Stephen reached the boy and knelt by him. “It’s bad,” he called to them. “He’s still bleeding. If we bandage him now, we might have a chance.”
“I don’t see anything,” Ehawk said.
“I know,” Aspar said. “I don’t like it.”
“Maybe you were wrong,” Winna suggested. “We don’t know that an utin—or whatever it is—is smart enough to set a trap.”
“The greffyn had men and Sefry traveling with it,” Aspar reminded her. He remembered the footprints. “This thing might, too. It doesn’t have to be smart enough itself.”
“Yah.”
He was missing something—he knew it. It had to have come into the clearing on foot. He had found only the one set of tracks in. He’d assumed it had left on the other side, then taken to the trees.
“Utins could shrink to the size of a gnat or turn into moss,” Winna had said.
“Stephen, come here, now,” Aspar shouted.
“But I—” His eyes widened, and his head nearly spun from his shoulders; then he lurched to his feet.
He hadn’t gone a yard when the ground seemed to explode, and in a cloud of rising leaves, something much larger than a man leapt toward Stephen.
3
Mery
Leoff’s fingers danced across the red-and-black keys of the hammarharp, but his mind drifted into daymarys of corpses with eyes of ash and a town gone forever still beneath the wings of night. Darkness crept through his fingers and into the keyboard, and the cheerful melody he had been playing suddenly brooded like a requiem. Frustrated, he reached for his crutches and used them to stand, wincing at the pain from his leg.
He considered returning to his room to lie down, but the thought of that small dark chamber depressed him. The music room was sunny, at least, with two tall windows looking out across the city of Eslen and Newland beyond. It was well furnished with instruments, as well—besides the hammarharp, the were croths of all sizes, lutes and theorbos, hautboys, recorders, flageolettes and bagpipes. There was an ample supply of paper and ink, too.
Most of these things lay under a fine layer of dust, however, and none of the stringed instruments had been tuned in years. Leoff wondered exactly how long it had been since the court had employed a resident composer.
More pointedly, he wondered if the court employed one now.
When would he hear from the queen?
Artwair had as been as good as his word, finding Leoff quarters in the castle and getting him permission to use the music room. He’d had a very brief audience with the king, who had hardly seemed to know he was there. The queen had been there, beautiful and regal, and at her prompting, the king had commended him for his actions at Broogh. Neither had said anything about his appointment. And though a few suits of clothes had been made for him and meals came regularly to his chambers, in twice ninedays he had been given no commission.
So he had dabbled. He’d written down the song of the malend, arranging it for a twelve-piece consort and then—dissatisfied with the result—for thirty instruments. No consort so large had ever played, to his knowledge, but in his mind that was what he heard.
He’d made another stab at the elusive melody from the hills, but something kept stopping him, and he had laid that aside, instead beginning a suite of courtly dance music, anticipating the hoped-for commission—for a wedding, perhaps.
Through it all, the dead of Broogh haunted him, crying out for a voice. He knew what he needed to do, but he hesitated. He was afraid that the composition of so powerful a work as was forming in his mind might somehow drain him of his own life.
So he fretted, and poked about the music room, exploring the manuscrifts in its cabinets, tuning the stringed instruments, then tuning them again.
He was staring out the window at distant barges on the Dew when he heard a muffled sneeze. He turned to see who was there, but there was no one in the room. The door was ajar, and he could see ten yards of the hall beyond.
The hair on his neck pricking up, he walked slowly around the room, wondering if he had imagined the sound.
But then it came again, louder, from one of the wooden cabinets.
He stared at the source of the noise, fear waxing. Had they found him, the murderers from Broogh? Had they come for revenge, sent an assassin, fearing he might reveal them?
Carefully, he picked up the nearest thing at hand, an hautboy. It was heavy—and pointed.
He glanced back out into the hall. No guard was to be seen. He considered going to find one, and almost did, but instead, he steeled himself, advanced on the cabinet, and brandishing the hautboy, quickly grabbed the handle and yanked it open.
Wide eyes blinked up at him, and a small mouth gave a little gasp. The child within stared at him a moment, as Leoff relaxed.
The cabinet held a little girl, probably no more than six or seven years of age. She wore a blue satin gown, and her long brown hair was rather disarrayed. Her blue eyes seemed guileless.
“Hello,” he said after a moment. “You gave me rather a fright. What’s your name?”
“It’s Mery, please,” she replied.
“Why don’t you come on out, Mery, and tell me why you’re hiding in here.”
“Yes, please,” she said, and scooted out of the cramped space. She stood and then backed away from him.
“I’ll go now,” she said.
“No, wait. What were you doing in there?”
“Nobody used to be in here,” she said. “I would come in and play with the hammarharp. I like the way it sounds. Now you’re here, and I can’t play it, but I like to listen to you.”
“Well, Mery, you might have asked. I wouldn’t mind you listening sometimes.”
She hung her head a little. “I just try to stay quiet and not be seen. It’s best that way.”
“Nonsense. You’re a beautiful little girl. There’s no reason to be shy.”
She didn’t answer, but stared at him as if he were speaking Vitellian.
He pulled another stool up to the hammarharp. “Sit here. I’ll play you something.”
Her eyes widened further, and then she frowned, as if doubting him. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
She did as he said, settling on the stool.
“Now, what’s your favorite song?”
She thought for a moment. “I like ‘Round the Hill and Back Again.’”
“I know that one,” he said. “It was a favorite of mine when I was your age. Let’s see—does it go like this?” He picked out the melody line.
She smiled.
“I thought so. Now let me play it with two hands.” He started a simple bass line and played through again, and on the third pass added a counterpoint.
“It’s like a dance now,” she observed.
“Yes,” he said. “But listen, I can change it into a hymn.” He dropped the moving bass line and went into four-part harmony. “Or I can make it sad.” He shifted into a more plaintive mode.
She smiled again. “I like it like that. How can you make one song into so many songs?”
“That’s what I do,” he said.
“But how?”
“Well—imagine you want to say something. ‘I want some water to drink.’ How many ways could you say that?”
Mery considered. “Some water I want to drink?”
“Right. How else?”
“I’d like some water to drink, please.”
“Just so. Politely.”
“I want some water, now.”
“Commanding, yes. Angrily?”
“Give me some water!” She suppressed a giggle at her feigned rage.
“And so on,” Leoff said. “It’s the same with music. There are many ways of expressing the same idea. It’s a matter of choosing the right ones.”
“Can you do it with another song?”
“Of course. What song would you like?”
“I don’t know the name of it.”
“Can you hum it?”
“I think so.” She concentrated, and began humming.
Two things struck Leoff immediately. The first was that she was humming the main theme from the “Song of the Malend,” which he’d just written down only a few days before.