Two Songs

The most beautiful woman Trevard had ever seen had been at the Red Stag for about a week. She didn't look like anyone he had ever seen. Her skin was very dark, much darker than even the farmhands after a summer of field labour, and spring had barely started. They cleared out a space by the fire for her every night. She sat on a stool and put a fantastic thing on her lap. He wasn't sure what it was, but its wood was dark and shiny and beautifully carved, and it was covered in thin metal wires and strange knobs and holes, and he knew instinctively he wasn't supposed to touch it. But when she touched it... oh, when she touched it, with her tiny hands the colour of the Red Stag's oaken bartop, they flittered to and fro like small birds, and the magic happened.

Trevard had seen the music people before. Bards, Cedric called them. He liked them and got very excited when one passed through Portage, because everyone would flock to the Red Stag to hear them make the music. People loved to hear music. They would buy plenty of beer and sing along and stomp their feet. They would yell the name of their favourite song at the bard, and if they liked the song, throw coins in the basket at the bard's feet. Trevard loved the music too. He didn't understand how it could change how everyone in the room felt at the same time, he just knew it was magic. The bard would sing a stompy yelling song of battle and everyone in the room would hoist their tankards and holler as though they themselves were soldiers afield. The bard could sing a sad song and he would feel tears welling up in his own eyes and see them in everyone else's.

But none of the half-dozen bards he'd seen in his life came close to the strange dark-skinned lady. She talked a little funny and some words sounded strange when she said them. But when she sang, chills ran across Trevard's skin. Her voice was like honey, or moonlight, or like the flapping of the wings of swans that flew back north at winter's end.

Right now they were cheering for her and silver coins were raining into the big box at her feet, the box she carried her magic wooden string-thing in. She had just finished a song-- a funny light song that had the whole room roaring with laughter. This was a bit unusual, Trevard noticed, because most, almost all the songs she'd been playing, were very sad.

"Oi, Khinasi, play another, would ya?" a stout man at the bar hollered. "Play 'Thunder and Flame' so we can wish our boys and girls good fortune against the Imperial dogs!"

The beautiful lady smiled and in her strange voice said "I beg your forgiveness, good sir, but I am quite tired. I've need of a cool drink, but after that I've imposed on your fine Portagean hospitality long enough, and must be on the road!"

Trevard almost fell over, he got up so fast and ran to the barrel of cold fresh wellwater behind the bar. He dunked a goblet in it and rushed to bring it to her, trying very hard not to spill. She was busy scooping the silver coins into a bag and returning her wooden string thing inside the box, which fit its odd shape perfectly. Too timid to reach out and tap her shoulder, he cleared his throat and said "Excuse me, lady, I brought you some water."

She turned around. "Oh, goodness, thank you very much, young man! Exactly what I needed." She smiled so brightly he felt something warm and twitchy stir in his heart. He tried to summon the courage to say something else to her; what she'd just said sounded a bit like she meant to leave Portage, maybe forever, and the thought made him very sad.

"Why are you leaving?" he blurted out. "Don't go. You're the best music person who has ever played music here."

Different feelings flickered across her face, like sunlight turning into many colours as it shone through the stained glass in Haelyn's temple-- genuine pleasure at his words, sadness, regret, and something he didn't completely understand.

"Thank you, young man, your words honour me. You and your master have been very kind to me. The Red Stag is a lovely inn, and Portage is a lovely city. But I must go."

"But why?"

"My friend came here with an army. I received news that the army lost. I came here to try and find him, or at least learn what happened. He is not here. I am... I can't be sure, but... I think he is... gone. So there is no reason for me to stay."

"Is that why you mostly sing sad songs?"

She stopped short, and looked at Trevard for a long moment, speechless, as though she were surprised he or anyone had noticed.

And then, without really knowing why, or understanding how the silly notion overcame him, he opened his mouth, and started to sing, one of her songs-- the saddest of all of them. Maybe his heart felt so full of her songs that it needed to overflow. Maybe he wanted her to hear how beautiful her songs were, as though he were a mirror reflecting her own beauty back at her. He was very good at copying how other people sounded when they talked-- so good it startled people whenever he did it-- and he found to his own surprise that copying the sound of her singing was just as easy. He copied her high, pure tones, even copied the strange way her words sounded.

"The boughs are gnarled and grey, still
The furrows, barren, stand
Though spring's vivacious paintbrush
Illuminates the land

Our garden, dark and silent
Stays ever desolate
For want of your dear fingers
Upon the garden gate."

He barely noticed that the crowd had fallen completely silent and were staring at him, open-mouthed. Some had leaned forward eagerly, eyes on the lady, because they had thought it was her singing again. And the beautiful lady was staring, too, her eyes wide with surprise. But she only stared a moment... and then she did something so magical that he knew he would never forget it as long as he lived. She started singing along with him, but a little differently, higher in some places, lower in others, so their voices wove together, a seamless, perfect harmony. The beauty of it shivered up his spine.

"The streets bustle and prosper
Gold banners fill the air
The King's victorious soldiers
March home to bright fanfare

And yet a shadow lingers
Upon our lonely home
For want of your dear footsteps
Upon the paving-stones."

And everyone in the room was silent and still, watching them, and tears were streaming down the lady's cheeks, and Trevard realized he was crying too, and not a few of the people in the crowd were weeping like babies in their mothers' arms.

"Outside is laughter, sunshine
The sweet passage of days
The golden glow of summer
And autumn's scarlet haze

But in these walls is winter
Now and forever more
For ne'er again will you step
Through yonder lonely door." 

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Scarlet foam bubbled up between Thea's lips, and Daevin, who'd been trying so hard to remain strong and brave, lost control, and tears leaked from his eyes. "Stay with me, Thea! Stay with me!" he pleaded. "The Captain said another healer just arrived in the camp. He's coming any minute now. Just hang on for me a little longer. Please... Please, Thea, oh, please, Haelyn, Haelyn protect us, Haelyn save us..."

Daevin didn't know very much about wounds, but the sight of the three arrowshafts piercing his little sister's cuirass filled him with a cold, grim dread. Hell, Daevin didn't know the first thing about war... at least not until the soldiers from Boeruine killed his and Thea's parents and burned the farmland their family rented from House Oswin. They'd robbed everything they could carry from the granary and torched the rest, a harvest's worth of stores for both feeding them and paying tribute to House Oswin. So, with no other real options to prevent two orphans from starvation, they'd both signed up for the peasant levy, despite Thea being not quite old enough--not quite fifteen-- and Daevin barely older. The recruiters were not being choosy. So many Baysiders had fallen in the siege that they couldn't afford to.

They'd marched all the way here, a few days' ride west of Seamist. They'd heard Countess Fulcairn's ringing speech to the assembled Imperial army. Taeghans had turned to fight with them, and they'd charged the enemy infantry, the great ginger-haired priestess from Wilder's Gorge leading them. They had been assured that the peasant levy would play a support role only to the heavy infantry, but within moments, they were surrounded by enemy fighters, swinging their barely-trained swords to and fro, just trying to stay alive. While the priestess and her ghost-warriors had fought bravely to try and protect them, the battle had gone poorly for them. Daevin saw Baysiders cut down in droves. He was certain they would be annihilated, but the priestess sounded the retreat, and then moments later the Imperial force pulled back... not before sending a last defiant volley at their unit, including the arrows currently jutting from Thea's torso.

Oh, gods. Her lips were blue. Her eyes were open, but unfocused. With every breath came another surge of pink and red foam at Thea's lips. Blood had overflowed from her cuirass, and he now knelt in a pool of it. Where is the priestess? Daevin had seen the casualties, waist-deep piles of corpses on the battlefield. He knew she would try and save everyone she could, but there were so many of them, and so many more important than some untrained peasant teenage girl from Bayside. Please, Haelyn, Cuiraecen. Anyone. I'll do anything. If you save her, I'll join your service. I'll become a monk. I'll devote the rest of my life to you. Gods know I'm not a very good soldier. Please. Please, gods, please...

Then the infirmary tent flap opened, and two women entered. One was small, in long white robes, pretty in a sweet, shy way, with long dark hair braided back from her face. The other Daevin mistook for a man at first; she was tall, broad-shouldered, short-haired, clad in chainmail and bearing a vicious axe, but her fine features were unmistakably a woman's. She hovered protectively over the smaller woman as she immediately went to her knees next to Thea, unconcerned as her white robes immediately became saturated with her blood.

The small woman's eyes were gentle as they met Daevin's. "It's very bad, I'm afraid," she said softly. "Are you her brother?" she asked, no doubt noting their matching reddish-gold hair and elfishly pointed chins.

Daevin nodded, unable to speak.

"I will do everything I can. I promise. But her fate is in Haelyn's hands now. Will you pray with me?"

Daevin nodded. She held out her hands, and he took her hands, and they rested their interlocked fingers just above Thea's chest. The small woman began to sing softly, a hymn he knew from Haelyn's feastdays, and though his voice was small and shaking, he sang with her.

"Praise be, praise be, O Haelyn
O Lord of Law and Light
All that is foul and darkness
Shall flee before Thy might..."

Between their joined fingers, a strange and sourceless light began to shine, warm and gentle like the hearth of their farmhouse beckoning through the cold gloom of a winter's day. He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the words of the hymn, stumbling occasionally, sobbing sometimes. Please, Haelyn. Please. Cuiraecen. Anyone. I'll do anything. Please. 

And then after what seemed like an eternity, Thea coughed and spluttered, and half-sat up, and the arrowheads with their half-broken shafts fell to the floor as her healing flesh rejected them.

Daevin stared at the small woman, speechless, unable to find the words to express his awe and gratitude.

She smiled back at him. "She'll need to remain still. Her wounds still need to be poulticed against infection and then bandaged... Dreya, could you please pass me some rags?" The tall woman reached into an enormous pack and pulled out a swath of clean linen. She passed it to Daevin. "I'm sorry, I cannot stay. I have so many others I need to try and help. But I believe she will be alright. Haelyn will bless both of you for your courage."

She took the tall woman's hand and they walked out into the evening.

Daevin burst into exhausted, relieved tears and squeezed Thea's hand, as she feebly turned her head to and fro in confusion, hovering in and out of consciousness.

I'll keep my promises. I'll keep my promises to the gods.