Chapter Fifteen

The mood in the dining hall in Saravar that night was exhilarated. The tournament was back on and betting had begun to take place in earnest. The byr would have diversion for the next two days and perhaps some new heroes to admire when it was all over. They’d regret all the wine in the morning, but for now it flowed freely and brought smiles to many faces.

The mood in Kaladas was the opposite. The hall was close to quiet for the first time in the days Fox had been there. He arrived later than he would have liked, his steps dragging, his shoulders only just losing some of their tension, to a hall full of knights either keeping to their rooms or sitting around the fireplace to check, or recheck, their armor and patch tears in their surcoats. Byr Shine was there as well, her tail carelessly, shockingly atop the tail of the knight next to her, both of them looking serious and slightly ill, so perhaps neither of them had noticed or they took comfort from the contact the way children did.

This was nerves, Fox realized. The younger knights had put off their fears until now by keeping busy sparring, riding, and fucking, but most would want to save their strength and retire early. That would give them more time to think and make themselves sick.

Fox, his lute little more than a weight at his back all day, stared at them for several moments before directing his tired feet toward the end of the hall. Rolfi saw him and straightened. Fox gave him a wink, then hopped onto a bench seat.

He swung his lute around and strummed a few times to get the attention of anyone who wasn’t already staring at him.

“My lovelies, I have had a very long day. You wouldn’t believe how long.” He let out an exaggerated sigh. “And nothing would help me feel better than playing a song or two for you.” A lie, since he could think of several things that would also do and required less work on his part, but a few more of the knights sat up and a performer never minded a tiny lie or two. Byr Shine clapped her hands together. Fox bowed his head to her before finishing his introduction with a flourish of his tail. “If anyone has anything they’d like to hear, you’re doing me a favor by asking.”

That the first request was a love song shouldn’t have been a surprise. Fox also didn’t know if it was a wise choice, considering the events that had taken place in Kaladas over the past few days. But love songs, sad or happy, would forever be popular. He went with happy to raise their spirits and let his lute fall in order to sing The Tailor’s Heart unaccompanied.

Self-taught Fox might be, but he had done so by listening to every singer he ran across and practicing endlessly while tramping through orchards and hiking down country lanes in search of food or shelter. He could sing in echoing chambers in the capital or make himself heard in a loud tavern. And The Tailor’s Heart was a simple song that did not need embellishments.

A tailor in a shop is infatuated with a customer but doesn’t hint or speak of it, partly because the customer is a prosperous merchant and the tailor is a mere assistant, but mostly because the tailor can barely speak in their presence. The chorus was the tailor’s loudly beating heart drowning out the words the customer speaks, leading the tailor to say ridiculous things in response and fear the customer thinks them a fool.

The song did not end with the two falling into each other’s arms, but neither was the ending sad. It was a humorous tale about the experience of a crush or perhaps budding love and how nerves could get in the way of actually pursuing that love.

Fox gave another flourish of his tail when the song was done and waved off the applause, pleasing though it was, to ask for another request. Elder Ferdel was also light, although there was a yearning beneath the words that made it closer to a passion song than a love song. At least, Fox thought so, but Domvoda’s words might have been affecting him.

He did not think about obviously untrue legends turned into love songs too incredible to be believed as he picked up his lute, nor as he began the story of the handsome older widower at a village fair attempting to determine which of his grown childrens’ suitors were worthy of them, only to find himself expectedly pursued by one of those suitors himself. The suitor, who seems passion-struck although the song never claims him as such, is persistent. Ferdel, who for Fox’s money is equally overwhelmed by passion although that might simply be his state of flustered surprise, does not accept even the offer a dance, but stands with his unusual suitor near the dancing while they stare into each other’s eyes.

Conall slid into a seat in front of Fox. The benches seemed to have filled while Fox had sung and mused on the reality of a mating for Ferdel. In a passion song, reality wouldn’t have mattered, but there was more of the truth in a love song. Outside of stories of passion, one didn’t see or hear someone once and then risk everything to be with them. Not in Fox’s experience. Even if Ferdel and his younger suitor were both passion-struck, waiting was prudent.

At the same time, there was that yearning beneath the words. The longing to come together, to be together, to feel the other person within, and free what had been fighting to escape since that first moment when their eyes had met.

Fox tore his gaze away from Conall to face his audience once more and smile. “Thank you,” he told them sincerely, because they clapped and whistled as the byr in court did not. “Anything else?”

“The General and the Prince,” Conall said, meeting Fox’s eyes when Fox turned back to him in surprise.

The General and the Princewas a passion song from a time when countries had different names—or possibly had never existed—and fought one another in vicious, bloody wars when they weren’t battling dragons or various other creatures that also may or may not have ever existed.

The events of the song almost certainly weren’t true, probably not even in a small way as with some of the passion songs, like with Rehmini of Battles, in that there had once been a faraway queen with the name of Rehmini, although she certainly hadn’t married a goatherd who had fought a griffon for her.

In The General and the Prince, a war leader is riding with his chief—as the king is styled in the story—when a dragon attacks, separating the general from the chief and the rest of his forces. He eventually finds a stream, and as he drinks his fill, he hears the clear voice of a prince of a neighboring kingdom as the prince sings of his concern for his siblings—who have ridden out to look for the chief and the general, probably to kill them for being too near their country’s border. The song doesn’t specify a particular reason other than neither country’s leader seemed to trust or like the other.

But none of that matters when the general is passion-struck by the voice and follows it to find the gentlest and prettiest of the king’s borne children. Worried for the conflict he sees coming, the prince is gathering flowers for medicine by the stream, idly weaving some into his hair as he works, which is how the general first sees him.

Fox gave Conall a slight frown, surprised by the choice.

Conall merely arched an eyebrow.

So Fox took a deep breath, flexed his fingers, and began to play.

For all his bravery in battle, the general was almost certainly a commoner, and princes did not marry commoners. Not even to end wars would princes do that. No matter if the general saved him from that same dragon or kept him safe when they found the chief’s forces and the chief wanted to take the prince as hostage. It would not even matter that the prince had looked up and found himself trembling when their eyes had met.

But in a song of passion, of adventure and feeling, anything could happen. Byr, or whatever nobles had called themselves over centuries and across changing landscapes, might fall in love with a commoner or their enemy, might even bear for them or have them be the bearer. But outside of those songs, byr did not defy convention or laws for their enemies and especially not for commoners. They would not marry them or make them consorts, just as griffons had likely never been real.

Nonetheless, Fox had to smooth the tremor from his voice when the general, captured by the prince’s father as he had been attempting to return the prince to his own people—knowing he would probably be killed doing so, is saved by the gentle prince, who twines their tails to prove he will not be parted from him.

The two then run off to their mating. They’d already kissed and possibly fucked in the land of the enemy chief, depending on how one interpreted some of the lines about ‘coming together,’ but the mating at the end was not ambiguous.

Fox’s gaze wandered to Conall. But Conall’s eyes were closed, his head against the bench, asleep or enjoying the music so much it allowed him to relax.

Fox felt himself frowning again, but since he couldn’t have said why, let the lute hum to silence before pointedly asking if anyone had a suggestion for a song that wasn’t so ridiculously long.

Conall turned his mouth up at one corner but didn’t bother to open his eyes.