LITMIR.BIZ

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there were only thirty-six strings, but in his weakened state, tuning her seemed to take him for ever. He struck out the main note from his steel tuning bar, then worked over the strings, adjusting the tiny ivory pegs while he sang out the intervals, until sweat ran down his face. This sign of weakness only drove him on until at last the harp was in reasonable tune, but he had to rest for a few minutes before he could play it. He ran a few trills, struck a few chords, and the music seemed to give him a small bit of his strength back as it echoed through the huge stone-walled room. The very size of the place added an eerie overtone to every note he played.

      Suddenly, at his shoulder, he felt the White Lady, his agwen, she who came to every bard who had true song in him. As she gathered, he felt the familiar chill down his back, the stirring of hair at the nape of his neck. For all that he called himself a gerthddyn, her presence and the inspiration she gave him was the sign that the kingdom had lost a true bard when Maddyn had pledged for a rider. Although his voice was weak and stiff that morning, he sang for his agwen, a long ballad, bits of lyric, whatever came to his mind, and the music soothed his wound as well as a healing poultice.

      All at once, he knew that he wasn’t alone. When he looked up, expecting to see Nevyn in the doorway, no one was indeed there. When he glanced around, he saw nothing but fire-thrown shadows. Yet every time he struck a chord, he felt an audience listening to him. The hair on the back of his neck pricked like a cat’s when he remembered Nevyn’s talk of spirits. You’re daft, he told himself sharply; there’s naught here. But he had performed too many times to believe himself. He knew the intangible difference between singing to empty air and playing to an attentive hall. When he sang two verses of a ballad, he felt them, whoever they were, leaning forward to catch every word. When he stopped and set the harp down, he sensed their disappointment.

      ‘Well, here, now. You can’t be such bad sorts, if you like a good song.’

      He thought he heard someone giggle behind him, but when he turned, there was nothing there but the wall. He got up and walked slowly and cautiously around the room, looked into every corner and crack – and saw nothing. Just as he sat down again, someone else giggled – this time he heard it plainly – like a tiny child who’s just played a successful prank. Maddyn grabbed his harp only with the somewhat fuddled thought of keeping it safe, but when he felt his invisible audience crowd round him in anticipation, he was too much of a bard to turn down any listeners, even incorporeal ones. When he struck the strings, he was sure he heard them give a little sigh of pleasure. Just because it was the first thing that came to mind, he sang through the fifty chained stanzas that told of King Bran’s sea-voyage to Deverry, and of the magical mist that swept him and his fleet away at the end. By the time the enchanted ships were safe in the long-lost, mysterious harbour in the far north, Maddyn was exhausted.

      ‘My apologies, but I’ve got to stop now.’

      A sigh sounded in regret. Someone touched his hair with a gentle stroke, like a pat on a dog; someone plucked at his sleeve with skinny-feeling fingers. The fire blazed up in the hearth; a draught of preternaturally cold air swirled around him. Maddyn shuddered and stood up, but little hands grabbed his brigga-leg. The harp-strings sounded in a random run down as someone tried them out. The very shadows came alive, eddying and swirling in every corner. Fingers were touching his face, stroking his arm, pinching his clothes, pulling his hair, while the harp-strings rang and strummed in an ugly belling.

      ‘Stop that, all of you!’ Nevyn yelled from the door. ‘That’s a wretched discourteous way to treat our guest!’

      The little fingers disappeared. The fire fell low, as if in embarrassment. Maddyn felt like weeping in relief as the herbman strode in, carrying a pair of saddlebags.

      ‘Truly, it was a nasty way to behave,’ Nevyn went on, addressing the seemingly empty air. ‘If you do that again, then Maddyn won’t ever play his harp for you.’

      The room went empty of presences. Nevyn tossed the saddlebags down on the table and gave Maddyn a grin. With shaking hands, Maddyn set his harp down and wiped the sweat from his face on his sleeve.

      ‘I should have warned you about that. They love music. My apologies, lad.’

      Maddyn tried to speak, failed, and sat down heavily on the bench. Behind him, a harp-string twanged. Nevyn scowled at the air beside it.

      ‘I said stop it!’

      A little puff of wind swept away.

      ‘Aren’t you going to ask me a few questions, Maddyn lad?’

      ‘To tell you the truth, I’m afraid to.’

      The old man laughed under his breath.

      ‘Well, I’ll answer anyway, questions or no. Those were what men call the Wildfolk. They’re like ill-trained children or puppies, all curiosity, no sense or manners. Unfortunately, they can hurt us mortal folk without even meaning to do so.’

      ‘I gathered that, sure enough.’ As he looked at his benefactor, Maddyn realized a truth he’d been avoiding for days now. ‘Sir, you must have dweomer.’

      ‘I do. How does that strike you?’

      ‘Like a blow. I never thought there was any such thing outside my own ballads and tales.’

      ‘Most men would consider me a bard’s fancy, truly, but my craft is real enough.’

      Maddyn stared, wondering how Nevyn could look so cursed ordinary, until the old man turned away with a good-humoured laugh and began rummaging in his saddlebags.

      ‘I brought you a bit of roast meat for your supper, lad. You need it to make back the blood you lost, and the villager I visited had some to spare to pay for my herbs.’

      ‘My thanks. Uh, when do you think I’ll be well enough to ride out?’

      ‘Oho! The spirits have you on the run, do they?’

      ‘Well, not to be ungrateful or suchlike, good sir’ Maddyn felt himself blush ‘but I … uh … well …’

      Nevyn laughed again.

      ‘No need to be ashamed, lad. Now as to the wound, it’ll be a good while yet before you’re fit. You rode right up to the gates of the Otherlands, and it always takes a man a long time to ride back again.’

      From that day on, the Wildfolk grew bolder around Maddyn, the way that hounds will slink out from under the table when they realize that their master’s guest is fond of dogs. Every time Maddyn picked up his harp, he was aware of their presence – a liveliness in the room, a small scuffle of half-heard noise, a light touch on his arm or hair, a breath of wind as something flew by. Whenever they pinched or mobbed him, he would simply threaten to stop singing, a threat that always made them behave themselves. Once, when he was struggling to light a fire with damp tinder, he felt them gather beside him. As he struck a spark from his steel, the Wildfolk blew it into a proper flame. When he thanked them automatically, he realized that he was beginning to take spirits for granted. As for Nevyn himself, although Maddyn studied the old man for traces of strange powers and stranger lore, he never saw any, except, of course, that spirits obeyed him.

      Maddyn also spent a lot of time thinking over his future. Since he was a member of an outlawed warband, he would hang if Tieryn Devyr ever got his hands on him. His one chance of an honourable life was slim indeed. If he rode down to Cantrae without the tieryn catching him, and then threw himself upon the gwerbret’s mercy, he might be pardoned simply because he was something of a bard and thus under special protection in the laws. Unfortunately, the pardon was unlikely, because it would depend on his liege’s whim, and Gwerbret Tibryn of the Boar was a harsh man. His clan, the Boars of the North, was related to the southern Boars of Muir, who had wheedled the gwerbretrhyn out of the King in Dun Deverry some fifty years before. Between them, the conjoint Boar clans ruled a vast stretch of the northern kingdom and were said to be the real power behind a puppet king in the Holy City. It was unlikely that Tibryn would bother to show mercy to a half-trained bard when that mercy would make one of his loyal tieryns grumble. Maddyn decided that since he and the spirits had worked out their accommodation, he would leave the gwerbret’s

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