Series: Bedlam's Bard… sort of.
Title: A Broken Violin.
Author: Hiro no Tsuki.
Rating: PG-13, for language, slight nudity, and violence.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bards. They owned themselves. I'm not really using anything of Mrs. Lackeys, so should this even be here? . . .
Author's note: This is really an original thing that I was doing, but I decided to stick it here and get some feedback, since it bears some resemblance to Mercedes Lackey's Bedlams Bard series later on. It's my first full-length novel that has some chance of getting finished, so please, please review!
Chapter One: She Moved Through the Faire.
Kryss was wrapped up in his music again. It held him gently like a mother, and his eyes were closed, fingers moving swiftly to cover and expose each hole in the brilliant silver instrument. He slowly opened his eyes as the last few bars of Banish Misfortune eased themselves out of the flute. There were about half a dozen people sitting on the haybales in front of him, clapping along with the music. Ten bales of hay sat before him, eight of them in two rows of four, and two bales at the ends of the two bracketing columns. All but one of his audience were 'travelers,' dressed in modern clothing. The person dressed in renaissance clothing wore a long knife, and a dagger belted over a long-sleeved midnight blue classic swordsman's shirt and black canvas pants, with black leather boots and a black leather headband. It would never pass the Authenticity Nazis, but he thought it still looked cool. The wearer was an average type-male- or was it female? The person in question had long, dark brown hair, but plenty of the guys at the Faire wore their hair long. Kryss himself wore his hair just past his shoulders. There was a curious and prominent silver streak on the right side of their head, and unfocused green eyes half-peering at him out of half closed lids.
He considered the facial structure and hands folded in the person's lap, and decided that the individual was female. Odd, though. A girl wearing a guy's outfit? Sure, there were plenty of women wearing breeches, but this particular one had no breasts, and she was most definitely not under thirteen. Wait- she shifted in her seat slightly, and he caught a glimpse of what looked like several layers of Ace bandages wrapping her shoulders and chest. Yep, definitely a she.
As the final note trilled out, she opened her eyes completely, and started clapping honestly with the others.
Pleased, he called out, "Any requests?" Not really expecting any, he was surprised when her eyes widened and she said, barely audibly, "O'Carolan's Farewell to Music?"
He raised his eyebrows that she knew it; most people couldn't name anything other than a song from the current music culture. She blushed and looked down at the ground when he nodded, and he raised the gleaming wind instrument back up to his lips, as three of his listeners hauled themselves off his haybales, presumably to find more beer and or food, and the rest sat and listened, uninterested, as he launched into the song that Turlough O'Carolan, an Irish harpist-composer dead nearly three hundred years, had written when he finally came home to die.
The girl, however, sat on the haybale and listened to the tune avidly, as if she could see something that the others could not; what he played, and as if what she saw was complete and absolute paradise, and yet at the same time, heartrendingly sad, because her eyes filled up with tears over the course of the song, and one eventually escaped to slip down her cheek. He was surprised that the song moved her so much and bored everyone else- well, maybe the bored part wasn't entirely surprising. Most travelers at the Faire like quick, loud jigs, and O'Carolan's Farewell to music was hardly a jig, unless you played it fast all the way through.
Still, the way she sank into the music- she wasn't even playing, and she still managed to tune everything out and focus so completely on the music, and see what he played-literally. That was something you didn't see every day, even in musical prodigies. He wondered if she herself was a musician. Glancing at his watch, he realized that it was noon; time for Saera Traynor to show up with her voice and her brother, Brad, who played the lute.
"Alrigh'y then," he called. "My time's up-" the girl got up to leave, dropping a fiver into his hat, and brushing the tear from her face with long, slender fingers- "but Lady Traynor and her brother will be here inna coupla moments to play some more ol' tunes, so stay to see them!"
He swiftly disassembled his flute, carefully placing it in its slots in his gig bag. The girl left the clearing just as Saera strode into it, brother in tow.
"Thenkee, sir," she curtsied, and he winked at her, mouthing, "good luck."
She smiled back, and he grabbed his hat, slung the case over his back, and meandered down the path that the lass had taken. He stopped by a few vendors to chat, and went to go get some lunch, the girl still lingering in the back of his mind. There was something about her that tugged on his memory, but he couldn't quite remember. After a few minutes of browsing, he finally found something that he liked- tacos. They weren't necessarily Elizabethian, but they were palatable. He bought two, and looked around for somewhere to eat his prize.
All of the tables were full. He scanned the crowd for anyone he knew. Maybe someone would scoot over and let them eat with them? Most of the tables had travelers in them, and the few that had Rennies were completely full. There was one empty table, but it was covered with bird- wait. There was a small table with only one occupant. He squinted to identify the person. It was the girl from his audience. She was eating alone. She probably wouldn't mind if he sat with her. He ran a hand through his perpetually messy raven hair, trying to smooth it, and wandered over.
"Mind if I sit here?" he asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
"No, go right ahead," she answered quietly.
"Thanks." He sat down and started in on a taco. She was fairly young, he realized, now that he was closer to her. She couldn't be older than eighteen.
"You play very well," she ventured shyly.
"Thanks. The name's Blade. Kryss Blade." He grinned at her.
She smiled back tentatively. "I'm Silver MacLeshan."
"Nice to meet you. I noticed how much the music caught you. Do you play?"
"Violin."
"Really? How long have you played?"
"Only for seven years. My teacher taught me for five, then left off, and said that I could finish on my own. He said that only experience could finish teaching what I needed to learn." She shrugged.
"That's interesting. Are you good?"
"I guess so. I mean, that's what my aunt and uncle said, but they died in a car accident a few months ago. My dad was proud of me, too, and my mom- well, she died when I was thirteen, so she never heard me get anywhere."
"… I'm sorry."
"Oh, don't be. I didn't see my aunt and uncle much, so I didn't really know them, and my mom was a while back. Let's turn onto a happier topic. You travel with the Faire, right?"
"I travel with the Faire."
"Really?" she sounded curious. "What's it like?"
He grinned again. "Dirty. Hard. Fun as hell. Are you local?"
"Yes."
"Ah- how old are you, if you don't mind my asking?" He asked, starting on his second taco. She started pushing her food around her plate.
"I'm seventeen. How old are you?"
"Twenty, and I'm the youngest person here on their own." He grinned again, hiding a slight guilt. In truth, he was twenty-four, but he figured she could trust someone closer to her own age, and something inside him was prodding him to try to become her friend.
"Ah." They finished up their meal in silence, he finishing his taco, and her taking one last reluctant bite of corn.
She stood up, walked over to a refuse bin, and dropped her plate in.
"Hey, wait up!" he hurried after her, dropping the remains of his own food in another bin. "Where are you headed to?"
"I was going walk around some more."
"Mind if I join you? I don't have another show for-" he checked his watch, 12:30- "a half hour."
"Sure, why not?" They walked together for a while until they reached the archery field.
"Want to try?" He asked her.
"Okay," she said. They each paid the three dollars for a bow and a quiver of ten arrows.
He missed one shot, but four hit the bullseye and the rest hit the target at various points. Handing in his bow and arrows, he watched Silver. Her first four fouled, ploughing into the dirt or flying over the haybale targets completely, catching in the net behind them. Her next three hit the bales of hay that the targets were on, until he stopped her. "Want some pointers?"
"Couldn't hurt," she said, eyeing the targets with misgiving.
He positioned himself behind her and drew an arrow from her quiver, trying to ignore the fact that there was an attractive young woman practically in his arms.
"May I?"
She snorted. "Anything to help."
He snapped the arrow onto the bow and positioned her hands on it. "Okay, now you line it up with your eyelevel, parallel with your cheek, put- are you left-handed or right-handed? Right? Good. Put your left foot forward, and draw the arrow back with your right hand, as far as you think you can pull without making it unwieldy, but don't lock your arm- when the arrow goes, the string'll snap against your arm and raise a big ol' welt. Ready? Let'r fly."
She released the arrow, and it flew straight and true, hitting the third ring- of the next stall's haybale target.
"Good!"
"But I didn't hit my target."
"You still hit a target. You still have two more arrows; try try again. "
"O-okay," she faltered.
He removed his hands and stood back as she pulled her ninth arrow from the quiver.
She positioned herself as he had showed her, and loosed the arrow. The missile whizzed across the field, to embed itself in the hay target, in the second ring away from the center.
He clapped. "Very good! One left. Try to hit the center this time."
She blushed, nodded, and nocked her last arrow. It flew straight and true, burying itself between the center and the second ring of her haybale. Her face transformed with delight, into a smile. She was pretty when she smiled, he realized. Not that she wasn't before, but it really showed with her smile.
"Thanks," she said. "I couldn't have done it without you."
"My pleasure," he answered. She turned her bow in, and they walked down the road, pausing once to play with Pippin, a man who attached himself with strings to a big puppet-framework and let people play with him for tips.
Silver laughed as Kryss maneuvered Pippin off the table, and burst into laughter when the poor puppet 'tripped,' and fell into the dust. She was still snickering as she and Kryss hauled him back onto the table, and they each dropped a single into his box, after which they walked down the path to Kryss's next performance stage, Celtic Stage. Her face lit up slightly as the knife, axe, and star-boards came into view.
"See something you like?" he teased. "Can we?"
"Alright," he wasn't too good at the knife board, but the axes usually stayed where he threw them. "How about you do the knives and I do the axes?"
"Okay."
They each paid the two dollars for their respective weapons, she receiving six knives and he five axes. He went first, the axes thudding into the wood, but to his chagrin, only one stayed; they rest fell out, bouncing off the hay and hitting the ground with metallic thunks. The one that did stay, however, gave the boy running the booth a hard time coming out; he had to put his foot on the board and wrench the thing out. He crossed over to the knife booth, watching from behind the bar as Silver balanced the knives where they widened between the tang and the point. She threw them one by one, in rapid fire and he blinked as all six thocked into or directly around the small red heart in the center of the shield on the board of wood that was her target. He whistled. "Damn, but you're deadly with those."
She flushed. "I know. It's one of the only things I'm good at."
They moved on, and a few minutes later his watch beeped. 12:55. "I have to get over to Celtic Stage now. I'm performing with Brad McCork on lute, and Saera Traynor on vocals. Do you want to come watch us and stick around after the show?"
"Okay," she said. He moved swiftly through the crowds, her following in his wake, to the Celtic Stage where Brad and Saera were already waiting. Silver sat on a haybale and watched Kryss set up his flute while he conferred with the other two on the song lineup. Brad retuned his lute while the talked, and they finally decided to start with Rutland Reel and move into Banish Misfortune, Beggar Lad, and from there onto Si Beg and Si Mor. As one-o-clock rolled around, they finished setting up.
"Ladies and Ladies- just kidding, Lords and Ladies, welcome to the Celtic Stage, I am Saera Traynor," "I be Brad McCork," Brad bowed, "And I'm Kryss Blade." Kryss nodded. "And together we are Danse Macabre," Saera continued. "Normally, we would play our signature song, however our fiddler has left us-" the audience booed- "and accepted a contract with BachMusic Ltd, and is gone." The audience 'awwwed'
"However, we can play other tunes for ye today! Rutland Reel!"
Rutland Reel was a fast jig, set to get the audience's toes tapping. As the song wound down, Kryss pulled the flute from his lips and called, "Banish Misfortune!"
They slipped into the song, and from there, fell into a modified version of 'Beggar Lad,' so that Saera could sing instead of just dance. As they finished up the vocal song, Kryss played the opening to Si Beg and Si Mor, the others caught it up, and he sank into a sea of music again.
Please review, there's a lot more where this came from! I have yet to actually finish the damned novel, but I'm gonna try. This was the first eight written pages, and there's a hundred and thirty more written, and it's not even done yet. Please review, and I might get motivated again!