A Choir of Lies

by Alexandra Rowland

  “Can you use it on people?” Even drunk, I could see the dangers of that.241

  “You can,” he said. “But . . .” He put his hand against my shoulder and shoved gently. “Could you tell that I did that?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d be able to tell if someone was nudging you,” he said confidently. “Even if you don’t have magic yourself, you’d feel yourself being pushed about, and you’d know that it had happened.242 It’s like persuasion as a physical sensation—it can’t change your mind or your opinions, and it can’t force you to do anything.243 Anyway, most Pezians have just a whisper of it. Do you have any?”

  “No,” I said, tracing my fingers over the light in his palm. “None that I ever learned. Like in the story about Ylf and Tofa, in Hrefnesholt, it’s runes and sigils, too complex for a child, and they need the connection to the earth and water to work.”

  “Where is Hrefnesholt? I’d never heard of it before today.”244

  I took his left hand and traced the deep line that ran from the heel of his palm and curved around, ending at the web between thumb and fingers. “This is the Genmu River.” I tapped the end of the line at the base of his hand. “Map Sut is here. Banh Tua to the southwest, Aswijan to the southeast.” Two taps, one to each end of the lines on his wrist. “And Genzhu.” I brushed my fingers over the broad expanse of his open palm and up his fingers, like the wide and verdant river basin ringed by mountains. “Inacha.” I touched a single point at the side of his hand opposite his thumb. “Tall mountains here, tall enough to hold up the sky.” Across his fingertips. Then, finally, I kissed the tip of his index finger. “Ulfland. And then Hrefnesholt is just across the channel, a bit farther north.”

  “Really,” he said. “North of Genzhu? That far away? Gods, and I thought I was a seasoned traveler.”

  “I told you Chanting took me all over,” I said.

  “Hrefnesholt, though, that’s . . . Whew, you’re a long way from home.”

  “Half the world away,” I agreed. “But it’s not my home now. That was part of the sacrifice too,” I said, still dreamily tracing his palms. “I haven’t had a home or a name since then.”

  “I can’t imagine that. I can’t imagine giving up my family.”

  “Six years since I left them. That grief is over. I don’t think it ever really struck me. I was never more than a little homesick. Not until after I became a Chant—I think then it was real. Then it was over, and I couldn’t go back.”

  “You could. Hrefnesholt is still there, isn’t it? Your family is still there. Nothing’s stopping you.”

  “I don’t think I will. I don’t think it’s my place anymore.” The air was getting cool, then, and the wine was gone, so we picked ourselves up and walked back to the inn—his family was still inside, still drinking and singing, though it had quieted down. “Do you . . .” I began, suddenly feeling very warm and uncertain. “Do you want to come up to my room? It’s not much, it’s just a pile of blankets in the attic, but . . . Do you?”245

  He tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. His smile was full of regret. “Earlier you said that dancing would be too much.”246

  I bit my lip and felt a blush tingling in my cheeks. “I did say that, didn’t I.”

  “You did,” he said softly. “And we polished off two bottles of wine between us, and I do still happen to pride myself on gentlemanly comportment as a lover, rake or no.” He bit his lip. “But . . . I don’t much like sleeping alone. What if you come up to my room, where there’s a real bed, and I’ll kiss you good night and we can . . . sleep? Just sleep.”247

  And I didn’t realize until he said it that that was what I really wanted, more than anything, more than . . . whatever I’d thought would happen when I invited him up.

  He had a room on the third floor, on the end of the north wing, which meant it was right under where I had my things piled in the attic. When I told him so, he said, “Oh! Do you have a pet?”

  “No,” I said, very confused.

  “Hm, it must have been rats in the walls, then. I hear scratching at night, you see, for an hour or two, and then it fades off.”

  “You must have heard me writing. I don’t have a desk, so I use the floor. Sorry, I didn’t realize anyone could hear me. I’ll—not do that, I guess, for as long as you’re here.”

  “Oh—no, you must do whatever you need to. It didn’t bother me. I’ve gotten used to it, by now.”

  We loosened our clothes; Orfeo removed his simarre; his belts, hung with all manner of cleverly worked, useful little items; his doublet; his shoes and hosen. He unbuttoned the knee-cuffs of his breeches so the fabric hung free and comfortable, and he untied the throat-laces of his shirt.

  I had much less elaborate clothing to manage, but I rid myself of my boots and socks, and the voluminous, threadbare black coat, the worn neckcloth with its torn and tatty lace trim, and the equally sad waistcoat, all of which I had acquired from a secondhand shop upon my arrival in Heyrland. (In the last year, I’ve found value in blending in, as much as that’s possible, by wearing clothes unremarkable for the place. The Hrefni pale skin and blue eyes are distinctive wherever I go—though my tendency, thus far, to stick to large trading centers means that there’s enough variety of faces in the crowds that even I don’t stand out too much. In Hrefnesholt, we didn’t see foreigners for months or years at a time; everyone looked much the same as everyone else. But anywhere you go around the Sea of Serpents or the Sea of Storms, and all the way up the Amethyst Coast and into the Glass Sea, it’s different. People move around—boats come from everywhere to everywhere else. Here in Heyrland, I don’t think they’d bat an eye if the sultana of Araşt herself disembarked a boat in full royal regalia.)

  Orfeo held up the covers for me and engulfed me in his arms as soon as I slid beneath them, and kissed me good night until I was breathless and rethinking whether dancing would have exhausted me after all. But the room was dark, and the hour was late, and we were both quite drunk, and we both fell asleep before I could make any more decisions either way.248

  And then we woke up this morning. His aunt or someone was pounding on the door and calling for him, and he kissed me before he tumbled out of bed and wriggled back into his clothing, leaving his pantaloons on but changing out his shirt for a fresh one, and he told me to stay and sleep as long as I liked.249

  Right as he was running out the door, I said, “Did you remember your drawers?” and he stopped, and looked back wide-eyed. And then he grinned, all springtime sunshine, and off he went.

  * * *

  239. I’m not really interested in reading this much about your private life. I think I’ll skip or skim over those bits if you keep writing about them.

  240. Well, that’s terrifying.

  241. Even in Pezia they call it “the Pezian curse.” Using it on another person is a capital offense.

  242. Did he expect you to just believe him about that? He’s lying to soften you up. He doesn’t want you afraid of him, because if you’re afraid then you’d be guarded.

  243. That’s not quite true. But then we get into a debate about what constitutes compulsion. If someone twists your arm behind your back to make you agree to their agenda, or shoves you along in front of them to make you move, that’s compulsion, even though it’s your mind making the choice and your feet doing the walking. The Pezian curse can, I think, best be described as . . . weaponized charisma. It’s very easy to use that poorly—but I expect you would have realized that too, if you were keeping your wits about you. Your master had something like that, didn’t he? But he didn’t need magic for it.

  244. No, you know what? I’m not quite ready to move on from the previous topic yet. I’ve taken a few minutes to think about it, and it just keeps sticking in my head. I don’t know . . . The way he talks about the Pezian curse, like it isn’t that big of a deal . . . I don’t know. Makes me pause. Just a little, little pause, but with someone this charming, even a little pause in your mind is important to p
ay attention to. It could be something. It could be nothing. I don’t know. He’s trying to be better, he said, but he could fall back on bad habits anytime, and he didn’t really tell you what those were.

  245. Wow, great job, super fucking romantic, inviting a boy up to screw you on a pile of blankets in an attic. I’m sure he was simply bowled over with that offer.

  246. What’s he up to here? What’s his angle? He’s almost too well behaved. Right? He went out of his way to make sure you knew he’s a gentleman in the sack. I just don’t know about this one . . .

  247. Hmmm. Hmm. Hm. It’s just a little inconsistent of him. He was making those jokes about how he’d run off in a panic if someone invited him to breakfast after sex, which suggests he’s got a bramble-patch when it comes to intimacy, but then he invites you to stay the night? I just don’t know.

  248. I just don’t know.

  249. This is driving me mad. What is he up to? He seems so calm and unbothered about waking up next to you—he even kissed you. Which bit was he lying about? Or . . . Hm. Come to think of it, you might be lying. Not on purpose, I don’t think, not here. But you’re young, and you’ve got a bit of a flutter going for this boy already. Perhaps that’s the source of the inconsistency. You can hardly be expected to remember every little thing or interpret it all accurately when you’re beset with youthful passion.

  THIRTY-SIX

  I woke again quite late in the morning, cozy and warm, and I felt . . . I felt like me.

  I feel like Ylfing again, not just some empty shell calling himself Chant. I woke up and it was like I’d really woken up. Like I haven’t quite been in my body at all the last couple years. It’s good. I don’t know how long it will last, and I suspect I’m not finished grieving. But the world feels alive, and open, and bright. I can do things. I can make choices. I can choose who I am. I can tell myself the story I need.

  And I’m not irredeemably broken, not yet. I’m still enough of a person to love someone. At least one someone, at least for a little while.

  He’s so lovely. This isn’t going to last very long, of course—he has his family and his obligations, and I . . . well, I have my own things to do. I’m going to be terribly sad when all this ends, I know that for sure, but I think that’s good. I think I won’t mind being sad like that, because I’ll be feeling something, and feelings are how you know you’re alive.

  But he’ll be here for a little longer. I won’t press him for time.

  Orfeo! Orfeo with the sunshine in his hands; Orfeo who was there and ready to meet me when I turned away from the brink of despair at last, who took my hand and led me back to the world. I really mustn’t waste paper on speculating about all the wonderful things about him; I’m sure I’ll discover more of them and feel compelled to write them down then.

  For now, here are three wonderful things that I do know about Orfeo:

  1 . . .

  No, I can’t even number them after all.250 I can’t even put words to them.

  I realized just now that I was starving, really properly starving. I’ve gotten so thin and bony in the last couple years. I haven’t cared about food either. But just now I asked Mevrouw Basisi for a big breakfast, and it was so good that I’m going to list everything she brought me:251

  Sweet peppers, onions, and mushrooms, sauteed together in oil with cumin.

  Two soft-boiled eggs.

  Three kinds of sausage (thin slices of a hard, spicy red kind embedded with peppercorns; fresh pork links still sizzling from the pan that burst with juices when I cut them; and a cold chunk of beef summer-sausage).

  A wedge of buttery, flaky, apple-and-plum pastry.

  A thick slab of dark brown bread with butter.

  Two kinds of cheese (a hard orange kind with a mild, nutty flavor; and a medium-firm sharp white kind made of sheep’s milk).

  Pancakes with caramel syrup and cinnamon.

  A whole lemon. (The Heyrlandtsche love lemons. They squeeze them over everything.)

  I ate all of it, and—can you believe it?—I could taste them. I asked for coffee and I could taste that too—the Heyrlandtsche like to flavor theirs with chicory and cinnamon and drink it with great dollops of honey and lashings of cream. It’s delicious.252

  I ate until I felt like I’d be sick if I had even another bite, and then I looked around and started noticing things, dozens of things, that I’d never cared to notice before.

  There’s a mirror above the fireplace, and it’s set in a beautiful green frame carved with flowers. The fireplace and the pavings of the floor are neat, regular slabs of smooth gray stone, and I never noticed before how tidy Mevrouw Basisi keeps the common areas. In lots of taverns, you’d have the floors strewn with sawdust or dry, tired rushes, but the inn is so clean that the floors are bare. At least in the summer—I expect they lay down carpets or woven mats in the winter to help ward off the chill.

  Mevrouw Basisi herself is so beautiful! I never noticed that before either! She’s half-N’gakan, a big woman, shorter than me and round and soft all over, and she works so hard all day with her family and her staff. She has bright, cunning gold eyes; and strong limbs; and she wears sensible skirts every day that I’ve seen her so far; and she has excellent, luminous dark skin. Everyone loves an innkeeper, and she’s no exception—all her patrons greet her warmly by name and inquire about her well-being. While I was eating my breakfast today, she watched from the corner of her eye, and I couldn’t help but feel that she approved—I’ve been wallowing for far too long.

  The innyard is a good size, too, not too large and not too small, and it has a simple iron gate at the front with two spindly trees growing on either side. Now, I won’t go so far as to think that I hadn’t noticed the trees. I’m sure that I had. But I definitely hadn’t noticed the dozen lanterns hanging from their branches, and I had no memory of seeing them in darkness, even last night when I was out with Orfeo.

  Writing all this down, it seems so silly. I hope it’s worthwhile—this sort of thing went on all day. I was not required at Sterre’s offices today; I’ve been working seven days out of eight, and this was the eighth day. I did chores for Mevrouw Basisi and was joyful to find that they took me all over the inn, where I could poke my nose into places and wonder about them and marvel about what a lovely place I was in. And it is lovely. I think this must be a very respectable establishment. I shall have to find out.

  It’s called the Sun’s Rest253—I don’t think I ever noticed that before either.

  Orfeo arrived back in the late afternoon, and I went to him immediately and embraced him. “Thank you,” I said.

  He laughed. “For what? Letting you sleep in this morning?”

  “You brought me back to myself. I was lost.”

  He drew away and touched my face. “I don’t think I did that much,” he said, still smiling. “You were the one who approached me in the end, anyway.”

  “Are you doing anything right now? Will you come on a walk with me? I’ve been locked up inside myself for so long—I want to go out and see the city; I want to know something about where I am.”

  He was more than willing, so we walked for hours along the canals, finding little twists and turns, and I chattered the whole way to Orfeo about this or about that. I exclaimed over every bridge we passed—the little footbridges spanning the canals were all so lovely.254 I made Orfeo play a game that I learned somewhere on my travels with Chant when I was very young, still young enough to be learning children’s culture, which is always different from that of the adults no matter where you go. The game goes like this: You get two pieces of grass, or two little twigs, and you and your friend drop them on the upstream side of a bridge, right in the middle. Then you run across to the other side and wait to see whose arrives first.255 I played this with street urchins in Genzhu when I was new to my apprenticeship, and today I was just so overcome by this flush of youthful energy . . .

  Well, Orfeo was very patient and willing to humor me. I think he was amused.

&nbs
p; At length we came to a market square—not the Rojkstraat, but a similar one; there are so many markets of this kind all over town. I smelled something delicious and suddenly I was starving again, so I bought food from the cart vendor—bites of cod, battered and fried, served with the ubiquitous slices of lemon. I took a bite and started laughing, wrecked with helpless giggles that rose up from the center of my chest like so many floating soap bubbles.

  “Are you all right?” Orfeo asked. He was laughing too, and that just made mine worse.

  “I can taste it,” I said. “It’s good, right?”

  “Really good,” he replied. He slung an arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into his side, still quivering with mirth. “But are you?”

  “I’m—fine. I’m great. I’ve never been so good.”256 I devoured the rest of my fish and brushed the crumbs of batter off my hands and into the canal. “I can taste things again. I can see things, notice things. It’s like I’d forgotten how to see color, but here it is again, everywhere.”

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better.” He dropped a quick kiss on my cheek. “What do you want to do, now that you’re back in the land of the living?”

  “Everything,” I said. “Everything. Let’s go explore the city; let’s run until we find an adventure.”

  “There’s playhouses,” he said. “My uncle went to one of them the other day and saw the Marijke van Baer Troupe. He says they are very fine.”

  “I don’t think I can sit in one place for a very long time right now. I need to move.”257

  Orfeo dropped the arm that was around my shoulders to around my waist and pulled me a little tighter against him. “We could find some dancing.”

  I must have lit up like the Tashaz festival of lights. “Yes. Yes, let’s do that.”

  We trod what must have been every street in the West District, talking and . . . flirting. It was easy again, effortless. I bought us food at every street cart we passed, and every bakery, until Orfeo claimed he couldn’t eat another bite. I still could. Every twenty minutes, I was starving again. The whole time, I kept a running commentary about all the lovely things about him—the shine of his hair, the curl that fell on his left temple and begged to be twisted sweetly around a finger. The color of his eyes, the set of his mouth, the way he had of watching me so I knew he was paying close attention to everything I said.