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I wore the formal clothes of a Bard-in-training, or at least the best imitation that Elise could borrow for me. I had a loose white linen tunic – though plain, without the special embroidery on the edges – and dark woolen trousers – if not black linen ones. I wore no shoes, no belt, and no hat. I threw a cape around my shoulders – though again, it was dark wool, not black linen.
Most formal occasions took place in the summer, and those in the winter were unusually short.
Harp in hand, I went to Daniel’s rooms.
Helena, his young daughter, opened the door. Although she still had the straight figure of a child, she wore a woman’s girdle and veil, having taken it on when her mother died. Her wide green eyes, still full of innocence, were all serious. I greeted with signs.
She frowned. “Did the Monks send you? Father is tired of them.”
I shook my head.
Disbelief replaced the look of annoyance on her face. “Then what do you want?”
I pointed to my harp, then stroked my hands over the strings.
“Father hit the last Monk with a poker.”
I turned up my hand in question.
“Just this morning. They’re very persistant.”
I nodded in what I hoped was an understanding smile, firmly pointed in.
She shrugged, and let me enter. “Father, the Harpist is here to play.”
“Send him away,” Daniel growled from his chair by the fire. He looked worse than I had expected. His skin was sallow and loose, and there were dark shadows beneath eyes that now wandered independently of each other – a very bad sign, I knew. Worse than his appearance was the way he slumped in his chair, waiting to die.
Had I once looked that way?
I knelt by his feet and arranged my harp.
“Has he left?” Daniel asked.
“He is going to play for you,” Helena insisted.
“Make him leave. I am useless. I want to be forgotten, left to the darkness.”
Instead Helena bit her lip. She was as trapped as her father, but worse for her was that she had to watch him in this way. I knew trapped. I knew uselessness. I would never be a Bard – except in Elise’s eyes. But I could still play, and I could give music to others.
And though Daniel was now blind, he had much wisdom that my Lord desperately needed, and could not afford to just let die. I touched my hands to the strings.
He started at the first notes, but I quickly wove a tune that often calmed my lord. Daniel also relaxed. Then I started a new melody, one that curled around the room and embraced us three. It was not what I had planned to play, and it was nothing I had practiced before – the notes flowed from my hands to the strings, and from there to the room, then opened a path to the spirit world.
I walked among dark trees whose heavy branches bent to the ground, laden as they were with an overgrowth of black leaves and sour fruit. The ground beyond the path was thick with thorns and briars, and behind us those bushes crawled over the path, trapping us and forcing us forward. This was the forest of despair, I knew, and few returned from its depths.
The path turned, and suddenly we faced a fountain of white flame that shot as tall as the highest tree. It bathed the forest in a light as warm of sunlight, and the encroaching trees pulled away, branches pulled back like arms before faces. No shadow could defeat that fire. We stood before it, three dark and hungry souls.
I reached out and caught a bit of the flame in my hands. It did not hurt me, though it warmed me within. My hands shone like silver. I passed it to Helena, who held it to her face and smiled as I had not seen her smile for years. Then she turned to hand it to Daniel.
Instead of accepting the flame in her hands, he plunged himself into the fountain. The darkness within him burned away like dross, and he laughed. Like Helena’s smile, it had been a long time since I had heard that laugh, and even then it had never been as loud or as joyful as what I heard now. No one at Songless ever laughed like that.
The Daniel stepped from the flame, a being of pure light that harbored no shadows.
I returned to the room. My hands were still; the strings were quiet. Sunset stained the windowsill with a blood-red light, and the scent of roasted meat wafted in from the kitchen. Daniel slept.
Helena helped me rise, then silently showed me the door. She paused, then bowed, crossed herself, and whispered, “You are a saint.”
Hardly. A Pagan Bard-in-training who defied his lord and spent his evenings in the hay with a willing woman was not what the Christians wanted in their saints. I smiled at her, wanting to laugh, but I knew that would hurt the maiden more than letting the untruth stand.
She smiled back.
