Such Madness

I MADE SEVERAL TRIPS TO Severen-Low to gather materials for Alveron’s gram. Raw gold. Nickel and iron. Coal and etching acids. I acquired the money for these purchases by selling off various pieces of equipment from Caudicus’ workshop. I could have asked the Maer for money, but I’d rather he thought of me as independently resourceful rather than an ongoing financial drain.

Quite by coincidence, in the course of this buying and selling, I visited many of the places Denna and I had spent time together.

I’d grown so accustomed to finding her that now I caught glimpses of her when she wasn’t there. Every day my hopeful heart rose at the sight of her turning a corner, stepping into a cobbler’s, raising her hand to wave from across a courtyard. But it was never truly her, and I returned to the Maer’s estate each evening more desolate than the day before.

Making things worse was the fact that Bredon had left Severen several days ago to visit some nearby relatives. I didn’t realize how much I’d come to depend on him until he was gone.

As I’ve already said, a gram is not particularly difficult to make if you have the proper equipment, a schema, and an Alar like a blade of Ramston steel. The metalworking tools in Caudicus’ tower were serviceable, though nowhere near as nice as those in the Fishery. The schema was no difficulty either, as I have a good memory for such things.

While I was working on the Maer’s gram, I started a second one to replace the one I’d lost. Unfortunately, given the relatively crude nature of the equipment I was working with, I didn’t have time to finish it properly.

I finished the Maer’s gram three days after talking to the Maer, six days after Denna’s sudden disappearance. The following day I abandoned my pointless searching and planted myself in one of the open air-cafés where I drank coffee and tried to find inspiration for the song I owed the Maer. Ten hours I spent there, and the only act of creation I accomplished was to magically transform nearly a gallon of coffee into marvelous, aromatic piss.

That night I drank an unwise amount of scutten and fell asleep at my writing desk. Meluan’s song was still unfinished. The Maer was less than pleased.

* * *

Denna reappeared on the seventh day as I wandered our haunts in Severen-Low. Despite all my searching, she saw me first and ran laughing to my side, excited to tell me about a song she’d heard the day before. We spent the day together as easily as if she’d never left.

I didn’t ask her about her unexplained disappearance. I’d known Denna for more than a year now, and I understood a few of the hidden turnings of her heart. I knew she valued her privacy. I knew she had secrets.

That night, we were in a small garden that ran along the very edge of the Sheer. We sat on a wooden bench looking out over the dark city below: a messy splay of lamplight, streetlight, gaslight, with a few rare sharp points of sympathy light scattered throughout.

“I am sorry, you know,” she said softly.

We’d been sitting, quietly watching the lights of the city for nearly a quarter hour. If she was continuing some previous conversation, I couldn’t remember what it was. “Beg pardon?”

When Denna didn’t say anything immediately, I turned to look at her. There was no moon, and the night was dark. Her face was dimly illuminated by the thousand lights below.

“Sometimes I leave,” she said at last. “Quick and quiet in the night.”

Denna didn’t look at me as she spoke, keeping her dark eyes fixed on the city below. “It’s what I do,” she continued, her voice quiet. “I leave. No word or warning first. No explanation after. Sometimes it’s the only thing that I can do.”

She turned to meet my eyes then, her face serious in the dim light. “I hope you know without my telling you,” she said. “I hope I don’t need to say it. . . .”

Denna turned back to look at the glimmering lights below. “But for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

We sat for a while then, enjoying a comfortable silence. I wanted to say something. I wanted to say it didn’t bother me, but that would be a lie. I wanted to tell her all that really mattered to me was that she came back, but I was worried that might be too much truth.

So rather that risk saying the wrong thing, I said nothing. I knew what happened to the men who clung to her too tightly. That was the difference between me and the others. I did not clutch at her, try to own her. I did not slip my arm around her, murmur in her ear, or kiss her unsuspecting cheek.

Certainly, I thought of it. I still remembered the warmth of her when she had thrown her arms around me near the horse lift. There were times I would have given my right hand to hold her again.

But then I thought of the faces of the other men when they realized Denna was leaving them. I thought of all the others who had tried to tie her to the ground and failed. So I resisted showing her the songs and poems I had written, knowing that too much truth can ruin a thing.

And if that meant she wasn’t entirely mine, what of it? I would be the one she could always return to without fear of recrimination or question. So I did not try to win her and contented myself with playing a beautiful game.

But there was always a part of me that hoped for more, and so there was a part of me that was always a fool.

* * *

Days passed, and Denna and I explored the streets of Severen. We lounged in cafés, attended plays, went riding. We climbed the face of the Sheer using the low road just to say we’d done it. We visited the dock markets, a traveling menagerie, and several curiosity cabinets.

Some days we did nothing but sit and talk, and on those days, nothing filled our conversations as much as music.

We spent countless hours discussing the craft of it. How songs fit together. How chorus and verse play against each other, about tone and mode and meter.

These were things I’d learned at an early age and thought about often. And though Denna was new to this study, in some ways that worked to her advantage. I’d learned about music since before I could talk. I knew ten thousand rules of melody and verse better than I knew the backs of my own hands.

Denna didn’t. In some ways this hampered her, but in other ways it made her music strange and marvelous. . . .

I’m doing a poor job of explaining this. Think of music as being a great snarl of a city like Tarbean. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning and clever.

Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You’d think she’d be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone.

But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.

* * *

In the end it took twenty-three letters, six songs, and, though it shames me to say it, one poem.

There was more to it than that, of course. Letters alone cannot win a woman’s heart. Alveron did a fair piece of his own courting. And after he revealed himself as Meluan’s anonymous suitor, he did the lion’s share of the work, slowly wooing Meluan to his side with the gentle reverence he felt for her.

But my letters caught her attention. My songs brought her close enough for Alveron to work his slow, garrulous charm.

Even so, I can take only a small piece of credit for the letters and songs. And as for the poem, there is only one thing in the world that could move me to such madness.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 786