Chapter Forty-Two The Maiden and the Minstrel
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Maiden and the Minstrel
Mysteriously he arrived and mysteriously he disappeared, as though appearing from air and melting away into air once more. But for three short years of the Emperor’s reign, Merel the minstrel was the most famous singer and storyteller in Eyam.
Time of Lies, ANONYMOUS, now revised
The aproned man at the door eyed their ragtag band with deep suspicion. “There is no room at the inn.”
Her mother was dead, her home burned, and Caracalla was more tired than she had ever been in her life.
Ashes bitter between her lips and hanging from her eyelashes like tears, Caracalla began to sob in dry, painful gulps. It felt like she was swallowing cinders. Ink put an arm around her shoulders. Master Engus leaned forward and took her hand.
The Cobra took a large gold drop from his ear, and tossed it in the innkeeper’s direction. The man caught it, then looked at what he’d caught.
“Perhaps I was hasty. Now I think of it, there could be some room at the inn,” conceded the innkeep. “Actually we can rearrange some things, and there should be plenty of space. Please come in, my lord. Can I tempt you to some drinks and a meal as we prepare your chambers?”
As it seemed the preparations might take some time, they agreed.
The innkeeper stepped aside for his honoured guests and they filed in, Ink with her hat pulled low over her eyes and slouching to hide she was no stableboy, the Cobra’s glittering clothing smirched with blood and ash, and Caracalla stumbling through the smoky interior of the inn as through a nightmare.
Master Engus required assistance with his chair in order to ascend the three steps into the inn.
The Cobra seemed annoyed by this. The slight fuss attracted the attention of several villagers having drinks, and suddenly Master Engus was hailed on all sides by well-wishers. Everybody wanted to know if he was back for good and would set up the schoolhouse again.
Master Engus was the only one who shared her grief, but he had a home to return to. Caracalla did not.
The innkeeper ushered them towards a hastily cleared table near the fire. Caracalla flinched, though this fire was a small, smoky thing that gave off little heat. Even the man sitting directly beside the fireplace, legs stretched out and boots propped on the hearth, was still cloaked and hooded.
The Cobra ordered food for everybody, though Caracalla told him she wasn’t hungry. When it came, the Cobra tapped the wooden bowl with an autocratic chime of rings. Master Engus and Ink both gave her looks of such concern, Caracalla felt she simply must lift her spoon and eat just a bite.
She ended up scraping the bowl, rich, meaty soup sliding welcome down her smoke-scorched throat and the feeling of being full steadying her. What a monster she was, to feel better for having eaten, when her mother was dead.
“Would m’lord care for a song?” asked the newly assiduous innkeeper. “Here, you! Sing for your supper, or there won’t be one.”
The innkeep rang a metal cup against the wall of the hearth. The hooded and cloaked man startled, reaching for his boot – where he hid his few coins, Caracalla would wager – then checking the motion and picking up the lyre propped against his chair.
“And stop sulking under that rag.” The innkeep pushed back the man’s hood with the air of one chucking a child under the chin.
The young man drew his cloak more firmly around him.
From the look of him, so unusually pale you could see blue veins run beneath the skin and a certain cut of nose and mouth, he was foreign.
Judging by the way he clutched the cloak, he was from warmer climes, Lotharingia or even farther south.
A travelling minstrel, far from home. Sometimes Caracalla’s mother indulged her and let a wandering troubadour have food and shelter in the manor in exchange for a song.
Caracalla was always desperate to hear the minstrels’ stories.
She was as homeless as any footloose troubadour herself now. All the songs would ring false. But if Caracalla no longer ached for stories, someone else was forever loyal to them.
“Oh, hello.” The Cobra half rose from his chair at the sight of the minstrel. He sounded utterly delighted. “Well met, mysterious hooded stranger. What a fortunate chance encounter at an obscure country inn.”
The stranger plainly did not share the Cobra’s delight. “Do you know me?”
“I hope we can get to know each other. I am the Golden Cobra, otherwise known as the wicked Marquis of Popenjoy. And – correct me if I’m wrong – you must be Merel the minstrel.”
The minstrel arched a pale brow beneath a baby-fine fall of oil-black hair, cut peasant-short with the black too dense and dead a colour to be true.
Poor young man, Caracalla thought. He must have gone grey young.
That was unfortunate considering his chosen profession.
Audiences expected those in the performing arts to be decorative in addition to doing their job well.
Being decorative might be even more important than doing their job well.
“I must be. And how do you know me?”
The minstrel sounded coolly confused. He clearly didn’t know the Cobra at all.
“Call him m’lord,” snapped the innkeep.
“No need. You’re the most famous minstrel of the royal court in Themesvar.” The Cobra paused. “Well, you will be. Once you get there.”
Merel, if that was his name – and Caracalla supposed it must be – gave the Cobra a highly doubtful look.
“Fascinating. For now, since I am not yet feted by the royal court, I must sing for my supper. If you will excuse me…”
The innkeep lifted his arm to clout the minstrel about the ear for his insolence.
A shame, though richly deserved. But the Cobra made a sound of horrified protest. In the confusion the minstrel managed to duck under the innkeep’s arm and onto his feet, strings of his lyre already strumming.
He gave the Cobra a last, cold look before he turned his back on them.
“Apologies, my lord, he’s no idea how to speak to his betters. I can have him beaten or thrown out of doors if it’s your pleasure.”
The Cobra gave the innkeep a look almost as cold as the minstrel’s. “It would be my pleasure to hear him sing.”
“You’re too kind and forbearing, my lord. I’ll say one thing for him, it’s why I keep him on despite his nasty temper. He can sing.”
He could and did. The small, smoky inn was suddenly filled from floor to rafters with melody.
The minstrel’s long fingers moved so rapidly over the strings of the lyre that the dancing strings seemed to glitter.
Or perhaps the glitter was in Caracalla’s eyes.
The minstrel’s voice was a clarion call to sorrow, as though sound and tragedy could travel far enough to ring the stars like bells.
Before, she felt all her tears had dried up in the fire that burned the manor.
Listening to his voice, Caracalla felt it might be possible to cry.
That was the strange magic of a tragic song or story.
When they made you cry, they made you feel better.
They promised you were not alone in sorrow, that others had suffered and survived to tell the tale.
“Oh, I sing the saddest song
What must be, shall be.
Show me a hero, and
I’ll write you a—”
The Cobra called out, “Stop!”
The glow and glamour of the song cut off, like a door rudely slammed on someone bearing a gift. Merel the minstrel turned frostily to the Cobra. “I thought you wished to hear a song.”
“The story tries to fall back into place. The story wants certain events to happen,” murmured the Cobra, so low Caracalla didn’t think he intended anyone to hear.
If you wanted a Valerius not to hear, best to whisper in another room. In another country.
Louder, the Cobra told Merel: “Not that song. You heard that one in a dream, didn’t you? Don’t trust what comes in dreams. Sing me one of the songs you wrote yourself.” He leaned forward. “I want to hear you. Please.”
Caracalla thought he would offer money. Enough coin would persuade any hungry travelling minstrel to do whatever he wanted. But the only gold the Cobra offered was his imploring voice, the absolute sincerity of his attention, and his shining undeniable charm.
Even the cold minstrel said grudgingly, “Oh, very well,”
The strings started to fly once more, in a gleaming blur.
His voice began sad and beautiful and all-encompassing as before, a mourning song for all the world, nothing but grief.
Then the song changed and turned, suddenly coloured with anger and joy and a dozen different feelings, a rainbow of emotion defying the rain. Caracalla sat amazed.
“All those not born heroes, rise
Stars don’t shine, true love lies.
If you have no hope any more,
That’s what we need singing for.”
Caracalla might sit amazed, but nothing held the Cobra long.
He was listening in evident pleasure one moment.
He was on his feet the next, and for a wonder she was too.
He swung her right off the floor, and the Cobra and the song carried Caracalla in a whirl around the room, up to their ankles in wood shavings, throat still burning from smoke and sobs as she laughed.
She had imagined dancing with the Cobra a thousand times, always in a ballroom surrounded by her proud family and courtiers sorry they’d ever doubted her, sailing on a marble floor in a glittering ball gown with puff sleeves.
That was a beautiful fantasy and this was real and terrible, yet somehow still beautiful.
“We who fight but never win
If even trying was a sin,
Oh, we never stood a chance.
All that we can do is dance.”
When the Cobra dumped Caracalla, too breathless to laugh any more, onto the bench, Ink leaned forward and hissed, “Shouldn’t we be lying low to avoid detection, my lord?”
“I don’t think lying low would work for me,” said the Cobra. “Not really my style.”