Rachel Hartman - The Audition

It is perfectly normal—human, even—to want moral support during a difficult audition. I couldn't have taken my father. If he'd had any inkling that I wished to become the assistant to the court composer, he'd have tried to stop me, and auditions are ar­duous enough without climbing out my bedroom window first. My half siblings would have told Papa, and I had no friends to ask. So if I wanted a sympathetic face in the crowd, my only choice was my music teacher, the dragon Orma.

He's better than nothing, I told myself, but that was debatable. He'd spent years in human shape, but inside he was still a dragon: an unemotional, hyperrational being who, hard as he tried, could not quite master manners or understand why blurting out criti­cisms during my flute performance was utterly unhelpful. By the final day of auditions, I regretted having brought him.

As we climbed Castle Hill that balmy autumn afternoon, I decided to send him back. It was impossible to hurt a dragon's feelings, but I still felt guilty. He'd dressed up for our palace visit in a dark doublet and hose, and had even slicked down his shrubby hair, though it was slowly puffing back up as it dried. He saun­tered along beneath the golden linden trees, oblivious to my anxi­ety, probably solving equations in his head.

When we reached the stern shadow of the barbican gate, I stopped him and said, "Thank you for accompanying me to these difficult auditions, Orma. Today I have merely to give Princess Glisselda her music lesson. That won't interest you. If you've been neglecting work at the conservatory, I shouldn't keep you from it."

"You're one of three finalists," he said, pushing his spectacles up his beaky nose. "You were the most inexperienced and the only female in a field of twenty-seven. I initially put your odds at one in fifteen hundred. The lute master and the troubadour are still in it, though—"

"Get to the point," I said, glancing over my shoulder at the helmeted guards in the gatehouse. They watched us with detached interest. Orma was exempt from the bell most dragons were required to wear; he looked like nothing more than a tall, gangly scholar. Still, I always worried that men with swords would use them in preemptive self-defense if they worked out the truth.

Orma said loudly, "You have a twelve percent chance of becoming Master Viridius's assistant."

My shoulders sagged. "Twelve whole percent? Thanks."

"You're welcome."

His incomprehension of my tone nettled me. "And you still want to come?"

"Of course." He scratched his beard. "These are the best odds you've faced yet."

We walked on. The smile I gave the barbican guards was en­tirely fake, but I'd worn my best gown, the dark blue merino, and Orma managed to keep quiet. We looked respectable enough. The guards didn't question us, though their eyes followed Orma. They probably thought he was bothering me; they weren't wrong.

I was the last finalist to arrive at Master Viridius's office. The aged composer sat not at his desk but upon a gout couch, with his legs propped up to keep them comfortable. His clawlike hands were wrapped in bandages; his knees and feet were grossly swollen. The sight of him had filled me with horror on the first day of auditions and pity on the second, but had not diminished my determination to be his assistant. I had long admired the old com­poser's music. His Fantasias were the first keyboard pieces Orma had taught me, and I'd instantly loved their liveliness and strength.

Master Viridius frowned as I came in. "Maid Dombegh! You deign to join us," he drawled. "You will go third, as our designated laggard."

I curtsied, abashed.

He waved a hand irritably. "Wait your turns in the antecham­ber. I have a fearsome headache and can't bear the sound of nervous squirming."

The lute master, whose trial was first, followed a page boy out to wherever Princess Glisselda awaited her lesson. The rest of us filed into the narrow antechamber. It had a bench along each wall; Orma and I sat opposite the troubadour. Orma put his feet up on the troubadour's bench, rudely blocking the walkway until I swatted his knees. I kept myself occupied by composing motets in my head and watching the troubadour. He wore silk hose he probably couldn't afford, held his plumed cap in his lap, and looked anx­ious. Beside me, Orma jotted notes in a little book. I glanced over. He'd written Books to Look for in the Queen's Private Library.

"You can't go to the Queen's private library," I whispered harshly at him.

"Then this list is for you," he said, not bothering to whisper. "You'll have access, surely, when you get the job. I'll list the books in the order I'd like to read them."

" When I get the job? Twelve percent, Orma!"

He shrugged. "Twelve percent if you don't do anything unpredictable. There's a sixty-eight percent chance that you will surprise me. I can show you my work."

He turned a page and began calculating. I closed my eyes, exasperated.

An hour and six pages of algebra later, the lute master returned, raging, flailing, and blackened from head to toe. He brushed against the troubadour's knee in passing, leaving a dark smudge, marched into Master Viridius's office, and slammed the door. Even so, we heard him plainly: "I will not be humiliated in this manner! I withdraw my name from your consideration, sir!"

He burst open the door and stalked out, shedding a cloud of coal dust behind him. The troubadour, dabbing at his dirtied silk with a handkerchief, met my eye and smiled weakly. It was down to the two of us now.

The page boy returned with the next summons. The trouba­dour straightened his doublet, made St. Ida's sign, and left. The door of Master Viridius's office opened; I turned to see the old man standing there, propped with two canes, staring after the troubadour. He noticed me watching him and scowled from under his bushy eyebrows. "The lute master is an idiot," said the old composer gruffly. "Never even gave the brat her lesson, because he got lost down a coal chute. I'm sure you need not worry about a thing."

I hadn't been worried until he said that, of course. He pulled his head back into his office like some cranky, liver-spotted turtle and closed the door.

I turned to my moral support, suddenly needing some—but Orma was gone.

Anyone might receive a call of nature, even a dragon; I didn't require an elaborate narration of where he was going every time he left the room. Anyone else, however, might be relied upon to come straight back. Minutes crawled by, and I grew more con­vinced that he'd wandered somewhere he shouldn't.

The page boy skipped back into the room. I thought he was summoning me to the princess's lesson, but he said impudently, "Are you here with that beardy villain? The one with the nose?"

"Yes," I said, already on my feet.

"He's met with a bit of awkwardness; he said you'd help him."

"Where is he?" I said.

The lad gave me directions—up the stairs, to the right—but showed no inclination to accompany me. I rushed up the corridor as fast as I dared; the Queen's council had just been dismissed, and the hallway was full of my betters. When I reached the grand marble staircase, I hoisted my skirts and took the steps by twos, earning disapproving looks from descending ladies-in-waiting. My face grew warm with embarrassment and exertion, but I didn't slow down. At the top, I ducked up the right-hand corridor and ran headlong into a girl standing on a chair.

She screamed, but did not fall or drop the bucket she held, which sloshed alarmingly. "St. Daan in a pan! Are you blind?" she cried.

It took me a second to catch my breath. "Excuse me," I said.

"You are evidently some species of oaf," she said, sneering at me from her perch. "I suppose you can't help it."