Elephant Thief

by Lia Patterson

  “I’m no great bard,” I warned Lady Luned as I sat down on the low stool, which seemed to be my assigned place. Surely she had to be used to much finer musicians.

  “You gave a good accounting of yourself from all I’ve heard,” she replied, somehow making my playing in the hall sound like a fight. Which perhaps it had been.

  “I was annoyed at the time,” I admitted.

  Her eyes glinted. “Yes, that always helps.”

  The lute was in a case of stiff felt, made impermeable to rain by a Water mage. I opened the flap to take it out, when all of a sudden I realised something was wrong. I gasped as I spotted the strings snarled in a wild tangle around the neck.

  “What’s the matter?” Lady Luned asked sharply.

  I took the lute out all the way and saw it clearly: the strings had been cut just above the bridge. My beautiful lute! I stared in stunned disbelief.

  Lady Luned said something not ladylike at all and leant forward to place a comforting hand on my shoulder. “What a nasty thing to do!”

  My mind went numb at such a senseless act of vandalism. My mother’s lute, cared for lovingly over the years! The only thing I had left of her. Well, except for Hami, but he had been mine from the start. I cradled the lute to my chest and suddenly tears rose to my eyes. It was simply too much after the events of the day. “I can’t play now,” I gulped out.

  “Poor child!” Lady Luned drew me to her and I leant against her legs, still holding the lute.

  “It was my mother’s,” I whispered.

  She patted my head. “Hush, all will be well.”

  Her kind voice undid me. A sob rose in my throat as the sudden longing to be somewhere safe coursed through me. Somewhere I didn’t have to be strong all the time! How I missed my father. He’d had his faults, but I had never doubted his love for me. I buried my head in Lady Luned’s lap and started to cry. Gently she stroked my hair. “Hush, poor child,” she kept saying, “it’s all right.”

  “Arisha! You’re crying!”

  I started, for I hadn’t heard the door open. When I looked up, I found Rhys standing over me.

  He dropped to one knee beside me and put an arm round my shoulders. “What’s happened?”

  Absurdly, my first thought was that I must look a mess. I took a deep breath and wiped a sleeve across my face. “I…I…”

  Lady Luned came to my rescue and handed me a lavender scented handkerchief. “Somebody has damaged your poor Arisha’s instrument,” she explained.

  “What?” Rhys exclaimed, thunderstruck.

  When I held out my lute mutely, his face darkened. “Who did this?”

  “I don’t know,” I sniffed, annoyed with myself for the tremble in my voice. “I’ve kept it in its case.” As I hadn’t taken the lute out since playing in the hall, it could have happened at any time that day or the day before.

  He clenched his hands. “When I find the culprit, he will pay!”

  He or she? Feeling slightly silly for my outburst, I sat back on my heels. They probably thought I was overreacting. “It’s all right.” I looked up at Lady Luned. “I’m sorry for crying all over you.”

  Her eyes held nothing but kindness. “Perhaps you needed it.”

  I gave her a tremulous smile. “Yes, I probably did. Thank you.”

  Rhys had taken the lute from me and now looked it over. “Perhaps we can replace the strings?” he suggested. “Surely my bard has spare harp strings and maybe we can shorten them to fit. Let me get Ceredig.”

  I shook my head. “No, that’s not possible.”

  “Why not? How do you know without trying?” He sounded annoyed at my rejection of his idea.

  “Strings here are made from sheep gut,” I pointed out, for I had seen Aneiry instruments. “I couldn’t possibly play on that.” The idea made me shudder.

  Lady Luned pulled a face. “I hadn’t considered that before. How strange to get such beauty from animal intestines.”

  “There must be something we can do,” Rhys insisted.

  “It’s all right,” I repeated. “I will just put my lute away until I can get proper silken strings in Sikhand. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters!” Rhys’s declaration rang through the room. He hesitated as if struck by an idea. “I…” He surged up and extended his hand to me. “Come along. And bring the lute.” Surprised, I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet.

  “Grandmother, will you excuse us for a moment?” he asked.

  She smiled. “Of course, dear boy, take your time.”

  “I might be able to help,” he explained, as he held open the door for me.

  Mystified I followed him down the corridor to his study. A low hum emanated from the great hall, the sound of men talking and laughing. It was still early, I thought suddenly, shouldn’t he be with his guests? Rhys produced a key from his belt and unlocked the door. Unhooking a lamp hanging beside it, he motioned for me to precede him. So he locked the room now? The lamp light showed me a brief glimpse of the table scattered with maps and a few empty plates and glasses – mute reminders of the discussions held here all afternoon.

  “In here,” he said and led me to the small store room off one side.

  As I hovered on the threshold, not wanting to intrude, he knelt by the chest that he had got my clothes from and opened it. For a long moment he stared down into it, then lifted out an object wrapped in white cloth.

  “I don’t know why I kept it,” he said in a low voice, as if speaking to himself, “but perhaps now it will come in useful after all.”

  He unwrapped the cloth to display a hand lyre of the sort popular amongst young Sikhandi court ladies. “Now where is it?” he murmured. “Ah here!” And he pulled out a thin envelope of paper from between two layers of the fabric and held it out to me.

  Curious, I stepped closer and accepted the envelope. Turning it over, I spotted the stamp of a famous Sikhandi instrument maker on the back. “What is it?”

  “Have a look.”

  The paper crackled softly as I opened the flap and shook out a coil of smooth, translucent strings made from temple silk. “Where did you get these?” I exclaimed.

  “Will they do for your lute?”

  “Oh yes!” I teased them apart reverently. These were true ice strings, of the finest make, better than anything I’d had on my lute before. “Thank you!” The paper had been oiled to keep them pliant and they glided through my fingers with a sensuous pleasure.

  Eager to try them out, I sat down cross-legged on the floor and started to unwind the ruined strings from the lute’s pegs. A careful inspection of the soundboard revealed a slight scratch in the wood, but nothing that a little application of magic couldn’t fix.

  “I suppose it could have been worse,” I remarked. What if they had smashed my lute, that didn’t bear thinking about!

  Rhys set down the lamp on the chest and joined me on the floor. “A mean act, but carefully calculated, I think.” He still held the bundle with the lyre and rubbed his hand thoughtfully across the satiny wood.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re my guest, any offence against you is also an offence against me,” he explained. “However, in most people’s minds a few cut lute strings just amount to a stupid prank. Had they broken the lute, it would have been different.”

  A warning, I thought suddenly. And one meant to sting, though they couldn’t have known that I wouldn’t be able to procure new strings here. I looked up to find Rhys watching me.

  “Believe me, Arisha,” he said, “I don’t take this lightly. I will get Bethan to make enquiries amongst the servants.”

  I nodded my thanks, but privately I thought that even if they had seen Lady Enit or one of her people near Cerwen’s rooms, we couldn’t prove anything. In truth, I still felt embarrassed at him finding me crying on his grandmother’s lap. He must think me silly that I put so much importance on a simple musical instrument.

  “The lute was my mother’s,” I murmured.


  “She was a musician?”

  I shook my head. “A mage really, like myself, but she had a talent for music as well.”

  “Like her daughter then.”

  “Oh no, she was much better than me!”

  He smiled. “She must have played very well indeed.”

  I had not thought Rhys prone to flattery! What had got into him? I had now untangled most of the strings, but some of them were caught up in a knot. “Have you got a knife?” I asked.

  He looked startled. “A knife? Why?”

  I showed him the knot. “I need to cut this off.”

  “Oh!” He flicked his fingers and produced a lethal little blade from inside his sleeve. “Will this do?”

  I took the knife gingerly, for it looked very sharp. “Thank you.”

  The old strings yielded like butter to the blade and soon I had them all cleared away. The lamp surrounded us in a pool of light as I sorted out the new strings according to thickness and whether they had been loaded with metal salts to make the tone deeper. Next I threaded them carefully through the holes in the bridge. He watched me intently as I stretched the strings out and fixed them round the pegs before trimming off the ends. Somehow his unwavering regard made me nervous.

  “Won’t your guests miss you?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I told them I wanted a word with Grandmother. Anyway, as long as the ale doesn’t run out, they won’t mind.”

  I plucked the strings, and as expected they were horribly out of tune. Tightening the pegs slowly produced better results, but it was a painstaking business. And still he sat opposite me, absentmindedly stroking his fingers across the lyre in his lap, observing my every move. Didn’t he have anything else to do but watch me?

  I noticed the lyre was no ordinary instrument, but of excellent craftsmanship with its soundbox decorated with inlaid wood. Who had he bought it for? The woman who had given him that fire flower he’d pressed so carefully?

  “Was she a good player?” The words hung between us. Horrified at speaking my thoughts aloud, I snapped my mouth closed.

  His hands stilled. “She?”

  I swallowed. “The woman you got the lyre for.”

  He held my gaze for a moment and his mouth gave a bitter twist. “Oh yes. She played like one of the Lady’s handmaidens, had the voice of a nightingale and moved with the grace of a deer. At least so it seemed to a fool like me.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. What had possessed me to trespass where so obviously I wasn’t wanted!

  Rhys continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You see, Delkash was the best the House of Magnolia Blossoms had to offer.”

  “The House of Magnolia Blossoms?” I stuttered.

  “The place that owned her,” he explained. “Famous for providing the best courtesans in town.” At my surprised gasp, he shrugged. “I knew, of course. After all I had first met her when invited to a tea house by a fellow student. I was in Sikhand to study philosophy, you see, which involved a lot of going to tea houses for some reason.”

  A courtesan! And I knew the type of tea house that catered to students – most of them wanting to pass the imperial exams to enter into the civil service – for I had dragged my father out of one more than once. Rice wine, not tea, was the drink of choice there.

  Rhys looked away. “She was young, beautiful, full of fun. I suppose it was only natural that I fell in love with her.”

  “And she?”

  He shrugged. “I was a good customer, though I must have been a dead bore, going on about philosophy all the time. She even pretended to like my poems.”

  I suddenly realised that I had tightened one of the pegs far too much and hurriedly released it before the string snapped. “What happened?”

  “I wanted to take her home with me.” He nodded at the chest. “That’s why I bought all these things for her. However, she was wiser than me and refused.”

  Wiser! If the woman had been there, I would have bashed her over the head with the lyre. “She was a fool!” I snapped.

  Startled by the savagery in my voice, Rhys looked up. “No, I was the fool. It was a silly idea, she was as fragile as a butterfly and little suited to a life outside her golden cage. Poor Delkash, she was horrified when I asked her to run away with me.” He shrugged. “So much has happened since. I don’t know why I’ve kept all the stuff, but I just dumped it here when we got word of my parents’ death on the way back.” He wrapped up the lute in its covering of cloth again. “I should really get rid of it, I suppose.”

  “I think you should burn it!” When he looked surprised at my vehemence, I blushed. “She was a coward.”

  Rhys shook his head. “Delkash would have been miserable here as my wife and she knew it. Don’t be too hard on her, not everybody has your courage.”

  At his words I blushed harder. Then I realised what he had said. “You wanted to marry her?” I tried to imagine Lady Luned’s face when presented with a Sikhandi courtesan as the newest member of her family and failed.

  “But of course,” he replied, his voice ironic. “I was full of the youthful ideals of chivalry and honour. The war has since taught me better.”

  “You are honourable!”

  He raised a single eyebrow. “Arisha, five years ago, if I happened upon a single woman with her elephant in the mountains, I would have offered my protection and given her an escort to the border.”

  “But of course you will use anything and anybody to win,” I protested before stumbling to a halt. How had I ended up arguing his cause?

  We looked at each other, still enclosed in our small bubble of light. Rhys was the first to drop his gaze. “Perhaps you’re right and I should give these things away,” he said and stood up.

  I followed suit. “Do you want the clothes back?” I didn’t feel comfortable anymore, dressed in something meant for that woman.

  He seemed to read my mind in the uncanny way he had. “Please keep them. She never wore any of them.”

  “All right.”

  “You’re nothing like her, you know,” Rhys mused.

  What did he think, I hadn’t been trained from birth in the arts of a courtesan! “Thank you,” I pressed out. “I never claimed to have the voice of a nightingale.”

  “That’s not what I meant!” Very lightly he touched me on the cheek. “She wouldn’t have lasted one minute in the great hall. Whereas you…”

  My throat went dry and I clutched the lute to my chest at the dark intensity in his eyes. Had I really thought them cool once? Now they seemed to burn with some hidden fire.

  Suddenly he looked away. “I need to get back to my guests.” His voice sounded strained.

  I took a step back. “Yes, of course.”

  Silently he led the way out of the study and locked it behind me. “Can you find your own way back to Grandmother’s rooms?”

  I nodded mutely.

  “You are kind to entertain her. Her joints ache and music helps to distract her.” His manner was so courteous and reserved, I wondered if I had imagined the expression on his face a moment ago.

  Rhys turned smartly and disappeared down the hallway, while I returned slowly to Lady Luned’s rooms.

  “Ah, there you are, child,” she said and cast me a sharp look, quickly hooded by heavy eyelids. “Was my grandson able to help?”

  “Yes, he found some spare strings.”

  “Good. In some things he’s quite clever.” She gave a secretive little smile. “In others not so much, of course.”

  FIFTEEN

  The next morning found Rhys closeted with his lords again, and I wondered uneasily what they discussed. When I went to check on Hami, Kestrel informed me apologetically that he had strict orders to keep me from straying outside the walls, but I didn’t particularly fancy another encounter with the Khotai anyway. Yet after his morning wash, both Hami and I felt restless and bored. My glance fell on the Eyrie looming over the village and I had an idea. It would give the elephant a change of scenery and perh
aps even something to do.

  “Do you think I could take Hami up there?” I asked Kestrel.

  He went off to seek permission from Rhys and came back shortly after with the message that I was free to go, as long as I stayed away from the edge of any cliffs. I rolled my eyes at that. Why had the man chosen a site like the Eyrie if he worried about people having accidents?

  But very soon I was riding Hami up the steep road to the castle. The elephant’s back provided a wonderful place to enjoy the view and I let my eyes roam over the fields and woods spreading below us. The city of tents outside the walls seemed to have grown even more, now reaching almost to the little copse which sheltered the Khotai encampment. Beyond it I spotted a long line of horses heading out of the small dell, herded by the Khotai on their squat little steppe ponies. A group of Rhys’s men followed at a discreet distance. Making sure they departed without causing any trouble? I for one was glad to see the last of them!

  Up at the Eyrie busy hammering and sawing greeted me. I found Rhys’s master builder supervising the erection of a raised platform for the oath-taking the next day. When Hami lumbered into the courtyard, all activity ceased and the men stared at him in amazement, but they greeted my offer of help eagerly. My clever elephant liked to show off his strength and lifted piles of boards up quicker than they could fasten them down. Quite obviously he enjoyed the change of having something to do and preened at the attention he received.

  And it wasn’t helping the enemy, I told myself, after all the dais was not a weapon of war. It would be built anyway and the exercise did Hami good. Suddenly I wondered how things stood back at the Sikhandi camp. Had Prince Bahram got word of the force being gathered against him? Or of my capture? Yet surely that would only be a small matter to him. Uneasily I realised that I had spent very little thought on the happenings back at the camp, I had been so wrapped up in my own predicaments.

  Yet really, what could I do? Firmly I pushed my misgivings away and concentrated on the work again. As a result, by the time the men stopped for lunch the dais was finished, much earlier than expected. Master builder Dillan invited me into his hut for tea, and after I had put a quick spell on Hami not to stray, I left him to browse the grass.