A Choir of Lies

by Alexandra Rowland

  314. On the previous page, you talk about a boy whom you spent a whole afternoon kissing and putting love-marks on, and you couldn’t remember his name at first.

  315. Glad to hear it.

  FORTY-FIVE

  I wandered back down to Orfeo’s room after that weird moment of self-examination, and I crawled into his arms in the dark and curled up against him.

  He woke up a little and rubbed his face on my hair, and sighed. “Ylfing,” he mumbled, because it’s just habit by this point.

  “Go to sleep,” I whispered, and he nestled in close and drifted off again, and I lay there in the dark and . . . fumed.

  Fumed at the world, fumed at Chant and Mistress Chant and Sterre, for being imperfect and selfish. Fumed at myself for being so stupid and naive, and for not knowing who the fuck I am. Fumed even at Orfeo, for giving me options, for making me choose, for requiring me to do something besides passively accepting whatever fortune the open road and the horizon handed me, for leading me to a crossroads, which was a ridiculous thing for me to be angry about—but there you have it; that was my honest feeling.

  Somewhere in the dark, I think I found something.

  Who you are isn’t the thoughts in your head or the fears in your heart or the name someone else gives you or takes from you.

  Who you are is what you do. It’s the actions you take, or that you don’t take. It’s the way you help people, or don’t. It’s the good that you put into the world, or the bad.

  Which means—again, again I come back to this conclusion—that you can choose who you are. There’s always a choice. I don’t have to be Chant, or the Chant-called-Ylfing, or Ylfing Acampora. I just have to be the person who made the choices that I want to make. I can choose Chanting, choose to forever chase the dark-burning thing that hangs just out of my grasp, the thing I will never quite reach. I can choose something else. I can choose Orfeo.

  I dreamed of the marsh and the boat, the figure and the cormorant. Just the same as last time. Except I was angry still. Fuming and bitter, and wanting to seize hold of something and shake it until a decision fell out.

  And I found that I was more in control of my dream-self than I had been before.316 Usually in dreams you find yourself acting without making decisions or thinking about it, but this time I was able to think and reason and assess consequences, and remember the emotions that I’d gone to sleep with, even though it was all a little hazy.

  I reached out and put my hands on the gunwale; I touched the surface of the water with my fingertips. I even stroked the cormorant, and it allowed me.

  “Ylfing,” said the figure in the stern of the boat, the first word they had said in ages, and I turned to look at them.317

  I took a breath. “Thank you,” I said. “I should have said that before. Thank you for saving me when I was about to drown.”

  The figure inclined its head just once. The lamp behind it guttered briefly.

  “You know my name,” I said. “Do you have one too, or are you just a dream thing?” The cormorant cawed as if it were laughing, and I somehow, somehow knew the shadowed figure was a little affronted. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t want to offend.”

  Another slow nod, begrudging.

  They didn’t tell me their name. I sighed. “Is it all right if I talk?”

  A nod.

  But then I didn’t know what to talk about. I twisted my hands in my lap. “Do you know anything else about me, besides my name?”

  Nod.

  “I suppose you would, if you’re a dream thing; you’d know everything I know.”

  Silence. Faintly annoyed?

  “The flowers are going to start dying, and I don’t know what to do, but I have to do something. And then when it’s over, I have to figure out whether I’m Ylfing or Chant or something in-between. I could stay by myself or go with Orfeo back to Pezia.”

  The cormorant croaked.

  The shadowed figure twitched their left hand,318 covered in the cloak as always, and the boat stopped dead again. They stood slowly—and of course, because it was a dream, the boat didn’t pitch from side to side with the change in balance. It was as steady as solid ground. The figure looked off into the distance for a long time, then extended a hand, still draped in part of their cloak so I couldn’t see their skin, just as they’d done when they touched my face.

  I took it without hesitation, and the figure pulled me to my feet and pointed off to the horizon.

  The stars-in-the-marsh were only waist-height here, and they went on and on as far as the eye could see in every direction, swaying and gleaming and glittering in the dark. The disease was spreading, I could see. The flowers were all more golden than blue-white. And in the eastern sky, a whisper of light. Dawn approaching. And on the opposite side of the sky, the two moons setting, one below the other. “Since you come from my head, I suppose you have all my memories,” I said. “So I suppose you remember when I was in Xereccio and I saw the hatching dragons with Beka.”

  Silence. A slow shake of their head.

  “Oh. It was like this, a little. Dawn, and someone next to me as we look at something both beautiful and horrible. But I’m less sad than I was then.” The figure nodded, sat down again. “You know what a Chant is?”

  A nod, and I couldn’t have been imagining the wry air to it.319

  “I think I might stop being a Chant.”

  The figure didn’t move at all, didn’t give any indication that they had even heard, but suddenly I sensed that all their attention was on me. Slowly, they shook their head.

  “Well, I don’t see who you are to say whether I should keep going or not.”

  The cormorant laughed again.

  The figure let the cloth covering their hands fall aside, and suddenly, again—

  I woke up, burning, my hands empty.

  And it was morning, and Orfeo was dropping a scratchy, stubbly kiss against my neck that sang down all my nerves, except then he was climbing out of bed, and I sat up. “Orfeo,” I said.

  “Morning,” he yawned. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting up.”

  “Oh. Don’t do that.”

  He laughed. “I’m starving.”

  “Come back to bed.”

  “I have to get ready.” He was cheerful, and he kept talking, something about Uncle Simo and plans, and I couldn’t focus because my whole being was yearning for something, reaching out, and if Orfeo would only just come back to bed I could fix it, or sublimate it, make it about physical desire instead of this terrible undefined wanting that I didn’t know how to answer.

  “I dreamed,” I said, interrupting him, and then bit my tongue. I had a sudden, pressing certainty that it was not a dream to share with Orfeo, for whatever reason.320 It seemed . . . private. Chant-like, in a particular way that I didn’t think he would understand, though I didn’t know the significance of the stars, or the bird, or the boat, or the figure, or the lantern. So instead of telling Orfeo . . . “Sorry. You were talking. You’re with your uncle today?”

  “Yes, all day.” He beamed sleepily over his shoulder at me as he brushed the sleep-wildness out of his hair. “He thinks you’re a good influence on me, you know. They all do. They like you. But Uncle Simo particularly—he’s been giving me more things to do lately. Important things. He said he was glad I’d gone to de Waeyer’s party. He said he was proud of me for paying attention and noticing those things about her.” He laughed. “Hell of a thing. I would have found a nice boy to introduce to them a long time ago if I’d known it’d pay off like this.” He paused and suddenly turned back to me, leaning down for another kiss. “Of course, it wouldn’t have paid off quite like this, because any other nice boy wouldn’t have been you.” He sounded like he was trying to reassure me, as if I were jealous. Perhaps he wanted me to be a little jealous, or at least a little possessive.

  I watched him shave, willing him to turn towards me, to see me, to listen so that I could tell him�
�tell him what?

  When he’d finished, he splashed his face with water, patted it dry, and rummaged through his sea chest for a fresh pair of pantaloons—dark blue ones today. He put on a clean shirt too, and a white doublet and his favorite simarre, the black one with the sable trim.

  I eyed his clothes. “One of Uncle Simo’s important things today, then?”

  “Negotiations,” he said, with great relish. “I’m allowed to come and watch. I promised I’d be quiet and good, and he believed me.” He leaned in for another quick kiss, this one cool and smooth and a little clammy from the cold water, while he belted his simarre closed with a silver chain. I seized him by the back of the neck, tried to pull him down, but he ducked away, grinning. “All because of you. Not that I’ll be doing anything but standing in the background and looking decorative.”

  “You’re so good at that, though.”

  He laughed and sat on the edge of the bed to pull his shoes on. I stared hard at the side of his head. Pay attention, Orfeo, I thought at him as hard as I could, though I couldn’t have told him where it was coming from. Everything I want, you said: I’ll have your eyes fixed on me, I’ll have your heart in my hands, I’ll have your breath tied to mine—you’re no audience of thousands, but you’ll do. “And you?” he asked.

  “I’m not going to work today,” I said.

  Orfeo glanced up at me. “Not feeling well?”

  “There’s just some more things I need to think about. “ I paused. Pin him to the wall across the room with only words, I thought. Grip him and hold him, like you held them at the auction house. Strange, the way thoughts intrude on your mind without your decision to think them.321 “Are you in a terrible rush?”

  “Not a terrible rush, not yet.” He stood, looked into the mirror across the room, and finger-combed his beautiful curls until they fell just right. “Why?”

  I watched him move around the room, finding the bits and bobs that he’d need for the day and tucking them into his pockets. That prickling feeling came across my skin, the same that I’d felt at the auction house.322 I felt like a plucked lute string, like a cup brimming over, like the ground just before an earthquake, like a bird of prey right before it dives.

  I wonder if other Chants have felt that. I wonder if they’ve felt a story bloom suddenly in their mouth without being summoned up. I wonder if they’ve suddenly remembered something they haven’t thought of for years.

  “Look at me,” I said, barely recognizing my own voice. Orfeo turned, at last, blinking in surprise. I met his eyes, and I reached out with the hands of my soul and thought, You want me. “Listen.”

  * * *

  316. And you don’t even think it’s real. Well . . . maybe it’s not. Maybe. I once met someone, a monk, who tried to reach a moment of divine epiphany by meditating night and day. He drank only milk and ate only plums for seven days, and didn’t sleep a wink. He said that by the end of it, he was seeing shadows and demons everywhere—not real ones, just hallucinations produced by a brain under great stress. Perhaps this is what is happening to you. (I feel such a damn traitor, admitting this. But selfishly, I’d rather that it was just a dream. I’d rather think that it was that. It makes more sense than the alternative—that’s the reasonable explanation. But my faith clashes with my reason when it runs up against logical arguments like, “What motive does this little upstart have for lying so exhaustively and elaborately? What motive could he possibly have? What could he gain from this?” And the answer is . . . nothing. There’s no reason that you’d lie, nothing for you to gain. So it must be something else.)

  317. I hate this.

  318. I have just groaned aloud. This is another part of the argument for Faith over Reason—you keep citing these details and symbols, and I am dead certain that if I asked you about Shuggwa’s iconography you wouldn’t be able to tell me anything significant. And yet here they are—the boat, the lantern, the cormorant, the cloak of rushes, the left hand. Always just exactly right. But perhaps your master told you the symbols long ago and only your sleeping mind remembered them. Perhaps it is just a dream after all. That’s the thing that makes the most sense. It’s the most mundane explanation.

  319. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here’s a third option: It’s not a lie, per se. You’re just fucking with me because you know all this will tie me in knots and keep me up at night. Faith, Reason, Prank: those are the three current possibilities.

  320. Damn right it wasn’t!

  321. These ones seem unlike you. Were they yours?

  322. That’s a pattern. I told you just before you left, didn’t I? I said my specialty was patterns. It wasn’t just at the auction house, either—there were other times you’ve mentioned that prickling feeling. I think there was once in van Vlymen’s garden when we were talking, and once in Sterre’s garden when you and Orfeo were talking. . . . What’s the common thread between those?

  FORTY-SIX

  Aitiu and Nerelen

  Nerelen, the god of wine and wildness and wilderness, came upon his heart’s desire perched on a rock in a spring meadow: a shepherd youth of surpassing beauty, with auburn hair that shone in the sun, and long golden limbs, and sparkling eyes the color of golden acorns.323

  From the moment Nerelen set eyes upon him, the sun lost its warmth, the flowers of the world lost their colors, food lost its savor, wine lost its sweetness, and Nerelen knew nothing more but want. (Here, I got out of bed and went to Orfeo, touching the line of his jaw.)

  He appeared to the youth first in the form of a fox, creeping close as he played his tibicen, surrounded by his flock, his piping so keen and wistful that Nerelen’s heart twisted in his chest even as his desire ran hot through his blood. (I took Orfeo’s hand, pulling him back towards the bed, tipping him onto the mattress—he smiled a little and went along with an indulgent air.324) Nerelen lay at the base of the rock, full of agony, and his heart’s desire looked down upon him and smiled and continued to play, unafraid.

  He returned again the next day in the form of a wolf. The shepherd had woven flowers into his hair, and as the day was warm, he had cast off his tunic. He smiled at Nerelen as he walked up and lay in the grass by the rock, and then the youth took up his tibicen and played a plaintive folk song—there had been words to it, when Nerelen had heard it before, about a maiden longing for her lover. Nerelen yearned to reveal himself, to snatch up the youth and whisk him away to some secret place and make the youth as wild as he—and yet he held himself back. (I remember that here I began to feel . . . unanchored. I was acting without conscious decision to act. Chills ran up my arms, and I felt a prickling on the back of my neck, like the feeling you get when you imagine someone’s watching you. But there was only Orfeo. “Are you doing something to me?” I murmured, crawling over him. “Something with your magic?”

  “Gods, no! I wouldn’t, I swear—” He looked horrified at the very thought and made to pull away. I caught him by the front of his clothes and pulled him back in, kissed him softly, toyed with the buttons of his doublet.

  “Just asking. Be still.”325)

  The next day, he went to the meadow again in the form of a lion, the ferocity of his form reflecting the ardency of his desire. The youth, surely the fairest in all the land, idly watched his flock as he sat naked in the grass by the base of the rock, his hair all disarrayed as if he’d just been tumbled. He smiled as Nerelen approached, and held out his hands (and here I laced one of my hands with Orfeo’s), and Nerelen flung himself to the ground beside him. The youth sank his hands into Nerelen’s wild mane (and here I combed my fingers into Orfeo’s hair, scratching gently at his scalp until he shivered),326 and exclaimed over its color, its scent like spring flowers, until Nerelen was trembling with the urge to cast his form aside. “How handsome you are,” said the shepherd. “And how kind of you to keep me company. It’s terribly lonely, all day with no one to talk to but the sheep. Will you come again tomorrow, I wonder? Though I don’t know why you bother with a disguise,” he added, startling Nerelen
so sharply that he almost jumped right out of the lion-body. “There’s ever so much more we could say to each other if you were yourself.”

  Nerelen did cast off the lion, then. The shepherd watched with a bright smile, twining his hands deeper as Nerelen’s mane turned to hair. “Thou knew’st me?”

  “Not the first day,” the youth said, laughing. “But I knew the wolf of the second day was the same person as the fox of the first day, and there are not many who can take up and cast off forms so adeptly. Why did you?”

  “I did not wish to frighten thee.”

  “I am not frightened.” (I kissed Orfeo.)

  “I did not wish to upset thee.”

  “I am not upset.” (I kissed him again.)

  “I did not wish to chase thee away.”

  “I am before you.” The shepherd held him firm by the hair and leaned down to kiss him. (I paused, just long enough, expectant, and Orfeo tugged me back down, laughing, and set his mouth against the skin just under my ear.)

  “I would have thy name,” Nerelen said, as the wolves and lions of desire tore at his body and ran wild through his blood.

  “Aitiu,” said the youth. (With Orfeo’s teeth scraping my neck, my voice was as breathy as his must have been.)

  “Three days thou hast sat here and played, and three days I have listened and felt my heart moved.”

  “Only your heart?” he said, his voice full of amusement and warmth, and Nerelen surged up and twined his arms around Aitiu, kissed him and kissed him. (Orfeo laughed again, winding his arms around me, pulling me closer. “Go on,” he said. “I’m listening, go on. I’ve never listened so hard in my life.”

  He bit me, more sharply, and a surge of chills ran across my skin. I drew a breath, and felt or heard the echo of another breath drawn, felt something whisper from Orfeo into me and then drawn from me to . . . elsewhere. Orfeo shivered a little, his voice catching, his grip on my shoulders going lax like the falling tide for a moment—just a moment, and then he groaned aloud and the strength of his arms around me redoubled, anchoring me close to him. The next words out of my mouth were not quite the ones I had composed when I first made up this story—I’d been sixteen then; I wouldn’t have thought of anything like this. It was like the story twisted on my tongue.)327