted to describe how she had undone the Landrost, how she had become something that she didn't even understand, how the thought of the power that had then surged through her utterly terrified her. And finally after a long struggle with herself, she told Cadvan the thing that frightened her most of all: that the Winterking had said that she was like the Nameless One.

  Cadvan listened in silence, shading his eyes with his hand.

  "I don't know how to offer you any comfort, Maerad," he said, when she fell silent. "I think you are correct to be frightened. What you say frightens me. You must remember, all the same, that you are Maerad of Pellinor, as well as the Fire Lily. You are Hem's sister, you are my dear friend, and if you had half a chance, you would be no more than an ordinary Bard commencing her delayed studies of the Lore of Annar. You must remember how much you like sitting in a garden in the sunshine, eating a pear."

  Maerad laughed out loud at this unexpected advice.

  "Eating a pear?" she said. "Well, yes, I do like pears—but what has that to do with anything?"

  Cadvan smiled across the room at her. "Maerad, the longer I have known you, the less certain I am about anything. But I am willing to wager on my life that the Nameless One does not sit in any garden, eating fruit, and enjoying the sunshine. I think he has long ago forgotten what those simple pleasures mean. The company of true friends, the taste of good food, the blossoms in spring, all the ordinary things that make the texture and meaning of life—they mean nothing to him. He despises all that is temporary, all that passes with the passing day, because none of these things last forever. If he is indeed like you, then h
e has seen the blind fury of the cosmos; but unlike you, he desires its endlessness and power. He wants to be as infinite as the stars are, but at the same time to hold onto himself. But in reaching for that immortality, he has thrown away everything that makes a self. That's what he did when he put away his Name. The things that matter most are fragile and mortal, but for that reason he despises them. And so he has nothing at all."

  Cadvan fell silent and walked over to the window, staring out over Innail. Maerad said nothing, mulling over what he had just said.

  "I don't know what I'm trying to say," Cadvan said at last. "I suppose what I mean is that while you're many things, none of these other powers, no matter how extraordinary they are, erase the fact that you are also just an ordinary young woman."

  "Not yet," said Maerad, thinking again of how she had transformed into pure fire, something that was not her at all, and of how she had so entirely forgotten who she was. "But I don't know—I'm afraid that I might vanish altogether. I might forget myself, like the Nameless One."

  "If you fear that erasure, then you must fight it with all your will." Cadvan turned around, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Maerad. I really don't know what I'm talking about. This is outside my ken."

  "Mine too," said Maerad wryly.

  Once Maerad was able to stay out of bed for a whole day, her recovery progressed rapidly, and she and Cadvan began again to talk about leaving Innail. They both knew that they could ill afford to dally, but at the same time Cadvan refused to contemplate their moving until he was quite sure that Maerad was completely well. Despite the urgency that burned inside her, Maerad didn't argue too hard; she knew that the road ahead would test them, and she needed to be strong.

  And in truth it was pleasant to spend time with her friends and to wander through the streets of Innail, even if it rained most of the time. Men and women constantly approached her in the street and clasped her hand, awkwardly offering their thanks. She tried to respond with as much grace as she could, but she never got over her embarrassment.

  Every now and then—perhaps in the midst of a talkative dinner with the Bards, or pausing by a building, struck by an especially beautiful carving or the way the light fell on a particular tree—Maerad was overwhelmed by an aching nostalgia. She felt as if she were saying good-bye to everything she loved in Innail. Perhaps this was the last time she would be an ordinary Bard. Perhaps she would never walk these streets again. This was her last chance to play in the light, before she turned her face toward the dark and uncertain path that lay before her.

  After a week, it was clear to both Maerad and Cadvan that they could delay no longer. Somberly they prepared their packs, and carefully checked over Darsor and Keru. The first part of their journey through the Innail Fesse would be easy, but after that they would enter Annar, where traveling was, by all reports, now fraught with perils: bandits and worse held sway over the roads, and there were rumors of civil war to the east.

  But this time, as Indik reminded her, they were not in danger in the Fesse itself. "We are probably safer here than we have been at any time in the past year," he said. "For which we are all grateful to you, Maerad."

  Maerad had given up trying to stop people from thanking her, and merely lifted her glass. "I think that gratitude is due to many others, not least yourself, Indik of Innail," she said.

  Indik grinned. "The burden of thanks getting a bit much, eh, Maerad?" he said. "You should enjoy it while it lasts. People are ungrateful most of the time. There will come another day when you'll wonder why nobody notices what you've done."

  "I think I'd rather that," said Maerad. "I'd rather nobody looked at me."

  "Not much chance of that, unless you put a cowl over your head. But frankly, I think you and Cadvan will, for the most part, be safe enough. Most of the rabble terrorizing Annar are just petty thugs, no match for Bards."

  "There'll be others, though," said Cadvan. "I expect Hulls among the rabble."

  "Aye. But I'm sure your chances of winning through most things are more than fair. It's just that I don't know what you really think you're doing."

  They'd had this conversation before, so Maerad turned the subject. There wasn't really an answer to Indik's doubts. He held that it would make more sense for Maerad and Cadvan to head toward Norloch, to deal with the canker there. What they were planning seemed to him to be arrant madness.

  Before they left, Silvia and Malgorn held a meal in their honor. To Maerad's relief there were no formalities: just a lot of good food and wine and conversation and later, of course, music. They planned to leave before dawn the following day, so they made their farewells that night. Maerad embraced her friends, feeling sorrow open like a flower in her breast. Even Indik's eyes brimmed with tears as he clasped her hands, stroking her maimed fingers, and wished her well.

  Silvia kissed Maerad's cheek gently, and held her back, studying her face. "How you have grown since first we met!" she said. "Maerad, I have all faith in you. I will look to your coming when spring walks in the land."

  "I will be there," said Maerad, with a certainty that she didn't feel at all.

  As she lay sleepless in her chamber that night, she ran over her words to Silvia. They felt like a vow, but it was a promise that she wasn't sure she could keep. Would she survive to see the spring? She tried not to think about the future, which only seemed to offer one dark path after another. She didn't even know what she was trying to do. Now, in the middle of the night, about to put pleasure and joy behind her, the force of Indik's arguments bore down on her, and she felt the flimsiness of her quest. What did she really hope to achieve, even if, against all the odds, she managed to find her brother? All the same, she reminded herself, they had won a victory in Innail.

  She hadn't known that victory could taste so bitter.

  Chapter IX

  THE PLAYERS

  HEM'S mouth was as dry as if it were packed with sand. At the same time, his stomach seemed to have filled up with cold water, and he thought he was going to be sick. His legs also appeared to have stopped working, and felt like two stiff lumps of wood whose only purpose was to keep him vertical.

  Next to him, in the fusty closeness of the caravan, Hekibel sympathetically touched his arm. "It's 'My lord, the enemy is in sight,'" she whispered. "All you have to do is say it. Loudly."

  Hem nodded mutely, trying to conceal his naked terror. He wasn't sure if his voice was working either. He could hear Karim in full flight, and his cue—when he was expected to run onto the stage and urgently report his message—was coming up with discomforting swiftness.

  "Now," said Hekibel, and gave him a little push. Hem automatically tottered through the curtain, trying to remember Karim's instructions: " Don't stare at your feet, boy, stare at me. Keep your chin high. And for the Light's sake, don't mumble."

  Chin up. Hem stumbled out onstage and somehow delivered his line. He was so worried that no one would hear him that he shouted it. But fortunately his panicked shriek was wholly in keeping with the sentiments of what he said, although he caught, out of the corner of his eye, a rather amused smirk from Saliman, who was to the left of Karim, playing a stolid guardsman (he was also, when the guardsman was not required, playing the drums).

  "In sight, boy? Are you certain?" asked Karim.

  "Yes," squeaked Hem, and promptly forgot the rest of his line, which was supposed to be, "Yes, my lord, they're coming up through the forest."

  Saliman caught up the pause before it became too long. "Are they coming up through the forest?" he asked.

  "Yes," mumbled Hem, forgetting to keep his chin up.

  "The forest!" exclaimed Karim, and launched into his next speech, waving Hem regally away. Hem slunk back behind the curtain, wishing the earth would swallow him up. He had only two lines, and he had completely forgotten one of them. How could he have been so stupid? Karim would kill him.

  Safely back in the caravan, Hekibel squeezed his hand. "You were fine," she whispered in his e
ar. "Good save by Saliman ... nobody would have noticed ..." Then her own cue came up, and she swept out onto the stage, her chin enviably high.

  Hem plumped down on a cushion and took some deep breaths until the trembling in his body subsided. Being a player was much harder than he had imagined. This was his third public appearance, and he just couldn't get it right; although this time, at least, he hadn't stumbled and fallen off the stage ... It was one thing to practice on the road, and quite another to get out in front of a motley bunch of curious villagers. It was completely nerve-racking, especially as it was a very different audience from that in Til Amon. There, people had paid attention, and hardly anyone had talked. Here, a play seemed to be an occasion for some very lively conversations, and even Karim's most thunderous acting only brought down the noise slightly.

  Hem listened hard to the dialogue and song onstage. He couldn't afford to lose track; at the end of the play he was supposed to run on with a crown. For a panicked moment he couldn't find it, but of course it was exactly where Hekibel had placed it. He picked it up and clutched it tightly. At least with the next appearance he didn't have to say anything, and then the play would be over.

  Hem waited for the drumming that signaled his next entrance and made a creditable appearance, kneeling before Karim without tripping over anything, and walking out backward, again without tripping over. Once he was back in the caravan, he heaved a huge sigh of relief. That was all he had to do.

  Now that he thought about it, he really didn't think that he was cut out to be a player.

  Hem and Saliman had been on the road with the players for a couple of weeks now. Saliman was, unsurprisingly, a very skilled performer, and Karim was quick to exploit his musical abilities, dragging out a dusty old dulcimer from a deep chest. It was, Saliman said ironically, almost tunable. Hem, on the other hand, proved to be startlingly untalented, and almost never got anything right. However, aside from his stage duties as a page, messenger boy, herald, and general dogsbody, which were turning into regular rituals of public humiliation, Hem was enjoying himself.