Songspinners

by Sarah Ash

  She had copied the exercises out, painstakingly ruling each stave line with care. She had set about the task of instructing herself in the finer points of musical theory with dedication, wrestling with the problems of ornamentation and transposition, trying to perfect her musical hand. She felt a closeness in working the theoretical exercises that her mother had once worked too; here a page was blotted with ink, there a passage was underscored with several lines and a question mark, where the young Iridial had laboured over its complexities. The image of her mother, hair in plaits, sucking her pen-top in concentration as she tried to work out how to complete a difficult exercise, always made Orial smile.

  What possible harm could Papa have imagined would come to her through such dry, dull exercises? Did he fear her myopia might deteriorate? Certainly, as she moved the book closer to her eyes, the narrow stave-lines and tiny notes seemed harder to read than before. She held the spectacles up to the light and squinted through each lens in turn – but there was no trace of dirt.

  I must be tired, that’s all…

  She unfolded her latest composition, smoothing the paper, and let her finger-tip move over the page, tracing the rise and fall of the melody. She could not but feel a swell of pleasure as she read through what she had written; it had taken a long while to translate the notes that flowed so easily on to the cithara into legible musical notation.

  Her finger came to a halt over a passage where bars were crossed out, rewritten and crossed out again. She knew it was incorrect. She needed advice – musical advice of a kind that the Treatise could not give. She was so eager to learn, to improve her craft –

  She shut the composition in the Treatise and sat with the closed book on her lap, lost in an impossible dream where Cramoisy swept her away to the Conservatoire as his protégé…

  ‘How is my Amaru today?’ Cramoisy leaned over to kiss Khassian’s cheek, half-stifling him in a cloud of sweet perfume: orange blossom and syringa.

  Khassian closed his eyes. He felt too weary, too soul-sick, to make the effort to talk.

  ‘Shall I read to you from the Sulien Chronicle?‘

  He shook his head.

  ‘Oh, my poor sweet. I know what’s troubling you. It’s your hands, isn’t it? You’re wondering to yourself what your future can possibly be… Now you mustn’t fret.’ Cramoisy stroked Khassian’s cheek soothingly. ‘I’ve had an inspiration. You need an amanuensis.’

  Khassian opened his eyes.

  ‘Dictate my music, note by note?’

  ‘It’s not a perfect solution, I realise that. But your faculties, thank the muse, are as acute as ever.’

  To have to enunciate each note in turn, its pitch, precise time value, dynamic…

  The act of composition had become as natural to Khassian as breathing. Long ago he had learned to weave and blend sounds upon the page, to translate the soundworld in his mind through the medium of pen and ink directly on to paper. The thought of trying to communicate his intentions through another appalled him. It would be like – like making love by proxy, giving instructions to a surrogate lover as to how to kiss, to caress, to arouse the object of his affections – whilst he watched, a helpless voyeur. The image, at once obscene and absurd, repelled him.

  ‘No,’ He closed his eyes again. ‘It’s hopeless. I could never do that.’

  ‘At least let’s give it a try,’ Cramoisy said coaxingly. ‘We’ve known each other a long while, Amar. I know your music better than most people. And my musical hand was praised for its neatness at the Conservatoire…’

  At last Khassian realised what the Diva was suggesting. He should transcribe the music: he, whose concentration barely lasted the length of an aria!

  ‘Diva –’ Khassian began.

  ‘No, no, you mustn’t try to dissuade me. It’s a sacrifice I’m more than willing to make. A little less time in the coiffeur’s, or with the tailor being fitted for new clothes, that’s all it will mean. It’s the least I can do for my oldest, dearest friend.’

  It was, he had to allow, a noble offer. And Cramoisy, his Firildys, knew his vocal style more intimately than anyone else… anyone else in Sulien. But as to acting as an amanuensis, little more than musical secretary –

  ‘Besides, the role of Elesstar was to be the greatest triumph of my career,’ Cramoisy went gliding away across the room, one hand upraised in a theatrical gesture, the other clasped to his breast. ‘The world must not be deprived of my definitive Elesstar because of a few canting fanatics.’

  Khassian shook his head. The castrato’s chatter was wearying him; he knew Cramoisy was only trying to distract him in his own inimitable light-headed way. But he didn’t want distraction. Why didn’t anyone understand? He wanted to be alone. Alone to mourn the loss of his life’s work. Alone to mourn his spoiled dreams, his ruined future.

  Orial could not rid her mind of Firildys’s air. It wove itself into her dreams, it wound obsessively round and around her brain until she felt she would go crazy with the repetition. When she extinguished the lamp and lay down to sleep, her fingers began to itch to play it on the cithara… but to venture out alone on to the streets of Sulien in the middle of the night required more courage than she could muster.

  She lay in the darkness, her thoughts constantly straying to Amaru Khassian lying in his plain Sanatorium bed two floors below. Could he really be the creator of that elusive, poignant melody? An aching envy racked her, that he should have been fortunate enough to be given all the opportunities to develop his gift whilst everything she had learned, she had been obliged to teach herself in secret.

  At first light she rose. Going to the washbasin, she poured water in and splashed her face until the cold water made her shudder.

  She sat desultorily dragging a brush through her hair, wincing as the bristles tugged at the snarls.

  She could not blame her father for depriving her of a musical training. If anyone was to be blamed, it was long-dead Iridial. If she had not died, Dr Magelonne would not have banished all music from the house. If…

  Orial threw the brush down on the floor. ‘If, if, if. What’s the use of wishing? Wishing won’t bring her back.’

  When she entered the morning room, she found her father reading the Sullen Chronicle.

  ‘Listen to this, my dear.’ He cleared his throat and began to read aloud:

  ‘“DISASTROUS FIRE DESTROYS OPERA HOUSE.

  ‘“Reports from Bel’Esstar, capital of Allegonde, tell of the destruction of the city’s Opera House. The blaze is believed to have started in the green room during a rehearsal and spread rapidly to all areas of the theatre. All of the company escaped with their lives although there were several casualties, amongst them the Illustre Amaru Khassian. The Commanderie has paid for the Illustre to go to Sulien to recuperate.”

  ‘Well! What are we to make of that?’ He folded the paper and cast it down upon the breakfast table.

  ‘The Diva told us the Commanderie torched the Opera House.’ Orial picked up the pot to pour herself some qaffë.

  ‘But can we believe him? He has a penchant for self-dramatisation. Perhaps he concocted this tale to elicit our sympathy…’

  ‘And this version? Is it not equally likely to be propaganda put out by the Commanderie to cover their crime?’ Orial said vehemently.

  ‘You look a little pale, Orial. Have you been overtaxing yourself? And… I was probably mistaken… but I thought I heard you singing under your breath as you came down the stairs.’

  ‘Singing?’ Her hand shook, slopping her qaffë into the saucer. ‘Surely not? It must have been Cook. She forgets sometimes.’

  He took out his fob watch and checked the hour.

  ‘I must go to take a look at our patients. See if they have passed a comfortable night. Take things easy this morning, my dear. I’ll arrange for Sister Crespine to cover your first duty.’

  Orial shakily poured the spilt qaffë back into her cup. A few stray drops spattered the Sulien Chronicle. As she mopped them up with he
r handkerchief, she stopped, seized with a sudden inspiration.

  The Chronicle. Surely they kept records of all that happened in Sulien at their office? Iridial’s death would not have passed unrecorded. Maybe there was some clue as to the cause of her mother’s demise in the obituary column. And her father had just excused her the first duty of the day…

  Dr Magelonne frowned down at the day’s schedule.

  He had not imagined it. Orial had been singing. In a low voice, soft and sweet, eerily reminiscent of Iridial’s. And she had not even been aware – or so she claimed – that she was doing it!

  It could only be the influence of the Allegondan creature. Orial had become rather secretive of late, disappearing on errands that should only take five minutes but took much longer. He could trace this behaviour to the night Cramoisy Jordelayne and his companion made their dramatic entry into the Sanatorium.

  Well, it would all stop now. Khassian was out of danger. His bills had been settled. He could return for therapeutic treatment, if he so wished. Or – and Dr Magelonne lifted his pen and dipped it in the inkwell – he could be referred to another clinic on the other side of the city. Yes. That might be for the best…

  ‘Dr Magelonne!’

  The Diva swept into the office. Curse the man, was he psychic? The singer had dressed himself all in black: his chosen role for today, Magelonne guessed, was taken from tragic opera.

  ‘I can pay Khassian’s fees, Dr Magelonne.’ He extended one hand and deposited a velvet purse upon the desk. ‘No – don’t ask me how I managed to raise the funds. I may regret the sale of my jet and diamond star, given to me by Prince Ilsevir himself… but we have to make sacrifices for our loved ones. It is all in the best interests of my poor Amaru.’

  ‘Diva,’ Dr Magelonne lifted the purse and held it out to him, ‘the account has been settled.’

  ‘What?’ Surprise erased the tragic note from Cramoisy’s voice.

  ‘Captain Korentan paid the Illustre’s fees last night. The Illustre is well enough to leave the Sanatorium. I have done all I can for him. Besides, it will be better for his morale to move into the city, where there are more diversions to keep his mind from morbid fantasies, from dwelling too much on what has befallen him.’

  ‘He can leave?’

  ‘Would you be so good as to arrange transport to your lodgings in the city? I will be needing the room for a new patient due to arrive later today.’

  ‘You’ve done all you can? But he can’t move his fingers! What are you saying, Doctor?’

  ‘As his closest friend, you are going to have to be a support to the Illustre. Medically, the scars are healing. But the internal scars may never heal. He is crippled, Diva. If I were you, I would spend half that purse on hiring him a valet to attend to his personal needs. A discreet, quiet servant, who will not embarrass him by drawing attention to his disabilities.’

  ‘La!’ Cramoisy sat down in a flounce of black taffeta, as suddenly as if he had been pushed. He seemed utterly deflated. ‘But – but what can I encourage him to do? His life has been dedicated to music.’

  ‘He may in time become reconciled to teaching,’ Dr Magelonne suggested, relieved that the Diva had not thrown a fit of artistic temperament in his office. ‘I am sure he has much to impart to pupils from his own experience,’ His words sounded fatuous even to his own ears.

  ‘But – you’re not going to give up?’

  ‘We can offer therapeutic treatment, but his hands are too badly damaged. It would take a miracle to restore them.’

  Cramoisy gazed up at him, his eyes blank and stricken, and the doctor glimpsed for a moment the man behind the white mask of make-up.

  ‘Do you really believe that Amaru Khassian can bear to continue living without the ability to make music?’

  Khassian was dozing… until he slowly became aware that someone was watching him. Someone whose blue-steel stare could pierce even through layers of sleep.

  Acir Korentan.

  ‘You are not welcome here, Captain,’ Khassian said icily.

  ‘I am aware of that.’

  ‘Have you come to preach? My injuries a divine punishment for a dissolute life, the usual cant…

  ‘You’ve been badly hurt.’ Korentan’s voice was quiet. ‘It takes time to let the wounds heal. And it takes a particular brand of courage to fight back when you’ve lost everything.’

  More hurt than you have any capacity to imagine, Acir Korentan.

  Khassian regarded the Guerrior through eyes burned dry with anger, an anger that still smouldered like an incurable fever. One foot tapped an obsessive tattoo. Yes, he had been hurt. And now he was seized with a vicious desire to strike back, to hurt those who had hurt him.

  ‘And now you’re going to tell me that if I have the courage to start out along the Path of Thorns, I’ll find consolation for my injuries. You’ll tell me about your moment of revelation, how your life was changed forever by one flash of insight. Look – spare me the sermons, Captain. Leave me to work through this by myself.’

  ‘But you’re not alone.’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath. I don’t want to be consoled. Consolation’s a meaningless concept.’

  ‘Amar! Amar!’ Cramoisy burst in, then stopped, seeing Acir Korentan there. ‘Oh. It’s you. The Commanderie agent.’

  ‘My name is Korentan.’ Acir bowed to the Diva. ‘Captain Acir Korentan.’

  ‘I suppose you think us in your debt, Captain,’ continued Cramoisy, not in the least put out. ‘Is that why you’re here? What do you want of us now?’

  ‘You are in no way indebted to me or to the Commanderie, Diva.’ Acir’s manner at once became austerely remote. ‘I merely acted on the request of the Grand Maistre.’

  ‘What,’ Khassian demanded from the bed, ‘are you both talking about?’

  ‘He,’ Cramoisy stabbed his quizzing stick at Acir, ‘has paid off your bill. Dr Magelonne wants you out.’

  ‘And what does your Grand Maistre expect in return?’ Khassian said, face immobile.

  ‘Nothing but your full restoration to health, I assure you, Illustre,’ Korentan said stiffly.

  The offices of the Sulien Chronicle were in Angel Lane, housed in a crooked little building with its upper storeys timbered, overhanging the narrow street. A clerk was seated at a desk inside, a pencil stub stuck behind his ear, another in his hand as he busily annotated a handwritten sheet.

  ‘Yes?’ he said without even glancing up. From somewhere at the back Orial heard the whir of machinery from the printing presses. A tang of ink hung in the air, rich and darkly bitter.

  ‘I wish to look at the Chronicle for the year ‘85.’

  ‘Upstairs.’ He gestured behind him to an ironwork spiral staircase which wound perilously upwards to a gallery above. Orial gathered her uniform skirts in one hand and climbed up slowly, step after narrow step.

  The top gallery was lined from floor to ceiling with leatherbound copies of the Chronicle. Orial made her way along, craning her head to read the dates in the dim light. They appeared to be in chronological order.

  At last she found the volume she had been searching for and hefted it out in a puff of dust. It was too heavy to hold, so she placed it open on the floor and knelt over it, leafing through yellowing page after yellowing page of old newsprint.

  She could not have missed it. It was on the front page.

  DEATH OF THE SULIEN NIGHTINGALE

  It is with great sadness that we record here the untimely and tragic demise at the age of twenty-nine of Iridial Magelonne, renowned throughout all Tourmalise as the Sulien Nightingale. Her vocal artistry and sensitivity of interpretation were without parallel. Famed for her operatic career, she retired early from the stage on the birth of her daughter to devote herself to her family. However, she was soon persuaded back to the concert platform and her recitals in the Pump Room and Assembly Rooms in Sulien always drew large and admiring crowds.

  Mourned by her pupils and admirers alike… etc, etc.

>   Orial scanned the columns in vain for any clues as to the cause of the ‘untimely and tragic demise’.

  The bland words in fading print intimately concerned her – and yet how curious it was to be reading about her own family, her beloved mother, as if of a stranger.

  A later issue recorded details of the funeral procession to the Undercity: ‘Crowds of mourners, many openly weeping, followed the singer’s bier.’

  Orial shivered; rubbing her arms, she found that her skin had prickled into goose pimples. Fragments of memory drifted through her mind, unconnected as gilded motes floating in a shaft of sunlight… and, just as swiftly, were gone.

  Just five years old, she had witnessed scenes, experienced emotions, too terrible to understand.

  ‘Not in front of the child…’ ‘Take her away, quick…’ ‘There’s nothing you can do now, Jerame…’

  It still did not make sense.

  ‘All right, up there, demselle?’ called the clerk below.

  Orial blinked. His cheery voice jolted her back from the shroud-black corridor of her early childhood.

  ‘Found what you were looking for?’

  ‘Maybe…’

  She was about to close the heavy cover when a name caught her eye. The official obituary column. The stark details set out in tiny, precise print:

  ‘Iridial Magelonne (née Capelian), singer, in her thirtieth year. Cause of death: an ancient malady known as the Accidie.’

  ‘What?’ murmured Orial aloud.

  ‘Beg pardon?’ called the clerk.

  The Accidie. It meant nothing to her. Orial lifted the heavy volume and replaced it on the shelf. An ancient malady…