Seraphina(37)

Lars hefted himself up with unexpected grace and sat on the balustrade with his long legs dangling over the river. Like all proper Samsamese, he dressed gloomily: black doublet, jerkin, and joined hose. No ruffs or lace, no slashing or puffy trunk hose here. His boots looked like he’d owned them a long time and could not bear to give them up.

He swallowed a bite of pie and sighed. “I hev needt to speak with you, grausleine. I heardt you at the funeral and knew you were my …”

He trailed off; I waited, filled with curiosity and dread.

River gulls circled, waiting for us to drop the smallest crumb. Lars threw bits of pie crust over the river; the gulls swooped and caught them in midair. “I start over,” he said. “Hev you noticedt, perheps, thet an instrument can be like a voice? Thet you can tell who plays it just from listenink, without lookink?”

“If I am very familiar with the performer, yes,” I said carefully, unsure what he was getting at.

He puffed out his cheeks and looked at the sky. “Do not think me mad, grausleine. I hev heardt you play before, in dreamink, in …” He gestured toward his blond head.

“I didt not know what I was hearink,” he said, “but I believedt in it. It was like crumbs on the forest path: I followedt. They leadt me here where I can buildt my machine, and where I am less the, eh, vilishparaiah … sorry, my Gorshya not goodt.”

His Goreddi was better than my Samsamese, but vilishparaiah sounded like a cognate. The “paraiah” part did, anyway. I did not dare ask him about being half dragon; as much as I hoped that was the link between all my grotesques and me, I did not yet have proof. I said, “You followed the music—”

“Your music!”

“—to escape persecution?” I spoke gently, trying to convey sympathy and let him know I understood all about the difficulties of being a half-breed.

He nodded vigorously. “I am a Daanite,” he said.

“Oh!” I said. That was unexpected information, and I found myself reevaluating everything Viridius had said about his protégé, the way his eyes had gleamed.

Lars stared intently at the remains of his lunch, a veil of shyness drawn over him again. I hoped he hadn’t mistaken my silence for disapproval. I tried to coax him back out: “Viridius is so proud of your megaharmonium.”

He smiled but did not look up.

“How did you calculate the acoustics for that contraption?”

He raised his gray eyes sharply. “Acoustics? Is simple. But I needt somethink to write with.” I pulled a small charcoal pencil—a draconian innovation, rare in Goredd, but very useful—from the pocket of my surcoat. His lips twitched into a little smile and he started scrawling an equation beside him on the balustrade. He ran out of room to write as the notation approached his bum—he wrote sinister-handed—so he stood up on the railing, balancing like a cat, and wrote leaning over. He diagrammed levers and bellows, illustrated the resonant properties of types of wood, and elucidated his theory of how one might emulate the sounds of other instruments by manipulating wave properties.

Everyone turned to look at the enormous and unexpectedly graceful man balancing on the balustrade, doubled over writing, gabbling about his megaharmonium in intermittent Samsamese.

I grinned at him and marveled that anyone could possess such single-minded passion for a machine.

A cadre of courtiers approached the bridge on horseback but found it difficult to cross with all the merchants and townspeople gaping at Lars’s antics. The gentlemen made a ruckus with their horses; people scampered out of their way to avoid being trampled. One courtier, dressed in rich black, smacked dawdling gawpers with his riding crop.

It was Josef, Earl of Apsig. He didn’t notice me; his eye was fixed on Lars.

Lars looked up, met the earl’s fierce glare, and went white.

Goreddis claim that all Samsamese sounds like cursing, but Josef’s tone and body language left no doubt. He rode straight for Lars, gesticulating and shouting. I knew the words mongrel and bastard, and guessed the obscure halves of some compound words. I looked to Lars, horrified for him, but he stoically took the abuse.

Josef drove his horse right up against the balustrade, making it difficult for Lars to keep his balance. The earl lowered his voice to a vicious whisper. Lars was strong enough to have pitched scrawny Josef right off his horse, yet he did nothing.

I looked around, hoping someone would come to Lars’s aid, but no one on the crowded bridge made any move to help. Lars was my friend, for all that I’d known him two hours; I’d known Loud Lad for five years, and he’d always been a favorite. I sidled up to the horse and tapped at the Earl of Apsig’s black-clad knee, gingerly at first and then harder when he ignored me.

“Hey,” I said, as if I could talk to an earl that way. “Leave him alone.”

“This is not your affair, grausleine,” Josef sneered over his starched ruff, his pale hair flopping into his eyes. He wheeled his horse, driving me back. Unintentionally—perhaps—his horse’s hindquarters swung around and knocked Lars into the freezing river.

Everyone took off running then—some for the river’s edge, some to put as much distance between themselves and this fracas as possible. I rushed down the steps to the quayside. Rivermen were already shoving off in rowboats and coracles, extending poles over the choppy water, shouting directions to the flailing figure. Lars could swim, it seemed, but was hindered by his clothing and the cold. His lips were tinged blue; he had trouble getting his hands to close around the proffered poles.