Ships of Merior - Chapter Two - Vagrant
May. 9th, 2021 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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i_read_whatSo last time, Asandir was a dick, Jieret was awesome (and tragic), and Dakar won my love for not giving a flying fuck about what his asshole master ordered.
Let's see what he's up to today!
I should probably warn that there is an incident of non-consensual touching toward the beginning of this chapter, which is played as comedic. (It's in the first quoted excerpt.)
We rejoin Dakar as he's waking up in a tavern. His morning after is evocatively described, my favorite line being: His mouth tasted as if it had hosted a convocation of snails. His boots are gone.
However, it appears like Asandir's training is good for something: he can use it to get rid of hangovers. He can also, apparently, use it to correct his vision. He was born nearsighted. Unfortunately, he has to be sober and clear-minded to do that, and Dakar doesn't particularly like either of those states. Unfortunately, when he seeks to remedy the situation, he finds that his pockets and purse are empty.
A less than sympathetic barmaid explains that he wasn't robbed (and indeed, if you recall from Mistwraith, Dakar has magical defenses against that), instead, he'd apparently put away FIFTEEN ROUNDS of ale. Dakar reflects that this is probably true, from the state of his bladder. The barmaid says that the only reason he wasn't thrown out on his ear was because the weather is so bad that the landlord took pity on him.
She blocks his passage to the privy to harangue him, and we get a nice description of the tavern:
Since Dakar had yet to raise concern over what the day looked like outdoors, he surveyed the room to fix his bearings. The tavern was of typical backlands construction: two storeyed, with the ceiling beams that supported the second floor set low enough to bother a tall man’s posture. The single lantern hissed and sputtered, fuelled by a reeking tallow dip that smoked far worse than the hearth. In a dimness tinged luridly orange, darts flurried between support posts into a shaggy straw target. The mule drover cursed a wide throw, which prompted a laugh from the tanner. A gnarled old cooper in the corner muttered slurred lines of doggerel, and sniggers erupted like the feeding squeals of a hog’s farrow. Dakar, brimming and uncomfortable, rolled long-suffering eyes. When the bar wench failed to move, he succumbed to temptation and shoved a hand down her bulging blouse.
No matter how unsteady he was on his feet, his fingers knew their way about a woman.
The wench hissed in affront. Her shove plonked the Mad Prophet backward on the unpadded timber of the bench. The air left his lungs in a whistle. Tediously, he started the effort of dragging himself upright all over again.
The barmaid hopes his bollocks freeze solid and storms off. Dakar then hears someone claim that his competitor "cheat[s] like the Shadow Master himself."
Dakar kind of, sort of, defends Arithon with an insult: ‘Yon one’s no man for harmless games. His sort of tricks infuriate and kill and make enemies.’
I'm vaguely reminded of a time in the Galactic Milieu trilogy where someone suspects series Byronic villain/anti-hero Marc Remillard of being the serial killer Fury, and someone else defends him by saying that if he wanted to take over the galaxy, he'd just do it, rather than create a psychopathic alter ego to do it for him. Defense via insult is one of my favorite tropes.
Anyway, a different bystander has a much more extreme reaction:
But the Mad Prophet’s slurred advice was pre-empted by warning from another bystander. ‘Don’t speak that name here! Would you draw him, and the winds of ill luck? Sorcerers hear their names spoken. There’s a burned patch, I’ve heard, in Deshir where the soldier’s bones lie that will never again grow green trees.’
So...that's the kind of press Arithon's dealing with now. Dakar actually is about to denounce this, and I'm sad not to hear what kind of insult he'd offer to defend Arithon this time, but he's interrupted when the door opens under his hand and he tumbles outside into the snow and ice. And to be fair, it sounds fucking dreadful. (But he does find the privy and back, so good for him?)
When he returns, there's a new arrival! Someone who has captured all the attention: the Masterbard himself! (Dakar is shocked to hear this too. And apparently is on a first name basis with Halliron. Which makes some sense. The Fellowship sorcerers seem to know everyone.)
So anyway, Halliron offers silver for rooms, but gets them free of charge. Even if he's not going to play, the news of his arrival will draw customers anyway. Halliron promises that he won't go tuneless. Also, Halliron didn't come alone. His apprentice came too.
And indeed, he has a sufficiently dramatic entrance himself:
The door latch tripped amid the tirade. Wind-driven sleet slashed in on the draught that breathed chill through the fug from the fire as a figure muffled in wet woollens entered, moving fast. Dakar’s parked bulk was side-stepped and a new voice cut in, declaiming, ‘Your anger’s misplaced. Your groom is hard at work. The harness was wet and needed oiling, and Halliron’s pony hates boys. My master would have told you, I usually tend him myself.’
Impatient with his headache and his relapsed eyesight, Dakar squinted at the latest arrival. Layered as he was in tatty mufflers and a cape-shouldered, nondescript mantle, there seemed more wool to him than man. A path cleared before him to the hearthside. Caked ice cracked from his clothing as he undid fastenings to disgorge a long, tapered bundle laced in oilskins. This he deposited carefully out of reach of the fire’s leaping heat. A pair of wet gloves flew off after, to land smartly on top of the settle.
Then movement at the corner of his vision caused the stranger swiftly to spin. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Let me.’
And Halliron, who had reached to unfasten his cloak brooch, found his wrists gently caught and restrained.
‘You must spare those fingers,’ chided the Master-bard’s apprentice. All unwittingly, he had managed to draw every eye in the room.
Halliron makes a wry comment about age, while his apprentice gets a dramatic reveal:
While the wench hustled off, a thoughtful Dakar propped his swaying balance against the nearest trestle. As unabashed as the dart players, he stared while the bard’s apprentice left off attending his master and turned to peel off his own heavy cloak. The man revealed underneath proved to be an indeterminate age in his twenties, compactly built to the point of slenderness. Nondescript ash brown hair fell lankly over thin cheekbones, and his eyes were a muddy grey hazel.
He was nobody Dakar knew.
Hee, I'm reminded now of that bit in the Justice League cartoon where Lex Luthor is in the Flash's body, removes the cowl all "Hah, I know your identity!" and then is all "I have no idea who this is."
This is Medlir, by the way, Halliron's apprentice. This may puzzle you, if you remember how Curse of the Mistwraith ends. The end of the chapter will explain it.
But I'm going to blow the secret now, because it's a lot funnier this way. Of course, Medlir is Arithon. If you recall, Arithon (and Lysaer) have the sort of fantasy world genetics that make their family ancestry really fucking obvious to anyone who sees them. Wisely enough, Arithon has realized that using his actual face and name is a really bad idea. Ergo, Medlir.
So anyway, Halliron starts relaying news and gossip, as one does when one is a Masterbard. Dakar uses the distraction of his presence to sidle back up to the bar. Unfortunately though, his lack of money is a bit of an obstacle. But then, suddenly, he has company:
A shadow loomed at his flank: the bard’s hazel-eyed apprentice, arrived without sound, and all but standing on top of him. The Mad Prophet gave a violent start that slopped foam in cold runnels down his backside.
‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced,’ he assayed, caught up meanwhile in a disastrous grab to stem the copious gush of the beer. He fumbled the twist. Brew rose hissing over the tankard brim and pattered over the frayed heels of his socks.
The apprentice minstrel gave a wicked grin, leaned across, and deftly turned off the spigot. ‘I’m called Medlir. And I suggest you’re mistaken. I’m very certain I know you.’
Dakar is not terribly interested in talking, retorts "From some bad line in a ballad, maybe" and focuses on swiping himself some beer while looking Medlir square in the eye. The "odd little man" says nothing about it, though he does warn Dakar about the angry barmaid's approach.
And in fact, he does more than that:
‘Not so fast.’ Medlir stopped the move with long, slender fingers and flipped a silver with clanging accuracy into the bowl on the bar wench’s tray. ‘Drink to my health,’ he invited Dakar. ‘The change should pay for the spill on the floor, and keep your throat wet through this evening.’
Startled speechless, the Mad Prophet let himself be ushered away and seated with a squish of wet clothing at a trestle off to one side. Oddly uneasy with the way his luck had turned, he sucked a long pull from his tankard, licked foam from his moustache, and grimaced at the lye taste of soap. ‘Surely a ballad?’ he ventured obliquely.
Actually, he's met Asandir. This initially freaks Dakar out, but then he remembers that Medlir is Halliron's apprentice, and Halliron is friendly with the Fellowship. He asks if that troubles Dakar.
Dakar downplays it and drinks to Medlir's health.
Aware that the trestles were filling, Medlir arose in clear-eyed regret. ‘I’m needed. Perhaps later, we can find time to talk.’
Ever and always agreeable to the man who would keep him in beer, the Mad Prophet grinned lopsidedly back. ‘Here’s to later,’ he said; and he drank.
And this is why I blew the secret. Because it is infinitely funnier to realize that this is Arithon s'Ffalenn both shamelessly flirting with and trolling Dakar. And yeah, he knows what he's doing.
Anyway, "Medlir" plays for the happy crowd. We're told that he's "skilled, and possessed of an energy that made the trestle planks bounce to the beat of their stamping."
Dakar isn't surprised by this, thinking about how Halliron had been auditioning apprentices his whole life, and "Medlir" is the SOLE APPLICANT to match his exacting standards. (Of course!) And Medlir seems to be very much enjoying himself.
But then, after midnight, it's time to surrender the lyranthe to the master.
And he gets a request:
The stillness swelled and deepened. From the rear of the tavern, a reveller called out, ‘Master singer! Folk passing out of Etarra speak of a battle fought in Deshir some years back against that sorcerer prince who shifts shadows. Do you know aught of that?’
Halliron’s hand snapped off a run, distinct as a volley of arrows.’ ‘Yes.’ He locked eyes for a second with Medlir, who set aside his meal and said something contrite about forgetting to check on the pony. To the rough-clad miner’s request the Masterbard replied, ‘I can play that ballad. No one better. For in fact, I was there.’
The other reason I spilled the beans early is that otherwise, we wouldn't appreciate the character beats here: Halliron's kindness and warning, "Medlir's" very swift departure.
Before leaving, Medlir exchanges some words with Dakar:
‘You won’t feel too drunk when he reaches the ending of this one,’ Medlir said to Dakar as he passed on his way to the door.
The Mad Prophet was too besotted to respond beyond a grunt, but the gem-cutter beside him ventured comment. ‘How so? Won’t we be stirred by the war’s young hero, that blond-haired prince from the west?’
Medlir’s lips thinned to tightness. ‘What is any war but a massacre?’ Through the drawing beat of the secondary chords, he shrugged off introspective impatience. ‘Even without lyrics or story, Halliron’s melody by itself could wring tears from a statue.’
Dakar has the brief, drunken thought that Medlir's eyes should be something other than gray-hazel.
It is true that Wurts isn't particularly subtle here.
So, Halliron sings his song:
Then the spangled brilliance of the Masterbard’s instrument was joined by his beautiful voice, haunting and rich and clear-toned; in its thrall every listener was transported to a morning in spring when the mists had lifted over the marshes of the river Tal Quorin. The odds in their favour ten to one, a town garrison had marched on the forest bred clansmen who dared shelter Arithon s’Ffalenn, the renegade Prince of Rathain also called Master of Shadow.
‘What law has sanctioned a war for one life,
when no bloodshed was sought at Etarra?
Shadow fell in defence, for no man died
by command of the prince to be harrowed.’
There came an uneasy shifting of feet, of creaking boards, and flurried whispers that Halliron’s art skilfully reined back short of outrage. For this ballad’s course commemorated no beloved saviour in glittering gold and sapphires, avenging with righteous bolts of light. This spare, driving, tragic account held no bright hero at the ending, but only men ruinously possessed by their hatreds to grasp the first reason to strike down long-standing enemies.
‘Who shall weep, Lord Steiven, Earl of the North,
for the refuge that failed to spare your clan?
The prince in your care once begged to fare forth,
then stayed; his liegemen were fate-cursed to stand.’
It continues for a while. I'm particularly fond of this verse:
Deshir’s butcher and Prince Arithon’s bane,
Lysaer s’Ilessid loosed his gifted light
Sixty score innocents writhed in white flame
for miscalled mercy, blind justice, and right.’
It's probably an indicator of how affected I still am by the events in Mistwraith that I can't bring myself to apply the Lachlan to Menolly scale here.
Anyway, the ballad is very effective. Everyone is very affected. And one woman is even heard to say that if she hadn't lost her jewels to clan scoundrels, she might almost feel sorry for the Deshans.
...yeah, because one robbery totally justifies a massacre, lady.
And Dakar is not unaffected:
Dakar simply sat, eyes round as coins fixed morosely on the hands that cradled a tankard of stale beer. In time, some minutes after Halliron had retired upstairs to his room, Medlir arrived, and sat down, and unstoppered a cut-glass decanter. He produced two goblets of turned maple and poured out three fingers of peach brandy, the rich smell piquantly sharp in the heated sea of used air.
One the bard’s apprentice pressed upon the Mad Prophet; the other, he nursed for himself.
In companionable sympathy for a well-timed escape to the stables, Dakar sighed, ‘These folk will go home tonight and maybe think. By tomorrow, over sore heads, they’ll say the Masterbard must have exaggerated. Deshir’s barbarians are best off dead, they’ll insist, and shrug off what they heard entirely when the next Etarran wool factor passes through. What did your master hope to gain?’
"Medlir" asks why he cares, and Dakar brings up Asandir and how he's not lenient when crossed. And, this bit is one of the reasons I had to blow the secret.
‘No wonder you’re driven to drink.’ Medlir hooked the flask from between his knees and refilled Dakar’s goblet. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing,’ Dakar said. ‘That’s my problem. That bastard of a sorcerer, the one the Deshans fought for? I was sent off to find him, and save him being mauled by his enemies. But let me tell you, Halliron’s ballad aside, if you’d met him, you’d cheer Etarra’s garrison.’
Medlir took a sip from his goblet, leaned back against the trestle, and closed his eyes. ‘Why so?’
‘He’s crafty,’ Dakar said, fixed on the sway of the bar wench’s hips as she made rounds to darken the lanterns. ‘Secretive. He doesn’t at all take to company that’s apt to meddle in his business.’
‘And what would his business be, do you think?’ Medlir asked from the darkness.
Dakar stuck out his lower lip and choked through a spray of fine spirits. ‘The Fatemaster himself only knows! But Arithon’s a vindictive bastard with self-righteous aversions to liquor and ladies and comforts. I’d sooner take Dharkaron Avenger to be my drinking companion.’
‘Ah,’ said Medlir. He raised his lids and smiled, his eyes caught like a cat’s in the dying gleam from the fire. ‘If you fear Asandir might catch up with you, why not share the road with us? We’re headed into the low country, then southward to Shand in easy stages.’ He arose, stretched, then set the half-emptied flask companionably by Dakar’s left knee. ‘Halliron’s fingers get sore in the cold and lengthy hours of performance tax his strength. We seldom play long at one tavern. As our guest, you’d have free beer and most of the comforts you could wish.’
Oh, Arithon, I missed your capacity for shameless assholery. I really did. And I missed Ms. Wurts complete lack of subtlety. No. That's not what's going on here. That's not a lack of subtlety, that's a DISINTEREST in subtlety.
And it's fascinating too. "Medlir" is of course fucking with Dakar. As we'll see later, Arithon knows what Dakar's assignment is, and he knows full well that Dakar dislikes him.
But what's interesting is that the dislike may not actually be mutual. If Arithon truly disliked Dakar, then why invite him along? It's no skin off his back whether or not Dakar obeys Asandir's directive or not. It'd be easy enough to go their separate ways.
Instead, he invites Dakar along. And apparently seems happy enough to flirt with him the whole time. Does he mean it? Who knows. But he does seem content to allow Dakar to complete his assignment, while giving him all the beer he wants.
Of course, he's doing it in the most assholish, most likely to backfire, way possible. But he wouldn't be Arithon if he didn't. I missed the little bastard.
Dakar wakes up the next morning miserably hungover (after having passed out, saying that he'd "been kissed on the lips by lady fortune"). He's in Halliron's pony-cart, wedged between bundles of baggage and it just occurs to me how this is clearly a five year belated revenge for the way Lysaer and Dakar had tossed an unconscious Arithon into the back of the wagon when they left Althain Tower.
And this bit is pretty amusing:
Badgered through his sleep by a quick-tongued man with green eyes, black hair, and the sharp-planed features of s’Ffalenn royalty, the Mad Prophet wondered what prompted his mind to play tricks and prod him with memories of the Shadow Master.
Then the cart jerked to a stop, which taxed his thought to a standstill. A shadow fell over him. Somebody not much larger than his nemesis in build, but with intentions infinitely kinder said, ‘Do you have to pee?’
They banter a bit, before Dakar staggers into the roadway to get sick. "Medlir"'s "thoughtful grip" is the only thing that keeps him from pitching head-first into the ditch. When he gets upright he realizes that he's got his boots back. His stockings are crumpled and chafing in a way that will leave blisters:
Still, Dakar concluded as he hauled himself back to the wagon, he would perish of a million wasting hangovers before he would bend to Asandir’s will concerning the Master of Shadow. If my life wasn’t bothered by sorcerers, maybe then I could stop drinking,’ he confided as he moled his way under a carriage rug.
So Halliron drives, "Medlir" walks beside, and Dakar gets to overhear some of the rigorous study involved in a bardic apprenticeship. We're told that Halliron, while he wears his age well, is actually eighty-seven, and thus training his successor is a time-sensitive matter.
When they stop for rest, Medlir fills Dakar in on their plans: they're heading to the country of Shand, specifically a place called Innish. Halliron was born there, and he wants to see it again before he dies. He also has family: a daughter, whose mother had preferred not to travel. The plan is to make it by the summer.
Dakar, now clear-headed, is contemplating things:
The common room was nearly empty, the last relay of messengers from Highscarp being mounted outside in the yard. Flushed from the morning’s raw winds, or maybe the heat of the fire, Medlir appeared not to mind the way Dakar surveyed him relentlessly: from slim, musician’s fingers that tapped whistle tunes on the edges of the crockery, to the unique way he chose to style his shirts, with sleeves full and long to the forearm, the cuffs tight-laced over the wrists to end at the heel of his hands.
In the hour of the Mist wraith’s curse, Arithon had once fielded a strike from a light-bolt that left him welted from right palm to elbow, Dakar remembered. The unbidden association made him frown. He stared all the closer at Halliron’s apprentice, who leaned back to stretch in the sunlight that sloped through the casement.
His hands proved unscarred on both sides.
Dakar thinks that he's being paranoid. Arithon is mage-trained, and Dakar should be able to see his very very powerful aura. And he can't! (now that he's sober enough to use his training.) BUT, that IS something that could be masked by shadow. So he tries one more test:
The Mad Prophet looked into the man’s guileless face, then on impulse raised his hands and summoned power until his fingers streamed trailers of mage-fire.
Grey eyes ticked with mustard flecks watched him back, neither dazzled nor curious. Not a lash or a lid quivered at Dakar’s display; the minstrel apprentice’s pupils, widened in the dimness, failed to narrow so much as a hair’s-breadth.
Meanwhile, "Medlir" is guilelessly asking Dakar if he doesn't want to share his meal, then apologizes, realizing that Dakar must still be quite shaky. He explains that they'll be sticking around for the rest of the day to allow Halliron to rest up. Medlir will be playing, and Dakar will be welcome to a bed and hot soup.
There's some flirty banter:
Now Dakar grinned slyly back. ‘Actually, I’d rather hear you sing me the ballad of the Cat and the Mead.’
‘Which version?’ Medlir reached across the bench, lifted Halliron’s instrument, and began with enthusiasm to untie wrappings. ‘There’s the one that’s suitable for little children, and the one fit for nowhere but the bawdy house, and a half dozen variations that fall in the range in between.’
‘Oh, try the one that’s obscene,’ Dakar said, his plump chin propped on folded knuckles and his cheeks dimpled in contentment over his scraggle of red beard.
‘The one with eighty eight verses and that awful repetitive chorus?’ Medlir tucked the lyranthe on his lap, made swift adjustment of the strings, and caught Dakar’s nod as he dashed off a run in E major to test his tuning. ‘Well,’ he said with a long-suffering patience that Arithon s’Ffalenn had never owned. ‘About verse fifty, please remember, you were the one who insisted.’
Poor Dakar. He doesn't know, like we do, about the after effects of the battle in Strakewood. If you don't recall, Arithon's magical gift shut down after that. He can still manipulate shadow, so in a lot of ways it doesn't matter that much, but he no longer has a mage's perception.
It does raise an interesting question though: How much of "Medlir" is an act?
And I don't really think he is an act, per se. There are definitely moments where Medlir is very obviously fucking with Dakar (like offering to share his meal when he knows Dakar is still miserably hungover), but I think that his friendliness and willingness to banter and play might actually be genuine.
Arithon wasn't like this in Mistwraith, but it's easy to forget that we never really got a chance to see Arithon unguarded. Lysaer had moments where he could be relaxed and enjoy himself, but Arithon started the story as a prisoner and things got worse from there. He went from traveling with a man who despised him, to a somewhat friendly dynamic under the supervision of a sorcerer who clearly had his own capital-letter-Plans for them. He had the weight of a quest and impending Kingship over his head, and then a curse and the knowledge that there was a good chance that everyone around him was going to die.
This is the first time that we've seen Arithon without any of that weight. I mean, sure, Lysaer is still hunting him and his friends are in danger, but there isn't really anything he can do about that that he isn't already doing. As rough as this is on Jieret, Arithon's presence there would do nothing but enflame the situation further. At this time, he's as safe as he can be, with a mentor who is open and honest about what he wants from him, and he's doing what he loves.
So I do think Medlir is less of an act and more of Arithon finally getting to be himself without all that baggage. And I think he might actually, genuinely LIKE Dakar. Certainly the fact that both of them are inclined to non-verbally tell Asandir to fuck himself would imply some compatibility of sentiment.
Unfortunately though, Arithon being Arithon, the fact that he can only be friendly through deceit and machination will absolutely turn around and bite him in the ass.
--
So the next subchapter is Tribulation:
We're staying with the gang for this one. And actually they're staying put a little longer. Halliron's caught a chill and isn't able to travel for a few days. Medlir's pretty good humored about it: he's not really in any personal hurry to reach Shand, and he's happy to use the requisite nightly performances as practice.
Dakar is having his own fun trying to troll Medlir, ready to pounce if Medlir ever repeats a drinking song. But Medlir is (of course!) too inventive for that. The last night leads to something interesting though, as news comes in about Lysaer:
‘You come from northwards,’ the captain bellowed across the taproom to Medlir. He paused to pick gristle from his teeth. ‘What’ve you heard? We’re bound that way into Etarra. Ship’s Port was thick with rumour that the Prince of the West is luring on swords to build a retinue.’
Medlir companionably shrugged, his hands in idle play upon his strings. ‘Why should he? The city council keeps him in comfort. Last I heard, he hadn’t yet tired of the garrison commander’s pretty sister.’
Oh Arithon, even now, you can't resist being an asshole.
Anyway, the bigger news is that Lysaer was granted Avenor. Medlir slips here:
The silvery spill of notes changed character, became thinner, brighter, more brittle. If so, the charter’s hardly legal.’
Nobody took umbrage,- the comment was scarcely out of turn, Athera’s Masterbard being a keeper of traditions often consulted to clarify rules of precedence. As Halliron’s probable successor, Medlir would be trained for the day the supreme title might fall to him.
Hah, look at that, we actually know what the Masterbard does! Isn't that helpful, HARPER HALL TRILOGY?
The next morning, our gang is heading out. Medlir and Halliron are having a disagreement. Medlir wants to stop over in a place called Jaelot, but Halliron dislikes the idea immensely, considering the town a "cesspit of bad taste" and doesn't want Medlir to waste his talents.
Fortunately, Dakar's got comic relief to distract. He'd won a horse from a dice game with the mercenaries. Dakar is not a horseman, and the horse itself "change[s] nature like a weathercock, friendly and fiendish by turns.
Medlir and Halliron are trying very hard not to laugh at the poor guy and only somewhat succeeding, but it definitely eases the tension.
Meanwhile, Halliron's cold gets worse and he finally agrees to stop in Jaelot. Dakar's difficulty leads to Medlir trying to offer some criticism and his own origins come up:
Puffing, beet-faced, in no mood for criticism from a man who understood nothing about the trials of being fat, Dakar clambered back up the rock. ‘Since when do you know so much about horses?’
‘Maybe my parents were drifters,’ Medlir said.
‘Hah!’ The Mad Prophet achieved precarious balance on one foot. ‘Foxes, more like. You say crafty little about yourself.’
A shallow smile touched Medlir’s features, accompanied by ingenuously raised brows. ‘Foxes bite.’
Dakar says that "Faery-toes" makes better company.
I haven't offered any direct excerpts with the horse, but trust me when I tell you that the name does not suit.
So we get to see Jaelot:
Darkness had fallen as they rounded the bend before Jaelot’s wide gates. Situated on a beak-head of land that jutted out into the bay, the town was walled with black rock. Torches in iron baskets burned from the keeps, which were octagonal, with slate roofs buttressed by gargoyles that loomed and leered and lolled obscene tongues over gate-turrets chiselled from white quartz. These were emblazoned with rampant lions, each bearing a snake in its mouth.
‘Ugly.’ By now querulously tired, Halliron regarded the carvings with distaste while the tarnished strips of tin hung as ward talismans jangled and clinked in thin dissonance. ‘The Paravian gates torn down from this site were said to be fashioned of agate, and counter-weighted to swing at a hand’s touch.’
Medlir notes that this was apparently a Second Age fortress and it's pretty surprising to see one that's still inhabited. They're made to wait for a courier's arrival, and that's when things go comically wrong.
A wagonmaster rolls in, swearing and unhappy, carrying a shipment for the mayor. And then chaos ensues:
The gates were opened very swiftly indeed, while something clicked in the brain of Dakar’s camel-necked chestnut that said stable, and comfort, and oats. It pinned back rabbity ears and lunged to harry the wagon team through.
The lead pair were blinkered. The first the near one knew of Faery-toes’ attentions was a nip of yellow teeth at its flanks.
It veered to a bounding grind of singletrees, while Dakar, howling mightily, sawed nerveless mouth with both reins and fell off. He had the aplomb to roll clear, while the carter whipcracked and cursed.
The lash caught the gelding on the nose. He wind-milled sideways on splayed feet, rat-tail flailing. Eyes rolled white, his nostrils expanded into a snort that blew steam, he half-reared and reversed to a thunderous clatter of hooves. His gaunt rump jammed the wheel horse in the shoulder. It staggered, squealing. The rest of the team careened sideways and jack-knifed the dray between the gate turrets with Faery-toes folded amidst them like a misguided log in a torrent.
I have no idea what's happening, but maybe someone who knows horses can make sense of it. Anyway, it becomes a total brawl between five horses. The poor carter is trying to get control of them with his lash, the wagon is creaking and shifting, and eventually a bundle of cypress swan-dives onto the pavement.
Basically, the custom carved moulding meant for the mayor's wife (as we saw in the sneak peek) is reduced to smithereens under the hooves and wheels. He confronts Dakar, who takes offense at the description of Faery-Toes as a misbegotten insult. He extracts Faery-Toes then brings him to the carter to "apologize":
‘I suggest you forgive the old boy.’ When the nag butted a congenial head against the carter’s shoulder and knocked him a half-step back, Dakar added, ‘How could you not? He likes you.’
The carter purpled and swung. The suet-round face of his target vanished as Dakar ducked and fled beneath the saddle girth. Bunched knuckles smacked against the barrel-sprung ribs of the horse, who responded from both ends with a grunt and a fart like an explosion.
‘Oh my,’ cried Dakar, stifling a chortle. ‘Your wife’s nose must look like a pudding if that’s your reaction to her kisses.’
I kind of love you, Dakar.
Anyway, things get even more chaotic as the carter rushes the horse, the horse ends up losing his footing and falling belly-down. Everyone's laughing...until they're not.
Jaelot’s men at arms snapped to in dutiful propriety as a four-in-hand hitch and black lacquered coach thundered up the thoroughfare. Gilded, lion-blazoned doors sparked in the torchlight as the vehicle slowed and pulled up before the obstruction that clogged the city gate.
Stiffened as pokers, watch gate captain’s men saluted as boy grooms in velvet livery leapt down to catch the bridles of the lead horses, which were also black, and matched like images in mirror glass with smart blazes and white stockings. A footman dispatched from the driver’s box strolled over to the carter, even yet hopping back to escape the gelding’s thrashing first effort to rise.
There's a woman inside, and she wants to know what just happened to the new crown moulding. Dakar tries to evade responsibility by claiming to have just donated the horse to the city alehouse. But...no. Instead, he's getting arrested. The matter will be settled in the court hall in the morning. The carter is invited to attend and make plea to "the mayor's justice" for any damages.
Suddenly comic relief isn't so comic, and Halliron groans that he KNEW they shouldn't have come to Jaelot.
--
The last subchapter is Trial:
We're getting a very interesting look at Jaelot's legal system in this bit:
His Lordship the Mayor of Jaelot was not disposed to rise early. In his courts of law, appointments by hour were unheard of; the city alderman sent his list daily to the watch captain, who detailed men at arms to the dungeons. The accused were fetched out without breakfast and escorted to the annex chamber, a window-less, black-panelled vault with groined ceilings built into a cellar beneath the council hall. There, cuffed in manacles that made it difficult to scratch accumulated flea bites, Dakar the Mad Prophet was obliged to wait with two other men and a woman, whose crimes ranged from public brawling to theft and bloody murder.
Dakar is finding things much less funny now. Apparently Jaelot's justice is harsh, and a "merciful" sentence might be beheading (a severe sentence might be dismemberment or breaking on the wheel and then burning). But he's not without friends:
Halliron Masterbard had come, dressed in all the splendour of his rank. From the depths of the gloom, his neat cloak and slashed doublet of black watered silk lined in saffron shimmered like flame with caught light. Topaz studs and gold ribbon sparked and flashed in wry and stabbing satire, perhaps, that the mayor’s state colours were the same. Stationed at his side, Medlir wore brown broadcloth, a modest brooch at his collar.
And here comes the Mayor himself:
The carillons that signalled the hour boomed faintly down from the bell tower. Aching and irritable, Dakar endured the arrival of Jaelot’s Lord Mayor with a dawning sense of the absurd. He had seen a high king’s ceremonial open with less pomp.
The hall doors boomed back, held by bowing servants in sable livery. Halberdiers in black armour marched in double files, followed by pageboys who unreeled gold-edged carpet, emblazoned each yard with Jaelot’s snake-bearing lions. A girl in a hooped farthingale fringed with jingling bullion chains strewed hothouse roses from a basket. She was trailed by two braces of secretaries in wool robes cuffed with marten, then their serving boys, bearing satchels and writing papers furled in yellow ribbon. Next, the judiciary, robed in black velvet and white ermine, and wearing a mitred felt cap edged with moth-eaten braid; the city alderman, burdened down like a moulting crane in layers of brocade and ruffled cuffs. After these, soft as pudding, the city’s vaunted mayor, who swayed at each step, his voluminous robe billowed off his padded shoulders like sails let free of their sheetlines.
WOW.
1. I'd never encountered "Carillon" as a word before. I genuinely didn't realize it was one. Apparently it's a word for a set of bells in a tower. I've learned something!
2. Jaelot, like Etarra, is in Rathain. I therefore wonder how much of this horrific opulence came about as a conscious rejection of s'Ffalenn aesthetic. Remember how Arithon's initial crowning was unadorned, in white linen? And then there's...this. Dakar, for his part, gets hit on the face with a rose.
Fortunately, Dakar's called first. His list of offenses is impressive: disruption of the city peace; obstruction of the public thoroughfare; willful damage to the mayor’s property; interference with commerce; negligent handling of horseflesh; and lastly, insolence to officers while in custody. Dakar quickly manages to add impertinence in court to that list.
Dakar tries to defend himself:
‘Fiends and Dharkaron’s vengeance!’ Dakar pealed. ‘What wilful damage? You saw my horse. Did Faery-toes look at all like the sort to attack passing drays out of hand? Ath’s own patience, you’d kick something yourself, if some lout hauled off and rammed his fist in your ribs!’
On the benches, the carter gritted sturdy teeth and restrained himself from springing to his feet to cry protest. Caught up in its rut of due process, the court continued with the prisoner.
Insolence to superiors,’ said the alderman, displaying an unfortunate lisp, while the pens of the secretaries twitched and scratched.
It doesn't go well.
The Mayor, for his part, is bored. But his wife was the one in the carriage. And the moulding had been for her. She's now "indisposed" because of its destruction. The carter also wants recompense, given that two of his horses are lamed and he'll need a wheelwright's services. Unfortunately, the city justice must be satisfied first. Which means the carter's likely to get nothing, even though he's got the actual injury.
There's no actual trial. No testimony or evidence. Dakar's just found guilty right there. He's sentenced a fine and six months on the labor gang. The fine is not told to us, but it's apparently "a sum a prince would be beggared to pay." (Yep, the poor carter is out of luck.)
Dakar's belongings have already been confiscated, too. But here's the scam:
‘You’re not lacking friends.’ The mayor swivelled porcine eyes toward the elegant figure of the Master-bard. ‘They may balance the debt for you, should they be so inclined. It is to them you must now beg for clemency.’
Dakar, to his credit, insists they've got nothing to do with him. He explains who Halliron is, and that there isn't a town anywhere that wouldn't welcome him. Halliron doesn't confirm this so much as acidly comment on how no man alive owns what Jaelot wants for a fee.
But the Mayor sees an opportunity:
The Lord Mayor fluttered a hand in capitulation. ‘Well then. We’ll mediate the sentence, naturally. Since my lady was the party offended, it’s fitting that she gain compensation. The spoiled moulding cost four hundred royals, true-silver. The carter’s list of damages will be compiled and paid off to the penny. The city’s fine I will waive on this condition: that Halliron Masterbard entertain my lady’s guests at the feast upon mid-summer solstice.’ A glistening, toothy smile parted the mayor’s lips. ‘License to practise your art, if you will, before this city’s finest. If your playing matches your reputation, no doubt, folk of pedigree will shower their gold at your feet. You might even earn a tidy profit.’
Medlir’s lightning surge to arise was stopped by a feather touch from the bard.
From the floor, Dakar gagged in strangled outrage. ‘That’s rank insult.’
The secretaries’ nibs scraped through a poisonous silence. Halliron, white hair thrown back, light eyes fixed on a point midway between ceiling groins and dais, said nothing. Medlir’s poised stillness showed tension more appropriate to a swordsman than a singer, while the halberdiers who were not one whit ceremonial shifted their balance to readiness.
Strangely desperate, Dakar said, Don’t answer. I don’t require it.’
They have seven days to answer. If they agree, they have to remain in the city until the fine is paid or the performance given. Since the performance is in six months, that means Dakar can serve out his labor sentence at the same time. If they decline, Dakar languishes in prison until he dies. Charming.
--
The last scene of the chapter features Medlir and Halliron. Medlir asks if Halliron will let Dakar off. The answer is yes, of course. They've already sent four hundred and sixty royals to pay the lumber mill and wheelwright. Halliron notes that "Medlir's" obligation to Asandir must take precedence.
...I like Dakar, but FUCK Asandir. Also, Arithon owes that asshole NOTHING.
Medlir insists that this does NOT take precedence, and that the sorcerers would agree that Halliron's business is in Shand, not "mending the Mad Prophet's excesses".
And this is sweet:
Halliron tisked gently. His slow grin unveiled gapped front teeth. ‘I can teach you as readily here as in the south. Shand can wait.’
‘If six months in Jaelot doesn’t contrive to ruin us both.’ Medlir’s veneer of irritation dissolved as he arose to add billets to the ill-vented hearth, burned down to a smouldering, sullen bed of coals that belched smoke at each breath of wind. As the new wood caught, he sighed. ‘All of this concerns my life before I accepted your apprenticeship. I’d rather you weren’t burdened.’
‘You’re more to me, now, than an apprentice.’ Fresh flame curled up, laying a bronze patina over the spider-tracks of wrinkles that scored the bard’s skin, and gilding age-chiselled face-bones still windburned from the open road. ‘And anyway, you’re the one most inconvenienced. I shouldn’t care to stand in your shoes when the Mad Prophet discovers you’ve deceived him.’
His back turned, Medlir shrugged. ‘Forced labour won’t give him much chance.’
Oh, Medlir. You really can't help yourself.
The conversation shifts then, when Halliron notices Medlir staring at something, as though trying to percieve "the dance and spark of primal energies that laced its matter into being" Because of course, Medlir had once been able to do that. Before he'd lost the ability in Deshir's defense.
Because of course, this is the point of reveal. And to give credit where it's due, it is pretty dramatic:
With a gentleness roughened by the congestion in his chest, the bard said, ‘Be patient. The sight will come back to you. Nature offers more than one path to perception, and your musical gifts may grow to compensate.’
The one who named himself Medlir raised hands to cover his face, the beaded ends of unstrung laces swinging and tapping against his knees. He crouched so for a long moment, then gathered himself, stood up, and turned toward his master an expression of unspeakable pain. ‘I’ve felt the power stir in snatches, an echo here and there between notes.’ His frustration revealed his difficulty, that he could not accustom himself to the change. The energies he had studied as pure spirit light felt indecipherably strange, transliterated to vibration and sound.
Halliron’s smile held bedrock firmness. ‘Well, work at it. Six months in Jaelot will certainly leave you the time.’
The Masterbard’s apprentice returned a clipped sigh and bent to unwrap the lyranthe. He extended a foot in a swordsman’s move and hooked the chamber’s one stool. Its broken brace scarcely troubled his poise as he perched on the rat-chewed rush seat.
‘Give me the Ballad of Taerlin Waters,’ Halliron said. ‘Mind you don’t slur the runs in the third bar, or the grace notes that lead into the chorus.’
Medlir flicked back the untied gusset of his cuffs to free his fingers for tuning; here, where disguise was not needed, firelight caught raw and red on a scar that grooved the flesh in a half-twist from right palm to elbow. The hair that fronded his cheek as he bent to the sweet ring of strings was no longer the bland, ash brown Dakar knew, but glossy black as chipped coal.
His eyes, when he finally raised them to sing, were as penetrating a green as the royal ancestor whose natural looks he had inherited.
But at the same time, this chapter is still much more amusing when you already know the truth. And god help me, I think I 'ship Dakar/Arithon after this. A lot.
--
The sneak peek section is Links.
First: "Lysaer s'Ilessid, Prince of the West" is heading for Avenor, with his fair betrothed at his side, with a shit ton of Etarrans and ex-mercenaries, carrying the funds for rebuilding Avenor as well as Talith's dowry.
Second: Covert bands of scouts are tracking said retinue and relaying word through Rathain and beyond.
(I think this is the first time we've had sneak peeks directly related to each other.)
Third: the man who is prince and fugitive, Master of Shadow and Masterbard's apprentice is sendin a request to Sethvir, written in his own blood on a flake of slate dried over live flame and tossed into the heaving breakers at high tide.
Because of course he fucking did.
And with this note of melodrama, this very entertaining chapter ends.
Let's see what he's up to today!
I should probably warn that there is an incident of non-consensual touching toward the beginning of this chapter, which is played as comedic. (It's in the first quoted excerpt.)
We rejoin Dakar as he's waking up in a tavern. His morning after is evocatively described, my favorite line being: His mouth tasted as if it had hosted a convocation of snails. His boots are gone.
However, it appears like Asandir's training is good for something: he can use it to get rid of hangovers. He can also, apparently, use it to correct his vision. He was born nearsighted. Unfortunately, he has to be sober and clear-minded to do that, and Dakar doesn't particularly like either of those states. Unfortunately, when he seeks to remedy the situation, he finds that his pockets and purse are empty.
A less than sympathetic barmaid explains that he wasn't robbed (and indeed, if you recall from Mistwraith, Dakar has magical defenses against that), instead, he'd apparently put away FIFTEEN ROUNDS of ale. Dakar reflects that this is probably true, from the state of his bladder. The barmaid says that the only reason he wasn't thrown out on his ear was because the weather is so bad that the landlord took pity on him.
She blocks his passage to the privy to harangue him, and we get a nice description of the tavern:
Since Dakar had yet to raise concern over what the day looked like outdoors, he surveyed the room to fix his bearings. The tavern was of typical backlands construction: two storeyed, with the ceiling beams that supported the second floor set low enough to bother a tall man’s posture. The single lantern hissed and sputtered, fuelled by a reeking tallow dip that smoked far worse than the hearth. In a dimness tinged luridly orange, darts flurried between support posts into a shaggy straw target. The mule drover cursed a wide throw, which prompted a laugh from the tanner. A gnarled old cooper in the corner muttered slurred lines of doggerel, and sniggers erupted like the feeding squeals of a hog’s farrow. Dakar, brimming and uncomfortable, rolled long-suffering eyes. When the bar wench failed to move, he succumbed to temptation and shoved a hand down her bulging blouse.
No matter how unsteady he was on his feet, his fingers knew their way about a woman.
The wench hissed in affront. Her shove plonked the Mad Prophet backward on the unpadded timber of the bench. The air left his lungs in a whistle. Tediously, he started the effort of dragging himself upright all over again.
The barmaid hopes his bollocks freeze solid and storms off. Dakar then hears someone claim that his competitor "cheat[s] like the Shadow Master himself."
Dakar kind of, sort of, defends Arithon with an insult: ‘Yon one’s no man for harmless games. His sort of tricks infuriate and kill and make enemies.’
I'm vaguely reminded of a time in the Galactic Milieu trilogy where someone suspects series Byronic villain/anti-hero Marc Remillard of being the serial killer Fury, and someone else defends him by saying that if he wanted to take over the galaxy, he'd just do it, rather than create a psychopathic alter ego to do it for him. Defense via insult is one of my favorite tropes.
Anyway, a different bystander has a much more extreme reaction:
But the Mad Prophet’s slurred advice was pre-empted by warning from another bystander. ‘Don’t speak that name here! Would you draw him, and the winds of ill luck? Sorcerers hear their names spoken. There’s a burned patch, I’ve heard, in Deshir where the soldier’s bones lie that will never again grow green trees.’
So...that's the kind of press Arithon's dealing with now. Dakar actually is about to denounce this, and I'm sad not to hear what kind of insult he'd offer to defend Arithon this time, but he's interrupted when the door opens under his hand and he tumbles outside into the snow and ice. And to be fair, it sounds fucking dreadful. (But he does find the privy and back, so good for him?)
When he returns, there's a new arrival! Someone who has captured all the attention: the Masterbard himself! (Dakar is shocked to hear this too. And apparently is on a first name basis with Halliron. Which makes some sense. The Fellowship sorcerers seem to know everyone.)
So anyway, Halliron offers silver for rooms, but gets them free of charge. Even if he's not going to play, the news of his arrival will draw customers anyway. Halliron promises that he won't go tuneless. Also, Halliron didn't come alone. His apprentice came too.
And indeed, he has a sufficiently dramatic entrance himself:
The door latch tripped amid the tirade. Wind-driven sleet slashed in on the draught that breathed chill through the fug from the fire as a figure muffled in wet woollens entered, moving fast. Dakar’s parked bulk was side-stepped and a new voice cut in, declaiming, ‘Your anger’s misplaced. Your groom is hard at work. The harness was wet and needed oiling, and Halliron’s pony hates boys. My master would have told you, I usually tend him myself.’
Impatient with his headache and his relapsed eyesight, Dakar squinted at the latest arrival. Layered as he was in tatty mufflers and a cape-shouldered, nondescript mantle, there seemed more wool to him than man. A path cleared before him to the hearthside. Caked ice cracked from his clothing as he undid fastenings to disgorge a long, tapered bundle laced in oilskins. This he deposited carefully out of reach of the fire’s leaping heat. A pair of wet gloves flew off after, to land smartly on top of the settle.
Then movement at the corner of his vision caused the stranger swiftly to spin. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Let me.’
And Halliron, who had reached to unfasten his cloak brooch, found his wrists gently caught and restrained.
‘You must spare those fingers,’ chided the Master-bard’s apprentice. All unwittingly, he had managed to draw every eye in the room.
Halliron makes a wry comment about age, while his apprentice gets a dramatic reveal:
While the wench hustled off, a thoughtful Dakar propped his swaying balance against the nearest trestle. As unabashed as the dart players, he stared while the bard’s apprentice left off attending his master and turned to peel off his own heavy cloak. The man revealed underneath proved to be an indeterminate age in his twenties, compactly built to the point of slenderness. Nondescript ash brown hair fell lankly over thin cheekbones, and his eyes were a muddy grey hazel.
He was nobody Dakar knew.
Hee, I'm reminded now of that bit in the Justice League cartoon where Lex Luthor is in the Flash's body, removes the cowl all "Hah, I know your identity!" and then is all "I have no idea who this is."
This is Medlir, by the way, Halliron's apprentice. This may puzzle you, if you remember how Curse of the Mistwraith ends. The end of the chapter will explain it.
But I'm going to blow the secret now, because it's a lot funnier this way. Of course, Medlir is Arithon. If you recall, Arithon (and Lysaer) have the sort of fantasy world genetics that make their family ancestry really fucking obvious to anyone who sees them. Wisely enough, Arithon has realized that using his actual face and name is a really bad idea. Ergo, Medlir.
So anyway, Halliron starts relaying news and gossip, as one does when one is a Masterbard. Dakar uses the distraction of his presence to sidle back up to the bar. Unfortunately though, his lack of money is a bit of an obstacle. But then, suddenly, he has company:
A shadow loomed at his flank: the bard’s hazel-eyed apprentice, arrived without sound, and all but standing on top of him. The Mad Prophet gave a violent start that slopped foam in cold runnels down his backside.
‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced,’ he assayed, caught up meanwhile in a disastrous grab to stem the copious gush of the beer. He fumbled the twist. Brew rose hissing over the tankard brim and pattered over the frayed heels of his socks.
The apprentice minstrel gave a wicked grin, leaned across, and deftly turned off the spigot. ‘I’m called Medlir. And I suggest you’re mistaken. I’m very certain I know you.’
Dakar is not terribly interested in talking, retorts "From some bad line in a ballad, maybe" and focuses on swiping himself some beer while looking Medlir square in the eye. The "odd little man" says nothing about it, though he does warn Dakar about the angry barmaid's approach.
And in fact, he does more than that:
‘Not so fast.’ Medlir stopped the move with long, slender fingers and flipped a silver with clanging accuracy into the bowl on the bar wench’s tray. ‘Drink to my health,’ he invited Dakar. ‘The change should pay for the spill on the floor, and keep your throat wet through this evening.’
Startled speechless, the Mad Prophet let himself be ushered away and seated with a squish of wet clothing at a trestle off to one side. Oddly uneasy with the way his luck had turned, he sucked a long pull from his tankard, licked foam from his moustache, and grimaced at the lye taste of soap. ‘Surely a ballad?’ he ventured obliquely.
Actually, he's met Asandir. This initially freaks Dakar out, but then he remembers that Medlir is Halliron's apprentice, and Halliron is friendly with the Fellowship. He asks if that troubles Dakar.
Dakar downplays it and drinks to Medlir's health.
Aware that the trestles were filling, Medlir arose in clear-eyed regret. ‘I’m needed. Perhaps later, we can find time to talk.’
Ever and always agreeable to the man who would keep him in beer, the Mad Prophet grinned lopsidedly back. ‘Here’s to later,’ he said; and he drank.
And this is why I blew the secret. Because it is infinitely funnier to realize that this is Arithon s'Ffalenn both shamelessly flirting with and trolling Dakar. And yeah, he knows what he's doing.
Anyway, "Medlir" plays for the happy crowd. We're told that he's "skilled, and possessed of an energy that made the trestle planks bounce to the beat of their stamping."
Dakar isn't surprised by this, thinking about how Halliron had been auditioning apprentices his whole life, and "Medlir" is the SOLE APPLICANT to match his exacting standards. (Of course!) And Medlir seems to be very much enjoying himself.
But then, after midnight, it's time to surrender the lyranthe to the master.
And he gets a request:
The stillness swelled and deepened. From the rear of the tavern, a reveller called out, ‘Master singer! Folk passing out of Etarra speak of a battle fought in Deshir some years back against that sorcerer prince who shifts shadows. Do you know aught of that?’
Halliron’s hand snapped off a run, distinct as a volley of arrows.’ ‘Yes.’ He locked eyes for a second with Medlir, who set aside his meal and said something contrite about forgetting to check on the pony. To the rough-clad miner’s request the Masterbard replied, ‘I can play that ballad. No one better. For in fact, I was there.’
The other reason I spilled the beans early is that otherwise, we wouldn't appreciate the character beats here: Halliron's kindness and warning, "Medlir's" very swift departure.
Before leaving, Medlir exchanges some words with Dakar:
‘You won’t feel too drunk when he reaches the ending of this one,’ Medlir said to Dakar as he passed on his way to the door.
The Mad Prophet was too besotted to respond beyond a grunt, but the gem-cutter beside him ventured comment. ‘How so? Won’t we be stirred by the war’s young hero, that blond-haired prince from the west?’
Medlir’s lips thinned to tightness. ‘What is any war but a massacre?’ Through the drawing beat of the secondary chords, he shrugged off introspective impatience. ‘Even without lyrics or story, Halliron’s melody by itself could wring tears from a statue.’
Dakar has the brief, drunken thought that Medlir's eyes should be something other than gray-hazel.
It is true that Wurts isn't particularly subtle here.
So, Halliron sings his song:
Then the spangled brilliance of the Masterbard’s instrument was joined by his beautiful voice, haunting and rich and clear-toned; in its thrall every listener was transported to a morning in spring when the mists had lifted over the marshes of the river Tal Quorin. The odds in their favour ten to one, a town garrison had marched on the forest bred clansmen who dared shelter Arithon s’Ffalenn, the renegade Prince of Rathain also called Master of Shadow.
‘What law has sanctioned a war for one life,
when no bloodshed was sought at Etarra?
Shadow fell in defence, for no man died
by command of the prince to be harrowed.’
There came an uneasy shifting of feet, of creaking boards, and flurried whispers that Halliron’s art skilfully reined back short of outrage. For this ballad’s course commemorated no beloved saviour in glittering gold and sapphires, avenging with righteous bolts of light. This spare, driving, tragic account held no bright hero at the ending, but only men ruinously possessed by their hatreds to grasp the first reason to strike down long-standing enemies.
‘Who shall weep, Lord Steiven, Earl of the North,
for the refuge that failed to spare your clan?
The prince in your care once begged to fare forth,
then stayed; his liegemen were fate-cursed to stand.’
It continues for a while. I'm particularly fond of this verse:
Deshir’s butcher and Prince Arithon’s bane,
Lysaer s’Ilessid loosed his gifted light
Sixty score innocents writhed in white flame
for miscalled mercy, blind justice, and right.’
It's probably an indicator of how affected I still am by the events in Mistwraith that I can't bring myself to apply the Lachlan to Menolly scale here.
Anyway, the ballad is very effective. Everyone is very affected. And one woman is even heard to say that if she hadn't lost her jewels to clan scoundrels, she might almost feel sorry for the Deshans.
...yeah, because one robbery totally justifies a massacre, lady.
And Dakar is not unaffected:
Dakar simply sat, eyes round as coins fixed morosely on the hands that cradled a tankard of stale beer. In time, some minutes after Halliron had retired upstairs to his room, Medlir arrived, and sat down, and unstoppered a cut-glass decanter. He produced two goblets of turned maple and poured out three fingers of peach brandy, the rich smell piquantly sharp in the heated sea of used air.
One the bard’s apprentice pressed upon the Mad Prophet; the other, he nursed for himself.
In companionable sympathy for a well-timed escape to the stables, Dakar sighed, ‘These folk will go home tonight and maybe think. By tomorrow, over sore heads, they’ll say the Masterbard must have exaggerated. Deshir’s barbarians are best off dead, they’ll insist, and shrug off what they heard entirely when the next Etarran wool factor passes through. What did your master hope to gain?’
"Medlir" asks why he cares, and Dakar brings up Asandir and how he's not lenient when crossed. And, this bit is one of the reasons I had to blow the secret.
‘No wonder you’re driven to drink.’ Medlir hooked the flask from between his knees and refilled Dakar’s goblet. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing,’ Dakar said. ‘That’s my problem. That bastard of a sorcerer, the one the Deshans fought for? I was sent off to find him, and save him being mauled by his enemies. But let me tell you, Halliron’s ballad aside, if you’d met him, you’d cheer Etarra’s garrison.’
Medlir took a sip from his goblet, leaned back against the trestle, and closed his eyes. ‘Why so?’
‘He’s crafty,’ Dakar said, fixed on the sway of the bar wench’s hips as she made rounds to darken the lanterns. ‘Secretive. He doesn’t at all take to company that’s apt to meddle in his business.’
‘And what would his business be, do you think?’ Medlir asked from the darkness.
Dakar stuck out his lower lip and choked through a spray of fine spirits. ‘The Fatemaster himself only knows! But Arithon’s a vindictive bastard with self-righteous aversions to liquor and ladies and comforts. I’d sooner take Dharkaron Avenger to be my drinking companion.’
‘Ah,’ said Medlir. He raised his lids and smiled, his eyes caught like a cat’s in the dying gleam from the fire. ‘If you fear Asandir might catch up with you, why not share the road with us? We’re headed into the low country, then southward to Shand in easy stages.’ He arose, stretched, then set the half-emptied flask companionably by Dakar’s left knee. ‘Halliron’s fingers get sore in the cold and lengthy hours of performance tax his strength. We seldom play long at one tavern. As our guest, you’d have free beer and most of the comforts you could wish.’
Oh, Arithon, I missed your capacity for shameless assholery. I really did. And I missed Ms. Wurts complete lack of subtlety. No. That's not what's going on here. That's not a lack of subtlety, that's a DISINTEREST in subtlety.
And it's fascinating too. "Medlir" is of course fucking with Dakar. As we'll see later, Arithon knows what Dakar's assignment is, and he knows full well that Dakar dislikes him.
But what's interesting is that the dislike may not actually be mutual. If Arithon truly disliked Dakar, then why invite him along? It's no skin off his back whether or not Dakar obeys Asandir's directive or not. It'd be easy enough to go their separate ways.
Instead, he invites Dakar along. And apparently seems happy enough to flirt with him the whole time. Does he mean it? Who knows. But he does seem content to allow Dakar to complete his assignment, while giving him all the beer he wants.
Of course, he's doing it in the most assholish, most likely to backfire, way possible. But he wouldn't be Arithon if he didn't. I missed the little bastard.
Dakar wakes up the next morning miserably hungover (after having passed out, saying that he'd "been kissed on the lips by lady fortune"). He's in Halliron's pony-cart, wedged between bundles of baggage and it just occurs to me how this is clearly a five year belated revenge for the way Lysaer and Dakar had tossed an unconscious Arithon into the back of the wagon when they left Althain Tower.
And this bit is pretty amusing:
Badgered through his sleep by a quick-tongued man with green eyes, black hair, and the sharp-planed features of s’Ffalenn royalty, the Mad Prophet wondered what prompted his mind to play tricks and prod him with memories of the Shadow Master.
Then the cart jerked to a stop, which taxed his thought to a standstill. A shadow fell over him. Somebody not much larger than his nemesis in build, but with intentions infinitely kinder said, ‘Do you have to pee?’
They banter a bit, before Dakar staggers into the roadway to get sick. "Medlir"'s "thoughtful grip" is the only thing that keeps him from pitching head-first into the ditch. When he gets upright he realizes that he's got his boots back. His stockings are crumpled and chafing in a way that will leave blisters:
Still, Dakar concluded as he hauled himself back to the wagon, he would perish of a million wasting hangovers before he would bend to Asandir’s will concerning the Master of Shadow. If my life wasn’t bothered by sorcerers, maybe then I could stop drinking,’ he confided as he moled his way under a carriage rug.
So Halliron drives, "Medlir" walks beside, and Dakar gets to overhear some of the rigorous study involved in a bardic apprenticeship. We're told that Halliron, while he wears his age well, is actually eighty-seven, and thus training his successor is a time-sensitive matter.
When they stop for rest, Medlir fills Dakar in on their plans: they're heading to the country of Shand, specifically a place called Innish. Halliron was born there, and he wants to see it again before he dies. He also has family: a daughter, whose mother had preferred not to travel. The plan is to make it by the summer.
Dakar, now clear-headed, is contemplating things:
The common room was nearly empty, the last relay of messengers from Highscarp being mounted outside in the yard. Flushed from the morning’s raw winds, or maybe the heat of the fire, Medlir appeared not to mind the way Dakar surveyed him relentlessly: from slim, musician’s fingers that tapped whistle tunes on the edges of the crockery, to the unique way he chose to style his shirts, with sleeves full and long to the forearm, the cuffs tight-laced over the wrists to end at the heel of his hands.
In the hour of the Mist wraith’s curse, Arithon had once fielded a strike from a light-bolt that left him welted from right palm to elbow, Dakar remembered. The unbidden association made him frown. He stared all the closer at Halliron’s apprentice, who leaned back to stretch in the sunlight that sloped through the casement.
His hands proved unscarred on both sides.
Dakar thinks that he's being paranoid. Arithon is mage-trained, and Dakar should be able to see his very very powerful aura. And he can't! (now that he's sober enough to use his training.) BUT, that IS something that could be masked by shadow. So he tries one more test:
The Mad Prophet looked into the man’s guileless face, then on impulse raised his hands and summoned power until his fingers streamed trailers of mage-fire.
Grey eyes ticked with mustard flecks watched him back, neither dazzled nor curious. Not a lash or a lid quivered at Dakar’s display; the minstrel apprentice’s pupils, widened in the dimness, failed to narrow so much as a hair’s-breadth.
Meanwhile, "Medlir" is guilelessly asking Dakar if he doesn't want to share his meal, then apologizes, realizing that Dakar must still be quite shaky. He explains that they'll be sticking around for the rest of the day to allow Halliron to rest up. Medlir will be playing, and Dakar will be welcome to a bed and hot soup.
There's some flirty banter:
Now Dakar grinned slyly back. ‘Actually, I’d rather hear you sing me the ballad of the Cat and the Mead.’
‘Which version?’ Medlir reached across the bench, lifted Halliron’s instrument, and began with enthusiasm to untie wrappings. ‘There’s the one that’s suitable for little children, and the one fit for nowhere but the bawdy house, and a half dozen variations that fall in the range in between.’
‘Oh, try the one that’s obscene,’ Dakar said, his plump chin propped on folded knuckles and his cheeks dimpled in contentment over his scraggle of red beard.
‘The one with eighty eight verses and that awful repetitive chorus?’ Medlir tucked the lyranthe on his lap, made swift adjustment of the strings, and caught Dakar’s nod as he dashed off a run in E major to test his tuning. ‘Well,’ he said with a long-suffering patience that Arithon s’Ffalenn had never owned. ‘About verse fifty, please remember, you were the one who insisted.’
Poor Dakar. He doesn't know, like we do, about the after effects of the battle in Strakewood. If you don't recall, Arithon's magical gift shut down after that. He can still manipulate shadow, so in a lot of ways it doesn't matter that much, but he no longer has a mage's perception.
It does raise an interesting question though: How much of "Medlir" is an act?
And I don't really think he is an act, per se. There are definitely moments where Medlir is very obviously fucking with Dakar (like offering to share his meal when he knows Dakar is still miserably hungover), but I think that his friendliness and willingness to banter and play might actually be genuine.
Arithon wasn't like this in Mistwraith, but it's easy to forget that we never really got a chance to see Arithon unguarded. Lysaer had moments where he could be relaxed and enjoy himself, but Arithon started the story as a prisoner and things got worse from there. He went from traveling with a man who despised him, to a somewhat friendly dynamic under the supervision of a sorcerer who clearly had his own capital-letter-Plans for them. He had the weight of a quest and impending Kingship over his head, and then a curse and the knowledge that there was a good chance that everyone around him was going to die.
This is the first time that we've seen Arithon without any of that weight. I mean, sure, Lysaer is still hunting him and his friends are in danger, but there isn't really anything he can do about that that he isn't already doing. As rough as this is on Jieret, Arithon's presence there would do nothing but enflame the situation further. At this time, he's as safe as he can be, with a mentor who is open and honest about what he wants from him, and he's doing what he loves.
So I do think Medlir is less of an act and more of Arithon finally getting to be himself without all that baggage. And I think he might actually, genuinely LIKE Dakar. Certainly the fact that both of them are inclined to non-verbally tell Asandir to fuck himself would imply some compatibility of sentiment.
Unfortunately though, Arithon being Arithon, the fact that he can only be friendly through deceit and machination will absolutely turn around and bite him in the ass.
--
So the next subchapter is Tribulation:
We're staying with the gang for this one. And actually they're staying put a little longer. Halliron's caught a chill and isn't able to travel for a few days. Medlir's pretty good humored about it: he's not really in any personal hurry to reach Shand, and he's happy to use the requisite nightly performances as practice.
Dakar is having his own fun trying to troll Medlir, ready to pounce if Medlir ever repeats a drinking song. But Medlir is (of course!) too inventive for that. The last night leads to something interesting though, as news comes in about Lysaer:
‘You come from northwards,’ the captain bellowed across the taproom to Medlir. He paused to pick gristle from his teeth. ‘What’ve you heard? We’re bound that way into Etarra. Ship’s Port was thick with rumour that the Prince of the West is luring on swords to build a retinue.’
Medlir companionably shrugged, his hands in idle play upon his strings. ‘Why should he? The city council keeps him in comfort. Last I heard, he hadn’t yet tired of the garrison commander’s pretty sister.’
Oh Arithon, even now, you can't resist being an asshole.
Anyway, the bigger news is that Lysaer was granted Avenor. Medlir slips here:
The silvery spill of notes changed character, became thinner, brighter, more brittle. If so, the charter’s hardly legal.’
Nobody took umbrage,- the comment was scarcely out of turn, Athera’s Masterbard being a keeper of traditions often consulted to clarify rules of precedence. As Halliron’s probable successor, Medlir would be trained for the day the supreme title might fall to him.
Hah, look at that, we actually know what the Masterbard does! Isn't that helpful, HARPER HALL TRILOGY?
The next morning, our gang is heading out. Medlir and Halliron are having a disagreement. Medlir wants to stop over in a place called Jaelot, but Halliron dislikes the idea immensely, considering the town a "cesspit of bad taste" and doesn't want Medlir to waste his talents.
Fortunately, Dakar's got comic relief to distract. He'd won a horse from a dice game with the mercenaries. Dakar is not a horseman, and the horse itself "change[s] nature like a weathercock, friendly and fiendish by turns.
Medlir and Halliron are trying very hard not to laugh at the poor guy and only somewhat succeeding, but it definitely eases the tension.
Meanwhile, Halliron's cold gets worse and he finally agrees to stop in Jaelot. Dakar's difficulty leads to Medlir trying to offer some criticism and his own origins come up:
Puffing, beet-faced, in no mood for criticism from a man who understood nothing about the trials of being fat, Dakar clambered back up the rock. ‘Since when do you know so much about horses?’
‘Maybe my parents were drifters,’ Medlir said.
‘Hah!’ The Mad Prophet achieved precarious balance on one foot. ‘Foxes, more like. You say crafty little about yourself.’
A shallow smile touched Medlir’s features, accompanied by ingenuously raised brows. ‘Foxes bite.’
Dakar says that "Faery-toes" makes better company.
I haven't offered any direct excerpts with the horse, but trust me when I tell you that the name does not suit.
So we get to see Jaelot:
Darkness had fallen as they rounded the bend before Jaelot’s wide gates. Situated on a beak-head of land that jutted out into the bay, the town was walled with black rock. Torches in iron baskets burned from the keeps, which were octagonal, with slate roofs buttressed by gargoyles that loomed and leered and lolled obscene tongues over gate-turrets chiselled from white quartz. These were emblazoned with rampant lions, each bearing a snake in its mouth.
‘Ugly.’ By now querulously tired, Halliron regarded the carvings with distaste while the tarnished strips of tin hung as ward talismans jangled and clinked in thin dissonance. ‘The Paravian gates torn down from this site were said to be fashioned of agate, and counter-weighted to swing at a hand’s touch.’
Medlir notes that this was apparently a Second Age fortress and it's pretty surprising to see one that's still inhabited. They're made to wait for a courier's arrival, and that's when things go comically wrong.
A wagonmaster rolls in, swearing and unhappy, carrying a shipment for the mayor. And then chaos ensues:
The gates were opened very swiftly indeed, while something clicked in the brain of Dakar’s camel-necked chestnut that said stable, and comfort, and oats. It pinned back rabbity ears and lunged to harry the wagon team through.
The lead pair were blinkered. The first the near one knew of Faery-toes’ attentions was a nip of yellow teeth at its flanks.
It veered to a bounding grind of singletrees, while Dakar, howling mightily, sawed nerveless mouth with both reins and fell off. He had the aplomb to roll clear, while the carter whipcracked and cursed.
The lash caught the gelding on the nose. He wind-milled sideways on splayed feet, rat-tail flailing. Eyes rolled white, his nostrils expanded into a snort that blew steam, he half-reared and reversed to a thunderous clatter of hooves. His gaunt rump jammed the wheel horse in the shoulder. It staggered, squealing. The rest of the team careened sideways and jack-knifed the dray between the gate turrets with Faery-toes folded amidst them like a misguided log in a torrent.
I have no idea what's happening, but maybe someone who knows horses can make sense of it. Anyway, it becomes a total brawl between five horses. The poor carter is trying to get control of them with his lash, the wagon is creaking and shifting, and eventually a bundle of cypress swan-dives onto the pavement.
Basically, the custom carved moulding meant for the mayor's wife (as we saw in the sneak peek) is reduced to smithereens under the hooves and wheels. He confronts Dakar, who takes offense at the description of Faery-Toes as a misbegotten insult. He extracts Faery-Toes then brings him to the carter to "apologize":
‘I suggest you forgive the old boy.’ When the nag butted a congenial head against the carter’s shoulder and knocked him a half-step back, Dakar added, ‘How could you not? He likes you.’
The carter purpled and swung. The suet-round face of his target vanished as Dakar ducked and fled beneath the saddle girth. Bunched knuckles smacked against the barrel-sprung ribs of the horse, who responded from both ends with a grunt and a fart like an explosion.
‘Oh my,’ cried Dakar, stifling a chortle. ‘Your wife’s nose must look like a pudding if that’s your reaction to her kisses.’
I kind of love you, Dakar.
Anyway, things get even more chaotic as the carter rushes the horse, the horse ends up losing his footing and falling belly-down. Everyone's laughing...until they're not.
Jaelot’s men at arms snapped to in dutiful propriety as a four-in-hand hitch and black lacquered coach thundered up the thoroughfare. Gilded, lion-blazoned doors sparked in the torchlight as the vehicle slowed and pulled up before the obstruction that clogged the city gate.
Stiffened as pokers, watch gate captain’s men saluted as boy grooms in velvet livery leapt down to catch the bridles of the lead horses, which were also black, and matched like images in mirror glass with smart blazes and white stockings. A footman dispatched from the driver’s box strolled over to the carter, even yet hopping back to escape the gelding’s thrashing first effort to rise.
There's a woman inside, and she wants to know what just happened to the new crown moulding. Dakar tries to evade responsibility by claiming to have just donated the horse to the city alehouse. But...no. Instead, he's getting arrested. The matter will be settled in the court hall in the morning. The carter is invited to attend and make plea to "the mayor's justice" for any damages.
Suddenly comic relief isn't so comic, and Halliron groans that he KNEW they shouldn't have come to Jaelot.
--
The last subchapter is Trial:
We're getting a very interesting look at Jaelot's legal system in this bit:
His Lordship the Mayor of Jaelot was not disposed to rise early. In his courts of law, appointments by hour were unheard of; the city alderman sent his list daily to the watch captain, who detailed men at arms to the dungeons. The accused were fetched out without breakfast and escorted to the annex chamber, a window-less, black-panelled vault with groined ceilings built into a cellar beneath the council hall. There, cuffed in manacles that made it difficult to scratch accumulated flea bites, Dakar the Mad Prophet was obliged to wait with two other men and a woman, whose crimes ranged from public brawling to theft and bloody murder.
Dakar is finding things much less funny now. Apparently Jaelot's justice is harsh, and a "merciful" sentence might be beheading (a severe sentence might be dismemberment or breaking on the wheel and then burning). But he's not without friends:
Halliron Masterbard had come, dressed in all the splendour of his rank. From the depths of the gloom, his neat cloak and slashed doublet of black watered silk lined in saffron shimmered like flame with caught light. Topaz studs and gold ribbon sparked and flashed in wry and stabbing satire, perhaps, that the mayor’s state colours were the same. Stationed at his side, Medlir wore brown broadcloth, a modest brooch at his collar.
And here comes the Mayor himself:
The carillons that signalled the hour boomed faintly down from the bell tower. Aching and irritable, Dakar endured the arrival of Jaelot’s Lord Mayor with a dawning sense of the absurd. He had seen a high king’s ceremonial open with less pomp.
The hall doors boomed back, held by bowing servants in sable livery. Halberdiers in black armour marched in double files, followed by pageboys who unreeled gold-edged carpet, emblazoned each yard with Jaelot’s snake-bearing lions. A girl in a hooped farthingale fringed with jingling bullion chains strewed hothouse roses from a basket. She was trailed by two braces of secretaries in wool robes cuffed with marten, then their serving boys, bearing satchels and writing papers furled in yellow ribbon. Next, the judiciary, robed in black velvet and white ermine, and wearing a mitred felt cap edged with moth-eaten braid; the city alderman, burdened down like a moulting crane in layers of brocade and ruffled cuffs. After these, soft as pudding, the city’s vaunted mayor, who swayed at each step, his voluminous robe billowed off his padded shoulders like sails let free of their sheetlines.
WOW.
1. I'd never encountered "Carillon" as a word before. I genuinely didn't realize it was one. Apparently it's a word for a set of bells in a tower. I've learned something!
2. Jaelot, like Etarra, is in Rathain. I therefore wonder how much of this horrific opulence came about as a conscious rejection of s'Ffalenn aesthetic. Remember how Arithon's initial crowning was unadorned, in white linen? And then there's...this. Dakar, for his part, gets hit on the face with a rose.
Fortunately, Dakar's called first. His list of offenses is impressive: disruption of the city peace; obstruction of the public thoroughfare; willful damage to the mayor’s property; interference with commerce; negligent handling of horseflesh; and lastly, insolence to officers while in custody. Dakar quickly manages to add impertinence in court to that list.
Dakar tries to defend himself:
‘Fiends and Dharkaron’s vengeance!’ Dakar pealed. ‘What wilful damage? You saw my horse. Did Faery-toes look at all like the sort to attack passing drays out of hand? Ath’s own patience, you’d kick something yourself, if some lout hauled off and rammed his fist in your ribs!’
On the benches, the carter gritted sturdy teeth and restrained himself from springing to his feet to cry protest. Caught up in its rut of due process, the court continued with the prisoner.
Insolence to superiors,’ said the alderman, displaying an unfortunate lisp, while the pens of the secretaries twitched and scratched.
It doesn't go well.
The Mayor, for his part, is bored. But his wife was the one in the carriage. And the moulding had been for her. She's now "indisposed" because of its destruction. The carter also wants recompense, given that two of his horses are lamed and he'll need a wheelwright's services. Unfortunately, the city justice must be satisfied first. Which means the carter's likely to get nothing, even though he's got the actual injury.
There's no actual trial. No testimony or evidence. Dakar's just found guilty right there. He's sentenced a fine and six months on the labor gang. The fine is not told to us, but it's apparently "a sum a prince would be beggared to pay." (Yep, the poor carter is out of luck.)
Dakar's belongings have already been confiscated, too. But here's the scam:
‘You’re not lacking friends.’ The mayor swivelled porcine eyes toward the elegant figure of the Master-bard. ‘They may balance the debt for you, should they be so inclined. It is to them you must now beg for clemency.’
Dakar, to his credit, insists they've got nothing to do with him. He explains who Halliron is, and that there isn't a town anywhere that wouldn't welcome him. Halliron doesn't confirm this so much as acidly comment on how no man alive owns what Jaelot wants for a fee.
But the Mayor sees an opportunity:
The Lord Mayor fluttered a hand in capitulation. ‘Well then. We’ll mediate the sentence, naturally. Since my lady was the party offended, it’s fitting that she gain compensation. The spoiled moulding cost four hundred royals, true-silver. The carter’s list of damages will be compiled and paid off to the penny. The city’s fine I will waive on this condition: that Halliron Masterbard entertain my lady’s guests at the feast upon mid-summer solstice.’ A glistening, toothy smile parted the mayor’s lips. ‘License to practise your art, if you will, before this city’s finest. If your playing matches your reputation, no doubt, folk of pedigree will shower their gold at your feet. You might even earn a tidy profit.’
Medlir’s lightning surge to arise was stopped by a feather touch from the bard.
From the floor, Dakar gagged in strangled outrage. ‘That’s rank insult.’
The secretaries’ nibs scraped through a poisonous silence. Halliron, white hair thrown back, light eyes fixed on a point midway between ceiling groins and dais, said nothing. Medlir’s poised stillness showed tension more appropriate to a swordsman than a singer, while the halberdiers who were not one whit ceremonial shifted their balance to readiness.
Strangely desperate, Dakar said, Don’t answer. I don’t require it.’
They have seven days to answer. If they agree, they have to remain in the city until the fine is paid or the performance given. Since the performance is in six months, that means Dakar can serve out his labor sentence at the same time. If they decline, Dakar languishes in prison until he dies. Charming.
--
The last scene of the chapter features Medlir and Halliron. Medlir asks if Halliron will let Dakar off. The answer is yes, of course. They've already sent four hundred and sixty royals to pay the lumber mill and wheelwright. Halliron notes that "Medlir's" obligation to Asandir must take precedence.
...I like Dakar, but FUCK Asandir. Also, Arithon owes that asshole NOTHING.
Medlir insists that this does NOT take precedence, and that the sorcerers would agree that Halliron's business is in Shand, not "mending the Mad Prophet's excesses".
And this is sweet:
Halliron tisked gently. His slow grin unveiled gapped front teeth. ‘I can teach you as readily here as in the south. Shand can wait.’
‘If six months in Jaelot doesn’t contrive to ruin us both.’ Medlir’s veneer of irritation dissolved as he arose to add billets to the ill-vented hearth, burned down to a smouldering, sullen bed of coals that belched smoke at each breath of wind. As the new wood caught, he sighed. ‘All of this concerns my life before I accepted your apprenticeship. I’d rather you weren’t burdened.’
‘You’re more to me, now, than an apprentice.’ Fresh flame curled up, laying a bronze patina over the spider-tracks of wrinkles that scored the bard’s skin, and gilding age-chiselled face-bones still windburned from the open road. ‘And anyway, you’re the one most inconvenienced. I shouldn’t care to stand in your shoes when the Mad Prophet discovers you’ve deceived him.’
His back turned, Medlir shrugged. ‘Forced labour won’t give him much chance.’
Oh, Medlir. You really can't help yourself.
The conversation shifts then, when Halliron notices Medlir staring at something, as though trying to percieve "the dance and spark of primal energies that laced its matter into being" Because of course, Medlir had once been able to do that. Before he'd lost the ability in Deshir's defense.
Because of course, this is the point of reveal. And to give credit where it's due, it is pretty dramatic:
With a gentleness roughened by the congestion in his chest, the bard said, ‘Be patient. The sight will come back to you. Nature offers more than one path to perception, and your musical gifts may grow to compensate.’
The one who named himself Medlir raised hands to cover his face, the beaded ends of unstrung laces swinging and tapping against his knees. He crouched so for a long moment, then gathered himself, stood up, and turned toward his master an expression of unspeakable pain. ‘I’ve felt the power stir in snatches, an echo here and there between notes.’ His frustration revealed his difficulty, that he could not accustom himself to the change. The energies he had studied as pure spirit light felt indecipherably strange, transliterated to vibration and sound.
Halliron’s smile held bedrock firmness. ‘Well, work at it. Six months in Jaelot will certainly leave you the time.’
The Masterbard’s apprentice returned a clipped sigh and bent to unwrap the lyranthe. He extended a foot in a swordsman’s move and hooked the chamber’s one stool. Its broken brace scarcely troubled his poise as he perched on the rat-chewed rush seat.
‘Give me the Ballad of Taerlin Waters,’ Halliron said. ‘Mind you don’t slur the runs in the third bar, or the grace notes that lead into the chorus.’
Medlir flicked back the untied gusset of his cuffs to free his fingers for tuning; here, where disguise was not needed, firelight caught raw and red on a scar that grooved the flesh in a half-twist from right palm to elbow. The hair that fronded his cheek as he bent to the sweet ring of strings was no longer the bland, ash brown Dakar knew, but glossy black as chipped coal.
His eyes, when he finally raised them to sing, were as penetrating a green as the royal ancestor whose natural looks he had inherited.
But at the same time, this chapter is still much more amusing when you already know the truth. And god help me, I think I 'ship Dakar/Arithon after this. A lot.
--
The sneak peek section is Links.
First: "Lysaer s'Ilessid, Prince of the West" is heading for Avenor, with his fair betrothed at his side, with a shit ton of Etarrans and ex-mercenaries, carrying the funds for rebuilding Avenor as well as Talith's dowry.
Second: Covert bands of scouts are tracking said retinue and relaying word through Rathain and beyond.
(I think this is the first time we've had sneak peeks directly related to each other.)
Third: the man who is prince and fugitive, Master of Shadow and Masterbard's apprentice is sendin a request to Sethvir, written in his own blood on a flake of slate dried over live flame and tossed into the heaving breakers at high tide.
Because of course he fucking did.
And with this note of melodrama, this very entertaining chapter ends.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-08 01:24 am (UTC)But seriously, good for Arithon. I hope he's enjoyed himself for the five year time skip. A pity it can't last, since he's made to suffer.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-08 02:46 am (UTC)Remember how, in Curse of Mistwraith, Arithon got the amazing idea to hold himself hostage to get his brother his kingdom? That's the shit he gets to do regularly now. His life is (or will be) terrible but man if he does not know how to scheme entertainingly.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-08 06:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-08 01:22 pm (UTC)