Leovigild Ackenzal eased back onto a cushion of warm clover and closed his eyes against the sun. He drew a deep breath of bloom-sweet air and let the solar heat press gently on him. His thoughts began to lose their sense as the dreams hiding in the green began to tiptoe into his head.
A thaurnharp began sounding a delicate melody that blended with the birdsong and bee buzzes of the afternoon.
"What tune is that?" a familiar voice softly asked, startling him.
"She's improvising," he murmured.
"It sounds a little sad."
"Yes," he agreed. "Everything she plays these days is sad."
Warm, supple fingers wrapped around his own stiff and ruined digits. He opened his eyes and turned his head so that he could see Areana's red-gold hair and dark-jeweled orbits.
"I didn't hear you come up," he told her.
"Bare feet don't make much sound on clover, do they?"
"Especially feet as dainty as yours," he replied.
"Oh, hush. You don't have to win me anymore."
"On the contrary," he said. "I'd like to win you again every day."
"Well, that's nice," she said. "Good husband talk. We'll see if you feel that way in ten years as opposed to ten days."
"It's my fondest wish to find out. And again in twenty, thirty-"
She cupped her hand over his mouth. "Hush, I said."
She looked around the glade. "I'm going to start calling this your solar. You always want to be in the sunlight these days."
Don't you? he wanted to ask. She had spent months in the dungeons, just as he had. And just as he had, she had heard- No. He didn't want to remember.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to remind you. I just-I wonder what you will do when winter comes."
He shrugged. "It's not here yet, and I can't stop it coming. We'll see."
She smiled, but he felt it turn in him.
"Maybe I can write a bright music."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I've ruined your nap."
You have, he thought, his bitterness growing. And why carp about winter?
"Still," she went on, her tone changing, "all you do is nap, it seems."
He sat up, feeling his breath begin to fire. "How do you-"
And then a bee stung him. The pain was very simple, very direct, and he found himself on his feet howling, swatting at the air, which was alive with the swarming insects.
He understood now. The pain of the sting had wakened his sense.
"Mery," he shouted, striding toward the girl where she sat with her little thaurnharp.
"Mery, quit that."
But she kept playing until Leoff reached down and stopped her hands. They felt cold.
"Mery, it's hurting us."
She didn't look up at first but continued to study the keyboard.
"It doesn't hurt me," she said.
"I know," he said softly.
She looked up then, and his chest tightened.
Mery was a slight girl; she looked younger than her eight winters. From a distance she might be five or six.
But she wasn't at a distance now. Her eyes had been azure when they had met. They were still blue, but they seemed filmed over somehow, sometimes vacant, sometimes sharp with subtle pain a child her age should not know. Up close, Mery might be a hundred.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"What were you trying to do there?"
She shrugged. "I don't know."
He knelt and stroked her hair.
"Robert won't find us again."
"He took it with him," Mery said, her voice just audible. "He tricked you into writing it, and he took it with him."
"It's all right," Leoff said.
"It's not," Mery replied. "It's not. When he plays it, I can hear it."
The hairs went up on Leoff's neck. "What?"
"He doesn't play it well," she whispered. "But now he has someone else to do it. I can hear it."
Leoff glanced over at Areana. She hadn't said anything, but tears were running quietly down her face.
"I thought you would fix it," Mery said. "Now I see you can't."
"Mery…"
"It's okay," she said. "I understand."
She lifted the thaurnharp off her lap, took it by its carry strap, and stood up.
"I'll play someplace else," she said.
"Mery, please don't go," Areana said.
But the girl already was trudging off.
Leoff watched her leave and sighed. "She expects me to do something," he said.
"She expects too much," she said.
He shook his head. "We were there, but she played it. I used her-"
"To save our lives," his wife gently reminded him.
"I'm not sure I saved hers," he said. "I thought she would get better, but she's slipping away, Rey. It's worse every day."
She nodded. "Yah."
"I should go after her."
"She wants to be alone right now," Areana said. "I think you'd better let her. She was a solitary sort of person even before."
"Yes."
"Stay here. Rest. I need to go to the market to gather a few things for dinner. I'll see if I can find something Mery might like. A ribbon or some drop."
Ribbons and candy won't help, he thought, but he smiled and gave her a kiss.
"I am a lucky man," he managed.
"We all are lucky," Areana said. "Even Mery. We have each other."
"I'm not certain about that," Leoff said.
Areana frowned. "What can you mean?"
"I had a letter yesterday from Lord Edwin Graham. Mery's mother was his sister."
"They mean to take her away? But the duke put her in our charge."
"I'm not sure what he wants," Leoff replied. "He's sending his wife here to tell us. She'll arrive on Thonsdagh."
Lady Teris Graham was tall, taller than Leoff. She had unsettling sea-green eyes and a face spotted by rusty freckles, which made her dark, nearly black hair somehow surprising. Her face was strong-boned and long like her body, and she had come in a dark green and black traveling gown that looked expensive. She had two servants and two bodyguards with her, which also spoke of money. She was younger than he had expected. Areana had seated her in their small parlor, which up until then they really hadn't used for anything. Then she went for tea while the lady sized up Leoff.
"You're the man that wrote that sinfonia?" she said at last. "The one that started the riot in Glastir?"
"Yes," Leoff confirmed. "I'm afraid so."
"And the other thing, the play that the people liked so well?" The way she said "people" made it clear that it wasn't a term that included everyone-not, for instance, herself.
"Yes, lady."
"Yes," she repeated drily.
Areana arrived with the tea, and they sat sipping it in uncomfortable silence for a few moments.
"How well did you know my sister-in-law?" Lady Graham asked abruptly.
Leoff practically could feel Areana stiffen and a warmth flush his face.
To his surprise, the lady laughed. "Oh, dear," she said. "Yes, Ambria was a generous soul in some ways."
Leoff nodded, not knowing what to say, his mind suddenly filled with the sensations of that night, the warmth of Ambria's skin…
And, a few days later, her pitiful murdered gaze.
"Not to the point," Lady Graham said, shrugging. "The thing now is what's to be done with Mery."
"I think she should stay with us," Leoff said.
"Personally, I'm inclined to agree with you," the lady said. "I've no use for another brat underfoot. It's bad enough taking her brother in, but we'll soon have him married off. Still, she is William's bastard, and she is family, so my husband has other thoughts on the matter."
"She's safe here," Areana said. "And she's still heir."
"And you will be her parents?"
"Yes," Leoff said.
"In fact, perhaps. But technically, hasn't Duke Artwair made her his ward?"
"That's true," Leoff said.
"One would imagine Artwair would have reason for doing that. And for giving you this lovely house on the grounds of his even more lovely estate."
"My husband and the duke are friends," Areana said. "The house was a wedding gift."
"I'm sure it was," Lady Graham sighed. "But he's also keeping her close." She looked up sharply. "What's wrong with the girl, by the by? I've heard some very strange stories. Something about a music that kills?"
Leoff pursed his lips. The story had gotten around, somehow, but he didn't know if he should confirm it.
"They say that Prince Robert forced you to write a melody that slays anyone who hears it, and that Mery played it and did not die," she amplified.
When he didn't react to that, she sighed and signaled for her maidservant, who produced a folded paper sealed with wax.
He took the proffered document and found Artwair's seal on it. He broke it and read the contents.
Dear Friend, feel free to relate any and all particulars concerning Mery to Lady Teris Graham. She deserves to know the facts of the matter, and I trust her to be discreet.
– A.
Leoff looked up, feeling abashed. "Sorry, lady," he said.
"Your discretion does you credit. But do go on."
"It's as you said, except that Robert did not commission the piece. He wanted-or claimed to want-another singspell, one that would counteract my earlier work and make him popular with the people again. I think he always knew I would try to kill him."
"Ah. He tricked you into writing it. But it didn't kill him because he's already dead."
"Something like that. But it slew everyone else in the room."
"Except you and your bride here-and Mery."
"The music advances," Leoff said. "It's not a single sound but a progression that leads toward death. The last chord kills, but only if the entire piece is heard. I taught Mery and Areana a counterchord to hum to dilute the effect. We almost died, anyway. And Mery-she was playing the hammarharp, so she got the worst of it."
"Yes, I suppose she did." Lady Graham leaned back and had another sip of tea. "What do you suppose Robert will do with the music?"
"Something very bad," Leoff said.
"I'm trying to imagine. A band of pipers marching across the battlefield? A choir of trumpets, and everyone on the defending wall dropping dead?"
"It's not impossible," Leoff replied, feeling sick. "Hard to coordinate, but someone skilled enough in arranging and composing could do it."
"Someone like yourself?"
"Yes."
"Maybe that's why you're here, so well protected. Maybe Artwair has commissioned you to write the piece again."
"I won't. He knows that. He knows I would die first."
"But Mery might remember it?"
"No."
"She is a prodigy."
"No," he repeated, almost shouting.
"Not even to save Crotheny?"
"You stay away from her," he snapped.
Lady Graham nodded and drank a bit more tea. "What about your counterchord? Could you compose a music to neutralize whatever Robert may be up to? If he is up to anything other than his own amusement?"
"I don't know," he said.
"Have you tried?"
I don't want to be tricked again. He wanted to shout. I don't want to be used again.
"You let something terrible into the world, Leovigild Ackenzal. You're responsible for that."
"Who are you?" Areana asked suddenly. "You didn't come here to talk about the custody of Mery."
The lady smiled. "I admit to practicing a bit of deception," she replied. "But I've come here to tell you certain things and to perhaps give you a bit of a slap in the face."
"Who are you?" Areana repeated, looking askance at the lady's armed guard.
"Hush, child, so I can tell your husband something important."
"Don't speak to her like that," Leoff said.
The lady set her cup down. "Don't you wonder why, since the days of the Black Jester, no one has ever discovered what you discovered?"
"Robert placed certain books at my disposal."
"Yes, my point. There are books! They describe armies being slain by choirs of eunuchs and water organs. They explain how the modes function. These books are well known to scholars. Do you think in all of this time no one else with the talent to do so has attempted what you did?"
"I hadn't thought about it," Leoff admitted.
"It didn't happen because it wasn't possible," Graham, or whoever she was, said. "The music you created can only exist when the law of death is broken, as it was during the reign of the Black Jester. As it is now."
"The law of death?"
"The thing that separates life from death, that makes them different states."
"Robert!" Leoff exploded.
"Robert wasn't the first, but before him the law was only compromised. His return from death was the breaking point, and once broken, the law is more easily violated again and again, until the boundary between quick and dead is entirely gone. And when that happens-well, that's the end of us all. Imagine the law as like a dike, holding back deadly waters. When it's first compromised, there's just a small leak. Left alone, the hole gets wider no matter what. But when vandals start poking at it with shovels, it widens very quickly, and eventually the whole thing collapses."
"Why would anyone do that?"
"Well, you might put a small hole in a dike to run a water mill, yes? And you turn a profit and need a bigger mill, a larger stream of water? There is great power in violating the law of death. Robert can be stabbed in the heart and keep walking. You can write a sinfonia that murders, and that's only the start. As the law grows weaker, those who break it grow stronger. This is especially true now, as other powers of destruction are waxing."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Your music made the hole, so to speak, considerably wider."
"But what can I do? How was the law of death mended before?"
She smiled. "I've no idea. But consider the possibility that if the right song can weaken the law-"
"Then another might strengthen it," Areana finished.
The lady stood. "Precisely."
"Wait," Leoff said. "That's not nearly enough. Why should I even believe any of this?"
"Because you do."
"No. I've been duped before. I'm not off on another fool's errand that might make everything worse."
"If that's true, there is no hope," the lady replied. "In any event, I've said what I came to say."
"Wait a moment."
"No, I shan't. Good luck to you."
And despite his further protests, she left, mounted her carriage, and was gone, leaving Leoff and Areana staring after her.
"Artwair knew she was coming," Areana said. "Perhaps he can shed some light on this."
Leoff nodded and absently realized he still had the duke's letter in his hand. He held it up, and blinked.
What had earlier appeared to be Artwair's seal was only an unmarked dab of wax.