Мерседес Лэки - Passages

Bruny took the two loops around the garden, walking between the low, clipped hedges and beneath the spreading trees. She was sure Seladine had meant for her to take a ladylike stroll, but she set out at a rather fast stride. It was good to get some late sun and feel the breeze, though, and she slowed down some to listen to other students, singly and in groups, playing and singing here and there.

Soon enough she turned back to their room, finding it empty. Good—Seladine wouldn’t have to pretend to ignore Bruny’s sausage-fingered jangling on the cursed harp.

She played for an hour, practicing the one tricky place over and over. Thought of the trials next week sent panic bubbling up in her gut.

She set down the harp and spent a dutiful hour with music theory, one eye on the striped candle, determined to give her most difficult music class a proper go before returning to her harp, determined to master the song. She continued until Seladine finally returned and scolded her into bed.

At lunch the next day, Delvan slid onto the bench across the table and said, “Ho, Bruny! We hardly see you anymore—what have you been doing?”

Tessy, who played a bone flute so sweetly Bruny fancied she could call birds out of the trees, sat down next to Delvan and smiled and waved at her. Students flowed into the big, timbered hall, surging between the long tables, calling to friends. The squeak and thump of shifting furniture and the clank and clunk of cups and plates merged into a raucus song, like a thousand geese gossiping.

“Practicing, what more?” said Bruny with a tight smile. “Trials just a few days acome, and my song do be fighting me hard.”

“I’ve seen you practicing with your harp,” said Tessy. “It’s wonderful that you’ve gotten so good in such a short time. I remember you were so worried about catching up, and see, you have!”

“Oh, nay! I still be struggling like a lamb in the spring mud! The harp be that difficult, but I do be determined to master it!”

Tessy and Delvan exchanged a quick glance, and Delvan said, “I see. Well, you’ve clearly been working hard. Best of luck!”

“Thankee! I did hear you all at your practicing yestereve, and it sounded that grand.”

“Thanks!” said Tessy. “There are seven of us this year, and we’re doing ‘Firby at the Fair.’ It has seven verses, so we’re all playing, and we each sing one of the verses.”

“That be a fine idea,” said Bruny. “You have the fun of playing together, and each has their bit to shine in, too.”

“Exactly,” said Tessy with a nod. She paused, then added, “I’m sorry we didn’t ask you to play with us this year, but you were so focused on your harp piece, it seemed you’d made your plans, so we left you to it.”

“Oh, yay, it be exactly that way. I done be practicing this song forever it seems. It be a good performance piece. I just have to keep working at it.”

The girl sitting next to Bruny nudged her with an elbow and held out a platter of roasted, sliced meat, pig from the scent, and Bruny turned her attention to serving herself. Trays and bowls flowed down the long tables, and by the time everyone had served themselves and settled in to eating, the conversation had turned to who someone named Zaden was snogging with this week, and Bruny let herself forget about her yet-unmastered harp song for a while.

That evening, just as the late sun was setting, Seladine put aside her book and said, “If I help you with that for an hour, will you go to bed right after? If you lose any more sleep you’re going to fall unconscious right in the middle of your performance trial.”

Bruny stopped right where she was and huffed out a sigh. “Yay, and I’d be that grateful.”

“Excellent,” said Seladine. “Give me a play through, then. Show me where you are.”

Bruny turned back to the first page of her music, sat up straight and began again. The first bit went well enough, but when she got to the tricky bit at the end of the verse, she jangled it again and stopped with a groan. “It tangles my fingers every time! If I do play at quarter time, I can get through it, two out of three times, may’p. But if I do play it properly, my fingers do turn into clumsy sausages.”

Seladine nodded, waited a moment, then said, “Well, keep going. Let’s see how the rest of it sounds.”

“That’s all I do have,” said Bruny, ducking her head. She felt embarrassment burning her face, and the panic began to bubble up in her belly once more.

There was another moment of silence, then Seladine said, “That’s all you have? You haven’t worked on anything past there?”

“I did doodle with it a time or two, but I done be working on the first bit. If I be not able to get past that, what do the rest matter?”

“Oh, Bruny! You know better than that! You practice the whole song! I should have—” Seladine stopped and squinched her eyes closed for a full breath, then another. “All right, then. Start over. Quarter time. And whether you flub it or not, keep playing, all the way to the end.”

“But—”

“Start! You have four days, Bruny! It won’t help you to learn the tricky bit and then flub the rest of it! Go!”

Bruny shut up and played, quarter time. It sounded like a tinkly dirge, and she slowed down even more—just a little—toward the end of the verse, but she made it through with her fingers untangled. She gave herself a silent cheer, just a tiny one, and kept going. There were three verses and a bridge, plus the chorus. Next to the tricky bit at the end of each verse, the rest was . . . not easy, but not straining-difficult, either. She was sure she could get it easy enough if she could just master that one part.

She had the vocals down perfectly; singing wasn’t a problem, and she was happy enough not to have to fret over it.

Going along at quarter time, she plodded and plunked her way through the song, with only a couple of flubs, which annoyed her all the more after having got through the tricky bit.

“All right,” said Seladine. “Good. Now, once more, quarter speed again. Keep going no matter what. You tend to pause when you make a mistake—don’t do that. Keep playing, pretend you were perfect. It wasn’t your playing that made a mistake, it was the audience’s ears.”

“What? None will be believing that!”

“It’s not about them, it’s about you.” Seladine cocked her head at Bruny and gave her a sly grin. “If you believe you’re perfect, it shows in your playing, in your face, in your posture, everywhere.”

“That be not fooling the Bards, I do wager.”

Seladine laughed and shook her head. “No. That is, it won’t fool them into thinking you were perfect if you made a mistake. But they do judge you on your whole performance, and confidence and stage presence are part of that.”

“But—”

“Even if it won’t fool your instructors, it’s a good skill to practice. By the time you’re playing for patrons, you will be perfect most of the time, so far as they can tell, and projecting confidence will make perfect sound even better. Work on it now and you’ll have it later.”

“I do suppose . . .” Bruny still wasn’t sure if there was a point to it, but she did see how not stopping and wincing whenever she made a mistake would help—better not to tie a bow around the neck of a flub.

She played it again, flubbed the tricky bit at the end of the verse twice, but kept going both times, and made two new mistakes—but not the same ones she’d made the first time—in other places.

Seladine, who by then was looking back and forth between Bruny and a history text, said, “Good. Again.”

Bruny played through the song four more times before they pinched the candles and went to bed.