then turned to look at me, flexing her fingers nervously. “Are you ready?”
“You’re incredible,” I said.
I saw her flush a little, then brush her hair back to hide her reaction. “Fool. I haven’t played you anything yet.”
“You’re incredible all the same.”
“Hush.” She struck a hard chord and let it fade into a quiet melody. As it rose and fell, she spoke the introduction to her song. I was surprised at such a traditional opening. Surprised but pleased. Old ways are best.
At first it was her voice that caught my breath, then it was the music.
But before ten lines had passed her lips I was stunned for different reasons. She sang the story of Myr Tariniel’s fall. Of Lanre’s betrayal. It was the story I had heard from Skarpi in Tarbean.
But Denna’s version was different. In her song, Lanre was painted in tragic tones, a hero wrongly used. Selitos’ words were cruel and biting, Myr Tariniel a warren that was better for the purifying fire. Lanre was no traitor, but a fallen hero.
So much depends upon where you stop a story, and hers ended when Lanre was cursed by Selitos. It was the perfect ending for a tragedy. In her story Lanre was wronged, misunderstood. Selitos was a tyrant, an insane monster who tore out his own eye in fury at Lanre’s clever trickery. It was dreadfully, painfully wrong.
Despite this, it had the first glimmers of beauty to it. The chords well-chosen. The rhyme subtle and strong. The song was very fresh, and there were rough patches aplenty, but I could feel the shape of it. I saw what it could become. It would turn men’s minds. They would sing it for a hundred years.
You’ve probably heard it, in fact. Most folk have. She ended up calling it “The Song of Seven Sorrows.” Yes. Denna composed it, and I was the first person to hear it played entire.
As the last notes faded in the air, Denna lowered her hands, unwilling to meet my eye.
I sat, still and silent on the grass.
For this to make sense, you need to understand something every musician knows. Singing a new song is a nervous thing. More than that. It’s terrifying. It’s like undressing for the first time in front of a new lover. It’s a delicate moment.
I needed to say something. A compliment. A comment. A joke. A lie. Anything was better than silence.
But I couldn’t have been more stunned if she had written a hymn praising the Duke of Gibea. The shock was simply too much for me. I felt raw as reused parchment, as if every note of her song had been another flick of a knife, scraping until I was entirely blank and wordless.
I looked down dumbly at my hands. They still held the half-formed circle of green grass I’d been weaving when the song began. It was a broad, flat plait already beginning to curve into the shape of a ring.
Still looking down, I heard the rustle of Denna’s skirts as she moved. I needed to say something. I’d already waited too long. There was too much silence in the air.
“The city’s name wasn’t Mirinitel,” I said without looking up. It was not the worst thing I could have said. But it wasn’t the right thing to say.
There was a pause. “What?”
“Not Mirinitel,” I repeated. “The city Lanre burned was Myr Tariniel. Sorry to tell you that. Changing a name is hard work. It will wreck the meter in a third of your verses.” I was surprised at how quiet my voice was, how flat and dead it sounded in my own ears.
I heard her draw a surprised breath. “You’ve heard the story before?”
I looked up at Denna, her expression excited. I nodded, still feeling oddly blank. Empty. Hollow as a dried gourd. “What made you pick this for a song?” I asked her.
It wasn’t the right thing to say either. I can’t help but feel that if I’d said the right thing at that moment, everything would have turned out differently. But even now, after years of thinking, I can’t imagine what I could have said that might have made things right.
Her excitement faded slightly. “I found a version of it in an old book when I was doing genealogical research for my patron,” she said. “Hardly anyone remembers it, so it’s perfect for a song. It’s not like the world needs another story about Oren Velciter. I’ll never make my mark repeating what other musicians have already hashed over a hundred times before.”
Denna gave me a curious look. “I thought I was going to be able to surprise you with something new. I never would have guessed you’d heard of Lanre.”
“I heard it years ago,” I said numbly. “From an old storyteller in Tarbean.”
“If I had half your luck . . .” Denna shook her head in dismay. “I had to piece it together out of a hundred little scraps.” She made a conciliatory gesture. “Me and my patron, I should say. He’s helped.”
“Your patron,” I said. I felt a spark of emotion when she mentioned him. Hollow as I was, it was surprising how quickly the bitterness spread through my gut, as if someone had kindled a fire inside me.
Denna nodded. “He fancies himself a bit of a historian,” she said. “I think he’s angling for a court appointment. He wouldn’t be the first to ingratiate himself by shining a light on someone’s long-lost heroic ancestor. Or maybe he’s trying to invent a heroic ancestor for himself. That would explain the research we’ve been doing in old genealogies.”
She hesitated for a moment, biting her lips. “The truth is,” she said, as if confessing something. “I half suspect the song is for Alveron himself. Master Ash has implied he’s had dealings with the Maer.” She gave a mischievous grin. “Who knows? Running in the circles you do, you might have already met my patron and not even known it.”
My mind flickered over the hundreds of nobles and courtiers I’d met in passing over the last month, but it was hard to focus on their faces. The fire in my gut was spreading until my whole chest was full of it.
“But enough of this,” Denna said, waving her hands impatiently. She pushed her harp away and folded her legs to sit cross-legged on the grass. “You’re teasing me. What did you think of it?”
I looked down at my hands and idly fingered the flat braid of green grass I’d woven. It was smooth and cool between my fingers. I couldn’t remember how I’d planned to join the ends together to form a ring.
“I know it’s got some rough patches,” I heard Denna say, her voice brimming with nervous excitement. “I’ll have to fix that name you mentioned, if you’re sure it’s the right one. The beginning is rough, and the seventh verse is a shambles, I know. I need to expand the battles and his relationship with Lyra. The ending needs tightening. But overall, what did you think?”
Once she smoothed it out, it would be brilliant. As good a song as my parents might have written, but that just made it worse.
My hands were shaking, and I was amazed at how hard it was to make them stop. I looked away from them, up at Denna. Her nervous excitement faded when she saw my face.
“You’re going to have to rework more than just the name.” I tried to keep my voice calm. “Lanre wasn’t a hero.”
She looked at me oddly, as if she couldn’t tell if I was making a joke. “What?”
“You’ve got the whole thing wrong,” I said. “Lanre was a monster. A traitor. You need to change it.”
Denna tossed back her head and laughed. When I didn’t join her, she cocked her head, puzzled. “You’re serious?”
I nodded.
