The Singers of Nevya (24 page)

Pol’s eyes narrowed in his heavy face as he looked up at his two captives. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“I’m just an old mountain Singer,” Theo went on in a bland tone. “I can’t warm a whole House. You need to send to Conservatory for a real Cantor.”

“I think perhaps Conservatory has sent us one,” Pol rasped. He fixed his gaze on Sira.

Her neck prickled, and she felt her face warm. There was a long moment of tension, and Pol began to smile. She wondered how he had guessed. Perhaps he had understood that she and Theo were communicating without words. Or perhaps her voice had given her away. Indeed, thought Sira, he is not stupid. Only cruel.

She lifted her chin and looked down at him. “You will have nothing from me.”

“Oh, I think we will,” Pol said with offhand triumph. “By the Ship, I think we will! We’ll have it sooner, or we’ll have it later. But we’ll have it.” He closed the door of the Cantoris with a solid thud.

In the great room the next morning, Sira and Theo met Jon v’Arren, an itinerant Singer who had been struggling to keep Observatory warm by himself, with only his filla and his small travelers’ quiru. Even indoors he was muffled in furs, a middle-aged, exhausted-looking man.

“Will you not try to help?” he asked Theo. “I’ve been here two weeks, and I can’t get the place warm. I’m no Cantor, unfortunately.”

“I’ll try,” said Theo, ignoring the look Sira gave him. “But where is their Cantor?”

“Their last one died. He had no Gifted one to train, apparently, so they got me.”

“How did they find you?” Sira asked.

“I was with a party in Ogre Pass, and they attacked us. They may have killed someone. The man who hired me was a hunter, looking for tkir. He shot at them, and they shot back.”

Sira saw Pol in a corner of the great room, and no one else close enough to overhear their conversation. “What about your travelers? Did they just leave them to die?”

“We were only three hours out from Bariken,” Jon said. “They should have made it back. I hope.” He shook his head. “These people are crazy. Do you know what they do here?”

Theo and Sira shook their heads.

“They watch the sky,” Jon said.

“They truly do that? Still?” Theo asked.

“Every night. Two of them go to the top of the House and look though a limeglass roof.”

“A pair,” Sira said. “Like Cantors.”

“Well, maybe. And even if I were able to establish a real House quiru, it would have to fade enough by dark so they could see the stars.”

Sira, like all Nevyans, had heard the old fables of Observatory and the apocryphal stories of the Ship. They were children’s tales. It was preposterous to think these people really waited here to be saved. “This is not sane,” she murmured.

Jon gestured carelessly around the room. “I don’t understand any of them. They don’t even complain about the cold. Half of them are sick, and their babies die.”

“Is there even a filhata in the House?” Sira asked. “A House quiru takes more than a filla to establish.”

Jon looked at her with dawning hope. “Can you play a filhata? I’ve never even had one in my hands.” He turned to Theo. “You? Are you a Cantor?”

Theo gave his lopsided grin. “I’m only an itinerant like yourself, my friend. I wouldn’t know which end of a filhata to blow into.”

Sira smiled, but Jon gazed at her intently. “You, then? Are you a Cantrix?”

Sira grew somber. “I was once,” she admitted. “No more.”

“Can you stop being a Cantrix once you have become one?”

“I did. And I will not sing.”

“But you’ll never get away, you know. You’re stuck here, as I am. We may as well be comfortable, don’t you think?”

“I am sorry,” Sira said firmly. “I will not sing for them. And I will not stay. Pol has guessed what I am, but it makes no difference.”

Jon heaved a gloomy sigh. “We’re going to be cold, then. And you can’t get away. They’ll never let us go.”

Sira was silent. I will not be used again, she thought. They cannot control me. There is no reason for me to sing here.

At midday, swallowing keftet that was short on grain, Sira looked around the great room for Jon.

“He’s in the Cantoris,” Theo murmured.

She nodded.

“He sings several times each day,” Theo added. “And he’s nearly worn out.”

Are you going to sing?

Yes. Theo’s eyes met hers. They are cold.

Sira did not object, nor did he try to persuade her to sing. Each of us has to deal with these Watchers in our own way, she thought.

She felt someone’s eyes on her and glanced up to see Pol, at the center table, regarding her. The child with the cough hacked and hacked from one side of the room. Sira closed her mind to the sound, looking steadily back at Pol until at last he turned his eyes away. It was a small and bitter victory. Sira finished her tea and rose from her seat.

She heard the faint sound of Jon’s and Theo’s filla from the Cantoris. The House was slightly warmer and brighter as she walked back to her room. She was surprised, when she reached it, to find a carefully wrapped object, an unmistakable shape, lying on her cot. She folded back the stiff and moldy wrapping to disclose an old filhata, cracked and discolored.

It must belong to the House, she thought, and now there is no one left to play it. Its carvings were scratched and dented, and what remained of its strings hung untuned and out of condition from the pegs. She took it up. The instrument felt tragic, abandoned, as if it had a life of its own she could sense through her fingers. She wondered about those who had played it in times past, and whether anyone would ever play it again. At least, she thought, she could polish the body and restring it, without giving in to Pol. She could hardly resist it. Its cracked wood called to her. Its silent voice was more persuasive than any human’s.

Theo found her tracing the carvings on the old filhata over and over again with her long fingers. When she saw him, she held it out.

“Someone left this on my cot.”

He took it from her. “It’s in terrible shape.”

“I can repair it, if you will find some cloth and oil for polishing, and caeru gut for new strings.” She paused. But they will know I am working on it.

He nodded.

Do you understand why I will not sing?

Theo smiled gently. I do. He added something else that she didn’t catch. She looked at him, waiting, until he tried again. Your own decision, he finally managed. “They are ill, though,” he added aloud. I have to do what I can.”

Sira took the old filhata back into her lap. “That is their choice,” she said. “They could rejoin the rest of the Houses, and have Cantors and Cantrixes. They could be healthy. I will not sing for fanatics.”

Theo’s crooked grin reassured her. “I’m not trying to persuade you, Cantrix.”

“You must not call me that.” She indicated the battered filhata on her knees. “But I could teach you on this,” she offered.

Theo reached out to touch the instrument. “This was a long way to travel to find a teacher,” he said, “but you have a willing student! I’ll try to dig up what you need.”

He left Sira’s room and she sat on, holding the ancient filhata. She searched for its past with her fingers, like trying to recall a forgotten tune. How sad a place this was, this lonely and isolated House, cut off from the whole of its people by some wild and hopeless idea. The greatest tragedy of all was that the traditions of its Singers should have been allowed to die out.

She remembered the child coughing and coughing in the great room, but she hardened her resolve. If they wanted to be well, there were things they could do. They had no right to disrupt other people’s lives, to imprison and use them. If she sang for them, she would only be supporting their delusion. She would not do it.

Never, she promised herself. I will never sing for these foolish people.

Chapter Twenty-two

Theo had some trouble getting what Sira needed to restring the
filhata
. Observatory apparently had no Housekeeper, and its various functions were only loosely organized. He found his way alone to the abattoir, a cold place at the back of the House, so dark he could hardly see inside. Three Housemen labored there, doing their best to supply the House with meat and to cure the hides of the
caeru
brought to them by the hunters. They were using an odd smoky lamp, a device Theo had never seen in his life, to try to dispel the gloom. It reeked of rancid
caeru
fat, and its shaky flame guttered around a wick of rag.

Theo stepped just inside the door. “Hello. Want some help?”

They looked up in surprise. The oldest, a wrinkled skinny man of about eight summers, left his work and came forward. “You’re the Singer, aren’t you?” he asked.

“So I am.” Theo entered the room, shivering at the chilly damp. In all Houses, the abattoir was the least pleasant of places, close to the outside for convenience, often littered with blood and refuse, but this was the worst Theo had seen. He doubted these men could see enough in the dim light to clean it properly. “Would you like the place a bit warmer, Houseman?”

The man squinted at him in bewilderment. A younger man came up behind him. “This place is never warm,” he said.

“Colder than a
wezel’s
nose in here,” Theo agreed. He withdrew his
filla
from his tunic and showed it to them. They stepped back respectfully, and one of them pulled a stool forward for him. Theo sat on it, hoping it wasn’t sticky with gore. It was too dark to tell.

The abattoir was an oppressive place to raise a
quiru
. The very air seemed greasy, and its dankness was heavy, resistant to Theo’s psi. He felt as if he were pushing against it, like trying to force his way out of a snowbank. Finally he closed his eyes and pictured himself in the mountains. He imagined a campsite among the irontrees with the pale violet of twilight falling around it. He played a lively
Iridu
tune, and the heavy air began to lighten around him. Abruptly, and rather unmusically, he switched to
Aiodu
, the second mode, which he sometimes used when he wanted his
quiru
to last a long time. When he was finished, he opened his eyes, and saw the abattoir clearly for the first time.

It was small, but otherwise much like those of other Houses. Skinned
caeru
carcasses hung against one wall, and a pile of hides lay on a workbench. Others were pegged to dry, and the Housemen had been scraping these, their efforts considerably hindered by the cold. There was only one soaking vat, surrounded by piles of the ironwood bark used for tanning. Now the light of Theo’s camp-style
quiru
, and the warmth that made the Housemen smile, revealed the work needing to be done.

“That’s a nice bit of work, Singer,” said the older man.

Theo stood. He felt something sticky catch at his trousers, but he disciplined himself not to look just now. He made an ironic bow. “Thanks.”

The younger man was shedding his filthy tunic, reveling in the warmth. “You should do that in every room of Observatory.”

Theo shook his head. “That would not be possible,” he replied. “This one will diminish by evening, you know. I, or any other Singer, could spend every waking moment calling up
quiru
, and still not be able to warm the House. Probably collapse in the end, besides.”

“You’re welcome to play here any time,” the older one said. “What can we do to bring you back?”

“Well, Theo said with a wink,” there might be something.” He went to the workbench, where coiled, split
caeru
gut was ranged in tidy rows. “I could certainly use some of this.”

The Houseman followed him, and lifted the largest coil from the bench. “It’s yours, Singer.” He took a wood-handled
tkir
tooth from a peg on the wall, cut a long length of the gut cord with its sharp serrated edge, and handed it to Theo.

Theo took it and bowed again, though very little bowing seemed to be done here. He was on his way out of the abbatoir, now a considerably less dismal place than it had been, when the younger man called to him. “Singer?” Theo turned back at the door. “Could you warm my family’s apartment, just once? My mate’s never well, can’t seem to get warm, ever.”

Theo hesitated. “I’m sorry, Houseman,” he said at last. “I wish I could. It would be unfair to warm one apartment and no others. I promise you, though, that I’m doing all I can.”

The man’s shoulders slumped in resignation, and Theo went out slowly, his own shoulders drooping under the weight of the need of these people. It was too much to hope that he could really make any difference in this House. He simply didn’t know how.

The kitchens were neither so dark nor so cold as the abattoir had been. Theo found several Housemen and women working there, cutting chunks of
caeru
meat and dicing a tiny harvest of vegetables to fill a pot of
keftet
. Neither fruit nor nuts were in evidence, and the wooden tubs of grain were half empty. Even here, with softwood burning hot in the ovens, mold crept down the walls from the high ceiling.

Theo bowed to the woman who appeared to be in charge. “Housewoman,” he said, “can you spare some clean rags and oil?”

She looked at him, her hands on her hips. Her gray hair was tied back neatly, though the tunic she wore looked as if her best efforts could never get it clean. She eyed Theo as if he were a small boy begging sweets.

“What are they for, Singer?” she asked crisply. “We have little to spare.”

Theo tried to smile, but her stern expression daunted his effort. “Someone left me an old
filhata
,” he said. “I thought I’d try to repair it.”

“Can you play a
filhata
?” she asked. A glimmer of hope brightened her face. When he shook his head, she sighed deeply. “Than what point is there, Singer?”

There was a moment of silence, until Theo ventured another grin. “Now what would have happened, Housewoman, if the people had said that to First Singer? First Singer had to start somewhere, didn’t he?”

The Housewoman looked suspicious, folding her arms tightly across her bosom.

“Don’t you know that story?”

“What story?”

“Well,” Theo began. He looked around him for someplace to sit. The other Housemen and women came closer, curious. Theo, despairing of a chair, leaned his hip against a table. “Well,” he repeated. “You know that when the Spirit sent the great
pukuru
to the Continent—”