In time Mark Anderton had tired of having a viggy and had sold Favel to another man, who had sold him in turn to Miles Ferrence as a gift for his older son.
There were two sons – and how weirdly strange it had seemed to Favel to have sons – and a woman and a man in Miles Ferrence’s troupe, and by that time Favel had figured out how it was the Loudsingers got by without giligees. There was something strange about the Ferrence troupe, something wrong. Some days there was such ugliness in the voices that Favel buried his head under his arms, trying not to hear. Favel’s cage was hidden on a high shelf for a time. Then he was given to the younger boy, but the older boy took the cage into the night and set him free.
‘I am Lim Ferrence,’ he had told Favel. ‘I am not debauched. I am Lim Ferrence, and I can sing as well as anybody, better than anybody, and I am not debauched, and if I can’t have you, nobody can have you, so you go back where you came from….’
As soon as he was far enough from the cage to make recapture unlikely, Favel had stood forth and sung his thanks to Lim Ferrence, seeing the blank oval of the boy’s face staring into the darkness, incredulous at this torrent of song. ‘I owe you a debt,’ Favel had sung. ‘I owe you a debt unto the tenth generation…. ’ He had sung it in Loudsinger language, breaking the taboo. A debt of honor took precedence over any taboo, but afterward he had wondered if the young Loudsinger had even understood.
The debt should have been paid long ago. Why hadn’t that debt been paid?
Favel mused, hearing the soft sounds of the giligee who was grating the bark, the young ones who were pressing the sap, the gatherer females who were sorting through their pouches of seeds and roots. The sound of a troupe. How long had he wandered before he found a troupe once more, a troupe that would take him in?
Long, memory told him. ‘Long, lonely,’ he sang, his voice rising over the troupe-song below him, so that the others muted their voices and sang with him, letting him know they knew the truth of what he sang. Long, lonely, and wandering. He had not paid the debt then because he could not. He had not the means.
Until he met the troupe of Bondri Nettl, which took him in and learned his memories as though he had been a young trade daughter. Because he had a retentive memory and knew the language of the Loudsingers, he became a priest, then a Prime Priest. Now there were several troupes who knew bits of the Loudsinger language and viggies of many troupes who knew the memories of Favel, who knew the long loneliness of Loudsinger captivity – though they would never know the truth of it, for Favel did not know that truth himself. Sometimes Favel wished he could sing to Lim Ferrence and Miles and the younger son, Tasmin, and the strange woman, Thalia. Perhaps they would have seen enough of what really happened to make a truthful telling.
Bondri Nettl was gone now. Bondri Gesel was his heir. And though he had searched for the troupe of Nonfri Fermil, their paths had not crossed in all the years. There had never been another like Trissa, with the frilled ear edges and song that stopped his heart.
There was a flutter in his mind as he thought of this. A little flutter, as though something were trapped there. He understood, all at once, without any preliminary suspicions, why it was the troupe had stopped and why it was he had been given this comfortable couch on which to rest.
Below, where the members of the troupe nibbled and drank, the giligee heard a silence where the Prime Priest had lain. She looked up to meet his eyes.
‘Tell Bondri Gesel the Prime Priest believes it is time to depart,’ Favel said, trying with all his mind to remember everything, absolutely everything he had ever done.
Bondri heard. In this sparsely grown location, it would not be a fully ceremonial departure, but neither would it lack care. Bondri was not one to scamp the niceties, nor would he allow slackness in his troupe.
Within moments some of the young ones were leaping off to gather fronds for the Couch of Departure, and even before they came leaping back, waving the fronds above them, the old priest had sighed, sagged, and bent his head into the posture of submission. When the fronds had been laid out, he staggered toward them, disdaining the assistance members of the troupe tried to give him.
‘I hope that giligee of yours is halfway skillful,’ he hummed to Bondri as he laid himself down. ‘Making no bloody mess of it.’
‘Very skillful, old one. It did my own giligee not long ago. It was very clean. You, yourself drank from her cup.’
‘Well, I’ll be glad of that. I’ve seen some botched ones in my time.’
‘No fear, Prime Priest. The giligee of Bondri Gesel will do you honor.’
‘May I find both honor and sustenance in your troupe, Bondri Gesel.’
‘I am gratified, old one.’
The giligee was hovering at the edge of things, a bit nervously, but it came forward quickly enough when Bondri gestured, and the troupe began the Last Chants as though rehearsed. Well, in a way they were. They had done them several times not long since.
Bondri knelt for the Final Directives.
‘Remember the Loudsinger language I’ve taught the troupe, Bondri. My spirit tells me you will have need of it. I lay this upon you.’
‘I will remember, your perceptiveness. I will remember the language as I will remember your name, rehearsing both in the dawn hours.’
‘I owe a debt,’ the priest
