Chapter Twenty-two
Theo had some trouble getting what Sira needed to restring the filhata. Observatory apparently had no Housekeeper, and its various functions were only loosely organized. He found his way alone to the abattoir, a cold place at the back of the House, so dark he could hardly see inside. Three Housemen labored there, doing their best to supply the House with meat and to cure the hides of the caeru brought to them by the hunters. They were using an odd smoky lamp, a device Theo had never seen in his life, to try to dispel the gloom. It reeked of rancid caeru fat, and its shaky flame guttered around a wick of rag.
Theo stepped just inside the door. “Hello. Want some help?”
They looked up in surprise. The oldest, a wrinkled skinny man of about eight summers, left his work and came forward. “You’re the Singer, aren’t you?” he asked.
“So I am.” Theo entered the room, shivering at the chilly damp. In all Houses, the abattoir was the least pleasant of places, close to the outside for convenience, often littered with blood and refuse, but this was the worst Theo had seen. He doubted these men could see enough in the dim light to clean it properly. “Would you like the place a bit warmer, Houseman?”
The man squinted at him in bewilderment. A younger man came up behind him. “This place is never warm,” he said.
“Colder than a wezel’s nose in here,” Theo agreed. He withdrew his filla from his tunic and showed it to them. They stepped back respectfully, and one of them pulled a stool forward for him. Theo sat on it, hoping it wasn’t sticky with gore. It was too dark to tell.
The abattoir was an oppressive place to raise a quiru. The very air seemed greasy, and its dankness was heavy, resistant to Theo’s psi. He felt as if he were pushing against it, like trying to force his way out of a snowbank. Finally he closed his eyes and pictured himself in the mountains. He imagined a campsite among the irontrees with the pale violet of twilight falling around it. He played a lively Iridu tune, and the heavy air began to lighten around him. Abruptly, and rather unmusically, he switched to Aiodu, the second mode, which he sometimes used when he wanted his quiru to last a long time. When he was finished, he opened his eyes, and saw the abattoir clearly for the first time.
It was small, but otherwise much like those of other Houses. Skinned caeru carcasses hung against one wall, and a pile of hides lay on a workbench. Others were pegged to dry, and the Housemen had been scraping these, their efforts considerably hindered by the cold. There was only one soaking vat, surrounded by piles of the ironwood bark used for tanning. Now the light of Theo’s camp-style quiru, and the warmth that made the Housemen smile, revealed the work needing to be done.
“That’s a nice bit of work, Singer,” said the older man.
Theo stood. He felt something sticky catch at his trousers, but he disciplined himself not to look just now. He made an ironic bow. “Thanks.”
The younger man was shedding his filthy tunic, reveling in the warmth. “You should do that in every room of Observatory.”
Theo shook his head. “That would not be possible,” he replied. “This one will diminish by evening, you know. I, or any other Singer, could spend every waking moment calling up quiru, and still not be able to warm the House. Probably collapse in the end, besides.”
“You’re welcome to play here any time,” the older one said. “What can we do to bring you back?”
“Well, Theo said with a wink,” there might be something.” He went to the workbench, where coiled, split caeru gut was ranged in tidy rows. “I could certainly use some of this.”
The Houseman followed him, and lifted the largest coil from the bench. “It’s yours, Singer.” He took a wood-handled tkir tooth from a peg on the wall, cut a long length of the gut cord with its sharp serrated edge, and handed it to Theo.
Theo took it and bowed again, though very little bowing seemed to be done here. He was on his way out of the abbatoir, now a considerably less dismal place than it had been, when the younger man called to him. “Singer?” Theo turned back at the door. “Could you warm my family’s apartment, just once? My mate’s never well, can’t seem to get warm, ever.”
Theo hesitated. “I’m sorry, Houseman,” he said at last. “I wish I could. It would be unfair to warm one apartment and no others. I promise you, though, that I’m doing all I can.”
The man’s shoulders slumped in resignation, and Theo went out slowly, his own shoulders drooping under the weight of the need of these people. It was too much to hope that he could really make any difference in this House. He simply didn’t know how.
The kitchens were neither so dark nor so cold as the abattoir had been. Theo found several Housemen and women working there, cutting chunks of caeru meat and dicing a tiny harvest of vegetables to fill a pot of keftet. Neither fruit nor nuts were in evidence, and the wooden tubs of grain were half empty. Even here, with softwood burning hot in the ovens, mold crept down the walls from the high ceiling.
Theo bowed to the woman who appeared to be in charge. “Housewoman,” he said, “can you spare some clean rags and oil?”
She looked at him, her hands on her hips. Her gray hair was tied back neatly, though the tunic she wore looked as if her best efforts could never get it clean. She eyed Theo as if he were a small boy begging sweets.
“What are they for, Singer?” she asked crisply. “We have little to spare.”
Theo tried to smile, but her stern expression daunted his effort. “Someone left me an old filhata,” he said. “I thought I’d try to repair it.”
“Can you play a filhata?” she asked. A glimmer of hope brightened her face. When he shook his head, she sighed deeply. “Than what point is there, Singer?”
There was a moment of silence, until Theo ventured another grin. “Now what would have happened, Housewoman, if the people had said that to First Singer? First Singer had to start somewhere, didn’t he?”
The Housewoman looked suspicious, folding her arms tightly across her bosom.
“Don’t you know that story?”
“What story?”
“Well,” Theo began. He looked around him for someplace to sit. The other Housemen and women came closer, curious. Theo, despairing of a chair, leaned his hip against a table. “Well,” he repeated. “You know that when the Spirit sent the great pukuru to the Continent—”
“You mean the Ship,” put in the Housewoman firmly. “Spirit of Stars sent the Ship, with all the people and plant seeds.”
Theo’s grin widened. “The Ship, then. When Spirit sent the Ship, and it overturned and made First House, it started to get cold right away.”
There were nods around him. They apparently knew this story, but they were clearly happy to suspend their work and listen to it again, told in a new voice.
“It started to get cold, and the people began to shiver. What were they going to do? They looked around them, outside the—the Ship, and they saw only irontrees. They got colder and colder, and First House got very dark when First Night came.
“It was during First Night that the wonder happened. First Singer began to sing to a little baby who was crying from the cold. First Singer hated to hear children cry, and he tried to make his lullaby a warm, sweet one to comfort this child.
“Now, if the mother of that child had told First Singer to be quiet, not to disturb her child, what might have happened? First Singer might never have seen that first glow that came from his warm lullaby. The people might have perished during First Night.
“But the mother didn’t tell First Singer to leave them alone, and First Singer sang the warmest lullaby he could think of. First House grew warm and light, and the people survived.”
The Housewoman gave an exasperated click of her tongue. “Singer, do you think you’re going to work a wonder?”
Theo’s smile faded, and he straightened. “I do not know,” he said, sounding like Sira for a moment. “But if something great does not happen here, this House is going to perish.”
The other workers moved uneasily, the mood broken. A young Housewoman sniffled and turned away. The Housewoman in charge, with a measuring glance at the others, moved to a drawer and took out a handful of cloths. “We’re not going to perish,” she said firmly. “But you might as well try to fix that old filhata. Mrie, fetch a bit of cooking oil for the Singer.”
As the girl went to do as she was told, the Housewoman turned back to Theo. “No need to frighten the young ones,” she said. “But it was a good story. You’re no First Singer, I’m afraid. Still, we could do with a wonder.”
“So we could.” Theo took the oil and the cloths, and bowed to the Housewoman. She surprised him with a stiff bow of her own, something at which she obviously had little practice.
“Good luck,” she said.
“Thank you.” She turned back to her work. Theo was thoughtful as he carried the things back to Sira’s room. Learning to play the filhata, he thought, would be wonder enough.
Sira and Theo worked on the filhata for three days before it was ready to play. Theo sharpened his own well-kept knife for Sira to use, and she cut the strings carefully from the caeru gut, saving the leftovers in a scrap of oiled cloth. She stretched the strings delicately from the body of the filhata to the pegs, then removed them to cut and cut again until they were just the right thickness. While she was cutting strings, Theo polished the marred surface of the filhata with oil, and tried to converse with Sira silently.
These cracks . . . carvings, he sent. Then something else that was a blur.
She looked over at his work. The body is intact? He nodded. Good.
It is hard to send without— His sending blurred again, and Sira shook her head, smiling a little. Theo sighed. Aloud he said, “It’s like digging through a snowdrift. Why is my best sending only when I’m in trouble?”
Sira chuckled aloud, but she answered silently. Emotion provides energy. The first sendings are always spontaneous. Receivings, too.
“Doesn’t frustration count as an emotion?” Theo asked aloud. He slapped his knee. “I have plenty of that!”
Send me a description of the filhata now. Show me how it looks, what you are doing.
Theo ran his fingers over the whorls and ridges of the carving. The cracks are in the carved sections, he sent. The wood has dried and split. But the body is whole, and should resonate all right.
Sira nodded with satisfaction, and took the instrument back into her own lap. She strung the strings more tightly now, twisting the pegs till the gut drew taut. She began to tune, patiently adjusting and readjusting strings at both ends, sometimes using the knife to trim a bit more.
At the end of the three days, she wrapped the instrument and placed it carefully on the single shelf in her room. Theo smiled with satisfaction. Tomorrow?
Yes. Your first lesson tomorrow. In perfect accord, they walked down the gloomy hallway to the great room for the evening meal, one dark head and one fair, one tall and thin and one powerfully built. They were friends now, Sira thought, truly friends. The Spirit of Stars had sent her an unexpected blessing, and she was grateful for it. It was the only light in the darkness of her imprisonment in this place.
The next day Theo worked with Jon in the Cantoris for an hour or more. He came to Sira’s room after, looking tired and drawn.
Rest first, she sent to him.
He sat on the cot, leaning his shoulders against the wall. This must be the driest wall in the whole House, he sent. Sira laughed a little, but he did not laugh with her.
Sira grew quiet, catching a flash of Theo’s feeling. It was troubling, and she wanted to shield her mind, but that was hardly fair. Their rapport was growing stronger each day. The people of Observatory were cold and ill, and she knew that troubled Theo.
She wondered if Theo thought she was being selfish, or perhaps cruel. As she thought that, he looked up at her. No, he sent. I do not.
Sira looked down at her hands, suddenly shy. She had not kept her thoughts low. She had forgotten his growing ability.
I think you are doing what you need to do, he went on. And I am doing the same.
She wished she could touch his hand. Aside from those moments in Ogre Pass, it seemed a summer since she had felt the touch of another human being. This thought she did keep low, though. She would not want the Singer to misunderstand. He had held her as she wept on that first night, but there was no need now. She was neither sad nor frightened.
For the first time in her life she wondered how the Cantors and Cantrixes bore the isolation that was their lot. Many worked in the Houses for six summers or more before being called home to Conservatory. All those years without a touch of a human hand seemed suddenly an enormous burden. She thought of Isbel, now on her way to Amric, and sighed.
What is it? Theo sent.
She shook off her mood. It is nothing. Are you ready?
Ready.
As Sira reached for the newly repaired filhata and placed it in Theo’s hands, he sent, I am grateful to you for teaching me.
I am glad to have something to do. I am not used to inactivity.
Theo laughed. You could sing, Singer.
Sira made a face. Do not make me regret that I taught you to send! and he laughed again.
It was a new experience for Sira to be easy in the company of anyone but Isbel and perhaps Maestra Lu. But she and Theo had spent days together, practicing, talking, sharing their meals. In a way she felt as if he were filling the void created in her life by the loss of Maestra Lu. She took pleasure now in showing how to hold the filhata. With the briefest of touches she placed his left hand so, and showed him how to poise his right above the strings. She tried to look at him critically, as her teachers had done with her. He was her student now, her responsibility, though she was truly too young and inexperienced to teach. The unknowable Spirit had put them together in this way, and they could only try to do Its will.
A prickle of tears surprised Sira as Theo bent his blonde head and tried the strings of the ancient instrument. It seemed many summers ago that she had held a filhata for the very first time. It was hardly credible that it had been no more than two. As she adjusted Theo’s hand position, Sira reflected that, in fact, she was only nineteen years old. She had barely four summers. But she felt as old as the very stones of Observatory.