Stormed Fortress (50 page)

As Jeynsa bridled, he quelled her with a glance. "These people you presume to champion are, of
themselves,
whole beings graced under Ath
'
s mercy. They
'
d create a new home. One built without walls, upon clearer vision, with intention towards dissolving the distrust that rends our feuding society. Townsmen must share in responsibility for the world they inhabit. Let them learn to thrive without leaning on fear-based control, which constricts the free play of the mysteries! This has been the Fellowship
'
s long-term commitment. Now, even Sethvir
'
s strength has been compromised. The compact the Sorcerers designed as our guide-line has been undermined by connivance and greed. The driving roots are not wicked or evil, but only self-blinded ignorance. I asked nothing more than to dismantle the old bitterness that all factions use to fuel their hatred. Abandon the divisiveness between clans and towns. For that cause, Dame Dawr could stand as my witness! Before walking away, I offered to bear the weight of a crown to underwrite peace.
'

Through the stunned pause, imposed by a masterbard
'
s eloquence, Arithon struck the A string on his lyranthe. He brushed off a sweet note, then added a full chord, building his case over the intricate dance of his fingering.
'
This choice was given to s
'
Brydion, then. It is still a choice, now. On no other terms would I be present. You cannot speak for Alestron
'
s lives, Jeynsa! Only yours. And mine, perhaps, on the day that you shoulder the long view with wisdom, and claim your
caithdein
'
s
investiture.
'

'
Jieret did not abandon his people to die!
'
Observers forgotten, Jeynsa stood tall, her brave appeal as true as the father, who had been as immovable oak.
'
Should I tie my life-sworn word to a charlatan? Where would you be, prince? Where, without the shed blood of clan backing that spared you your miserable life? What have I done, but invoke the debt owed, that you refused to honour with decency?
'

His sorrow palpable, Arithon regarded her.
'
You claim I
'
ve abandoned my oath of service.
'
The lyranthe
'
s voice faltered beneath his stilled hands; diminished, until the closed chamber harboured no sound, and almost no vestige of movement. While Talvish and Mearn caught their breaths, and Sidir braced for explosion, Fionn Areth held poised, as a raven might wait, to crow over the scent of felled carrion.

Arithon laid his irreplaceable instrument down on the divan beside him. Jewels flashed, mute, and fine clothing whispered as he knelt to his youthful plaintiff.
'
Before every power, living or dead, I will answer if I am forsworn. But not this way, Jeynsa! You have little idea of the cost you
'
ve incurred when you chose to cry me down for sacrifice!
'

'
I
'
ll see how it ends,
'
the girl flung back, bitter.
'
You will rise to uphold the name of your ancestry. Or else show us false colours, and lay bare your soul as a quitter.
'

Through the vibrating air, overburdened with heat, someone
'
s arid snort of contempt:
'
Bombast and melodrama! Are we meant to applaud?
'

Dame Dawr emerged from the door of her bedchamber, her steel hair swept up in a knot and nailed with an ebony pin.
'
I
'
ve seen many an embarrassing jape in my time. Never a comic charade to match this!
'
One frail step, two, she marched into the room, propped on the stout arm of a servant.
'
Your Grace! Only babes act out on the floor, before they have mastered the aplomb to stand erect on two feet!
'

As Arithon rose, chastened, the raptor
'
s glance fixed next on Jeynsa.
'
Young lady, your liege
lord
serves more than crown office. Under his calling as Masterbard, I
'
ve asked him to favour my home with his music. You were invited here at his request. But no private quarrel excuses the fact that I am your hostess. I shall overlook your unkempt hair and dress, provided that you mend your execrable manners and display the civility fit for your breeding!
'

Tirade finished, she greeted Sidir with respect. Her nippish nod acknowledged Talvish. For Fionn Areth, who reddened and doffed his rough cap, she softened her battle-axe glare.
'
A grasslander, and without pretensions, I see! My salutations, young man. You
'
ve upstaged the oldest blood of Rathain, to the mortified shame of great ancestry. Please sit down. If you
'
re chilled as you look, Cresiden here would be pleased to serve you peach brandy
'

Pert head turned, chin lifted, Dame Dawr declared,
'
I shall sit, now.
'

Her man-servant eased her into a chair, brought a quilt, then wrapped her frail limbs into the semblance of comfort. She subsided, lips clamped, and her breathing too short. No one else, even Arithon, dared to make comment, that in fact, the brief stint of passion had drained her. Tintless skin and bright eyes, the grandame huddled up like a bird. She failed to snap at Mearn
'
s worried survey, or jab with snide wit, when Fionn Areth refused to risk countrified wits to the seduction of her rare liquor.

Lest her stamina fail, there could be no delay. Arithon took up his shining lyranthe. He bowed to Dame Dawr, a rueful arch to his brows that might have been suppressed mirth.
'
By all means,
'
he pronounced,
'
let us wreck the last shred of our dignity and slay the dragon of self-importance.
'
Forthwith, he ignored the footstool set out. To play for the lady in his stature as Masterbard, he embraced the clown, and plonked his richly clothed rump on her carpet.

The lyranthe spoke, instantly. A shouted chord in a major key that raked over fourteen silver-wound strings tuned to superb, ringing pitch. The musician followed his opening with a burst of merriment fit to banish ill humour. Foolery spoke in his phrasing. Once, twice, three times, his deft fingers slipped, a tripping, deliberate change that shocked shifts in key, tone, and timing. The changes tumbled over themselves like epiphanies: in triplets and couplets, drunken slurs and wild dissonance. The bard played the buffoon until his listeners ached, teeth and bones, and the assaulted mind floundered, unable to bear the assault of his catchy invention. Dawr withstood the onslaught, rammed stiff in her shawls like a jangled cat.

Arithon tipped his head to her, then, his strait-laced demeanour beyond all reproach.

Colour bloomed on the old woman
'
s cheeks. Her lips twitched. Then, her wide-opened eyes
welled with tears over egg-shell
-thin lids. Dame Dawr exploded, not with outrage or scolding, but with unbridled laughter.

The lyranthe captured her mood and responded. The madcap tempo increased. The Masterbard grinned. He took hold, wringing sound through a fiery lift across three major keys. By then, no one could curb the tap of their feet. Had his performance been played for a tavern, he would have had patrons dancing on table-tops, shouting and stamping and free. Here, he played happiness, careless and glad, a soaring cry that evoked a forgotten exultation. Before the composition reached pace, his patroness was weeping. The catharsis burst every dam of held grief and lit Dawr from within like new morning.

No listener could mistake that the tribute was hers. Helplessly swept in, no heart could resist captivation. Sealed separate, they ached: for a celebration of life that recast the hatreds of war as utterly rigid and meaningless.

Unlike the others, Jeynsa s
'
Valerient had never heard Arithon play. Had never seen art and spirit unleashed with such soul-inspired abandon; nor been touched by a grace that invoked living light, sparked to a transcendent longing. Unprepared, stripped defenceless, she found no retreat, no cranny unscoured inside her. Her torrent of feelings could not be recontained, or stamped out of breathing awareness. The hard knot of mourning she held swelled and burst till she bent in a paroxysm of tears.

Sidir caught her close. He held on through the storm as she drowned, unable to bear the release.

The lyranthe strings spoke, striking air like flung gold, relentless and pure and impassioned. No respite was shown for the Teiren s
'
Valerient
'
s collapse, or for Dawr
'
s manic flame of delight. Arithon added song to his fabric of harmony, his lyric voice clothed in Paravian.

Translation of the words made no difference. The round vowels and cadenced consonants themselves built the mystical framework. Inspiration fused high art with rhythm, and entrained the bard
'
s purpose, unstoppable.

Arithon played them the rebirth of hope. A vibrant blaze that razed away reason and dissolved earth-bound walls to the expansion of limitless spaces. He gave them a shattering brilliance of joy that devoured the fogs of despair as though pain had
never existed.
Peace such as the forest-born clans had not known, since the departure of the Paravians; and heights that a simple, Araethurian grass-lander had never held enough life to imagine.

Dame Dawr sat transported. Talvish huddled with arms clamped to his breast, sorely tried for the lack that his friend Vhandon could not share the ecstasy of the moment.

Hearing, Mearn s
'
Brydion saw his vital priorities reordered. Epiphany changed him, nourishing as spring rain, that there were
other things
he would fight to preserve for Fianzia and his unborn child.

Then in trauma and splendour, the peak experience passed. The Masterbard let down his woven thread and drew his creation to closure. Beyond word and string, grace danced in his presence: a tender release of the brilliant focus that supported his consummate artistry. When the last note died, the left quiet cradled an immaculate calm. No one spoke, or applauded. All tears had flowed dry. The reprieve abided, in which Sidir could help Jeynsa back to her feet. With a nod of awed tribute, he acknowledged the bard, then saluted the hostess, who gestured permission to escort the unsteady girl out for privacy.

Fionn Areth sat stunned, until Talvish gripped his shoulder and urged, his whisper not without sympathy,
'
If you won
'
t risk Dawr
'
s brandy, we
'
ll seek Dakar. Tonight, he
'
ll damned well share his prize hoard of beer chits and let you get drunk.
'

The goatherd arose, flustered. He managed not to trip over his own boots as the field-captain steered him away and propelled him over the threshold.

Mearn remained, and the man-servant, caught at a loss. Neither one dared to disturb the grandame in her regal chair.

A masterbard
'
s empathic awareness alone possessed the unerring instinct. Arithon laid down his instrument. He stood and bowed before the old woman who had asked for his talents as patroness.
'
The joy in the song was all yours,
'
he said softly.
'
Mine, the privilege and pleasure to translate.
'
He raised her withered hand, turned her fingers with their sparkle of fine rings, and kissed her palm with the reverence of family.

Dawr
'
s grasp tightened, strengthless, except for the will that defined her indomitable spirit. "When you lead them out, those fathers and children and wives who are wise enough to seek refuge, I would beg not to be left behind.
'

Although Mearn and the servant could not see Arithon
'
s expression, as a mirror, Dawr
'
s seamed face transformed to a luminous smile.

'
You shall be with the first,
'
the Masterbard promised. Then he straightened, stepped back, recovered his lyranthe, and, on noiseless feet, left the chamber.

The trembling dowager settl
ed back, wrapped in the loving care of her youngest grandson and the kindness of her trusted servant. Because peace in her domicile was always kept sacrosanct, Duke Bransian
'
s authority did not cross her threshold, unasked. That irony twisted the warp thread of fate: for as long as Mearn stayed immured in her presence, he remained oblivious to all else that transpired that night in the citadel.