The Rebellion (81 page)

Gevan said, “I might just as well tell you all that Enoch has just brought me news that the Councilman of Sawlney wants the magi to play at his daughter’s bonding ceremony. The invitation and a request to see that it reaches us was made to a group of halfbreed gypsies who, of course, knew nothing of us. By sheer chance, Enoch heard them deliberating about which troupe it could be.”

“You want to accept it?” I asked.

“I do. It is too good an opportunity to miss.”

“You will have to present the whole thing to guildmerge,” I said.

Gevan nodded and reached for a slice of pie.

As soon as the main part of the feast had been consumed and we had moved on to little preserved-berry pies and lemon tarts, a good number of empaths vanished into the barn.

“What is happening now?” Bruna demanded.

“We are about to see a performance,” Alad told her. “Each guild has an offering for this moon fair, a sort of gift. There are displays from the Teknoguild, and—”

A bell clanged, and Miky and Angina emerged from the barn wearing billowing violet cloaks over their clothes. They bowed in unison; then Miky spoke in a clear, strong voice. “Our moon-fair offering is not a story of things that truly happened but a created story under which slumbers a deeper truth than can be told with mere facts.”

The twins bowed again, and Angina withdrew to one side to sit on a small stool set against the barn wall. He was joined by several other empath musicians, and some moments passed while they set themselves up with stools and tuned their various instruments. Then there was complete silence.

Still standing, Miky nodded her head slightly. Nothing happened, or so it seemed, but one of the musicians had begun to play very, very softly. The other musicians joined in, swelling the sound, and at last Miky sang.

The strength and purity of her tone caught my breath, and then I sensed Angina begin to empathise his sister’s music, enhancing and projecting the emotional tones in her voice so that they thrummed in your heart as well as your ears. I was so entranced that I scarcely noticed three black-clad coercers slip from the barn to stand behind Miky.

The twins had written the song based on Dameon’s retelling of a Beforetime story, but it had been much developed and elaborated since the last time I had heard it. I was trying to pick out the initial tune from the rest when all at once, a beautiful young woman clad in a lavish white dress, all sewn over with tiny pearls, appeared on the grassy stretch between Miky and the audience.

There was a loud gasp, for of course she was a coerced illusion. Ordinarily, I disliked any sort of tampering with my perceptions, and I could easily have blocked the vision, but I was riveted. With her mass of fiery red hair all wound through with pearls and roses and hanging to her slender waist, and her bright blue eyes, the woman reminded me inescapably of Dragon as she might grow to look in womanhood.

“Incredible!” Alad muttered beside me.

The emotions being empathised became more complex, and I realized that I was feeling the princess’s boredom with
the privilege and selfishness of court life. I experienced in song and empathy her concern for all the poor of the kingdom who would never have a full belly, let alone a pearl-encrusted gown.

Next I felt the young woman’s fear as a wicked Beforetime scientist appeared, boasting to the court of his machines and abilities. Everyone laughed and praised him except the princess, who feared what would come of his dark manipulations. Inevitably, the Beforetime scientist went too far. Driven mad by his lust for power and angered by her reproaches, he ended up cursing the princess to sleep forever. As she fell, the court wailed in horror. But a woman with shining silver hair rose up and announced herself to be a futureteller. She promised that the princess would not sleep forever, but only until one came who knew the secret of healing her.

Weeping servants lay the princess on a carved golden bed studded with jewels, and surrounded by a bed of roses. As years passed, the roses grew up over her in a bower, and then a room, and then a castle of flowers with thick thorns, as dark as claws.

Then the story shifted to a prince, and I cried out in delight, for whose face should the prince wear but Dameon’s! Blind Prince Dameon sat on his balcony, listening to a bard sing all we had just heard of a princess asleep these hundred years.

That night, the prince dreamed that the sleeping beauty was calling to him, singing in a beautiful voice. The sweetness in it caught his soul and bound it. In the morning, he set out, determined the sleeping princess would be his bondmate. With him was his faithful companion, a horse that would be his eyes.

He heard more of the story from innkeepers and jacks as they traveled toward the dark forest of thorns. Numerous princes had tried over the years to reach the princess, but neither they alone, nor the entire armies some of them mustered, had succeeded in hacking their way through the forest to the princess. Many died painfully, for the thorns were poisonous and sharper than daggers. One king had tried to set the thorns ablaze in a rage, though he might well have burned the princess, too. But the forest only smoldered, giving off a poisonous smoke that had killed the king and his men at arms.

Prince Dameon was disheartened, for the more he heard, the more he wondered how one blind man could go where an army could not. When he reached the impenetrable thorn forest, he fell silent, for though he could not see it, he felt the heaviness of its shadow looming over him, and he understood that it had its own sentient life. He took out his dagger but did not wield it.

He sat beneath the thorns to think, using the knife to peel an apple. His horse trembled beside him, begging him to come away, but Prince Dameon bade the horse wait for him at a stream they had passed. The prince loved his companion too dearly to risk him as well.

When he was alone, he stood and turned to address the brooding presence of the thorn forest. “Are you not there to protect her from all the wrong princes who came before?”

The forest did not answer, but he felt it listening.

“If so, then how did you know they were wrong for her?” Miky sang blind Prince Dameon’s words to the forest. “The stories tell that they came with swords and knives and tried to fight their way through you to her. They saw you as a barrier to their desire, and they were ready to destroy you to get what they wanted. They did not try to understand you.”

The forest was still silent, but it seemed to the prince that its suppressed fury had quieted.

“You are here to protect her,” the prince repeated, “but maybe you are part of her as well. For are not the thorns as natural to the bush as is the lovely rose? Maybe you must be courted, forest, just as she would be, and maybe you must be allowed to say no to me, for does your princess’s heart not have a choice to wake or no?”

All at once, a bird sang a long peal of music.

The prince realized this was the same tune sung by the princess in his dream. He took a simple reed pipe from his vest and played back the tune. Then he embroidered it, adding his own depth and dimensions. Beneath and above the loveliness of the princess’s melody, he wove the song of his own yearnings. There was a great rustling as if the entire forest sighed, then utter stillness.

The prince ceased to play and stood wondering. Then a scent arose about him sweeter than a thousand blossoms. Slowly, he walked forward, without even lifting his hands to defend his face from the thorns. But rather than thorns, blossoms caressed his cheeks and hair. He felt the forest sigh again, and he lifted the pipe to his lips and began to play. The scent of roses became so powerful as to make him drunk, yet he played and walked slowly, allowing the forest to lead him this way and that, into its deepest heart.

Only when he stepped into the open did he cease to play. Almost he ceased to breathe, for he sensed that he was near to the princess of his dreams. He walked forward, now with his hands outstretched so that he should not strike her bed. As he touched the edge of it, smothered in roses, he heard her soft breath, and it brought him to her face. Laying aside the pipe, he touched her hair and cheeks, her eyelashes and lips,
marveling at their delicate beauty and softness, and at the sweetness that flowed from her as surely as the scent from the roses.

Then, because he could not help himself, he kissed her.

The princess opened her blue eyes and spoke to him. “This gentle tune I dreamed of all through my long sleep,” she whispered. “Play on, my love.”

The vision of Prince Dameon bending over the red-haired princess faded, and I realized I was weeping. I was not alone. Even Bruna and the other Sadorians were scrubbing at their cheeks.

“By the goddess, how to render a song worthy of such a performance!” Jakoby exclaimed huskily over the applause.

“That was beautiful, truly,” Bruna said. “But it is just a story. The thorns of the real world would not be turned aside by a song.”

“Not th’ song of one man, mebbe, even if he were a prince. But mebbe a song sung by many in harmony could blunt th’ thorns if that were its desire,” Maryon said. “Unfortunately, most of th’ world sings a song of hatred an’ violence.” She rose and walked away into the orchard.

“What is the matter with her?” Bruna demanded.

“Those who see visions are not as others,” Harad said respectfully.

Bruna shrugged in dismissal and turned back to finish her tart.

Gradually, people began to rise and move about. Cramped from sitting so long, I rose, too, and strolled over to where the various competitive guild games were beginning. Organized and judged by my own guild, they were the farseekers’ contribution to the day. Ceirwan was too busy to do more than wave. I watched for a time, noting with approval that the emphasis
of the games was on the demonstration of hard-won skills rather than competition. These were followed by a series of games designed to amuse and entertain. They were successful, judging by the laughter of the watchers, but the empaths’ performance had left my emotions oddly raw, and before long, I drifted away.

In the center of a ring of blossom-laden trees in the orchard, each guild had set up a display of the handicrafts they had amassed during the wintertime. Of course, everything was bartered rather than exchanged for coin. Any item left over at the end of the day would be sold by the magi when they were on tour, and this would allow us to increase Obernewtyn’s supply of coin. I noticed Rosamunde and Valda, who were standing on the other side of the stalls talking earnestly. I turned away to give them privacy and found myself looking at Freya and Ceirwan, who walked by holding hands, entirely absorbed in each other.

Jak had come to stand beside me, and he chuckled at my expression. “It would be interesting to do a survey on the number of relationships that are formed on moon-fair days.”

“My own parents met at a moon fair in Berrioc,” I said.

“You must be wishin’ Rushton would hurry up and arrive,” the guilden said. “I bet he feels no less impatient to get here, but he’s sure to arrive soon.”

“I hope you’re right,” I muttered. I had managed not to worry about Rushton for a time, but Jak had brought my suppressed anxieties to the surface. Where was he?

Suddenly, Miryum shrieked for me in such a panic-stricken mental summons that I was compelled to go to her at once, leaving Jak openmouthed behind me.

14

“W
HAT HAPPENED
?” I demanded, staring down in dismay at Straaka. He lay motionless and unconscious at the Coercer guilden’s feet.

Miryum lifted her hands helplessly. “I had to knock him out or he would have killed himself. He came up and asked if I meant to honor my vow to him. I couldn’t not answer. I had to tell him the truth,” she said defiantly, seeing the look on my face. “I told him I had taken the horses as a gift without understanding what it meant, and in all honor, he could not hold me to an agreement made without understanding.”

“What did he say to that?” I asked, cursing myself for failing to speak to her sooner.

“He told me he understood, but by his people’s customs, he had no choice but to kill himself. Then he took out his knife!” Her voice rose on a note of horror. “I didn’t know what to do.”