But the lack of music. Even Bog had had music, even lazy Step had its own songs. Here the artificial stone that was harder than steel carried little sound; the furniture was silent as it flowed to fit bodies; the servants went silently about their business, as did the guards; the only sounds were of machines, and even they were invariably muffled.
On his visit to Step and Bog, he had had Esste with him. Someone to whom he could sing and who would know the meanings of his songs. Someone whose voice was full of inflection carefully controlled. Here everyone was so coarse, so unrefined, so careless.
And Ansset felt homesick as he ran his fingers along the warm stone that was so unlike the cold rock of the walls of the Songhouse. He hummed in his throat, but these walls absorbed the sound, reflected nothing. Also, he was hot. That was wrong. He had been raised in a slightly chilly building since he was three. This place was warm enough that he could cast away his clothing and still be a little too warm. How can they be comfortable?
His unease was not helped by the fact that he had been alone ever since the obsequious servant had led him to a room and said, This is yours. No window, and the door had no device that Ansset could see for opening. So he waited and did not sing because he was not sure someone would not be listening-that much Riktors Ashen had warned him of. He sat alone in silence and listened to the utter lack of music in the palace, unwilling to make any of his own until he had met Mikal, and not knowing when that would be, or if it would happen at all, or if he would be left forever in a place where he might as well be deaf.
No.
That is also wrong.
There is music here, Ansset realized. But it was cacophony, not harmony, and so he had not recognized it. In Step and Bog the moods of the cities had been uniform. While individuals had had their own songs, they were only variations on a theme, and all had worked together to give the city a feeling of its own. Here there was no such harmony. Only fear and mistrust to such a degree that no two voices worked together. As if the very melding of speech patterns and thought patterns and ease of expression might somehow compromise a person dangerously, bring him close to death or darker terrors. That was the music, if he could call it music, of the palace.
What a dark place Mikal has made for himself. How can anyone live in such deafening silence and pain?
But perhaps it is not pain to them, Ansset thought. Perhaps this is the way of all the worlds. Perhaps only on Tew, which has the Songhouse, have voices learned to meet and mix harmoniously.
He thought of the billions of pinpoint stars, each with its planets and each of those with their people, and none of them knew how to sing or hear anyone else's song.
It was a nightmare. He refused to think of it. Instead he thought of Esste, and at the thought of her felt again the wonder of what he held inside himself that she had finally compelled him to find. Remembering her, he could not really see her face-he had left her too recently to be able to conjure her like a ghost. Instead he heard her voice, heard the huskiness of her morning speech, the force in her normal expression. She would not have been made uneasy. She wouldn't have let the silly Chamberlain force her into saying more than she ought. And if she were here, he thought, I would not feel so--
If she were here, she would not let herself feel any of these things. Some Songbirds had had difficult assignments before. Esste, whom he loved and trusted, had put him here. Therefore this was where he belonged. And so he would look for ways to survive, to put the palace to use in his songs, instead of wishing that he were in the Song-house instead. For this he had been trained. He would give his service and then, when they came for him, he would return.
The door slid open and four security guards came in. They were in different uniforms from those men who had searched him before. They said little, only enough to direct Ansset to take off his clothing. Why? Ansset asked, but they only waited and waited until at last he turned his back and stripped. It was one thing to be naked among the other children in the toilets and showers, and something else again to be nude in front of adult men, all there for no other purpose than to watch. They searched every crevice of his body, and the search, while not overly rough, was also not pleasant. They were intimate with him as no one had ever been intimate before, and the man who fondled his genitals, searching for unfathomably arcane items-Ansset could think of nothing that could be hidden there-held and touched a little too long, a little too gently. He did not know what it meant, but knew that it was not good. The man's face was outwardly calm, but as he spoke to the others, Ansset detected the trembling, the faint passion suppressed in the interstices of his brusque speech, and it made him afraid.
But the moment passed, and the guards gave him back his clothes, and they led him out of the room. They were tall; they towered over him, and he felt awkward, unable to keep step with them and afraid of somehow getting under their feet, between their legs. The danger was more their anger if he tripped them up than any damage their legs might do to him. Ansset was still too hot, hotter now because he was moving fast and because he was tense. In the Songhouse his Control had been unshakable, except to Esste. But there he had been familiar with everything, able to cope with changes because everything but the change was everything he had known all his life. Here he began to realize that people acted for different reasons, that they followed different patterns or no patterns at all; and yet.
He had been able to control the Chamberlain. It had been crude, but it had worked. Human beings were still human beings. Even if they were large soldiers who trembled when they touched a naked little boy.
The guards touched the sides of doors, and the doors opened. Ansset wondered if his fingers, too, could open doors by touching them. Then the guards reached a door they could not open, or at least didn't try to open. Was Mikal on the other side?
No. The Chamberlain was, and the Captain of the guard, and a few other people, none of whom looked imperial. Not that Ansset had any clear idea of what an emperor would look like, but he knew almost immediately that none of these people was sure of power or enough in control of himself to rule on the strength of his own authority. In fact, Ansset had only met or seen one outsider who could-Riktors Ashen. And that was probably because Riktors was a starfleet commander who had bloodlessly quelled a rebellion. He knew what he could do. These palace-bound people did not know anything about themselves.
They asked questions. Seemingly random questions. About his training at the Songhouse, his upbringing before he got to Tew, and dozens of questions that Ansset could not begin to understand, let alone answer.
How do you feel about the four freedoms?
Did they teach you in the Songhouse about the Discipline of Frey?
What about the heroes of Seawatch? The League of Cities of the Sea?
And, finally: Didn't they teach you anything at the Songhouse?
They taught me, Ansset said, how to sing.
The questioners looked at each other. The Captain of the guard finally shrugged. Hell, he's a nine-year-old kid.
How many nine-year-old kids know anything about history? How many of them have any political views?
It's the Songhouse I'm worried about, said a man whose voice sang death to Ansset.
Maybe, just maybe, said the Captain, and his voice was oiled with sarcasm, the Songhouse is as apolitical as they claim.
Nobody's apolitical.
They gave Mikal a Songbird, the Captain pointed out. It was a very unpopular thing to do, in the empire at large. I heard that some pompous ass on Prowk is returning his singer to them as a protest.