The Windsingers (12 page)

'Let me tell you how we see it. Sure, there's a legend of the Windsingers' chest, buried in the muck of the temple. But the idea of someone hauling it up is just spiced sugar on the top of the cake. It's the pageantry of it, the drama of a teamster up to his armpits in icy water and waves, trying for that chest while the Windsinger stands on the hill above, her blue robes blowing in her own gale, and does her best to keep him from it. One old rhymester that came among us called it the ancient battle of man against the elements of wind and water : wrote a whole school of verses about it. He's the one that told us it's really the pageantry of it that we love. Likely you'll hear his song in this very room this evening, if Collie's fixed his harp yet.'

Vandien found himself nodding. He was just as glad that Ki was not here to grin at him across the table and be so damn right. He continued to eat, but the food no longer had flavor. So it was all to be a farce, and he was the hired clown. Yet, 'Srolan offered me a very large fee, in more than coin,' he said softly.

'Oh, yes!' Helti chimed in anxiously. 'And it's sincere! If, that is, you bring up the chest itself. Srolan would never offer more than she was in power to bestow. The village council is always generous with the pot it sets aside for the festival teamster. Probably because it's never had to pay any of it out.' Helti hesitated a moment. 'They usually reimburse me for the teamster's keep. The rest they use up on the Midwinter Fest. They don't mind contributing to their own fun,' he confided.

'I see.' Vandien stirred his chowder aimlessly. His belly still hungered, but suddenly eating seemed too much of an effort. There was no real chance of lifting his scar, nor even of turning a profit. A man who put less value on the touch of his hand would leave now, not even make the attempt. But he had touched hands on this. While the opinion of others mattered very little to Vandien, he would not tarnish his own opinion of himself. So he had given his word that he would make a public fool of himself. That was how it was, then. If it must be done, he might as well do it with good grace.

Helti was amazed and a little alarmed as he watched the teamster's melancholy face light with a sardonic grin. Trust Srolan to find one like him. Vandien raised his mug and drained it, returning it to the table with a thump. Helti in turn lifted it and waved it at the boy, who stopped scraping ashes and clinkers to take it for refilling.

'Any other little revelations about this task you would rare to enlighten me with?' Vandien inquired genially.

'No. No. Unless, well, perhaps you would like to meet the Windsinger you'll be opposing. I mean, no sense in going into this thing with hard feelings. You two are the village's guests during Temple Ebb. It's not like she picked you to defeat; you just happened to be the one this year.'

'Precisely. No hard feelings, good fellowship all round, and here's to you, my competitor!' The boy had returned with the mug and Vandien raised it again.

'Exactly.' Helti was not totally reassured. Vandien's words were sporting enough. But the merry lilt had sharp edges. Still and all, it was too late to find another teamster. Helti made a silent resolution that next time he would send someone else to find a teamster. This fellow promised no sport or show at all. Worse, his capacity for food and drink seemed limitless. A poor bargain, but too late to change now. He tried to mellow the teamster's mood. 'They've sent us a fine Windsinger this year. Not like in early years, when I've heard that the Windsingers took the whole festival poorly, and turned gales and storms on the village for weeks afterward. No, they've come to see it for what it is, a bit of pageantry, a break from this workaday world. Quite a merry little one they've sent us this year! She plans to stay right here in the inn with us, just as if she were folks. Not much past being an apprentice, by the color of her robes, and so fine-scaled that you'd swear she still wore her own skin. She can blow up a fine wind though. A sweeter-tempered Windsinger you've never had to do with. Last eve she was making breezes for the children's kites, so that even the youngest ones could get one flying. Now that's a new one to us; most have been courteous enough, but acted more like they were tolerating the festival. This one seems bound to enjoy it as much as we. Picture this; here we were, last night, all gathered about the fire of an evening, beginning to do a bit of singing. Festival has a lot of songs, it being an old holiday, and we were tuning up a bit on them. We had got into it pretty fair, more loud than tuneful, you understand, for singing is not a thing we do that often. We had just got to the middle of the chorus, mugs beating out the time, when we hear a voice join in that we know isn't one of the village folk. High and clear like a bird taken to Human tongue. Everyone stops their singing, and looks about, and there she is, on the stairway. It gets all silent, you can imagine how we are, thinking, how long has she been there, how much has she heard - for some of the old songs aren't too kindly spoken of the Windsingers. But what does she do? She finishes out the chorus alone, and gives us a smile and comes on down. Bring me a mug of your best! she calls out, just like she was folks, and I'll sing you one you've not heard before, even though it's about your own village. We call it The Village That Plows The Sea. And in she starts, singing to an old tune, but set so high that no one in the village could have matched one note of it. And it is about False Harbor, and how we harvest fish from the sea, and it makes a joke of it, saying we plow the waves at Temple Ebb, seeking for what is not there.'

'I don't get it,' Vandien put in slowly, his low voice a marked contrast to the innkeeper's amazed and jocular one.

'Why, you know! We send out a man with a team, and he slashes and turns through the waves, like a farmer turning up furrows to plant a crop, and we harvest a crop of fish from the sea... but I'm just telling you in words, you have to hear it all done in rhyme, with the words turned to mean two things at once and...'

'No.' Vandien's voice was as soft as ever, but cut right through Helti's flow of words. 'That much is obvious, even to me. What means the part about plowing for what is not there?'

'Srolan!' Helti hissed the name out in frustrated rebuke. 'You make me feel bad, young man. Has she not told you that the Windsingers have always denied there is anything to be found in the temple? They send the storms, they tell us, only because such as we should not be desecrating their fallen temples with our curiosity.'

'Is there, or is there not, a chest I am to bring up?' Vandien demanded in a flinty voice.

'There is not.'

The voice from behind his shoulder was silky soft, pure and strong with years of training. Vandien turned to it slowly, refusing to be startled. Few could approach him without his hearing, but she had.

'Windsinger Killian,' Held breathed deferentially. 'I hope our frank speech has not irritated you. The man was hired knowing little of our customs and what we truly expected of him. I was only...'

'Peace, innmaster. Why should I take offense at the truth? Your name, teamster?'

Vandien looked up at her and held his name in his mouth. Her height was not impressive. She had more than half a head over Vandien, but most of it was cowl. What had been her forehead when she was Human would have been on a height with his own. She was slender in pale blue robes that fell to cover even the tips of her toes. But they bared her face and hands and wrists to Vandien's quick eyes. Finely scaled she was, the scales only beginning to be edged with a bluish tinge. It could have been a flawlessly applied cosmetic, but it was not. Her fingernails were already turning to a heavier layer of horny scale, the eyelashes and eyebrows long fled from her face, even her lips were masked in scales of a slightly rosier hue. She was a Windsinger, and Vandien had been warned all of his life not to gift one of such power with his own name. He was mute.

'He is Vandien,' Helti broke in as the silence became awkward. 'Pray, seat yourself, Windsinger Killian. Shall I send for something from the kitchen for you?'

Vandien had lowered his dark eyes. Now he picked up his mug and looked boldly at the Windsinger over its rim. He took down half of it. Helti was becoming more and more agitated every moment, but Vandien cared little; Helti had made free with his name, now let him swallow discomfort and choke on it.

But Killian appeared not to notice any awkwardness as she seated herself beside Helti. Her tall cowl bobbed gracefully to her movements, like the soft crest of a wading bird. But for that cowl she could have been a prudishly swathed young woman. Her grey eyes, so Human, looked into Vandien's with the charming frankness of an innocent girl. And yet, he reminded himself, she was neither innocent nor Human. Not anymore.

'And does your teamster speak?' Killian teased.

'When he has words to say,' Vandien countered.

'And have you nothing to say to me, who will oppose you tomorrow?' Her eyes smiled at Helti's, past Vandien, as if he were a difficult child and Helti the doting parent.

'I think not,' Vandien rasped.

'A pity. I had so looked forward to meeting my competitor, and seeing if he was worthy of opposing my skills. So silent you are, I think you cowed already. Will you slip away in the night, Vandien, before we have a chance to try one another?'

'Will you?'

'Um. You think that would make your task easier? That if there were no wind whistling about you, you could splash about to your heart's content and find something in the old temple? Were it not that our temples, old or new, are consecrated only for us, I would be tempted to let you try.'

'Now, now!' Helti intervened anxiously. He rose and pressed a heavy hand on Vandien's shoulder. 'You've no call to be so bitter of tongue, young man. It's true, you were misled about your task. I'm sorry that was so. But take it with a good spirit, as befits a man of honor. Buck up, and make the best of it! Is it so hard a thing, to face two days of free food and drink, a clean warm room with soft blankets, and whatever else you can think to ask for? It's true you don't stand to gain much in coin, but surely Srolan told you how we treat our teamster guest. Would you have a new cloak? A pair of boots? Ask for it, and it's yours. You'll see we're not a niggardly folk when it comes to our guests. Perhaps you've been tricked into this part, but it need not be a bad thing for you. Think what you're to ask of us, and warm your heart a little. And, Windsinger Killian, begging your pardon, but I hope you won't be taking our teamster's sour words too hard. A long and weary way he has come, dry of throat and hungry, thinking of gold for his purse, only to have his dreams turned to fish chowder and boots. It's enough to sour any man. Likely he's just a bit tired. A hot bath and a bed is what you need, man. Now isn't that so?' The big hand on Vandien's shoulder tightened suggestively. It did not leave his shoulder as he rose, but subtly helped him to his feet and steered him to the stairs. 'You'll see. It will set all to rights with you. You'll face tomorrow with a grin on your face and a new spirit.'

'No doubt.' Vandien's words were for Helti, but his eyes locked with the Windsinger's. What parents had given their daughter such eyes? How had they felt when they lost her to the Windsingers? Or had she, like so many other little girls, gone out to play one day and simply never returned? Did she even remember them? And then the large grey eyes dropped him a wink, so girlishly flirtatious that his blood ran cold.

He climbed the stairs slowly. Down below, he heard Helti bellowing for someone named Janie to fetch him a bath. The stairs led up to a hallway, dimly lit by windows at either end. The stairwell was not railed. Vandien resolved not to drink too much this night. Of the six doors facing onto the hall, two were closed. He made a hasty inspection of the other four and chose the largest and airiest bedroom. The window shutters had been latched open and a fresh breeze off the sea flavored the chilled room.

It was a well-furnished room by an inn's standards. The stout wooden tub, long and deep, had been designed for someone larger than Vandien. A wooden stand, plain but graceful, supported a basin and ewer. The wooden bedstead boasted a straw-stuffed mattress with two thick coverlets and a folded woolen blanket at the foot of it. There was even a trunk, if he had needed a place for his possessions. Two worn hides graced the floor, one by the bed and another by the tub. A wooden stool completed the room's furnishings.

Vandien sank gratefully onto the bed. For a moment he let his shoulders slump in defeat, then he straightened, knuckled his eyes, and pushed his hair back from his face. There was a knock at his door. Before he could answer, it was shouldered open. Janie was obviously the older sister of the child cleaning tables; the resemblance was unmistakable. She carried two heavy buckets of steaming water. The serving boy behind her was similarly laden, and two rough towels were slung over his shoulder.

'Your bath, teamster,' the boy announced, dumping his water into the tub.

'I doubt he thought it was soup,' giggled Janie. She rolled her eyes at Vandien, and shrugged at the boy's stupidity. Her young breasts heaved alarmingly. Vandien couldn't decide if she were flirting with him or the serving boy.

The boy ignored her, setting the towels on the stool and clumping out of the room. Janie glanced about casually, pulled a handful of herbs from her apron pocket, and tossed them into the water. As she bent over the tub to stir them in, she watched Vandien from the corner of her eye. He sat silent, waiting. Then she straightened, slowly drying her hand and arm on her apron.

'Is there anything else, teamster?'

'Nothing. This is much finer than I expected. Thank you.'