Janny Wurts - The Ships of Merior

The door to Halliron’s attic chamber slammed with a gusto that rattled frame and hinges, but failed to disrupt the dancing play of arpeggios through an exercise in descending sevenths. The notes a seamless cascade beneath his fingers, Medlir raised his eyebrows at Dakar, tempestuously returned from the public baths with his nose buffed apple red. His clothing still hung half-unlaced, his hair was a wet, draggled fringe, and a virulent reek of attar of roses trailed from the bristles of his beard.

‘I didn’t know we’d given you coin for perfume,’ Medlir said.

Peevish for being limited to an allowance too small to keep himself drunk, Dakar shoved aside a bundle of Halliron’s correspondence and flopped onto a hassock. Since his liberty relied on the personal bond of the Masterbard, he managed a civil reply. “The stink’s a kissing present from a doxy.’

‘Ah.’ The scale chords never faltered in their falling, melodic progression. ‘You’ve brought new gossip?’

Dakar fiddled to extricate his shirt cuffs, wadded inside the ribboned sleeve of an orange and green doublet he had scavenged from some backstreet used-clothing stall. ‘Well the city alderman’s wife’s giddy with another affair. Dull news, really, since she throws out a lover every month.’ Defeated by a knotted lacing, the Mad Prophet resumed. ‘Better, you know that fat-assed proprietress at Madame Havrita’s? Well, she got herself a bloody eye. Caught the brunt of a scratching battle after insulting that spinster dressmaker on Threadneedle Street. Both claim their shop’s more overworked than their rival’s, and each one insists their designs will set the fashion for the ladies at the solstice feast.’

The door latch clicked. Dakar swivelled in time to catch the arrival of Halliron Masterbard, back from a shopping excursion with a packet tucked through one elbow. ‘You know,’ the Mad Prophet volunteered through the trill of Medlir’s practice, ‘this fete the mayor’s brewing around your appearance is causing cat-fights in the ladies’ parlours.’

‘They can choke on their ribbons and pearls,’ Halliron grumbled uncharitably.

Critical of Medlir’s touch on the lyranthe strings, he tipped his head. Even his exacting ear could not be other than satisfied. The months cooped up in the inn’s cramped garret had set the finishing edge on Medlir’s style. Drawn in by the liquid transition of sevenths to fifths, the Masterbard felt a shiver thrill through him. He had always suspected his chosen successor might be gifted enough to outmatch him. But actually to hear the notes of repetitive practice raised to a lyric emotion his best technique could not equal stirred him to speechless delight. All he had left to desire in the world was reunion with his estranged wife and daughter.

Seven days remained until solstice. Then at last he would be free to resume his stalled journey to Shand.

‘Look,’ groused Dakar. ‘If it’s sausage I smell in that package, are we going to eat? Leave meals to you, and we’d die of starvation to arpeggios in all eight keys.’

Dragged back to mundane matters, Halliron wended a path through the garret’s clutter of tin whistles, spools of silver wire and little clamps used to wind lyranthe strings, the faded scrolls Medlir bought from the salvager’s bins, and dog-eared leaves of rice paper with their scribbled variations of old ballads. He elbowed aside an awl and an ink-pot, and dropped his package on the table-top, nailed together from scrap boards on the day the tea upset once too often. The inn’s original rickety trestle had ended up feeding the hearth fire. If his apprentice’s hand at joinery showed a style more suited to a ship’s deck, the result at least was stable. Nothing spilled or fell off through Dakar’s vociferous pounce to be first to lay hand on the food.

Halliron settled on the hassock left vacant and gave the musician’s labours their due. ‘You aren’t needing my instruction any longer.’

Medlir rounded off a last arpeggio and deftly damped the strings. ‘I’m not yet willing to do without it.’ His look held more than humour as he added, ‘There’s one ballad left you haven’t taught me.’

‘You guessed that?’ Halliron bent his attention to stretching his fingers to keep them supple. ‘What a pity Jaelot’s mayor won’t have you play in my stead.’ He flicked his apprentice a piercing glance, then shrugged. Even on the edge of summer, stiff breeze off the bay made the streets salt-damp and chilly; the climate went ill with his joints. ‘What’s the rumour in the barracks?’

Leather scraped a plaintive whine from tensioned strings as Medlir slipped wrappings over the priceless instrument. ‘A scandal’s afoot over coin for the soldiers’ pay.’

‘No!’ Halliron slapped his knees in evil pleasure and whistled a fragmented melody. ‘Don’t say! The town bursar’s an embezzler?’

‘Better.’ Medlir set the lyranthe safely down in a corner and grinned. ‘Word goes he’s sold his sister-in-law’s ruby bracelets to hire a herb witch to hide how taxes from the town treasury found their way into the coffers of Gadsley’s pleasure house.’

‘The one that peddles little boys? That’s rich.’ Halliron spun around in time to snatch a slice of bread away from Dakar. ‘I heard the mayor’s shrew of a wife intends a surprise announcement. Her feast’s to have a festival theme. The page who serves her table told me she intends to cut out any couple who can’t afford to buy a mask.’

Medlir’s eyes lit. ‘Dakar! There’s a secret you can leak to your doxy. How awkward, if the back-quarter courtesans had the hat shops engaged, and respectable ladies had to settle for second shrift.’

‘Maybe Havrita’s other eye will get scratched,’ the Mad Prophet said through a cheek crammed with sausage. He tore off another chunk of bread, quiet as Medlir joined him at the table and exchanged easy banter with the Masterbard. As long and as hard as Dakar listened, he had yet to trace any regional accent in the younger man’s speech. Although a musician with a well-trained ear might be adept enough to change his intonation, the fact that Medlir’s relaxed moments betrayed no distinguishing trait preyed on Dakar’s nerves. Almost as much as the oddity that, throughout an entire year, even since provoking a plague of fiends thick enough to draw reprimand from Althain, Asandir had yet to pursue him. Despite blatant disregard of orders to seek out and protect the Shadow Master, no Fellowship sorcerer had appeared to call down his misconduct.

Drunk, Dakar wouldn’t have troubled to lay one question alongside of the other; sober, he mentally thrashed himself to cold sweats in paranoia the anomalies might be connected. How demeaning, if Arithon s’Ffalenn turned out to be holed up in Shand, with himself all unwittingly being drawn there.

With the eve of summer solstice just five days away, preparations for the mayor’s masked feast reached a hysterical pitch. Artisans laboured and swore over tubs of wet plaster, mixed to make moulded figurines, while the gilder’s apprentices lined up to adorn them perched idle on their paint pots and called jibes. The confectioners’ shops were plunged into frenzy, and the thoroughfare through the southern gate was jammed into turmoil by the entrance of yet another mule train bearing cut flowers and myrtle. Footmen wore out boot soles delivering invitations; or else they stole kisses from the serving girls as they carried up parcels of ribbons, or jewellery ordered new for the occasion. Lamps burned in the dressmakers’ all night, as women changed their fancy or their shape. The mayor’s oldest daughter lost herself to excitement and ate enough comfits to spoil her waistline.

Havrita snatched at opportunity like a barracuda and won the commission to sew her new ball-gowns. ‘A lot of teeth gnashing on Threadneedle Street,’ Dakar reported, back from an assignation with a shop girl. ‘But no more bloodied eyes.’