Melforger (The Melforger Chronicles) (10 page)

“Such a little darling,” sighed Resma. “Have you given any thought to performances, Leiana?”

“Actually, and I hope you don’t mind, I’ve taken the liberty of organizing something.”

“Oh?”

“I asked Nathyn to speak to the Cedrusdale Foreman and invite their lutists to play. You know how good they are. My father has also mentioned a young ukulele player who’s in Yaelstead for his sojourn; he’s supposed to be superb. And,” she lowered her voice, “don’t tell anyone, but I’ve found some iMahli hand-drummers.”

Resma’s eyes opened wide. “
Dholaki?
They don’t normally play outside of their iMahli gatherings. How did you manage that?”

“I had a pigeon from Luanchester saying there were some around. A handful of bronze coins and they were interested,” she replied. “Just think, Resma, the first ever performance by
dholaki
in the Forest, here in Eirdale - at
our
Festival!”

“But Leiana, we don’t have the coin for it, surely?”

“Between you and me,” said Leiana, “I’ve borrowed some from our small family chest.”

“Does Tarvil know?”

“No! With what we’ve planned and now the added treat of
dholaki
on the bill,
this Festival will bring in more money than we know what to do with and I can have it back in the chest before he even realizes it’s missing.” Resma looked uneasy at this, but Leiana winked at her. “Stop worrying so much, old hen. This Festival will see all our fortunes change, mark my words.”

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

Raf sat poring over the manuscript on his lap, squinting at the strange writing on it in the murky light of the single candle. He’d been nosing around the room and found it curled up under a layer of dust on a shelf. It was made of some very old material that was much more fragile than the birch-paper they used in school. In-between the foreign writing that was neatly traced, it had all sorts of odd wavy patterns decorating it.

Bhothy’s head slid backwards and stretched his throat so that he choked and jerked his head back up.

“Ehh? What?” he muttered groggily. His eyes slowly swam into focus to see Raf standing looking directly at him. “Who… wait, you… you’re the Council boy, right?”

“Raf. We met earlier on. Are you feeling any better? You’ve been asleep for ages.”

“Really?” Bhothy grunted a half laugh and then got up. He stood there swaying dizzily, scratching his beard. “Why are you here, again?” he asked. Then he spotted the manuscript on Raf’s lap. “Oy, what do you think you’re doing with that!”

“I was bored waiting for you to wake up. You passed out, or maybe you don’t remember that. You were busy telling me about singing or something, and you said you healed me.”

“Interesting...”

“Listen, how did that plant grow so quickly?” Raf pointed behind him at the plant. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

“Nothing to do with me.” Bhothy yawned widely. “You’re just seeing things. It’s not very good light in here.”

“You made that plant grow, I’m sure of it!”

“What plant?” said Bhothy.

Raf clenched his jaws. “The one right there; it was almost dead and then it just suddenly grew all those leaves. In seconds!”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Council boy,” said Bhothy blankly. He scratched his unkempt hair. “I don’t suppose you’d like to leave me alone?”

“But how did you d-”

Bhothy deliberately turned his back on Raf and relit the pipe. Then he settled down onto his bag on the floor and puffed away, staring resolutely at the wall opposite.

Raf watched him for a few seconds and then turned and left the room with a resigned sigh, treading carefully on the slippery floor. He walked out through the passageway and found himself standing in the half-light of dusk. Dinner would be ready at home by now and they’d be wondering where he was. He scrambled his way out of the thicker banyan trunks and set off briskly through the trees.

I
t was almost completely dark by the time he reached the commons. There were suddenly new decorations and floral arrangements covering the village, but what might have been a vibrant rainbow of colors was now only a smoky orange in the glow of the flickering lamps on the paths.

From all around the village drifted sounds of families singing
metenayres
before their dinners, and from somewhere to the south-east came faint sounds of what must have been some farmers having a bit of a get-together.

He gave a wave to the family nearby who were using one of the fire-basins to roast a small boar on a spit, and then strolled up to the forked sycamore
Ancient
that was the Gencys’ home. He walked in and kicked off his sandals, looking down the hall to where the family were all seated at the kitchen table.

“Evening,” he said casually. “Sorry I’m late. Lost track of time.” He slid onto the bench next to Rio, grabbing a roasted sweet potato from a bowl.

“Nice to see you finally decided to join us,” said his mother.

“Yeah, where’ve you been, Raf?” chirped Rio. “You’ve been gone for ages. Nedrick came round to see you before dinner.”

“What did he want?”

“He said Orikon was going out hunting tonight and wanted to know if you were going as well.”

“Really? Tonight? Did he say when? Man… Orikon’s been promising he’d take us for ages and -”

“Not a chance,” said Leiana. “We have to discuss a few things to do with the Festival tonight.”

“Aw, mom, Orikon’s usually too busy to take us out. I can’t miss it. The other guys will all be there. We can talk about the Festival some other time; it’s still a whole week away.”

“A week away?” Her eyebrows arched up dangerously. “This Festival must be extraordinary; I’ll accept nothing less. And bearing in mind that we’re expecting over a thousand people to be coming
on top of
the locals, a week is far less than we need! There is a huge amount left to do still.”

“But it’s nothing to do with me, is it? I already know the piece Ottery’s teaching us for our year’s performance, -”

“-
Madame
Ottery,” interrupted Tarvil.

“- so I don’t get why you need me involved in it all.” Raf looked questioningly at her and she stared back at him, pursing her lips. She seemed oddly hesitant.

“Um,” mumbled his father, “I believe what your mother is trying to tell you is that you’ve been requested to perform at the Festival -”

“I know that,” Raf said impatiently. “Our year is doing -”

“Solo.” Tarvil looked down to carefully examine a potato on his plate.

“What?” said Raf. “By myself? Not a chance. You
know
I can’t do that sort of thing, mom!”

“Oh, of course you can, Raf!” snapped Leiana. “You’re a very good musician, and after that foolishness last night – which we still need to speak about - the Foreman wants you in the final performance. It’s a huge honor and as a member of our family, it w-”

Raf almost choked. “The
final
performance? Not only do you want me to get up there by myself and look like an idiot, but you want me to do it on the last day, in front of the
thousands
of
people you
are expecting? What world do you live in, mom, honestly?”

“Actually, Raf,” said Tarvil quietly, “it’s not so much a request, as, well… you’re on the bill already.”

Raf’s mouth fell open.

“Think of it as an opportunity, Raf,” said Leiana. “You’re the only student performing on the final day. Apparently you managed it impress some of our misguided villagers last night, well now you have a chance to impress them with your musical talent.”

“More like prove how much of a prat I can be!”

“Language…” said Tarvil.

“But it’s so unfair! Why do I have to do it? I don’t care about impressing a crowd of drunk foresters! It’d be nice if I could maybe make my own decisions!”

Leiana turned away to stare at the wall, her fingers tapping furiously on the table top.

Tarvil wiped his mouth with a napkin. “And on that note, I don’t know if you know yet, dear, but it seems that our intrepid son has decided on his sojourn.”

Raf stared at him.
Not here! Not now…

Leiana turned back to face him. “Oh really?” she said, her voice oozing scorn. “And where would he be thinking of going? Some deserted hole in the ocean where he won’t have to ‘
perform’
in front of people? Or perhaps he wants to travel up north and grow cabbages for a living? No pressure on you to succeed there, nobody watching y-”

“Miern.”

The room went quiet. Leiana’s eyes widened. She threw a look at Tarvil who found another interesting potato on his plate, and then turned to Raf. “Absolutely not! I forbid it.”

“What? You can’t forbid it. You can’t tell me where to go on my sojourn. It’s my choice!”

“That’s just ridiculous, Raf! You can go up north to the sequoias. You can spend some time in the western ocean-villages. You can even go mulberry picking in Turner’s Grove. Any one of the normal sojourns.” She shook her head furiously. “But not Miern! I will
not
have you travelling to that revolting place. It’s crawling with thieves and murderers, and goodness knows what else - you saw what that disgusting trader was like!” Face red, she slammed her plate down on the counter and stormed outside.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room. Tarvil lifted a piece of meat to his mouth. “Well, I think that went pretty well.”

.  .  .  .  .  .  .

The next morning, the sun was streaming down through gaps in the canopy, lighting up the Forest in a shower of beams. Raf grunted angrily as he whipped out another arrow, notched it and let it fly into the painted board fifty feet away.

“She didn’t even ask me!”

“Could be worse,” said Nedrick peering forward to see where the arrow had stuck. “Could be me up there.”

Cisco laughed and patted Nedrick on his back sympathetically. “That would’ve been a great story though.” He lifted his hands in a dramatic pose. “Pay a fortune to travel through the deadly elements, avoid ruthless iMahli warriors and black mambas to get to the wondrous Forest of Aeril…. only to be assaulted by Nedrick and his atrocious warble.”

They all laughed at this. Nedrick was the tallest boy in their year and could grow what passed for a decent beard, much to the envy of the others, but his voice had only started breaking recently. He could barely sing three notes before his nasal tenor sprung up with a squeak into the voice of a six year old - a source of great amusement in classes with Madame Ottery.

“Nice shot. Dead centre,” said Nedrick, as Raf let loose another arrow. “I don’t think you should worry so much. And it isn’t such a bad thing to be on stage. D’you hear about Baruna?” The other two shook their heads. “Her father’s making her stand up at the Prestonderry Road entrance and sing the
gretanayre
to all the travelers who come down.”

“Poor girl,” said Cisco, grimacing. “All I can say is that I’m glad my family doesn’t have any Council aspirations for me. To be honest, I think they’d be glad if I just managed to finish school and get an apprenticeship like my brother did. Preferably somewhere far away, I imagine. Us Brunnows take life a little less seriously than you Council types.”

Raf scowled. “Consider yourself lucky, Cisc. I reckon my mother’s got her beady eyes on nothing short of Foreman for me. Probably Gerent as well!”

“It’s really not so bad, Raf,” said Nedrick. “You never know, maybe the sweet Rhani will see you sing and decide you’re not such a geek.”

Raf blushed and Cisco whistled at him and punched him on his shoulder playfully.

“Mind you, how she’s keeping her hands off you now since you banished the trader with your famous flying dagger is a mystery to me.”

Cisco shook his head. “I can’t
believe
I missed it! The first time Gency actually did something even vaguely cool and I was asleep. What lousy timing!”

“That’s not exactly how my mother sees the whole thing,” said Raf drily. “How did you get out of it all, Ned? The Festival, I mean.”

“Get out of it? You must be kidding me,” replied Nedrick. “I knew I’d be in it whatever – same as you - so I just waited to find out what. As it turns out, I’ll be in a trio of sorts on the second day with Shaphi and Aaryl on the marimbas. Should be fun actually; they’re both good.”

“Shaphi Badroas? The foreign girl? I didn’t know she played.”

“She’s fantastic on the marimbas. She can’t sing to save her life, but give her a few mallets and you can hardly see her hands move. Really talented. And really nice, too.”

Cisco and Raf glanced at each other and then burst out laughing.