Chime

“I really cannot say.”

I really cannot say. How horrid he was, all ice and arrogance.

“It’s dangerous to have the second sight. Should anyone find out, they’d think me one of the Old Ones.”

“And?” said Eldric.

“And,” I said, leaning on the and. I wager I can make a single word sound as chilly as he can. “If the Swampfolk think I’m one of the Old Ones, what do you think they’d like to do to me?”

Eldric flinched. “Good Lord!” He went pale, which I found extremely pleasant.

“Who else knows?” he said.

“Only you. And Stepmother knew. She fretted about it a great deal and made me promise to keep it a secret.”

“Do you know why—?” He ran out of words.

“Why I can see the Old Ones?”

He nodded.

To lie or not to lie, that was the question. I’d never tell him the truth, of course, but I could pretend not to know. But the pretending would be a lie, and the lie would be a betrayal, and Eldric was my best friend.

“I do know, but Stepmother asked me to keep that a secret too. I promised her not to tell, I promised over and over. Would you mind very much if I didn’t tell you?”

“I would mind.” When people go pale, they usually get rosy again. But not Eldric, not yet. “I do mind.”

Too bad for him. “You don’t look very well.”

“You’ve given me a shock,” he said.

Serves him right. “Perhaps you should put your head down.” I knew this was the thing to do, although I’ve never fainted and I don’t intend to.

He managed a smile, shook his head. “I’ll just sit for a few minutes.”

Now that we sat silent, I noticed the music that came leaking from the Alehouse. “Lord Randal.” Lord Randal, whose sweetheart poisons his eel broth for no particular reason, which is not unlike me, if you think about it. I don’t need much of a reason to kill.

O I fear ye are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son!

O I fear ye are poisoned, my bonny young man!

How I hate that song with its queer, ancient intervals. But wine is cheering. Drink Briony, drink!

I may be wicked, but I’m not proud of it. And I’m not proud of being a betraying friend and of letting Eldric sit there, all pale and shocked, without doing anything—even though he’d been acting horrid. Yes, horrid!

“I have some questions about betrayal,” I said. “Think about this: A person who calls you his best friend, and says he has dinner plans with you, goes off with a beautiful woman, saying he’ll be back directly, then makes you wait half an hour because he’s kissing the woman in the alley. Is that betrayal?”

“Oh, Lord.” Eldric tossed back his wine.

“You were such a long time,” I said. “I came looking for you.”

“I’m mortified,” said Eldric. “Mortified that you saw us. But—well—I’d fancied myself over her. When she and I are apart, I get to thinking she’s not terribly interesting.”

“But then she appears,” I said.

“Then she appears,” said Eldric, “and I no longer care if she’s uninteresting.”

I get to thinking she’s not terribly interesting . . . I no longer care if she’s uninteresting. It was peculiar—more than peculiar—the way the presence of Leanne pulled Eldric’s emotions about, like taffy. It wouldn’t be so peculiar if the memory of Leanne also affected him. But no. When she and I are apart, I get to thinking she’s not terribly interesting. A lover is expected to moon over the girl of his dreams when they’re apart, writing love poems and the like. How else do such things get written? A proper lover wouldn’t have time to write and sing when his love appears. He’d be busy doing other things.

“Have you a pencil and paper?”

“My coat,” said Eldric. “Breast pocket.”

I fished them out. “I know this sounds queer,” I said. “But will you tell me about Leanne? And if you don’t mind, I’ll write it down.”

“Whatever for?”

“I don’t know.” That was not quite true. In the days when I used to write, I was sometimes able to write myself into knowing something. Or, rather, uncovering something I already knew. “But will you indulge me?”

Fine, he said.

He didn’t care, he said.

I took scattered notes, at first, as Eldric described meeting her at the courthouse, being struck that she’d ridden all that way from the Sands, what a marvelous horsewoman she was, and more of the same. But when he started describing how she adored his ability to fidget something out of nothing, I wrote everything, best I could.

The following is not at all what I wrote, but it describes what Eldric meant better than anything he said.

This is the boy-man called Eldric.

Let’s just skip to the last one, shall we?

This is the boy-man called Eldric; who fell in love with a woman called Leanne; who was terribly interested in his fidgets, the making of which she encouraged and facilitated; and once she got Eldric to making the fidgets day and night, he fell ill; but when Leanne was barred from his sickroom, he recovered immediately and, in fact, rather despised her; but when he saw her again, he could not resist her spell; and Mad Tom took an unusual interest in her; and Eldric’s friend Briony was there and it may have been that Leanne felt Briony threatened her relationship with Eldric, for why otherwise would Mucky Face have appeared right then with orders to kill her, Mucky Face, who, we must remember, can be controlled by an Old One whose element is water, and—

“Don’t you see!” I heard my own fish-gasp of surprise. “She’s a Dark Muse!”

“It was stupid to have fallen for her so,” said Eldric. “I freely admit it. But please give me credit for some brains.”

“It’s not about brains. She cast a spell upon you; you said so yourself.”

“I only said I felt as though I’d been under a spell,” said Eldric. “I wasn’t being literal. You of all people should understand that. You’re rarely ever literal. You’re too—”

“Abstruse?”

“If you say so,” he said. But I didn’t say so. That wasn’t the right word at all.

“You fell ill once you started fidgeting night and day. She encouraged you. She was drinking down your energy.”

“I’ll never believe it,” said Eldric.

“You recovered the moment your father cut off her visits. She was worried I was distracting you from her; she tried to have me killed.”

“Leanne, worried about you?” Eldric punched at the you as though he were boxing with it.

The punch came like a kick to the breastbone. I shrugged as though to say, Believe what you like. But I had no breath to speak.

Wine is cheering. Drink up, Briony!

Slower than slow, Eldric’s fingers curled themselves into a fist. Or perhaps it was my mind that went slow. I had plenty of time to see his knuckles go white, plenty of time to say, “Smash the table, why don’t you? Kick things about. It’s ever so nice to see you embrace the true spirit of the Fraternitus.”

Slowly, slowly, Eldric set his fist upon the table. Slowly, slowly, he stretched his fingers. “It’s one thing to keep secrets. It’s quite another to lie.”

“I only lie about important things,” I said. “Not about Leanne.”

Wine is most certainly cheering.

We fell to eating cold soup and drinking warm wine and eating tepid bread and listening to the music.

“No one had any idea about Mad Tom,” I said. “No one imagined he’d be worthy prey for the Dark Muse, not a mere stone carver. Cecil will be ever so put out.”

“Blast Cecil!” said Eldric.