Seraphina(100)

I was shocked at the revulsion I felt. I, of all people, had no business being disgusted by the idea of a human with a saarantras. No, surely my squirm had its origin in the noxious personalities involved, and the fact that I’d just pictured the Ardmagar in a state of undress. I needed to scrub my mind clean.

Glisselda finished, to thunderous applause. I expected her to skip straight off the stage, but she did not. She stepped to the front, raised a hand for silence, and then said, “Thank you for your generous applause. I hope you’ve saved some, however, for the person most deserving of it, my music teacher, Seraphina Dombegh!”


The applause began again. She gestured for me to join her onstage, but I balked. She strode over, grabbed my arm, and pulled me out. I curtsied to the sea of faces, deeply embarrassed. I looked up and saw Kiggs; he gave me a little wave. I tried to smile back but rather suspect I missed.

Glisselda gestured the crowd into silence. “I hope Maid Dombegh will forgive me for interrupting her careful scheduling, but you all deserve some excellent music as a reward for sitting through my paltry offering: a performance from Seraphina herself. And please, help me petition the Queen to make Phina a court composer, the equal of Viridius. She’s too good to be merely his assistant!”

I expected Viridius to scowl, but he threw back his head and laughed. The audience clapped some more, and I took the opportunity to say to Glisselda, “I didn’t bring any of my instruments down.”

“Well, there’s a harpsichord right behind us, silly,” she whispered. “And I confess: I took the liberty of fetching your flute and your oud. You choose.”

She’d brought my mother’s flute. I felt a pang when I saw it: I wanted to play it, but it was somehow too personal. The oud, a long-ago gift from Orma, would be easiest on my right wrist; that decided me. Guntard brought me the instrument and plectrum; Lars brought me a chair. I cradled the melon-shaped instrument in my lap while I checked harmonics on all eleven strings, but it had kept good tune. I cast my gaze out into the audience while I did so. Kiggs watched me; Glisselda joined him, and he put an arm around her. Nobody was watching the Ardmagar. I reached for Lars with my mind and sent him in that direction; once I was satisfied that he had traversed the crowd, I closed my eyes and began to play.

I did not set out to play anything in particular; I take the Zibou approach to oud, improvising, looking for a shape in the sound, like finding pictures in the clouds, and then solidifying it. My mind kept returning to Kiggs standing with Glisselda, an ocean of people between us, and this gave my music-cloud a shape I did not like, sad and self-absorbed. As I played, however, another shape emerged. The ocean was still there, but my music was a bridge, a ship, a beacon. It bound me to everyone here, held us all in its hands, carried us together to a better place. It modulated (ripples on the sea) and modulated again (a flight of gulls) and landed squarely upon a mode I loved (a chalky cliff, a windswept lighthouse). I could make out a different tune, one of my mother’s, just below the surface; I played a coy melody, an enigmatic variation, referencing her tune without bringing it up explicitly. I made a pass at her song, circled, touched it lightly before swooping past once more. It would draw me back into its orbit again and again until I gave it its due. I played her melody out in full, and I sang my father’s lyrics, and for a shining moment we were all three together:

A thousand regrets I’ve had in love,





A thousand times I’ve longed to change the past.





I know, my love, there is no going back,





No undoing of our thousand burdens.





We must go on despite our heavy hearts.





A thousand regrets I’ve had in love,





But I shall never regret you.





The song released me then, and I was free to improvise again, my circles growing ever wider, until I once again encircled the world with music.

I opened my eyes to an audience of open mouths, as if they hoped to retain the taste of that last ringing note. Nobody clapped until I stood up all the way, and then it was so loud it drove me back a step. I curtsied, exhausted and exhilarated.

When I lifted my eyes, I saw my father. I hadn’t even realized he was here. He was as pale as he had been after the funeral, but I understood his expression differently now. He wasn’t furious with me: his was an expression of pain and of steely determination not to let it get the best of him. I blew him a kiss.

Kiggs and Selda stood together on the left, bringing me a little pain of my own. They smiled and waved; they were my friends, both of them, however bittersweet I might find that. At the back, Dame Okra Carmine stood together with Lars and Abdo, who jumped up and down with glee. They’d found each other; we all had.

Playing at the funeral had exhausted me, but this time was different. Friends surrounded me, and the court gave me something back with their applause. For a lingering moment I felt like I belonged here. I curtsied again, and quit the stage.





The relentless millstone of night ground our vigilance to dust; by the third hour after midnight, I found myself hoping someone would knife Comonot just so we could get it over with and go to bed. It was hard keeping an eye on him when he seemed not to get tired himself. He danced, ate, drank, chatted up Princess Dionne, laughed in wonder at the pygegyria dancers, and still had the energy of three ordinary men.