The Singer's Crown (2 page)
Read The Singer's Crown Online
Authors: Elaine Isaak
“Stand still, and look at me, please.” Jordan had straightened to his full height, every inch the stern teacher. “He cannot harm me, and he will most certainly not harm you.” Every word was solid as stone. “Stop thinking of the wizard and concentrate on the sound. Listen,” he said.
Kattanan shut his eyes, and willed himself to be still. Listen. The command had become like a game to him. How far could he hear, and how much recognize? His own heartbeat was the beginning, steady, and slowing with his breathing. Jordan's calm breath came next. Wind whispered in at the window, straight behind Jordan, across from the door. Soft murmuring came under both doors, women's voicesâslaves, most likely, making up a bed in the next room. In the hall, voices passed, ladies clad in long, filmy garments that swished around their legs. They wore no jewelry, nor shoes. Outside, through the noise of the city, he heard the bells of the missionary house they had passed. Evening Prayer had begun. Kattanan opened his eyes at this comforting sound. Jordan was smiling faintly at him.
“I heard Her bells, Jordan.”
“Even here, She does not forget us. I'm glad this emir enjoys the music of our Lady. We may be alone in the midst of infidels, but at least you can sing in Her words.” So saying, he began to hum softly, and intoned the first line of Evening Prayer in his rich tenor. “Oh, Lady of the highest stars, Sweet Finistrel set the spheres to singing.”
Kattanan joined in as Jordan let his voice fade back and fall silent. Though Strelledor had been spoken only by priestesses and monks for many centuries, it sprang from Kattanan's lips as if he were born to it. Footsteps halted outside the door, but the servant waited outside. His eyes locked on Jordan's, Kattanan slipped immediately into the seaman's song they had learned on their voyage. It had the roll and fervor of some deep emotion, stirring even in its mystery.
The new servant who entered was not so small as the locals, though he wore similar garments. He bowed briefly, and greeted them in their own tongue. “It were well if you sang this tonight,” he offered, “for it tells the story of a hero long renowned by the emir himself.”
“Would you tell us what it means?” Kattanan inquired.
“I came only to offer you supper, but it is good to speak with folk of nearer my own country. I, too, crossed the sea many years ago, and feared I would lose the language.” The man's hair was steely gray, and he spoke with a strange accent, stumbling over words he had not spoken in a long time. He limped past them into the room. “Let us lay out your meal.” A pair of dark men followed him in, laden with trays, which they placed on a low table by the far corner.
“We have only two stools,” Jordan pointed out. “Perhaps one can be brought in.”
The servant shook his head. “I am well used to the floor.” He winced with some old discomfort as he made to seat himself there, but Jordan caught his elbow.
“You should not stoop for us, father. Take my chair.”
“I cannot. I am but a slave here, and you the visitor.”
“I am a slave to the Lady, who bids us give whatever aid we may, no matter how small it seems. If you do not take my chair, it shall go empty.”
“May you serve your Lady long,” the old man said, and accepted the seat.
When they were comfortable Jordan began to eat from the fruits and breads laid before them. In deference to his throat, Kattanan accepted only a cup of minted water, gesturing for the old man to begin his tale. As he spoke, the man broke off now and again to quote the foreign words so his listeners could follow the story through the song.
“This happened on the eve of the Lady's Second Walking, after She first slept, but before the great wars awakened Her again. She has another name here, and another language, but I feel certain She is the Lady. There was a race of tall and angry men who lived upon an island but had already grown too numerous for it. Some of the men made a great boat in which to find a new land. After a great storm, when they had sailed many days, they saw a bright green place before them, a place of deep forest and bright rivers flowing to the sea, but a wind blew from it so mightily they could not approach it. They argued about what should be done: some thought they should go on and find an easier shore, but many were weary of their wandering. At last one of them leapt from the ship and swam to shore, where he lay down upon warm sand in such peace that one by one, they all leapt after him. The steersman struggled to master the wheel and keep the boat close to make the swim easier for his fellows. They wind grew stronger at every moment. The steersman fought with great strength and called for help to make fast the wheel, but they were afraid and did not heed him. Soon they had all gone, and he had but to loose the wheel and leap. Even as he did so, the wind blew most cruelly, and the wheel was wrested from his grasp. He was cast flat, and could not rise until the isle was far behind. So, at times of trouble, it is said the lone sailor can be seen, still struggling against the wind to find that little paradise.”
Kattanan frowned. “A curious story. Why should it be one of the emir's favorite songs?”
At this, the old man smiled faintly. “The emir likes to say he is that sailor, holding the ship to the wind so that all others may reach the shore.”
“Has he sacrificed so much for his people?”
“For every thing he gives up, he receives back tenfold. The emir is a shrewd man.”
“I can't say I look forward to meeting him,” Jordan put in. “Do you know what arrangement is made between the emir and the wizard?”
The servant leaned forward, glancing to be sure no others were near enough to listen. “It involves a very ancient text of the black arts. He has said he may grant this wizard one day with the book in exchange for yourself. I had thought he would not let even the Liren-sha lay eyes upon it.”
“The what?” Kattanan asked. Jordan shot him a fierce glance.
“The Liren-sha, the man born who is death to magic.”
“I wish he were here; we could show that wizard.”
“A legend,” Jordan snapped, “no more.”
The servant peered at him, with a warning finger wagging. “None has been here in my time, but the Liren-sha is no legend. Somewhere he is born, and lives, and may die never to know his power. Every man born with no magic hopes to meet this man who makes all equal.”
Kattanan spoke softly. “This book must be a great thing. Am I worth so much to him?”
The servant looked away from Jordan and nodded to the singer. “There is a lady he would have among his wives. I hear you are to be part of the bride-price.”
“And so we travel on.” The boy sighed. “How long until the audience?”
At that moment, there was another knock on the door. The wizard strode in without waiting for their answer. “I trust you have enjoyed your meal, but it is time to go. The emir is in a fine mood after our discussion. You will not let me down.”
Before Jordan could say something nasty, Kattanan replied, “No, sir, I'll be at my best.”
“I am so glad to hear it. Follow.” He swept out again in a swirl of colorful fabric. They moved quickly through the dark halls until they stood before a great door cut with vines and flowers. A servant announced them, and Jordan gripped Kattanan's shoulder briefly, smiling down at him. The open door revealed an octagonal chamber with a coffered ceiling lit by the ruddy light of sunset. A few veiled women lounged on cushions to one side, and guards armed with curved blades were placed all around. The emir himself reclined on a heap of furs and pillows under the room's peak. He was bedecked with flashing gems and gold, even in the black hair that trailed down his back. He waved them forward with a casual motion. The other hand rummaged through a bowl of something golden and crunchy, tossing bits between the emir's fleshy lips. As they approached, Kattanan saw that the emir's snack consisted of ants crisped in honey. The singer blanched, doubly glad he had eaten nothing.
“Where is the voice?” the emir purred. His eyes seemed incapable of opening all the way.
The servants vanished to the corners of the room, and the wizard gave a half bow as he presented Kattanan. Jordan, too, stepped aside, leaving the boy exposed to the peculiar regard of the emir. Kattanan bowed low, not knowing what else to do. When the emir still said nothing, he glanced to Jordan. The monk made a surreptitious circle with his hand, raising it to his lips to kiss it in the sign of the Goddess's blessing. Kattanan turned back to the emir, and began the Evening Prayer. He shut his eyes and let the song take him to the ceiling with outstretched arms to bring the Goddess in. The chant ended on a triumphant high; the singer dropped his arms at the same time. He heard the emir's tiny sigh, and knew that the audience was with him. He sang the Morning Prayer then, too, and part of a musical play they had heard in some far-off court.
When he performed “The Song of the Lonely Steersman,” Kattanan's voice conjured the strife of the men's home, and the thunder of the storms at sea. Up from an infinite depth he raised the island on a gleaming pinnacle of sound, and when the steersman rose and saw the island dwindling behind him, the magic of the island fled his voice. The emir made no sign between songs, but his lips curled into a smile, and he caught the wizard's eye with an air of approval. Jordan allowed himself to relax. The singer's blond hair glowed in the fading light, in bright contrast to the dark figures around them. When the emir rose, Kattanan fell silent.
“I will take him.” The emir motioned to a pair of slaves, who stepped up to Kattanan. “They will show you your chamber.” He turned back to the wizard.
Jordan started to follow but found himself held back by a stocky guard with a sharp blade as Kattanan was hurried out. He turned to the emir. “Am I not to stay with my student?”
The emir ignored him as he addressed the wizard. “My most trusted men have readied your reward if you will go with them.” A small group of guards stood aside from a dark door. Jordan moved into the emir's line of sight and repeated his question, with more than a little concern. The emir laughed soundlessly as the guards moved forward. Before the monk could respond, they snapped a chain about his wrists and propelled him toward the smaller door. “How dare you? I am a servant of the Goddessâand Kattanan needs me!”
“I will not have men around me of such great stature and such little humility.”
The wizard grinned widely and bowed to the emir.
When Jordan struggled, the little men cast him off-balance, and dragged him bodily through the door. The wizard followed, shutting the door behind him. “May the Goddess wreak her justice on both of you!” the monk howled, forced to his knees.
“Oh, the Goddessâthat paltry wench.” The wizard looked around in the dark hall, turning his back to the guards even as one of them readied his sword. “You would have come to this without my help. I'm just sorry I cannot stay to witness your fate or that of your little student. You never told him about yourself, and now you've lost the chance. I wonder what you have been teaching him.” The wizard laughed again, and made an obscene gesture as he turned to go. Jordan tore free from the guards and sprang at his back, swinging the chain around the wizard's neck. The man clawed at him, mouthing hoarse words of power in a vain attempt to defend himself. He was already off-balance, and fell to the floor with Jordan on top. The chain tore at Jordan's own wrists even as it bit into the wizard's throat. The guards stood back and whispered even as the wizard ceased to struggle and slumped against the floor.
Jordan straightened over the body, panting with the exertion. He untwined the chain from his enemy's throat and stared limply at the mingling blood and the wizard's bulging eyes. One hand leapt to his mouth as he choked back a cry, his own eyes wide. “Oh, Great Lady, what have I done?” Dark hands roughly pulled him away, accompanied by incongruous laughter when they looked upon the wizard's body. His face as pale as his victim's, Jordan no longer fought them as they hauled him along to what fate he neither knew nor cared.
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KATTANAN WAS
rushed out the great door, along a different hall. The flush of pride for a song well made and well accepted still filled him, so it was not until they finally stopped before a door that it occurred to him to look for Jordan, the only link he had to his home. The corridor was empty save himself and the servants. “Where is Jordan?” They blinked and mumbled to each other, still gesturing for him to enter the door. “Where is my friend?” Kattanan thrust his arms in the air to indicate the monk's height, and held his hair off his face, as if bald. “Where?”
One of the servants nodded rapidly. “He go⦔ The man stumbled over a foreign word. “How say?” He made as if to surround himself with a long garment, and drew himself up.
“The wizard?” The man grinned, and Kattanan floundered. “He went with the wizard?”
“Yes, wizard. Is go in now?” He offered the open door.
Kattanan looked back down the hall. “When is he coming here?”
“Is not here. Is go with wizard.” He added a flurry of his own speech and some inexplicable gestures at which the others nodded firmly.
When the singer took a few steps into the room, the servants bobbed their heads from the hall, then hurried off. There was only one low bed in the room, and one chair at the table. A scented basin and towel had been laid out there. Seeing this, Kattanan turned sharply away. He clamped his hands together to stop them shaking and shut his eyes.
His ears, though, told him all he needed of the night and the room, dark, empty, and silent in the worst possible way. The awful space was filled by his heartbeat alone.
Year 1229
The Great Hall,
palace of the Kingdom of Bernholt
ON THIS NIGHT,
the seventeenth birthday of Princess Melisande, nobles crowded the Great Hall of Bernholt. The royal dais, where Melisande waited with her brother, seemed an island of calm above the sea of richly dressed lords and ladies. Dressed in russet velvets, Kattanan stood nervously with his most recent master, one Baron Eadmund of Umberlundt. The party celebrated not only Melisande's birthday, but also the night on which the princess's suitors declared themselves publicly at last. Mostâincluding the baronâhad been sending gifts and poetry all year, expressing admiration of the princess in the highest terms. Kattanan was to be Baron Eadmund's final offering in hopes of winning her hand. The baron ran his hands through his hair and glanced often toward the singer, his smiles alternating between doubt and encouragement.
For himself, Kattanan focused on the princess. How would she receive him, and his master by extension? As they slowly moved forward in the line of visitors, he watched the shine of her auburn hair as she flung back her head to laugh. Often she leaned close to her brother to whisper in his ear and drummed her fingers upon the arms of her throne. Although her gown was rich with ribbons and stitchwork and her posture conveyed all the grace one expected of a princess, Kattanan heard a soft thumping sound, and realized she was kicking her feet against the legs of the throne. At last only one couple remained before them in line, and Kattanan picked out the princess's quiet voice from the surrounding din.
“Can we not cut short the introductions and go straight to the dancing, Wolfram?” the princess murmured to her brother. She inclined a royal head toward the next of the guests to be received, an elderly couple in old-fashioned silks.
“Lord Harold and Lady Ethelinda,” the herald intoned from his post by the thrones.
“How delightful,” Wolfram exclaimed. “Lady Ethelinda has come to serve you until Faedre's return. You recall the lady from last year's solstice, I am sure, sister.” He raised a slim eyebrow.
“I do hope your peacocks have recovered. My hounds had never seen such birds before.”
The lady straightened stiffly. “The cocks, Your Highness, died.”
The princess raised a quick hand to her lips so that Kattanan nearly missed her giggle. “How frightful for you!” She motioned for the herald to approach. “Instruct the gamekeeper that he shall find no less than a dozen peacocks for the lady.”
“Your Highness is most kind. I shall look forward to my service.” Lady Ethelinda bowed slightly and walked away.
The prince and princess sat on modest thrones, on a small dais below their father's empty royal seat. Rumor had it that the king's long affliction had a magical origin, which might explain the intensity of the guards who confronted every guest on their way in. Given the king's support of the man who now wore his ancestors' crown, Kattanan had trouble feeling the proper concern.
Princess Melisande turned delicately aside to stifle a yawn but was brought back by her brother clearing his throat. “I think this next has not come to seek my royal favors, Sandy,” Wolfram whispered as the baron bowed formally from some distance away.
“Fear not, I shall hear him and smile most graciously upon him,” Melisande replied, putting on an air of haughtiness, her nose pushed comically in the air.
“Before laughing him down?”
She shot him a sharp look. “This choice is mine.” Immediately, their royal facades descended again. Straining to hear the exchange, Kattanan frowned.
“His Excellency, Eadmund, Baron of Umberlundt,” the herald announced.
His Excellency bowed deeply, and flung himself on one knee before Melisande's chair. “Even to my trifling realm, Your Highness, we have heard tell of your great beauty.”
“Then you have come so far only to be disappointed by the truth of it,” she said.
He looked up at her with narrowed eyes, a scar stippling one cheek. “Your Highness's modesty joins with her fairness in a way most becoming.”
“I thank you. Forgive my ill humor, but we must wait so long for the dance, and I cannot even hear the minstrels. If I am short with you, it is only my impatience for music.”
The baron flicked graying hair from his sharp eyes. “In that spirit, I should like to offer a gift from my court to yours, although even such a treasure should pale next to you.” The baron stood and bowed with a sweeping gesture of his cloak. He stepped off to the side, leaving Kattanan standing before the royal dais. He kept his eyes down as he made obeisance.
“He is both more than a page, and less,” the baron explained, uncomfortable as ever with the nature of his singer. “Show her your skill, boy.”
At this, Kattanan did raise his head, and from his lips sprang the voice that was his only prize. Though touched with sorrow, the voice was high as a child's, and clear. As his teacher had predicted, Kattanan had come into his own, growing stronger and fuller with every year.
“Oh,” the princess gasped, “he's one of the Virgins.” Then she fell silent and shut her eyes, her hands pressed together, lips parted, as he sang an ancient song of blessing.
Kattanan watched the princess, observing the way she leaned forward, breathed softly, her lashes fluttering upon her cheeks. Never before had he been heard with such intensity. Smoothly, he finished the blessing and began a new song, a ballad of forbidden love between a queen and a hunter. During the queen's lament, he used his sweetest tones to convey the depth of her love, and Melisande's lips curved slowly into a smile. When the hunter rode away from her, Kattanan's voice spoke of a heartbreak he knew well himself. He slipped into his lower range, mourning the queen's loss. Now, Melisande's lips trembled as if she stood there herself. At last, the hunter let fly the hawk upon his fist; high, clear notes drew in the wind and the bird flying. When the hawk returned to the song, Kattanan raised his own hand as if he saw it there, and saw the gift it carriedâa silver comb from the queen's own hair.
Wolfram opened his mouth several times before the words came out. “This is truly the most stunning of gifts ever brought before our court.”
The baron had eyes only for Melisande. “No treasure is so great that it might equal that of your love. Think on me, your Highness, when you seek a home for that prize.”
Melisande murmured, “A Virgin of the Goddessâperhaps the lastâ” Then she broke off. “Thank you for your generosity. You can be sure you will be in my thoughts, Baron Eadmund.”
“He is called Kattanan duRhys. May his music bring you great joy.” The baron's cape dragged on the ground as he bowed out of their presence.
Melisande held out a hand to Kattanan. “You shall stay beside me.”
“I thank you, most gracious Princess.” His voice emerged again as high and clear as his song, from a body that would never be a man's. For a moment, he remembered that his mother had been a queen, that if events had taken a different turn, he himself might have sought this princess's hand. Kattanan straightened and thrust the thought aside. He took the offered hand gently, and lightly brushed it with his lips, then settled on the dais by her side.
The next guest was a suitor also, one Earl Orie of Gamel's Grove. Younger than the baronâa good deal more handsome, Kattanan notedâthe earl did not kneel, but bowed as if he would sweep the floor with his dark hair. “I am not such a great gift-giver, Your Highness, as my worthy competitor. Still, I would offer a token of my affection.” From a pouch at his hip, the earl pulled a necklace that sparkled with gold. “May I approach, Your Highness?”
“You may.” Melisande straightened her skirts and raised her chin as he came to stand before her. He held out to her the necklace, a golden chain of interwoven flowers, with a jeweled bee as its pendant. She gasped and met his sparkling black eyes. “I have never seen its like.”
“Each bloom was once a wildflower, transformed by wizard's touch into this marvel, as I would have you transform my life, Your Highness.” The words tripped smoothly from his lips, as if practiced before a polished plate. Kattanan smiled a little, still aglow from his performance.
“I thank you for the present.” Melisande slipped it over her hair, but a link caught at her combs. The singer jumped up and with careful fingers untangled it. Once the task was complete, his eyes widened in horror, and he fell to both knees.
“Forgive me, Highness, for having touched your person unbidden.” As a child in foreign courts, he had been allowed a certain ignorance. As he grew older, those who felt themselves offended had replied with violence, a sharp blow or a beating intended to teach him the local customs. In his eagerness to please his new mistress the lesson had slipped his mind.
The earl's hand leapt to his hip, where a sword would have hung were this not a royal court. “If this boy has offended, Highness, it shall be my pleasure to punish him for it.”
“Be not so quick to anger,” the princess responded. “He can bring me neither shame nor injury. Indeed, he has delivered me from a fight with my own hair. Take your seat in safety, Kattanan. Again, I thank you, good Earl.” He bowed out of her presence with a fierce look at Kattanan, who shrank back to his place, his glow forgotten in the trembling of his hands.
By the end of the long procession, no less than twelve men had asked for the princess's favor. Each was received with due courtesy, at least as he came close. Between introductions, though, Melisande rolled her eyes at her brother and sent tiny sighs in his direction. Her fingers tapped even more upon the throneâin the rhythm of his song, Kattanan was pleased to note. At last, the prince rose and clapped his hands together. “Minstrels, my sister requires a dance.” He took the princess by the hand, and led her down the few steps to begin the first dance. Kattanan sipped at a goblet of wine, his eyes tracing the path of the princess, his ears listening to her voice.
“Wolfie, I shall never be able to chose among these,” Melisande was saying.
“Father and I have already eliminated many men who came first to us.”
“It's not the marriage that I mind so much, but these suitors just want to be closer to you, to gain favor for when you are king. They don't ask for my sake.”
“Did you not hear all their compliments? And what of the gifts you've had from them? When Esther came of age, she received only five offers, one of whom was our own cousin.”
“Esther has the nose of a boar; no man would want to get his heirs from her.”
“They just don't know you yet,” Wolfram said. “Give them time, and they'll see you as more than your title. You may even begin to see them, as well.”
“None of them seems a bad sort, and no doubt I could make a life with any one of them. That just makes the decision more trying. Sometimes I wish it were done already.”
“How about the baron? You must admit that his gift pleased you.”
“The voice is divine,” she agreed, glancing toward Kattanan, who swiftly looked away.
“The baron knew your love of musicâhe considers more than your crown.”
“That's true.” Melisande made a slow curtsy. “Perhaps I shall find him for this next.”
Wolfram returned the honor and turned to seek a new partner. The baron intercepted him quickly, with a tug at his sleeve. “Is your sister favorable?”
“My friend, your gift was truly inspired. Catch her and dance with her.”
The baron made a move to follow this advice, but Melisande had already been swept away by the son of a senior minister. Eadmund rubbed a hand over his beard, standing first on one foot, then the other. After a moment, he glanced over to the thrones, where Kattanan sat alone on his stool. Approaching the singer, he said, “There's no law against your dancing, boy.”
Balls and courtships always made Kattanan uncomfortable, always watching from a distance the moments between men and women. “The dance is not my trade. I was made, or unmade, to sing, and that alone.”
“I'm no longer your master, but if I should be again, I'll find one to dance with you.”
“I thank you, Excellency, but the Lady assigns to each of us a purpose, and I know my own well enough. The dance is nigh to finished,” he pointed out.
The baron hurried off to find Melisande. “If Your Highness would care to dance?”
“Certainly, Excellency.” She smiled brilliantly at the older manâmuch older, he suddenly seemed, with lines like frost around his eyes.
“I fear I was not well tutored, but your grace will perhaps mask my own lack of it.”
“Any man can dance, given the right tune.”
“You are the tune I would dance to, Your Highness.”
The princess laughed, more at his earnestness than at the compliment. “I shall endeavor to be neither sharp nor flat. But come, it is beginning.”
The baron proved not terribly clumsy and ever generous in his praise. He had been practicing at both in the halls of his keep, trying dance steps, and murmuring to an unseen partner. At the final bow, they stood not far from the thrones. “My singer does not care to dance?”
“No, Highness, he has said his purpose is to sing.”
“Why, he must be light of foot. I think I shall ask him.” With that, she turned from the baron, and Kattanan glanced away, hoping to seem uninterested.
“Come dance with me,” Melisande demanded, holding out her hand.
“I do not know the dances, Your Highness, and I've no wish to embarrass you before your guests,” Kattanan protested to no avail.
“Join me quick, before one of my suitors shows up!” She smiled, beckoning him onward. He accepted the hand delicately into his own, his fingers even more pale than hers. “It begins this way, with a bow, then three small steps⦔ She bent her head to the task of tutoring his feet, but the second time he trod upon her skirt in his nervousness, she stumbled into another dancer and abandoned the task. “For now, I'll accept your ignorance. Fetch me some wine.”