Patricia McKillip - The Bards of Bone Plain

It had already been a long day and seemed about to get a great deal longer. Officially, it had begun early enough, at breakfast with Zoe before his class. They found each other that morning in the masters’ refectory, among a scattering of teachers and retired bards who still woke at the dawn song of the birds. Phelan, entering, saw Zoe sitting alone at a table, with the colors of the high stained-glass windows around the hall cascading over her. Red-eyed and disheveled, hunched over her teacup, she looked the way he felt. He pulled out a chair beside her, and she jumped, unaccustomedly nervy. The impending contest, he guessed. It would make anyone skittish as a cat. Unofficially, his day had never begun, just melted into light out of the previous night, when he had followed Jonah to an ancient tavern in south Caerau that stood in a ring of standing stones and had attracted, for most of the night, half the visiting musicians in Caerau.

Which was likely why she took one bleary look at him and burst into laughter.

“The Merry Rampion,” she explained succinctly, reading his mind. “You?”

“I think it was called Dockers Haven,” he answered through a yawn. “It smelled fishy enough.” A server put coffee down in front of him; he dived down, took a deep breath of it. He added, after a scorching swallow, “It was up to the rafters with musicians.”

She nodded. “It’s like that everywhere. I was playing with them half the night.”

“Sizing up the competition?”

She smiled without humor. “Yes. Exactly. Were you?”

“No.”

“Kelda thinks you should compete.”

He took another scalding sip, asked mildly, too tired for drama, “And I should care exactly why what Kelda thinks?”

She held her breath, gazing into her tea, then looked at him a little, genuine smile underscoring her eyes. “I wish you would. It might inspire me. It may not help me play better than Kelda—I’m not sure anything could do that—but you would make me play better than myself.”

He gazed at her; the question that came out surprised him. “Are you afraid?”

She lowered her eyes, reading tea leaves again. “Yes. No. Why should I be? Why wouldn’t I be?” She straightened, shifting her elbows for a plate the server, a student in his other life, put down between them. That morning’s breakfast was thin herb omelets rolled around asparagus, strawberries in cream, biscuits studded with onion and chives. His brow cocked a question at Phelan.

“Please,” Phelan said, and studied Zoe again while he waited. She ate hungrily, ignoring him or avoiding his eyes, he wasn’t sure which. His own breakfast came up promptly, and he lost himself in it for a few bites until he heard her say,

“Will you?”

“What?”

“Play in the competition. To keep me company.” She was watching him now, fork suspended over her plate, her eyes luminous, troubled. He shifted, murmuring inarticulately, reluctant and annoyed that the bard from Grishold could cast his shadow even over private decisions made between them. “If you do,” she added, inspired, “you could write your paper on the competition instead. It will be brilliant—the first formal piece written from the point of view of a musician who played in it. You said you’ve been having trouble with your topic.”

“Not anymore,” he said, and felt her swift surprise. He forked in a mouthful to avert questions, aware of her attention as he chewed.

She only said, after a moment, “Good. Then you’ll be that much less distracted by it. I understand why you’re not interested in the competition. But there are reasons—” Her voice caught, making him stare. She ducked her face, hiding behind her hair, such an unusual impulse that he put his fork down, astonished. “Things,” she went on finally, “that I’m not so certain about, and I want you to see them, too.”

“What—”

She shook her head quickly; he saw her face again, her fine profile rising against the dark, and then her eyes, nearly black in their intensity. She said softly, her voice trembling, “I would be very grateful if you would play your heart beside me like the most magical instrument in the world. I’m not certain what to expect from this competition, but I think, that at the very least, it will be like nothing anyone could ever predict. Play to win. You’ll need to, against Kelda. You’ll need all that your heart can give.”

A fragment of what he had glimpsed in his research slipped into his mind. He went rigid, recognizing it in what she saw: the oldest competition in Belden, in the five kingdoms, and older even than that.

“I won’t win,” he warned her. “Most likely I’ll get tossed out on the first day.”

“It doesn’t matter. Please. I need you with me.”

He nodded finally, briefly, and felt her fingers brush the back of his hand, cold as any stone.

That had been the beginning of his day.

He taught his class, from which Frazer was markedly absent, probably recovering from a more compelling subject the night before. No one there focused very well on the rigors of memory; the students forgot their verses without compunction and only wanted to talk about the bardic competition, and whether or not Phelan thought there could possibly be a bard in the realm better than Kelda.

He dismissed them with relief and went in pursuit of his father.

He didn’t expect to find Jonah at home asleep in his bed after tumbling into it at dawn. But he checked there first, anyway, and found his mother at the breakfast table, with a pair of half-moons balanced on her elegant nose, sipping her morning coffee and reading his unfinished paper.

He blinked incredulously at her. She didn’t vanish, just tilted her head to look at him over her lenses.

“Oh, it’s you, dear. I don’t suppose you’ve seen your father?”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m reading.”

“That’s my paper.”

“Yes, and it seems quite wonderful to me. I hope you don’t mind too much? Sometimes I actually do try to pay attention to your lives.”

Phelan moved finally from his transfixed stance, joined her at the table. He was still in yesterday’s clothes, he realized, which probably smelled pungently of Dockers Haven.

“It can’t be easy,” he commented, pouring himself coffee. “Reading that, I mean. I didn’t even know you had spectacles.”

“There, you see? The things we don’t know about one another. For instance, where Jonah might be at this moment.”

“I saw him a few hours ago—near dawn, actually—at a tavern along the south river, listening to the musicians play.” He paused, added awkwardly, “He was alone.”

“Except for you, of course,” Sophy said imperturbably.

“Well.”

“He does seem to have something on his mind, though, doesn’t he?” She aimed the half-moons at him, her fair brows raised. “Do you think it’s the bardic competition? You are going to compete, of course, aren’t you?” He nodded wordlessly. “I wonder if he wishes he could. Do you think so? Yesterday—I think it was yesterday. Yes. We served up our annual fish-chowder luncheon on the royal docks for the Relief of Widows and Orphans of the Stirl. It was a great success. He sent me flowers.”

“Who?” Phelan asked, startled.

“Your father.”

“It’s serious, then. Is he going to die?”

“Well, I’m wondering, too. Do you think you could find him again? He’s been far too—well—civilized lately. It worries me.”

Phelan realized that he was gawping at his mother. He closed his mouth, then opened it to ask, “Do you want me to give him a message? Is there someplace he should be?”

“That’s exactly it, isn’t it? He’s always where he should be, these past days. Just keep an eye on him, will you? Discreetly, of course. You might let me know if he’s in any kind of trouble. Beyond the usual, I mean. Do you mind?”