Songmaster Read online

  The first memory was of the White Lady whimpering, lying on a bed with huge pillows. She was staring into nothingness, and did not see Ansset as he walked into the room. His step was unsure. He did not know if she would be angry that he had come in. But her soft, whipped cries drew him on, for it was a sound he could not resist, and he came and stood by the bed where she rested her head on her arm. He reached out and patted her arm. Even in the dream the skin felt hot and fevered. She looked at him, and her eyes were deep in tears. Ansset reached to the eyes, touched the brow, let his tiny fingers slide down, closing the eyes, caressing the lids so gently that the White Lady did not recoil. Instead she sighed, and he caressed all her face as her whimpers softened into gentle humming.

  It was then that the dream went awry, ending in odd ways. Always Giant Man came in, but what he did was a mystery of rumbling voice, embraces, shouts. Sometimes he also lay on the bed with White Lady. Sometimes he picked Ansset up and took him on strange adventures that ended in waking. Sometimes the White Lady kissed him good-bye. Sometimes she did not notice him once the Giant Man came into the room. But the dream always began the same, and the part that never changed was memory.

  The other memory was of the moment of kidnapping. Ansset was in a very large place with a distant roof that was painted with strange animals and distorted people. Loud music came from a lighted place where everyone was always moving. Then there was a deafening noise and the place became all light and noise and conversation, and White Lady and Giant Man walked among the crowd. There was pushing and jostling, and someone stepped between White Lady and Ansset, breaking their handhold. White Lady turned to the stranger, but at the same moment Ansset felt a powerful hand grip his. He was pulled away, bumping harshly through the crowd. Then the hand pulled him up, hurting his arm, and for a moment, lifted above the heads of the crowd, Ansset saw White Lady and Giant Man for the last time, both of them pushing through the crowd, their faces fearful, their mouths open to cry out. But Ansset could never remember hearing them. For a blast of hot air struck him, and a door closed, and he was outside in a blazing hot night, and then he always, always woke up, trembling but not crying, because he could hear a voice saying Quiet, Quiet, Quiet in tones that meant fear and falling and fire and shame.

  You do not cry, said the teacher, a man with a voice that was more comforting than sunlight.

  Ansset shook his head. Sometimes, he said.

  Before, answered the teacher. But now you will learn Control. When you cry you waste your songs. You burn up your songs. You drown your songs.

  Songs? asked Ansset.

  You are a little pot full of songs, said the teacher, and when you cry, the pot breaks and all the songs spill out ugly. Control means keeping the songs in the pot, and letting them out one at a time.

  Ansset knew pots. Food came from a pot. He thought of songs as food, then, besides knowing they were music.

  Do you know any songs? asked the teacher.

  Ansset shook his head.

  Not any? Not any songs at all?

  Ansset looked down.

  Ansset, songs. Not words. Just a song that has no words but you just sing, like this, Ah-- and the teacher sang a short stretch of melody that spoke to Ansset and said, Trust, Trust, Trust.

  Ansset smiled. He sang the same melody back to the teacher. For a moment the teacher smiled, then looked startled, then reached out with wondering eyes and touched Ansset's hair. The gesture was kind. And so Ansset sang the love song to the teacher. Not the words, because he had no memory for words yet. But he sang the melody as Rruk had sung it to him, and the teacher wept. It was Ansset's first lesson on his first day at the Songhouse, and the teacher wept. He did not understand until later that this meant that the teacher had lost Control and would be ashamed for weeks until Ansset's gifts were more fully appreciated. He only knew that when he sang the love song, he was understood.

  3

  Cull, you're beyond this, said Esste, with grief and sympathy and reproach. You're a good teacher, and that's why we trusted you with the new ones.

  I know, Cull said. But Esste--

  You wept for minutes. Minutes before you regained Control. Cull, have you been ill?"

  Healthy.

  Are you unhappy?

  I wasn't, not until after-after. I wasn't weeping for grief, Mother Esste, I was weeping for--

  For what?

  Joy.

  Esste hammed exasperation and noncomprehension.

  The child, Esste, the child.

  Ansset, yes? The blond one?

  Yes. I sang him trust, and he sang it back to me.

  He shows promise then, and you broke Control in front of him.

  You are impatient.

  Esste bowed her head. I am. Her posture said shame. Her voice said she was still impatient and only a little ashamed after all. She could not lie to a teacher.

  Listen to me, pleaded Cull.

  I'm listening, said Esste's reassuring sigh.

  Ansset sang my trust back to me note for note, perfectly. Nearly a minute, and it wasn't easy. And he didn't sing just the melody. He sang pitch. He sang nuance. He sang every emotion I had said to him, except that it was stronger. It was like singing into a long hall and having the sound come back at you louder than you sang it,

  Do you exaggerate? asked Esste's hum.

  I was shocked. And yet delighted. Because I knew in that instant that here we had a true prodigy. Someone who might become a Songbird--

  Careful, careful, said the hiss from Esste's mouth.

  I know it's not my decision, but you didn't hear his answer. It's his first day, his first lesson-and anyway, that was nothing, nothing at all to what came after, Esste, he sang the love song to me. Rruk only sang it to him once yesterday. But he sang the whole thing--

  Words?

  He's only three. He sang the melody and the love, and Esste, Mother Esste, no one has ever sung such love to me. Uncontrolled, utterly open, completely giving, and I couldn't contain it, I couldn't, Esste, and you know my Control has never faltered before.

  Esste heard Cull's song, and the teacher wasn't lying to protect himself. The child was remarkable. The child was powerful. Esste decided she would meet the child.

  After she met him, in a brief encounter at the Galley at breakfast, she reassigned herself to be his teacher. As for Cull, the consequence of his loss of Control was much lighter than the usual, and as Esste taught Ansset day after day, she sent word for Cull to be advanced step by step until within a few weeks he was a teacher of new ones again, and Esste put the word around so that none would criticize Cull: With this child, any teacher would have lost Control.

  And there was a dancing quality to her walk and a warmth to her voice that made every teacher and master and even the Songmaster in the High Room ..realize that Esste at last hoped, perhaps even let herself believe, that her life's work might be within reach. Mikal's Songbird? another Songmaster presumed to ask her one day, though his melody told her she need not answer if she didn't want to.

  She only hummed high in her head and leaned her head against the stone, and laid her hand on her cheek so that the Songmaster laughed. But he had his answer. She could clown and play to try to hide her hopes, but the very clowning and playing were message enough. Esste was happy. This was so unusual it even startled the children.

  4

  It was unheard of for a Songmaster to teach new ones. The new ones did not know it, of course, not at first, not until they had learned enough of the basics to advance, as a class, to become Groans. There were other Groans, some as old as five or six, and like all children they had their own society with its own rules, its own customs, its own legends. Ansset's class of Groans soon learned that it was safe to be pugnacious and obstinate with a Belch, but never with a Breeze; that it meant nothing where you slept, but you sat at table with your friends; that if a fellow Groan sang you a melody, you must deliberately make a mistake in singing it back to him, or he'll think you're bragging.
/>   Ansset learned all the rules quickly, because he was bright, and made everyone in his class think of him as a friend, because he was kind. No one but Esste noticed that he did not exchange secrets in the toilet, did not join any of the inner rings that constantly grew and waned among the children. Instead, Ansset worked harder at perfecting his voice. He hummed almost constantly. He cocked his head when masters and teachers talked without words, using only melody to communicate. His focus was not on the children, who had nothing to teach him, but on the adults.

  While none of the children were conscious of his separation from them, unconsciously they allowed for it, Ansset was treated with deference. The hazing by the Belches (no, not in front of the teachers-in front of the teachers they're Bells), which was usually at the level of urinating on a Groan so he had to shower again, or spilling his soup day after day so that he got in trouble with the cooks- the hazing somehow bypassed Ansset.

  And he entered the mythology of the Groans very quickly. There were other legendary figures-Jaffa, who in anger at her teacher burst one day into a Chamber and sang a solo, and then, instead of being punished, was advanced to be a Breeze without ever having to be a Belch at all; Moom, who stayed a Groan until he was nine years old, and then suddenly got the hang of things and passed through Bells and Breezes in a week, entered Stalls and Chambers and was out as a singer before he turned ten; and Dway, who was gifted and- ought to have become a Songbird, but who could not stop rebelling and finally escaped the Songhouse so often that she was thrust out and put with a normal boarding school and never sang another note. Ansset was not so colorful. But his name passed from class to class and from year to year so that after he had been a Groan for only a month, even singers in Stalls and Chambers knew of him, and admired him, and secretly resented him.

  He will be a Songbird, said the growing myth. And this was not resented by the children his own age, because while all of them could hope to be a singer, Songbirds only came every few years, and some children passed from Common Rooms into Stalls and Chambers without ever having known someone who became a Songbird. Indeed, there was no Songbird at all in the Songhouse now-the most recent one, Wymmyss, had been placed out only a few weeks before Ansset came, so that none of his class had ever heard a Songbird sing.

  Of course, there were former Songbirds among the teachers and masters, but that was no help, because their voices had changed. How do you become a Songbird? Groans would ask Belches, and Belches would ask Breezes, and none of them knew the answer, and few dared hope that they would achieve that status.

  How do you become a Songbird? Ansset sang to Esste one day, and Esste could not hide her startlement completely, not because of the question, though it was rare for a child to ask such an open question, but because of the song, which also seemed to ask, Were you a Songbird, Esste?

  Yes, I was a Songbird, she answered, and Ansset, who had not yet mastered Control, revealed to her that that was the question he had been asking. The boy was learning songtalk, and Esste would have to be careful to warn the teachers and masters not to use it in front of him unless they didn't mind being understood.

  What did you do? Ansset asked.

  I sang.

  Singers sing. Why are Songbirds different?

  Esste looked at him narrowly. Why do you want to be a Songbird?

  Because they're the perfect ones.

  You're only a Groan, Ansset. You have years ahead of you. The statement was wasted, she knew. He could sing, he could hear song, but he was still almost an infant, and years were too long to grasp.

  Why do you love me? Ansset asked her, this time in front of the class.

  I love all of you, Esste sang, and all the children smiled at the love in her voice.

  Why do you sing to me more than to the others, then? Ansset demanded, and Esste heard in his song another message: The others are not my friends because you set me apart.

  I don't sing to anyone more than to anyone else, Esste answered, and in songtalk she said, I will be more careful. Did he understand? At least he seemed satisfied with her answer, and did not ask again.

  Ansset became one of the great legends, however, when he was promoted from Groan to Belch earlier than the rest of his class-and instead of Esste remaining with the class, she moved with Ansset. It was then that Ansset realized that not only was it unusual for a Songmaster to be doing a teacher's job, but also Esste was teaching, not the class, but him. Ansset. Esste was teaching Ansset.

  The other children noticed this at least as quickly as Ansset did, and he found that while all of them were nice to him, and all of them praised him, and all of them sought to be near him and eat with him and talk to him, none of them sang the love song to him. And none of them was his friend, for they were afraid.

  5

  A lesson.

  Esste took her class of Bells out of the Songhouse. They rode in a flesket, so that all of them could see outside. It was always a wonder to them, leaving the cold stone walls of the Songhouse. Groans were never taken out; Breezes often were; and Bells knew that the trips in the flesket were only a taste of things to come.

  They went through deep forests, skimming over the underbrush as they followed a narrow road cut between tall trees. Birds paced them, and animals looked up bemusedly as they passed.

  To children schooled to singing, however, the miracle came when they left the flesket. Esste had the driver, who was only eighteen and therefore just returned from being a singer outside, stop them by a small waterfall. Esste led the children to the side of the stream. She commanded silence, and because Bells have the rudiments of Control, they were able to hold utterly still and listen. They heard birdsong, which they longed to answer; the gurgle of the stream as it slopped against the rocks and inlets of the shore; the whisper of breezes through leaves and grass.

  They sat for fifteen minutes, which was near the limit of their Control, and then Esste led them closer to the waterfall. It wasn't a long walk, but it was slick and damp as they approached the mist rising from the foot of the falls. There had been a landslide many years before, and the cascade, instead of falling into the pool it had carved out of rock, tumbled onto rock and sprayed out in all directions. The children sat only a dozen meters away, and the water soaked them.

  Again, silence. Again, Control. But this time they heard nothing but the crash of the water on the rock. They could see birds flying, could see leaves moving in the wind, but could hear nothing of that.

  After only a few minutes Esste released them. What do we do? asked one of the children.

  What you want, answered Esste.

  So they- gingerly waded at the edge of the pool, while the driver watched to make sure no one drowned. Few of them noticed when Esste left; only Ansset followed her.

  She led him, though she gave no sign she knew he was following, to a path leading up the steep slope to the top of the falls. Ansset watched her carefully, to see where she was going. She climbed. He climbed after. It was not easy for him. His arms and legs were still clumsy with childhood, and he grew tired. There were hard places, where Esste had only to step up, while Ansset had to clamber over rises half as high as he was. But he did not let Esste out of his sight, and she, for her part, did not go too quickly for him. She had gathered her gown for the climb, and Ansset looked curiously at her legs. They were white and spindly, and her ankles looked too thin to hold her up. Yet she was nimble enough as they climbed. Ansset had never thought of her as having legs before. Children had legs, but masters and teachers rushed along with gowns brushing the floor. The sight of legs, just like a child's, made Ansset wonder if Esste was like the girls in the shower and toilet. He imagined her squatting over the trench. It was a sight that he knew was forbidden, yet in his mind he violated even good manners and stared and stared.

  And came face to face with Esste at the top of the hill.

  He was startled, and showed it. She only murmured a few notes of reassurance. You were meant to be here, her song said. Then she looked ou
t beyond the hill, and Ansset looked after her. Behind them was forest in rolling hills, but here a lake spread out to lap the edges of a bowl of hills. Trees grew right to the edge, except for a few clearings. The lake was not large, as lakes go, but to Ansset it was all the water in the world. Only a few hundred meters away, the lake poured over a lip of rock to make the waterfall. But here there was no hint of the violence of the fall. Here the lake was placid, and waterbirds skimmed and dipped and swam and dived, crying out from time to time.

  Esste questioned him with a melody, and Ansset answered, It's large. Large as the sky.

  That is not all you should see, Ansset, my son, she said to him. You should see the mountains around the lake, holding it in.

  What makes a lake?

  A river comes into this valley, pouring in the water. It has no place to go, so it fills up. Until some spills out at the waterfall. It can fill no deeper than the lowest point, Ansset, this is Control.

  This is Control. Ansset's young mind struggled to make the connection.

  How is it Control, Ansset?

  Because it is deep, Ansset answered.

  You are guessing, not thinking.

  Because, said Ansset, it is all held in everywhere except one place, so that it only comes out a little at a time.

  Closer, said Esste. Which meant he was wrong. Ansset looked at the lake, trying for inspiration. But all he could see was a lake.

  Stop looking at the lake, Ansset, if the lake tells you nothing.

  So Ansset looked at the trees, at the birds, at the hills. He looked all around the hills. And he knew what Esste wanted him to know. The water pours out of the low place.

  And? Not enough yet?

  If the low place were higher, the lake would be deeper.

  And if the low place were lower?

  There wouldn't be a lake.

  And Esste broke off the conversation. Or rather, changed languages, because now she sang, and the song exulted a little. It was low and it was not loud, but it spoke, without words, of joy; of having found after long searching, of having given a gift carried far too long; of having, at last, eaten when she thought never to eat again. I hungered for you, and you are here, said her song.