“You’ll share that with your men.” Orial’s voice behind me made me jump. She pointed at the circle of lattice now roofed with stronger rods all meeting in the middle and socketed into what had to be an old cartwheel. The fire irons being fixed in the pit looked suspiciously like well-hammered wagon struts as well. I thought about going to help but everyone involved looked well used to sharing the task. I wasn’t about to risk showing myself up by making some error.
I sat down next to Orial, who was pounding some hapless root to pulp with a pestle and mortar. Thick mats of coarse linen were wrapped around the walls of our new home, covered in their turn with stout woven bark securely lashed with ropes of twisted vine. “Do we thank Ravin for this?” I asked.
“Frue is of the Folk and as such can expect shelter in any campground.” Orial’s gaze was somewhat superior. “You are not of the Folk, even if you are of the blood, are you?”
“You’re not from around here either,” I countered. “Your speech is different from the rest.”
“I am from the far south,” Orial replied easily. “I am traveling to learn new wisdoms. I will return to my own people in time—for winter.” I had the impression she might have said something else but her face was hidden as she searched in her deerhide bag.
“What kind of wisdom are you seeking?” I asked casually. “Something of the kind my friend Usara has? Magic or enchantments?”
Orial pulled a little knife from her belt and added flakes shaved from a leathery dried stem to her paste. “I’m a herbalist, as my mother before me and most of the women in my line. I look for new knowledge of roots and leaves, powers of flower and fruit to soothe and cure.” She nodded toward the new house. “You should go and light the first fire in the hearth, for luck.”
Like any new bride in Vanam, taking possession of the kitchen soon to become her whole world? Not likely, I thought. Orial was humming again, intent on her work.
“Frue was playing that tune last night,” I remarked. “Do you know him?”
“Not beyond brushing shoulders today.” Orial shrugged. “It’s ‘The Lay of Mazir’s Hands.’ All healers sing it, for luck.”
“Could you sing it for me, please?” I sat on the damp earth, hugging my knees, all innocent appeal. There was something about the tune tugging at me like an importunate child.
Orial looked up at the sun, overhead now and dappling the ground with shadows. “I suppose I could spare a little while.” Her voice was rich and full, her accent far closer to what I remembered of my father’s than Frue’s thicker, more fluid tongue and as the tune soared and dipped, I listened close for the words. Kespar, whoever he might have been, had been duped into a wager with Poldrion that he could swim the river between this world and the Other faster than the Ferryman could row his boat across. Unsurprisingly, the demons got him and Kespar went home to Mazir with pride and hide both in tatters. She healed him with love, herbs and teasing rebuke. That was the burden of the verses at least but the refrain meant nothing to me beyond a teasing echo.
“What does that mean,” I asked, “ ‘ardeila menalen reskelserr’?”
“It’s just jalquezan,” Orial struggled for a translation as I sat looking blankly at her. “Word-music.”
“But what does it signify?” I persisted.
“It’s meaningless.” She waved her pestle in a helpless gesture. “Nonsense, just word-music.”
“You sing this for luck?” I itched to go and fetch my song book. After the delays of the journey and the reverses of the night before, it finally looked as if the luck was running my way.
“It’s a tale reckoned to bring good fortune to medicine or poultice.” Orial was looking perplexed.
“Are there other songs you sing for luck, especially for different things?” I asked with studied casualness. “Are there many with this jalquezan?”
“There’s ‘Viyenne and the Does,’ ” Orial said after a moment. “When she fled Kespar’s advances, she had to turn herself into a deer and hide in the midst of a herd. Then there’s ‘Sens and the Bridge,’ ‘Mazir and the Storm.’ They all have jalquezan but I don’t know of anyone singing them for any particular reason. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “Just curious.” I got up and headed for our neat new house, where Frue was unrolling his sodden blanket and spreading it on the roof to dry. Our other bags were stacked inside the door and I opened mine with trepidation. My clothes were damp and smelled like a bucket of frogs but the oilskin I’d added to the song book’s wrappings had been coin well spent. The linen beneath was barely damp at the outermost corners and the book within was untouched. I heaved a sigh of relief.
Frue was looking at me with mingled irritation and amusement as he tenderly inspected his lute. Trimon only knows how he’d kept that safe from the flood. “What are you getting that out for?”
“Orial and I have been talking about songs and I’d like her opinion on some of these.” I smiled at him. “She’s been telling me about the jalquezan. That would be the bits you couldn’t translate for me?” I was mentally kicking myself for mistaking Frue’s meaning when he’d said that. “Mazir and the Storm,” here it was. A tale of losing the path and finding it again.
“Of course,” he nodded, unconcerned. “No one can, I told you.”
I managed a casual tone. “You said there was no point singing these on the road, where no one would understand the words. How about giving Orial a song or two as she works? These Folk will be able to follow them and it would go some way to thanking them for their help today, their care of Zenela. We could both put something back in the balance, couldn’t we? No time like the present, isn’t that what they say?”
Frue looked around the glade where men and women were sitting over undemanding tasks or openly taking their ease in the thin sunshine. “You know, whoever your father is, Livak, I’ll bet he’s a man with a lot to answer for.”
He picked up his lute nevertheless and carried it over to sit by Orial. I followed with the precious song book and propped it in my lap so Frue could see the pages. He said something to Orial that escaped me and then struck up a jaunty melody. Forest words in his rich tenor were less easy to follow, but this was one he had already translated for me on the road. A man had gone wandering in the deep woods, finding a strange woman who—for some reason I missed— turned into a grotesque hag when he pursued her. Our hero declined her invitation to stay as her lover and tried to find his way back to his people, only to find himself lost among strange trees and stranger encounters, each taking him farther from home. When he eventually came full circle, he discovered he’d been absent five full years, not just the five days he’d lived through.
Now that I heard it sung for the first time, this jalquezan clamored for my attention, underscoring every instance of the man’s lament over his plight. The underlying rhythms were increasingly familiar; Geris the gentle scholar had used aetheric charms with just such a beat. The Elietimm bastards who’d killed him and had done their best to pull my wits out through my ears had spoken foul enchantments ringing with just such a cadence. But what did the words mean? Was this Artifice or coincidence?
Frue finished with a flourish of chords and two women came over to join us.
“That’s a tale I haven’t heard since I was a little girl,” one smiled.
“I have a book full of ancient songs.” I turned the pages so she and her companion could see. “Are there any others you know?”
The women shrugged. “We do not read, me nor Serida,” the first one explained easily.
“How about this?” Frue turned back a few leaves of parchment and frowned as he fingered the frets on his lute. His face cleared and he began a tune with a tricky shift of pitch in the middle of the verse. The women nodded with laughing eyes and joined him in a lively song about the original White Raven. Orial looked up from her work and added a descant and Frue slipped into a lower harmony, blending and dropping away in elegant counterpoint. I listened intently, finding myself nodding to the beat, but while the tune remained constant, the words dissolved into chaos when they reached the refrain.