Exile's Song Read online

  Words kept filling her mind, things she must have learned as a child, or things she had heard through the walls from her parents, but they were jumbled up so she sometimes had to pause in the middle of a sentence for several seconds before she could continue. More, she was mildly disturbed by the places where she found words she “knew,” yet could not really grasp. Why should she have a mental block on some words, but not on others?

  The demands of being the middle of a three-part conversation held by two elderly musicians, eager to exchange information, had been exhausting, and Margaret had been extremely glad when Ivor nodded off abruptly. Master Everard apologized for his enthusiasm, and called Anya to take them to their rooms. She liked the music master immediately, and felt at home in his large, comfortable house.

  Margaret let the pleasant memory of the previous evening slip away, and returned to her problem with the language. She did know it, and for the most part, understood it. She must have been fluent in it once—after all, it had been her first language. She knew that casta was descended from Gaelic, Spanish, and English—but was no more like those languages than English was like ancient High German. So, what was the matter?

  Another memory curled up from her mind, like a snake stretching. It was rather vague, and also unpleasant. It had something to do with that ugly building—The John Reade Orphanage. She shrank away from the memory. It had not been a bad place, just very ordered and cold. And no one was supposed to speak Darkovan within its walls. Matron—she couldn’t remember the woman’s name, only that she was very stiff and stern—had been very determined about that. She washed out little mouths with soap if she caught them speaking casta or any other dialect. They were supposed to speak Terran Standard and nothing else.

  She chuckled to herself. That must be the root of her difficulties—a sort of aversion to the very language of her childhood. Margaret could almost taste the soap. Well, she was no longer a child, and Matron must be long gone, either dead or retired. Satisfied that she had solved the puzzle, she let her mind wander onto more pleasant subjects.

  Margaret thought about the wonderful hot bath she had enjoyed before going to bed. The great steaming vat of hot water was very like those in her memories, and she had soaked away the aches and disgusting scents of space travel. Gervis, an old servant she had not met at the door, had taken charge of Ivor, and with relief she saw that he knew just how to handle a weary, querulous old man.

  The girl, Moira, had shown her to her room, and she had found her things unpacked. Her tiny recorder and the blank disks were stacked neatly on a chest, and a warm flannel nightgown was laid out on the bed. It was very clean but well-worn, darned neatly around the embroidered cuffs, and the collar turned. She had been happy to wear it, rather than having to sleep in her skin, or the horrid tube of Terran-made synthetic, considered appropriate for travel, she had packed in her bag. Clean, warm, and dressed in soft folds of flannel, she had fallen asleep—or rather, lost consciousness, almost before she pulled up the blanket.

  Now, as the bloody sunlight set the room aglow, she sat up and looked at the embroidery around the cuffs. Yes, my stepmother wore something like this when I was very small; it was embroidered with butterflies. No, it wasn’t Dio—it was someone else. Why did I think it was Dio? Everything was so terribly familiar and so alien at the same time. She shivered a little, for while the house was warm, it was still much colder than she was used to. Still, it felt rather nice—the sharp tang of the air, and the smell of the nightgown. There was some fragrance they used—she was sure she would remember the name in a minute or two—on linens, and it made her feel safe. Margaret knew the mind never really forgot anything, but she felt besieged by all these disordered fragments of memory, vague and fugitive wisps of remembrance, like gnats circling her face.

  I used to dream of a sun as ruddy as this one. And Anya kept staring at me in the oddest way all evening, almost as if she knew me. But, why? I don’t look very much like my father. The Senator is dark-haired and gray-eyed; my hair is red and my eyes yellow—“like a cat,” he always used to say, when he was in his better moods—or drunk. It is not a physical resemblance, then, at least not to my father. Something about my name! Margaret found she did not want to pursue that thought. Something about it made her uneasy.

  Who do I look like? Not my stepmother, of course. We aren’t related at all, though she has always treated me as if I were her real daughter. Margaret let herself dwell affectionately on a mental image of Diotima Ridenow-Alton, a picture many years out of date. She saw a tiny woman, with pale hair like yellow silk, and laughing green-gray eyes. By the time Margaret was ten she was almost as tall as her petite stepmother, and had always felt like a great lummox beside her.

  Her last night at home, years before, drifted into her mind. The Senator had been crouched in his great chair, looking across their lanai at the raging sea. Thetis was a tranquil planet, but sometimes storms came up and roared along the shore—beautiful and frightening. The Old Man had often watched the wind and water, fascinated. “I never saw anything like this until I left Darkover,” he had muttered, curling his one remaining hand around his cup.

  Margaret hated him when he drank, when he watched the sea rage, when he raged inside himself over some unspoken and unhealed grief. She could always feel it roaring inside the man, this stranger she called Father, and it made her skin crawl. He sometimes seemed as if he wanted to tell her something, and she knew somehow that she didn’t want to hear whatever it was. It was almost as if she could read his mind, hear the words he had not yet spoken.

  This train of thought made her too uncomfortable. Margaret pushed back the warm covers reluctantly and got out of bed. As she removed her nightdress, the chill of the room made her skin gooseflesh a little. She put on one of her other uniforms with mild reluctance, black trousers and the tunic that came to her knees. The material slithered against her skin, unnatural but warm. She pressed the closings into place and sighed.

  Today she would find something more suitable to the climate and less obviously Terran. She didn’t want to spend all her time answering questions for the curious. She brushed her hair and braided it, hardly glancing at her image in the mirror. She rarely liked to see her reflection, even in shop windows. There was something about mirrors that made her nervous, and had for as long as she could remember.

  As she tidied the flyaway hair, Margaret wondered why she wanted so much to get into the local clothing. It was not just that she despised the synthetics—she had been wearing this garb for over a decade, and was extremely proud to be a recognizable Scholar of the University. It was a privilege she had earned, and she valued it highly—what it represented, not the thing itself. She did not want to be noticed here, she decided. It felt almost as if she were afraid to be seen, as if some danger lurked in the crooked streets of Thendara. Nonsense, of course, but she could not escape the feeling entirely.

  Margaret coiled the braid into a flat chignon, covering the nape of her neck neatly, and pinned it into place.

  This was how Dio wore her thick yellow hair. Once, when she had been about nine, she had yanked her hair up on top of her head, and the Senator had gotten enraged for no reason she could understand. Dio, ever the peacemaker, had explained that displaying the nape of her neck was considered unseemly, and she had blushed along her high cheekbones as she spoke, so that Margaret had been left with the impression of some naughtiness associated with both unbound hair and a bare neck. Later, when she went to University, she realized that there were literally hundreds of things that were taboo on some world or other—eating with the wrong hand or eating the wrong-shaped food. It did not have to make sense. Custom was custom.

  At the same time, there had been no mention of this custom on the disks she had gotten. Indeed, now she thought about it, as she shoved in extra pins, there had been very little information about anything especially useful. She knew, for instance, that such government as existed on Cottman IV was feudal in its organization, but details
of it were sparse. There seemed to be a king, or a regent of some sort, and there was mention of powerful families. The study disk she had viewed said more about Terran prejudices than it did about actual Darkovan culture.

  Sighing, Margaret got out the recorder and her transcriber, and dictated notes on the conversation between Master Everard and Ivor the previous evening. She didn’t think she had left out anything important, but she played it back just to be certain. Then she clipped the little machine to her belt and went downstairs.

  In the kitchen Anya greeted her with the odd, almost deferential manner she had shown the night before, when Margaret had been too tired to do more than take mental note of it and add it to the ever-lengthening list of questions and puzzles. The woman had not acted that way toward Ivor. She put a bowl of fragrant porridge in front of Margaret and rubbed her worn hands on her apron, looking apprehensive. Then she bobbed her knees slightly.

  Margaret’s hunger made her curiosity fly away. She thanked the woman and fell to like a healthy young wolf. It was delicious.

  Professor Davidson came downstairs as she was finishing a second bowl. He looked rested and fresh, but a little off-color beneath his Relegan tan. He had misbuttoned his Scholar’s tunic, and forgotten—or failed, anyhow, to comb his thinning hair. When she had first known him, they had been almost the same height; their eyes had been level. Now, he was so stooped, he barely came to her shoulder. But he flashed her a smile, and she tried to ignore the little voice that told her that something was very wrong.

  Master Everard arrived just as they finished breakfast. “I trust you have slept well?” he asked after greeting them.

  “Very well, thank you.”

  “Room not too cold? Sometimes off-world guests find it so. As a boy I was schooled at Saint Valentine’s monastery, and we would wake up sometimes, and find snow lying on our blankets. I resolved then that no guest of mine should ever be cold.” His voice was a resonant baritone, and Margaret thought he must have been a fine singer in his youth. It was a surprisingly deep voice for such a slender man. He looked as if a good stiff wind might blow him off his feet. Still, he was tall and erect despite his years, not shrunken like poor Ivor. She had taken his measure in the first five minutes, for he was very like some of the academics she knew and whose company she enjoyed. He had a square chin and lots of little laugh lines around his pale gray eyes, white hair, and lots of good wrinkles, the sort that come from doing something that, however difficult, was deeply satisfying. She hoped she would look like that when she was old.

  She was lost in her thoughts, and almost missed a question from Ivor. “Master Everard, that instrument maker across the street. I was struck by the shape of the eff-holes . . . damn it, you tell him, Magpie. I wish I didn’t have so much trouble learning new languages!”

  The use of his pet name for her touched her. He hadn’t used it often since she stopped being an undergraduate. She regarded him affectionately as he spooned porridge into his mouth. How fortunate she was!

  Master Everard was waiting for her to tell him what Ivor had asked, from the look on his face, with a slight degree of confusion. She sighed. She hoped it was not going to be last night all over again. Margaret drew some lines on the tabletop with her fingertip, showing how the holes on a Terran violin looked.

  “Are you sure, he asked, after a moment’s thought. “I never saw holes like that—does it make good music?”

  Margaret laughed softly. “Well, the Terrans have been making music with this configuration for several thousand years, so I think you could say so.”

  “Astonishing. I see that I will learn a great deal during your visit. And that is a wonderful thing for me.”

  “What did he say,” Ivor asked.

  “He says he’s surprised you can make good music with eff-holes of that shape—well, he was more polite than that. He likes his star-shaped ones. And he says he thinks he will learn a lot from us. I think he is tickled pink about that.”

  “Is he?”

  “Well, he is no youngster, and he probably knows as much about Darkovan music as anyone alive—so the chance to learn new things might be very attractive.”

  “I had not thought of that.” Ivor seemed satisfied, and his color was improving as he ate. Margaret felt a sense of relief, because she wasn’t sure she could cope with him being ill.

  “When you have finished your morning meal, we can continue our discussion,” the Master said slowly. Margaret dutifully relayed this reply to Professor Davidson, and watched him bolt the rest of his bowl, heedless of his somewhat delicate digestion. It was good to see him eager, but she still wished he would take it easier.

  At last, when the porridge was gone, the warmed cider drunk, Everard led them into a front room in his house. It was a large chamber off the entry hall, and when Ivor saw it, he almost beamed with delight. He was much too dignified to clap his hands together and jump for joy, but the glint in his eyes was almost the same. It was a room to warm the heart of any musicologist anywhere in the galaxy. The floor was polished wood, the walls paneled and gleaming, and everywhere the eye went, there were musical instruments. Margaret was almost glad, for the first time, that Professor Murajee had gotten himself into trouble, since without that she would never have seen this wealth of instruments. The room was a veritable museum of the instruments of Cottman IV. Everard was evidently a man with a sense of history. He explained that the collection had been begun by his own grandfather, but modestly added that it had been more a muddle than a collection when he was a boy.

  He began an unhurried tour of the room, and the professor submitted to being shown around with as much good grace as he could muster. Odd—she had never seen him quite so impatient, almost trembling with eagerness. She was kept so busy translating she hardly had time to enjoy the various instruments herself, and was sorry she had not brought the camera with her when she came down to breakfast. More, she regretted she did not have the opportunity to try the several lutes, or the small harp not unlike the one Margaret herself carried.

  It became evident that Master Everard had a museum curator’s attitude toward the collection, though not the stuffy sort that sometimes made visiting such places a boring experience. Each instrument was treated like an old friend. Margaret turned on the recorder, and listened to stories of makers long dead, or stories of pipes carried into battles so long ago that Everard himself did not know if they were history or legend. She had never seen an actual bagpipe before, though she knew about them from courses in early music at the University. Here the art of playing them, she understood, was still known. It had died out on Earth, and nobody alive could play one. “It makes a hell of a racket,” Master Everard told her. “I’ve heard they were invented to scare the foe away—and I reckon a war pipe played loud enough would scare off a banshee.”

  Margaret asked on her own accord for details of their playing. If she learned nothing else, this piece of scholarship would make their trip worthwhile. The bagpipe was the only wind instrument, however, except for a few wooden flutes; and there were no brasses except for a couple of Terran imports, clearly included because the Darkovans perceived them as exotic. It made sense that a world as metal poor as the teaching disks had insisted Darkover was would not waste any on tubas or trombones.

  Much of the morning was gone, and the question of the strange eff-holes remained undiscussed, what with trying to describe the sorts of woods used to make the lutes, and how the tuning was arranged. At last Everard reached into a niche in the wall and took out a small harplike instrument which Margaret had been eyeing with curiosity. He called it a harp, but Margaret heard, like a whisper beneath his breath, that it was called a ryll.

  “You know,” he rumbled, “that they die if they are not played.” He seemed to have forgotten that neither Margaret nor Professor Davidson knew anything of the sort, and realized he was speaking almost to himself lost in some remembrance. “You will, perhaps, think me a foolish old man. The old makers understood these things better
than this generation does. They would tell you it is the spirit of the tree in the wood that gives life to the instrument. A tree is a tree, you might think. Perhaps—but wood is living stuff, not like stone or clay. Then the maker himself puts something into it, as well. And if it’s associated with one person for a very many years, it takes on something of his touch also.” Then, as if noticing them, he looked mildly embarrassed.

  Margaret smiled. “Anyone who knows anything about instrument making would agree with you, Master. I am often certain my own harp is quite alive, and Ivor has a relationship with his guitar that would make his wife jealous if she were that sort of woman.” She was surprised by her eloquence, but so pleased at her growing ease with the local language that she hardly noticed.

  “My wife was jealous, too,” replied Everard, sighing a little. “But she was born in Tanner Street and did not grow up with wood shavings in the soup, as the saying goes. Now, this ryll . . .” he used the native term in his eagerness to tell the tale, “is a real problem child. It once belonged to a woman of great talent, and more than a little madness—they say she was of chieri blood—a woman who has her own place in the history of our world. It is not a pleasant story. But that is the way of life,” he went on, again lost in his own thoughts. “If you win, or succeed in what you try to do, you are a hero; if not, a villain. That is the way of history.”

  Chieri blood? The word was not one she recognized, but it made her feel peculiar. “But what is so strange about this—ryll?” Margaret asked, her fingers itching to caress the silky wood, and she banished her unease and curiosity at the same time. The instrument had fascinated her since she came into the room.