The Knight, the Harp, and the Maiden Read online

  “Oh, Neri.” Juilene wrapped the old woman in a hug and kissed her wet cheek. “I’ll come back—I promise I will.”

  “You take care of yourself, child. Be careful—the world is not what you think it is. I-I-I—” The old woman shook her head, unable to continue.

  Juilene strapped her harp across her back as she had seen Galicia do, and picked up the wrapped blanket with her clothing. Neri held out the parcel of food, and as Juilene took it, the old woman’s hands burst into flames.

  Neri screamed. Juilene screamed, too, and grabbed her pillow to smother the flames. In a few seconds, the fire was gone, but Neri’s hands were blistered and raw. “Goddess, oh, goddess, forgive me, Nenny,” whispered Juilene in horror.

  Neri sagged to the floor, her hands held before her, her face blanched, her lips drawn with pain. “Go, child. Don’t worry about me. Go before you’re discovered.”

  Horrified, Juilene stumbled out of the room. The curse was terribly real. She looked left and right down the corridor, her eyes darting in her skull like a hunted thing. She clutched her pack tightly to her chest, gathered her skirts in the other hand, and ran, heedless of all who tried to stop her. It was not safe for anyone to help her.

  It was nearly dark when she arrived at the gates of the City of Sylyria. Torches burned on the walls, and she could see the banners announcing it was Festival time. Streams of people were flocking to the gates. The guards were laughing and joking with the people who passed through. It was the best holiday of the year.

  Juilene paused beside the road, her arms aching, her back bent beneath the weight of the harp. Her feet had swollen into two lumps of blistered-covered flesh, and she felt sticky and dirty, her whole body gritty. The horror of the last day and night weighed heavier than the pack that seemed to have grown to twice its original size. She watched the people streaming by, their voices loud with laughter, their faces flushed with smiles. It didn’t matter what happened to her here. Arimond was dead, and nothing would ever be the same again.

  She took a deep breath and hoisted her pack once more. Several times this day she had thought she would burst into tears, but the tears didn’t come. There was only a lump that seemed to rise from deep within her chest, and then slowly sink back down.

  She started down the road, caught in the flow of the crowds. Someone bumped against her, an elbow dug into her back. She gasped and stumbled.

  “Your pardon, sister,” a man’s voice spoke in her ear, and a firm hand gripped her elbow and set her upright.

  She glanced up. He was of medium height, his hair and eyes dark in his swarthy face. He looked like one of the Parmathian pirates her father was always cursing, or a native of Khardroon. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “You’ve come a long way this day, sister?”

  For a moment, she was confused, and then she realized he addressed her the way all songsayers were addressed. At least she looked the part. “Yes,” she managed. “It seems that way.”

  He laughed at that. “I know your meaning. Some roads are much longer than others. It’s all in how you travel, not where, I say.” His accent was definitely of Khardroon, she decided, the soft lisp over the sibilant sounds, the gentle roll of the r’s.

  “Eral!” A shout made him look back. “You getting back in the wagon or not?”

  “Goddess blessing, little sister.” He smiled at her, and faded back into the crowd.

  She bit her lip, feeling the lump rise again. She had to stay in control, she thought, she mustn’t give in to the feelings of panic that were threatening to overwhelm her. She knew exactly where she was going. She squared her shoulders and raised her head, looking around at the people who pressed in on her from both sides as they reached the gate. The guards waved everyone through. When it was her turn, the guard smiled down at her. “Goddess blessing, little songsayer,” he said, showing crooked and broken teeth in a sunburnt face.

  “Goddess blessing,” she replied, keeping her voice firm.

  She let the crowd carry her through the broad avenues, her heart pounding in her chest. Wasn’t this what she had wanted? The goddess did indeed have a plan for her, she thought bitterly.

  “You there—” A voice made her look to one side.

  A man stood on the corner, outside a house.

  She glanced around, and the man nodded and spoke once more. “Yes, you—are you a songsayer or not?”

  She nodded, feeling sweat break out on her palms. “Yes, yes, I am—I-I say the songs the goddess sends.”

  “Good—come with me, if you will? My wife is sick—she wants a song to cheer her—you’ll have a bed to sleep in this night, if you please her.”

  Juilene followed the man into the house, her heart pounding in her chest. The bottom floor was a shop, for she could see bolts of fabric piled against the walls, the tables covered with thin parchment patterns. Pins gleamed in the soft candlelight and two young boys sat cross-legged on the floor, sewing.

  “This way,” he said shortly, motioning her to follow him up a narrow flight of steps.

  Her heart beat so loudly she was amazed he did not hear it. Goddess bless me, she prayed as her hands grew slick with sweat.

  The stench hit her as she reached the top. The man walked down the hall, oblivious. “This way,” he said again, his hand upon a door.

  Juilene tried not to breathe through her nose. No wonder the man had to stand on the street and find a songsayer. Anyone who smelled this stench was unlikely to want to spend a night beneath this roof. She walked down the hall and peered into the sickroom. A woman lay on a wide bed, covered with a sheet. She might have been beautiful once, but her skin was yellow and her features were sunken into her flesh. There was about her mouth the same bluish cast Juilene had seen on Arimond’s lips. Why, she’s dying, thought Juilene. And she can’t be too much older than I am.

  “Kara,” whispered the man. “Look, my dear, I’ve found a ’sayer—she’ll ease you, I’m sure.”

  Somewhere in the house an infant squalled, and the woman on the bed fluttered her eyes. The heavy lids opened with obvious effort, and the dark eyes slowly focused in the direction of the man. “Jonnah?”

  “I’m here, love—look, the goddess has sent you a ’sayer—” He gestured to Juilene and nodded.

  Fighting back nausea, Juilene unstrapped her harp and sank down on the low stool by the fire. It felt so good to have the heavy weight off her shoulders at last, so good to rest her weary feet. For a moment, she closed her eyes, trying to ignore the stench that filled her nostrils.

  “’Sayer?” The master of the house looked at her expectantly.

  “Forgive me, sir.” Juilene touched the strings once, experimentally. Her damp fingers slipped on the strings. She wiped them on her dress, made a few adjustments here and there, and prayed once again to the goddess. She played a few soft notes here and there, testing the harp, trying to give herself to the music. But the music didn’t come, didn’t flow, and so she tried instead a song, something she could play with her eyes closed in her father’s keep. Her fingers skipped over one or two of the notes, and the music was discordant, the harmony ruined. One rough-edged nail caught in a string, and she looked up to see the husband frowning at her.

  At once she muttered an apology and switched to something different, something even simpler, forgetting that the key was entirely different. This time the strings seemed to shriek, and the man pursed his lips.

  She shut her eyes. Why was she so nervous? She had thought she had known these songs better than her own name. She struck a chord and took a deep breath. The voice that came out of her throat shocked even her ears. Her voice was high and thin and reedy, and hovered alarmingly off-key. The woman on the bed did not move. She took another breath, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. She kept on singing, hearing the awful noise, wishing she knew a way to end it gracefully. Jonnah was looking at her with a mixture of impatience and disgust.

  When the song mercifully came to an end, he rose to his feet before
the last of the notes faded from hearing. “Thank you, songsayer.” He made a gesture with his hand, indicating that she should go.

  Juilene flushed. She gathered her pack and her harp, not even bothering to cover it, and ran from the room, her footsteps echoing. She thought she heard him call, but she ran out into the street, her palms sweating, her cheeks red with embarrassment. What would Reyerne have said about that performance? He would have been shocked, disbelieving. No one would ever want to listen to her if she sounded like that. She would have to remember all her lessons, all her control. She couldn’t even soothe a dying woman.

  She looked around. The hour was late and the night was dark, but the torches flared and burned on high poles all along the streets and the crowds still ebbed and flowed through the cobbled streets like water. She set her pack down and strapped her harp on her back. When she reached for her pack, it was gone.

  She looked around for it frantically, not comprehending what could have happened to it, and then she remembered her father’s words: “Thieves and cutpurses, pickpockets and whores.” She sagged. Now what? She had nothing except her harp and the clothes on her back, and the few coins Neri had pressed upon her. Even her food was gone. She scanned the crowd, searching for a familiar face, a friendly face, anything. She thought of her brother’s house in the city, where her brother lived with his wife and his children. Briefly she thought of going to him, but she realized she could never go to her family. Not after what she had seen happen to Neri. Lindos had ensured that she could never accept charity, and never even ask for it, especially from the people who she cared about the most. What was she to do?

  She bit her lip and shivered as a cold wind whined through the streets. Couples and groups of people passing laughed and drew closer to each other. No one else seemed to be without a companion. She had never felt so alone in all her life. She looked down the street, trying to remember what she knew of the city. This was the way to the temple district, where the largest temple of the goddess in all the city-states of the Sylyrian League stood. The doors of the Temple of Dramue stood open all throughout Festival. There would be a corner there for her to get out of the cold at least, and perhaps she could spend a penny or two for bread. Her stomach rumbled alarmingly, and her head swam. She was so tired. No wonder she had been unable to sing or play.

  She took a deep breath and started off down the street. A rough hand gripped her shoulder and she turned, startled.

  “Little sister,” leered a grey-bearded man old enough to be her father. “Looking for a warm place to spend the night?”

  She gasped, too frightened to reply.

  “I have a place for you,” he said, a crooked smile stretching across his face. His hand tightened on her shoulder and his other reached to twine in her hair.

  With a frightened shriek, Juilene pulled away. She darted into the crowd and stumbled into a few of the Festival-goers. There were a few good-natured “Watch yourself’s and one or two grumbled curses, and she staggered down the street, the lump in her throat feeling as though it would suffocate her, her heart pounding so loudly in her chest she thought surely it was audible to all. She kept her head down as she hurried along, ignoring every greeting, every advance. Her cheeks flamed and her ears burned.

  Finally the street opened into a great square, where the temple of the goddess rose five stories or more into the air, taller even than the towers of her father’s keep. She stared up at it in awe. Light flooded from the open doors, from the colored windows in the high spires of the towers that rose from each corner and at the very center. Behind the great central tower, a white dome gleamed like a moon in the glow of the light. The crowds clustered on the shallow steps, and the smell of food of all kinds reached her nostrils.

  Vendors and merchants from every city in the League crowded into the square, hawking merchandise of every description. The air was thick with their cries, with smoke from the grills and charcoal fires of the food vendors, and above and over all the shrill noise, the plaintive melodies of songsayers rose high in the night. Juilene wandered wide-eyed through the crowds.

  She saw the burly natives of Albanall, bare-armed and bare-chested despite the cold, who lived far to the north and the east, selling the fine skins of the mountain sheep and goats, garments made of leather and trimmed with the softest, costliest furs. Merchants from Gravenhage, Sylyria’s nearest neighbor and closest ally, offered fabrics spun of the leaves of the silkenwood tree, bags of nuts, pottery of every description and color. She saw the desert dwellers of Khardroon, the most thickly wrapped in their white robes against the chill, lounging by the sides of their wagons, their hands held out over fires that leaped and sparked in the breeze, selling sweetmeats and spices, rare wines and perfumes. The little men of Parmathia, the island off the coast of Khardroon, were there, little brown men who wore blankets brightly dyed with colors so fantastic they hardly seemed real, who crouched and spoke a language so heavily accented it was barely understandable, and watched her avidly as she passed. Her cheeks flamed and she lowered her eyes, hurrying by with a false sense of purpose. Only Eld of all the city-states of the League was not represented, but Juilene knew that the inhabitants of the Sacred City, as it was called, rarely ventured forth into the others. It was as if having been the home of the goddess, Eld had no need to seek for earthly things.

  Juilene’s mouth watered once more as the smell of roasting meat and fresh bread wafted by on the wind. She fumbled in her pocket for the coins. There they were, still solid and blessedly substantial. They made a pleasing jingle. She roamed through the crowd, looking for the stall that would offer the greatest value for the best price. As the rich smell of meat reached her once more, she knew that was what she needed. She sidled through the crowds and stood on the edges of the line that had formed around the cart.

  Thick pieces of meat hung from long wooden skewers. She saw the gleam of copper as money changed hands, and she heard the clink of the coins in the vendor’s apron. He was a short man, balding, his hair in a fringe over his ears. He wore an apron stained with grease and blood, and Juilene’s mouth watered uncontrollably. Finally she reached the cart. “Please,” she managed, “I want one of those.”

  “Ah, little sister, songsaying is hungry work, eh?” He reached for one of the thickest skewers. Juilene held out her coin and the vendor shook his head. “Little sister, that’s only half—well”—his face softened—“but you do the work of the goddess. Take it.”

  Horrified, Juilene drew back. “No, no, I mustn’t. Give me a smaller one—or here—” She fumbled in her pocket. “Take this.”

  “Little sister, you do me dishonor,” he said good-naturedly. “Take the meat. You look as though you could use a good meal.”

  She shook her head, pressing two coins into his palm.

  He shook his head and gave both back to her, handing her the skewer. She held up both hands and backed away. “No, I mean no dishonor, but you don’t understand—”

  He reached for her hand and closed the skewer in her fingers. “Please—” His face was creased with gentle insistence.

  As her fingers closed around the skewer, there was a loud snap from the grill, and hot fat flew in all directions. A gob landed in his eye, and the vendor screamed. Juilene pushed backward through the crowd, horrified that once more, someone who had tried to do her a simple kindness had suffered.

  She ran to the very steps of the temple, breathing in sobbing gasps, and paused in the shadows beside them. How was she ever to manage? Two men idling near her smiled at her and beckoned. She turned her back, horrified. What man would love her for herself alone? She could hear their laughter ringing through the night. A drop of grease fell on her hands and she realized she still held the skewer of meat. The scent was more than she could bear. She sank her teeth into the chunks in despair and gnawed like a hunted animal. What in the name of the goddess would she do?

  Chapter Five

  Cold wind gusted through the shadows, and Juilene sank to the ground,
shivering, as the juice from the meat ran down her chin. She closed her eyes and gave a little sob, and a few notes rippled randomly from her harp. She was tired and dirty and still hungry, and all she had were a few coins and her harp. She couldn’t stay in the city very long; her father was sure to send men to come looking for her, and among the songsayers was the first place they would look. And what sort of havoc would the curse wreak upon her family, if she went back to them? Poor old Neri had done nothing more than hand her a pack of food, and the meat-monger had done her only the smallest kindness, and look at the price they had paid. Juilene shuddered to think what might befall her family if her father insisted she stay beneath his roof.

  And that was exactly what would happen—he would insist that she stay—no matter what price he had to pay, for the obligations of family meant everything to him. She didn’t dare risk the potential danger. She had to get away, get as far away as possible. But where should she go?

  The harp rippled once more, mournful little notes in a minor chord, and Juilene reached for the straps, fumbling with the knots with her greasy hands. She wiped her fingers on the underside of her skirt. In the dim light of the shadows beneath the great temple, the wood of the harp gleamed with a gentle shine. Juilene touched the strings, feeling the cool metal, the vibration in the brass as the notes fell, soft but clear, beneath the rumble of the crowded streets all around her.

  She bent her head and her hair tumbled down, falling around her shoulders like a cloak. In the dark, it didn’t matter if her fingernails were dirty, if her skin was grimy. In the dark all that mattered was the music. She closed her eyes, listening for the chords, cradling the harp as though it were a child. She pressed it close, holding its warm, familiar weight, her head bent down, for it was the only thing of home she had left. Unthinking, she played a lullaby, a song that Neri had sung to her from before she could remember, and the music floated in the dark, surrounding her in a little bubble of tranquillity in the cold night. She shut her eyes tighter, humming a little. The words of the song meant nothing. It was the music, the swelling notes, the silvery cadence of the harp that had meaning. She rocked a little in time, crooning low in her throat, and when the song ended, her fingers changed their pattern and without thinking, she began another song, this one a lament, for a lost love. She pressed her lips together. She had no voice for this song.