Zaria hiked back up to the cabin, killed and cleaned the fish, and brewed up a huge pot of stew in his cookpot with the fish’s tender, pink-snow-colored flesh. He cut the rest of the fish into steaks and hung them in his smoker, and by the time he was finished, the stew had rendered down into the richest, thickest white broth, redolent with onions and leeks and mushrooms and potatoes and many other good things, the morsels of fish as flaky as you could hope for.
Zaria ladeled himself a generous bowlful of the stew and took a giant bite.
As soon as he swallowed, he set the bowl down sharply, looking down at it in dismay, and said, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.” For in eating the flesh of the fish, Zaria had gained its magical power of perfect hindsight, and lived out the rest of his days knowing exactly what he’d done wrong at all times.
TWENTY-ONE
For the last few days, thankfully, Sterre has requested me to attend her at the salons for a while instead of assigning me to the Rojkstraat—I wouldn’t have counted it such a stroke of luck if it had happened last week. Before I saw Mistress Chant. Before I became very interested in avoiding the Rojkstraat at all costs, hoping that she might move on before I went back. But luck runs out sooner or later, and there wasn’t anyone in this world or a higher world who felt sorry for me, and thus I was sent to the Rojkstraat again today. And, as I feared, Mistress Chant was still there too.72
I didn’t move from my blanket in the shade of the booth. I shut my eyes tight when I saw her cart pull up across the square and the people gather around. A bigger crowd than last time. We could hear the music even as far away as we were; it went on for longer this time, and the audience was clapping in rhythm to it. I heard both of the apprentices singing, sometimes alone, sometimes together, though it seemed the boy sang more often. I was too far away to hear the words clearly, but he had a strong, clean voice. Both of them did.
Then, quiet, which must have been when the Chant was telling stories.
Then, much later, the crowd dispersed, and I thought I could relax.
My tongue may as well have turned to wood in my mouth when the girl-apprentice73 appeared before me. I stumbled in the midst of my story and tried to cover with a fit of coughing. Teo silently handed me the waterskin, and I availed myself of it simply as a delaying tactic. But then I handed it back and I had no more excuses, and so I started up again. She watched me with her arms crossed loosely, and I . . . I don’t know where my mind went. I don’t know what came over me. I finished the stars-in-the-marsh story—this version, one of six or seven that I kept in circulation, was little more than a paean to the endless, achingly beautiful, glittering fields of the flowers that one supposedly could find in Kaskinen, like the gilded streets of the mythical city of Euridah. I claimed to have seen them myself, to have brought the roots to Heyrland with my own hands and found a sympathetic ear in Mevrol de Waeyer. I told all manner of lies, but that was what Sterre wanted me to do—to lure them in with words, whet their appetite with visions of wonders they’d never see themselves, and then offer to sate them with a morsel. But today, instead of encouraging the audience to inquire with Teo about purchasing flowers of their own, I just . . .
I don’t know what came over me. I started a new story.
It felt awkward in my throat and mouth, as if it were made of uncomfortable corners, and I cringed and cringed to hear myself. It was “Jump-up Jalea,” and it wasn’t at all right in any respect—not the right tone, not the right style, not the right anything. I could tell as soon as the first words left my lips, but by then it was too late to stop or change my mind, and I had to tell the rest of it while my face burned with hot humiliation. It was nothing like whispering stories to myself, not even anything like Chanting for the evening patrons at the inn, or for that Pezian boy. It felt foreign, disconnected, clumsy.
The girl-apprentice tilted her head a little as she listened, and I did the best I could, though it felt like the story was fighting against me, like it didn’t want to come out. It felt like fishhooks ripping at my insides as I forced it from my lips.
When I was done, she turned on her heel and walked off into the crowd, and Teo only said, “You’d best stick to the other one, Chant.” And though I was flustered and kicking myself for choosing so poorly, again I stupidly thought I could relax. I thought she’d been bored. I thought that I wasn’t worthy of calling myself Chant, telling a story as badly as that one.
Stupid. Stupid.
Stupid because she74 reappeared a few minutes later, and this time she had her Chant in tow. I felt like crying. I wanted to run away. I wanted to fling myself at her feet. I wanted to chase her away. I wanted to take her hands and beg for her advice.
I swallowed my fear because that was the only thing I could do. I swallowed my tears because it wouldn’t have done to cry in front of Teo, who might tell Sterre, who would think less of me—not to mention that the Chant would have thought less of me too.75
I told the stars-in-the-marsh story again, a variation that appealed to the Heyrlandtsche tendency towards humanism: a congeries of the personal virtues that the flowers symbolized, comparing them to Araşti prayer-nuts, a small visual and tactile reminder of a moral ideal one is pursuing or espousing. Look at the flowers, I said, look upon them and become a better person. I exhorted the audience to inquire about prices with Teo. For a wrenching moment, I thought about opening my mouth and telling another story—how often does one Chant meet another, after all? I felt (and still feel) like I should have done something different. I should have told one of my best ones—I should have had a best one to tell, something grand and powerful, something that could shake the foundations of the earth. But those have never been the kind I like. I’ve never gotten my head around them. I like fables and fairy tales, small and quiet and soft and cozy, with their deep meanings tucked into their pockets and sewn in the hems of their coats. Suggested, rather than explicit.76
So instead of telling another, I got to my feet and told Teo I needed to step away for a moment, and he was so busy with his customers that he didn’t even notice. I carefully avoided eye contact with the Chant and her apprentice, and I tried to slip away through the crowd.
I found an opportunity to glance casually behind me and nearly leapt out of my skin. She was right behind me, and her hand was outstretched as if she were about to tap me on the shoulder.77
“My apologies,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, averting my eyes and turning away. “Please excuse me.”
“Actually, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions.”
I swallowed and did not look at her. “Sorry, madam, I’m terribly busy—”
“Are you?” she said. “Because you just told your partner there that you were taking a break to stretch your legs. I’d be happy to walk with you.”
Of course. A Chant should have sharp ears and sharper eyes. “Just a quick break, really. Sorry.”
“Ah,” she said. “Then perhaps I could buy you a spot of lunch when you’re finished here. Beer too, if you like.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said. “Sorry.”
She was not at all deterred: a Chant should be tenacious. “Then what if I were to pay you for your time?”
“I have no need of money.”
“Hah! You’re set on eluding me, aren’t you?”
I risked a glance over my shoulder. “It’s only eluding if you’re giving chase.”
“Fair point, master storyteller. Well, I will leave you be, then. Perhaps I’ll come by tomorrow and see if your mood towards my offers has changed. You may have your pick of them.”78
I should have just thanked her absently and walked away. I didn’t. I hesitated. “That’s . . . generous of you,” I said.
“Not at all,” she replied, smiling brightly. “We share a profession, you and I.” She didn’t know how right she was, and it made my breath catch in my chest. “I was hoping to do business with you—a pleasant kind of
business. Trading stories, yours for mine. My girl Arenza heard the one you told earlier.”
“Nothing special,” I said quickly. “Just a silly thing I picked up somewhere.”
“We didn’t think it silly,” she said. “An interesting variation on ‘The Tattling Girl.’ Perhaps related to ‘Sela and the Wolves’—it sounds like it was something from . . . Kirmiri, maybe? Do you remember who told it to you?”
My master-Chant, I thought to myself. And he had it from a woman from Ffefera named Marain somewhere in the Mirror Passage—you were nearly, nearly correct. “No.”
She looked at me for a long time before she smiled again. “I see. That’s a shame. I would love to hear what other variations you might know.”
“I don’t think . . . That is—it wouldn’t be very interesting for you.”
“I beg to disagree. And how would you know what’s interesting to me, anyway?” Her eyes glittered. I couldn’t get a read on her. I couldn’t tell if she was being pushy or merely friendly.
I was floundering. I wanted to run away and hide in my attic room. “You’ve probably heard all my stories anyway,” I said. “A Chant like you would—” And I bit my tongue and felt all the blood drain out of my face.
But a Chant must be sharp-eyed and even sharper-eared. “A Chant like me, you say?” She’d come alight. Even more intense. She took a step towards me, and I found my back scraping against the wall. “You know Chants.” Not a question.
“Nope,” I said quickly.79
“You do. Knowing the word is not so unusual—my apprentices shout it to the crowds day and night. But they say Mistress Chant, as if it were a name. And you said—”
I darted away down the Rojkstraat, or tried to, but she caught my sleeve and held me fast.
“You said a Chant. Not a name.” She looked at me hard. “And what’s your name, young one?”
My mouth had gone dry. I couldn’t speak.
“I wonder,” she whispered. “I wonder if you still have your name. You must yet have it, mustn’t you? Or perhaps you are just freshly without it. That would explain why you blush like a new bride.” Her grip was tight on my elbow, and she looked like she’d just pulled a treasure out of the river on a fishing line, her eyes warm and shining. “Ought I congratulate you? Where is your master? I will congratulate them too.”
“I need to leave,” I said. “Teo will be wondering where I am.”
“Ah yes. Teo. Will you tell me what Teo calls you, or shall I go ask him myself?”
“Please,” I said. Begged. “Leave me be.”
“Why? We’re the same, aren’t we? Every moment, I see it more clearly—what other call would a young man, barely more than a boy, have to be telling stories in a market half the world away from his homeland? Norland or Smoland, isn’t it? Or Hrefnesholt.”
“Let me go.” She released me. I took several steps back. “I promise I’m of no interest to you.”
“But you are. You’re the most interesting thing in the city,” she said. “I’m right. I know it. I can read it in your eyes. You’re a Chant too.” I must have looked like a hunted animal. She took two steps back, held up her hands.
“Yes,” I said, wrenching the confession out of my gut. “I am.”
“Then we must talk.”80
I couldn’t even say that I didn’t want to, because part of me did want to. If that part hadn’t existed, I could have just run away. I could still just hide somewhere in the city until I hear that she’s gone. “I need to leave,” I said again.
“I’m not stopping you,” she said, except she was—she was standing there in my way.81 “But your master? Are they near?”
“No,” I said. “My master and I separated.” All at once I realized how tired I was. Not only that, I realized that I’d been tired. Days, weeks. Months. I’d been tired since long, long before I arrived in Heyrland. Ever since I gave up my name, or longer.
“Oh.” She was surprised, perhaps confused. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to know.
“Goodbye, Mistress Chant.”
“I hope to see you again, Master Chant,” she said in reply. It fell on my shoulders like a cudgel. I kept walking. I was too tired to say any more.
* * *
72. When was this? You’re not very clear about when things happened. I was at the Rojkstraat a lot.
73. Her name is Arenza.
74. Ah, this is that day—that was two or three days after the first time we saw each other.
75. Ugh, you really think the worst of people, don’t you? I wouldn’t have thought less of you. I just wouldn’t have thought anything about you. I would have simply marked you as some sweet young amateur, doing his awkward, inexperienced best. In fact, I might have admired things about your performance—your projection, or your emoting. That’s quite different, you have to admit!
76. Nothing wrong with your reasoning here. There’s a lot to be said for a story that’s still revealing new secrets to you on the fifth or fiftieth or five hundredth retelling.
77. You make it sound like I was stalking you like some street pickpocket!
78. This is not really how this conversation went. I wasn’t so pushy—you acted strange the whole time, and I started getting concerned for you. You seemed so scared of me. And I didn’t say I would come back the next day—I offered to come back another time, but you left that part out, didn’t you? It didn’t fit with your story about being bullied by the scary other Chant.
79. If you’re so convinced that all Chants are liars, why aren’t you better at it?
80. Once again, I didn’t say it like that. You’re making me out to be so pushy and rude. I suppose when you say “All Chants are liars,” you’re actually just talking about yourself specifically.
81. No, I wasn’t. Why the hell were you so scared of me? I was very careful not to make any sudden movements near you, or to stand too close to you—the whole time, you looked like you were about to cry and run, except I couldn’t tell whether you wanted to run away from or towards me. I gave you your space, as much as I could. I asked you questions—reasonable, simple questions—and you stood there and let me ask. You didn’t run away, so what was I to think? And now you accuse me of bullying you like this, when I did nothing of the sort.
TWENTY-TWO
It’s been weeks now since I started working for Sterre. It’s going well for her—the flowers are so fashionable lately, it seems like everyone admires them. I don’t know how so many people have the time and money to care about flowers. I don’t have the energy to go figure it out.
I go to the salons, I go to the Rojkstraat.
Mistress Chant is still around. She’s in fashion now. She gets invited to salons too, apparently. I found that out today.
Sterre brought me to her friend’s house—a big one in the middle of the city, with a huge garden. He’s a famous tailor; I don’t know how a tailor affords a house like that, but that’s how things are in Heyrland. At parties like today’s, I follow Sterre around like a dog.82 I hover at her elbow, or I kneel at her feet when we’re all lounging in the garden or the parlor—I’m little better than a servant in their eyes, so I don’t get particularly gracious treatment. Sterre introduced me to Heer van Vlymen as if I were a treasure for her to brag over. She’d brought a few other people too, other friends of hers that she wanted to introduce to each other. She had little showy facts about each person that she used over and over to introduce them. Mevrouw de Voecht, for example, was deeply involved in falconry, and Sterre brought that up again and again, as if it were the only thing about her that was interesting. Heer van Vlymen, I found out no fewer than seven times, was the only tailor in the city whom Sterre trusted with her personal wardrobe: “My quality of life improved so immensely once I met him, dear,” Sterre would say to someone in a confidential tone, as if that person were the only one she had ever told this story to. “I’ve got a very particular figure, I’m not too proud to admit, and it takes some doing to make a frock flatter me as it o
ught. I really thought I’d have to resign myself to coats and breeches if I wanted to cut any kind of dashing figure, because simply no one else could quite manage to make the patterns right for me. But my dear, dear van Vlymen has never flinched from the task. He’s a jewel—he could fit petticoats to a boulder,” she said with the same laugh, over and over, always the same little story. She always went on longer about van Vlymen than anyone else, and I suppose it was because he was the host—so she had to wax poetic about the elegant way van Vlymen had of fitting cloth to her broad shoulders when all the other dressmakers had never managed to do anything but make them look ridiculous in comparison, and so on. “And it’s all thanks to him that those awful puffed sleeves fell out of style,” she finished. “Not a day too soon, either. Good riddance to those ugly things!”
I would have drawn conclusions from that—she was performing, making herself out to be light and sparkling as she sailed around the salon, a social butterfly whose only care in the world was the state of her clothing and the whimsies of fashion. It would have been an effective mask (and I saw that most people either believed it, played along with it, or else had masks of their own), except I kept noticing little moments. Moments where she might touch someone’s shoulder or elbow and lean in a little closer, lowering her voice, concerned. “I heard that you lost one of your ships recently,” she said to one person, Mevriend Jehan, who was drawn and grayish with stress. “Are you all right for money? If you need a loan, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I know you’re good for it.” From anyone else it might have been a subtle snub, but Sterre evidently meant it with all sincerity, and Jehan knew that. They shook her hand, assured her they were fine, and promised to ask her for help if they needed it.
Those moments kept happening, once every few minutes. “Is your mother recovering from that nasty illness of last winter? I sent her a basket of nice things a few weeks ago. I hope it cheered her,” and, “I heard young Heerchen Pieter’s goldfish passed. He must be brokenhearted, poor mite. May I send him a letter of condolence, or would that upset him?”
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