imprecise: a smudge, a shadow, nothing to snag the eye or linger in the memory. The court bard, a tall, sinewy, gold-haired man from one of the richer houses in Waverlea, wore a robe of many colors trimmed with whorls of gold thread that matched the pattern of gold inlay over his harp. He had other instruments with him: a long ebony pipe, a small drum, a triple-mouthed horn. He shifted from one to another easily as he sang: he did not carry all his music in his harp. He played songs Nairn had barely learned, on instruments as pure as any he had ever heard.
All that the court bard had, he himself could possess, Nairn knew. Wealth and dignity, fine instruments, so much talent he could afford to wear that expression of geniality and encouragement toward stray harpers out of the forgotten corners of the land. He only had to win the competition as well as whatever ancient, dormant challenges Welkin seemed determined to bring to life with his playing.
A tower, a cauldron, a stone ... What could be so difficult about figuring out what they wanted? They were words in a poem; such words never meant exactly what they seemed. If there were rewards, then the Trials must not be impossible. If they were possible, then why not for Nairn, the Pig-Singer, who had come as far as possible from his past and needed a place to go next?
The lovely ballad ended to much clapping and inarticulate cries. The court bard smiled, gestured to Welkin, and exchanged his harp for his pipe. Welkin paused, pulling a song out of the ancient barrow of his mind. He seemed to notice, then, the solitary figure standing beyond the crowd. He shifted; a reflection of fire glanced through his eyes like a smile.
His first note melted through Nairn’s heart with all the sweetness of a love he had never felt; his second brushed Nairn’s lips like a kiss; his third ran down the stubborn sinews at the backs of Nairn’s knees and he sank like a stone to the grass, helpless as a child before such beauty, and as grateful for the gift.
Words echoed through his memory, then: Declan’s voice.
It’s in the harp. His power.
In the harp.
Nairn blinked, found himself hunched over, nose to petal with a wildflower folded up under the moonlight. He straightened slowly, feeling foolish and still entirely helpless against such art. When he could stand again, he slunk away, went downriver, far from the harper and his wily, dangerous harp, to see what enchantments he could get out of his own instrument. Beyond waking a few toads and causing sundry rustles in the underbrush, he couldn’t claim much.
The next day, the harper sent him a clearer challenge.
The first day had whittled away at the contenders: minstrels who sang bawdy ballads on street corners, in taverns, for what coins they could get, novices in the art with lofty ideas of their talents, bards from the manses of wealthy merchants and farmers, where the same songs had been played for decades on instruments handed down through generations. These yielded to the great court bards, to a handful of Declan’s students, and to skilled wanderers like Welkin. Of those who had been winnowed out of the competition, none left; they all stayed on the plain to listen.
Nairn, Shea, Osprey were still among the contenders on the second day. Other students had played at Declan’s insistence on the first day, for the experience, he told them. He had divided the unwieldy number of would-be bards into three groups on the first day; none of the students had had to play against Welkin.
On the second day, the three groups had pared themselves, by general consent and Declan’s judgment, into two. Nairn performed in one, Welkin in the other. Competition was fierce; court bards pulled out every instrument they had, challenged others with well-honed skills and intricate songs that ranged through the entire history of the five kingdoms. Nairn countered with songs grown out of the mists and seas and rugged valleys of the Marches that no court had ever heard. Still, he was surprised at the end of the day to find himself standing among the competitors, along with Osprey, a dozen court bards, and Welkin.
The sun lowered over the plain, filled it with light, and shadows stark as the standing stones, then with its absence. The gathering splintered into its smallest fragments to build fires and eat. Later, as evening deepened, one would begin to play again, then another, and listeners would merge again, eddy around the players, then flow away into another pool. Nairn, reluctant to face the unnerved Declan with his own certainty that Welkin would rout even the court bards, wended his way among the colorful camps, wagons, and pavilions toward the brewer’s tavern.
Passing a lovely ivory pavilion hung with bright tapestries and crowned with a flowing pennant, he saw what seemed to be the face of memory, and then again not. He slowed uncertainly. The memory, a tall, graceful young woman dressed in airy silks, her pale hair a mass of curls braided with gold thread and glittering with tiny jewels, looked back at him as she stood at the fire outside the pavilion door.
Again her face stopped his heart. Then she smiled, and it started up again, a bit erratically, like a flutter of wings in his chest. She moved around the fire quickly, leaving the cluster of well-dressed ladies behind her watching curiously, and came eagerly to Nairn’s side.
He whispered, “Odelet.”
She laughed at his expression. “You almost didn’t recognize me. Am I changed so much since you saw me chopping up chickens in the kitchens?”
“Yes,” he said, still breathless. “No. You look—You—What are you doing here?”
“How could I not come? To hear the finest musicians in all the realm. I had to—” She paused, her full lips quirked, her eyes flicking beyond him at her own memories. “I had to make promises to my father, and take my brother Berwin with me before he would give me permission. But nothing too binding ... We heard you play this afternoon. You melted my brother’s heart. I could tell. You played that court ballad of Estmere, and Berwin had tears in his eyes. I didn’t know you learned such music. He wagered money on you. It is extraordinary how gold finds its way into everything, isn’t it? Even love and music.”
“Yes,” he said again, resisting the urge to touch her cool ivory cheek, trace her smile with his fingertips. “Declan has been training me,” he explained. “He wants me to win.”
“Ah.” Her eyes darkened in sudden comprehension. “He wants to send you to King Oroh.”
“Yes.”
“How wonderful. Then you might indeed come to play in my father’s court.” She laughed again, a peal of lovely notes, a little breathless herself, suddenly. “Oh. I hope so. I do hope so.”
He nodded, swallowing. “It is my greatest wish.”
“I miss those evenings when we talked and played. I miss the smell of the plain, the sounds of the wind blowing the long, long way across it.” Her eyes clung to his a moment, the tender green of new leaves, then flicked over his shoulder. She smiled wryly. “There is Berwin wondering where I’ve gone.”
“Will I see you again?”
“Yes. Oh, yes. Listening to every song you play tomorrow.” He felt her fingertips, light and warm, an instant on his wrist. “Look for me.”
“I will,” he promised dazedly. “I will.”
He watched her rejoin her company. The fire billowed between them, and he moved away slowly, still hearing the music of her voice, her clear thoughts, and he realized that nothing Declan might have said would have rendered the complex, improbable matter suddenly so simple: he would win for her.
The tavern was full of people, but the only one he saw, as he walked through the doorway, was Welkin.
He sat on a stool beside the hearth, playing softly, big, callused hands wandering dreamily over the strings. His strange, mismatched, smiling eyes followed Nairn across the room, where a chair waited for him between Osprey and Shea.
The deep voice, rattling shards of shale, stopped Nairn before he reached it.
“Play with me.”
Nairn looked at him silently a moment. Then he laughed. “Why? So you can bring me to my knees again with that harp?”
Welkin’s eyes narrowed slightly, still smiling. “Best the harp then, as well as the harper,” he suggested. “Break my strings and bring me to my knees.”
There were whistles from the onlookers, tankards drummed against wood, a cheerful cry from Osprey.
“I’ll buy the beer.”
Nairn shrugged, preparing for any humiliation; at least, on the final day, he would know what to expect.
He took out his harp, sat down on the bench at the other side of the fire, over which a cauldron of bean and pork and onion stew bubbled richly.
