Her brow furrowed again. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“It is a marriage, Your Grace, of drama and music.”
“Like the lustspell one hears in the streets?” Hespero asked disdainfully.
“No, Your Grace—and yes. The lustspell are narrated by song, and the actors mime the parts. I propose to have the actors themselves sing, accompanied by the orchestra.”
“That doesn’t sound substantially different to me.”
“But it is, Your Grace. Her M—the queen mother asked me to write something not for the nobility, not for the court, but for the people, to give them hope in these dark times. They are—as you say—familiar with the lustspell. But while the street performances I have seen are vulgar in content and poorly drawn, I intend to give them something that will stir their souls—as you say, uplift them.”
“As you uplifted them in Glastir, by starting a riot?”
“That was an unfortunate event,” Leoff said, “but it was not the fault of my music.”
Hespero didn’t say anything, but continued leafing through the pages.
“This triad is in the seventh mode,” he noticed.
“Indeed, Your Grace has an excellent eye.”
“Triads in the seventh mode are not to be used,” the praifec said firmly. “They have a disharmonious influence on the humors.”
“Yes, yes,” Leoff said. “Precisely, Your Grace. This is a point in the piece where all seems lost, when it appears that evil will triumph. But if you turn the page here, you see—”
“The third mode,” Hespero interrupted. “But these aren’t mere triads, these— How many instruments is this written for?”
“Thirty, Your Grace.”
“Thirty? Preposterous. Why do you need three bass vithuls?”
“The Candle Grove is quite large. To project over the voices—but you see, also, here, where they each depart to different themes.”
“I do. This is extraordinarily busy. In any event, to shift from seventh to third mode—”
“From despair to hope,” Leoff murmured.
The praifec frowned and continued, “Is to excite first one passion and then another.”
“But Your Grace, that is what music is meant to do.”
“No, music is meant to edify the saints. It is meant to please. It is not meant to stimulate emotion.”
“I think if you just heard it, Your Grace, you would find it—”
The praifec waved him to silence with his own sheet music. “What language is this?”
“Why, Your Grace, it is Almannish.”
“Why Almannish, when Old Vitellian is perfectly suited to the human voice?”
“But, Your Grace, most of the people attending the concert do not understand Old Vitellian, and it is rather the point that they should understand what is being sung.”
“What is the story, in brief?”
Leoff related the story Gilmer had told him, including the embellishments he had added.
“I see why you choose that tale, I suppose,” the praifec said. “It has a sort of common appeal that will be popular with those for whom it is intended, and it promotes the idea of fealty to one’s sovereign, even unto death. But where is the king in all of this? Where is he in his people’s hour of need?” He paused, crooking a finger between his lips.
“How is this?” he suggested. “You’ll add something. The king has died, poisoned by his wife. She rules through her daughter, who has—against all that is right and holy—been named his successor. The town is invaded, and the people send for help from her, but it is denied. After the girl sacrifices herself, the invaders, overcome with fury, swear to slaughter the entire populace, and it is then we learn that the king’s son—whom all thought dead—is indeed alive. He saves the village and returns to take his rightful place as king.”
“But, Your Grace, that isn’t what—”
“And change the names of the countries,” the praifec went on. “It would be too incendiary to name a Hansan as the villain, given the current climate. Let the countries be, let me see—ah, I have it. Tero Sacaro and Tero Ansacaro. You can guess which is which.”
“Is there anything else, Your Grace?” Leoff asked, feeling himself wilt.
“Indeed. I will give you a list of triads you may not include in your piece, and you will not have chords larger than a triad. You may retain your thirty pieces, but only for the sake of volume—you will simplify the passages I mark. And this most of all—voice and instruments shall not be joined together.”
“But Your Grace, that’s the whole point.”
“That is your whole point, but it is not one you will make. The instruments will play their passages, and then the players may recite their lines. They may even sing them, I suppose, but without accompaniment.”
He rolled the papers up. “I’ll borrow these. Write the new text, with my inclusions. Do it in Almannish if you must, but I will have a complete translation, and likely some amendments, so do not become too attached to it. I will return this to you in two days’ time. You will have two days to alter it to my satisfaction, and you will begin rehearsals immediately after that. Is this all clear?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Cheer up, Fralet Ackenzal. Think of it this way—the patron who originally commissioned this piece is no longer in a position to reward you for it. You are fortunate you still have a position here at all. The regent is your new patron—mind you do not forget that.”
He smiled thinly and turned to leave.
“Your Grace?” Leoff said.
“Yes?”
“If I am to start rehearsals so soon, I must retain the musicians. I have a few in mind.”
“Make a list of them,” the praifec said. “They will be sent for.”
When the praifec was gone, Leoff closed the door and leaned against the hammarharp on balled fists.
And then, very slowly, he grinned. Not because he was happy, or because anything was funny, but because he wasn’t worried or afraid anymore. That had been swept away by a clean, cold fury the like of which he had never felt before. This man, this fool who styled himself a praifec had just sowed a very large field, and soon enough he would reap it. If Leoff was a fighting man, he would take his sword and cut down the praifec, and Prince Robert, and whomever else he could reach.
He wasn’t a fighting man. But when he was done, the praifec would wish Leoff’s weapon was the sword. That he promised himself and every saint he knew.
8
The Nicwer
Stephen first thought the water itself had drawn up in a fist to smite at Aspar, but then the fist resolved itself into a wide, flat head with yellow-green eyes that glared like huge round lanterns, all arranged on a thick, long neck. It was a shade between olive and black, and looked weirdly horse-like, somehow.
Horse-like. That struck a bell instantly in his saint-blessed memory. He jammed his palms up to his ears.
“Winna, cover—” he began, but it was too late, as the beast started to sing.
The note cut through his hands like a hot knife through lard; sliced straight into his skull and began slashing about. It was beautiful, just as the old legends told, but to his oversensitive awareness it was a terrible beauty that stung like hornets and wouldn’t let him think. Through a red shroud, he saw Aspar calmly put down his bow and begin walking toward the creature. Winna was starting toward it, too, tears streaming down her face.
He dropped his useless hands and picked up Ehawk’s bow. It was only seconds before Aspar walked into the creature’s gaping jaws.
He screamed as his shaking hands raised the weapon, trying to cancel the noise in his head, trying to remember the clean motion Aspar used when firing. He drew and released. The arrow skittered harmlessly off the monster’s skull.
The note it sang changed in tenor, and he felt his taut muscles loosen and a strange joy surge through him, like being drunk, happy and warm. He dropped the bow and felt a silly grin spread across his face, then laughed as the nicwer—that’s what it was, a nicwer—curved its muzzle down toward Aspar.