The Second Blind Son by Amy Harmon

10

LULLABIES

“You have grown so much, Liis. You hardly look like the same girl I met two years ago. There is some flesh on your bones, and your cassocks are so short, your ankles are showing,” Ghost remarked one morning as they worked side by side in the garden.

“I will let the stitches out of my hems,” Ghisla said.

Her sleeves were too short too, and she’d begun to bind her breasts in a length of cloth to keep them from swaying beneath her shapeless frocks, but she didn’t mention that. She thought Ghost had probably noticed. She was sixteen summers now, and she’d begun to look her age, though no one commented on it. She was still not as tall as Elayne—she never would be—and she was still too thin, but the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips was much more pronounced; she would not pass for a child any longer.

“I will ask Dagmar to fetch the seamstress again. All of you girls are growing,” Ghost said as they shook out their aprons and washed their hands. Ghost never ventured out of the temple or down into the village. She rarely even walked the mount. She was afraid of the king. They all were, but even when the king was gone and Temple Hill breathed easy, Ghost did not change her habits.

Ghisla was not the only one who had noticed Ghost’s tendencies. Bashti had a theory and shared it with her sisters—as they’d begun to call each other—while they prepared for bed.

“She doesn’t want to be seen because she thinks she is ugly. People stare . . . and it makes her sad.”

“People stare at all of us, Bashti,” Elayne said. “But at least our hair has begun to grow.” Elayne had surprised them all when she’d refused to cut her hair again. She’d promised to keep it covered until it was long enough to weave into a tight circle around her head, and the Highest Keeper had relented. The chieftains had complained to the Highest Keeper and the king that they were ugly; Ghisla had heard it in a keeper’s thoughts. She’d clasped his hand at mealtime with a song of worship still ringing in her head, and his voice was loud and clear.

“They are girls. And the people want them to look like Daughters of Freya, not keepers. They are hideous this way.”

Their hair had all grown long enough now to braid it around their crowns. It did not flow down their backs like that of most women in the clans, but it set them apart from the shorn keepers, and it was a vast improvement from the early days. Even Ghost wore her hair thus, though she continued to blacken her eyes like the keepers. Ghisla thought her magnificent, regardless of what Bashti claimed.

Bashti rolled her eyes. “They do not stare at us for the same reasons, Elayne. They stare at you because you are beautiful.”

Elayne smiled, pleased, but Bashti was just getting started.

“And you will soon be old enough to wed. They stare at Liis because she is beautiful too, and everyone is hoping she will sing. But people stare at Ghost and me because we are outsiders. We can’t pass for clan daughters. She is too pale, and I am too dark. Yet here we are.” Bashti folded her arms with a harrumph and stuck out her lips, daring the others to disagree.

Elayne stood and coaxed Bashti to take her hands. “You are Bashti. You are not an outsider. You are one of us. A Daughter of Freya.”

“I am Bashti, but I am not of Saylok. I do not even remember where I’m from.”

“It is better not to remember,” Liis said tremulously, drawing the eyes of her sisters. She turned away, folding her dress inside the chest at the foot of her bed.

“I do not look like a Daughter of Freya,” Bashti cried, and Liis relaxed. She hadn’t meant to interrupt.

“The keepers all attempt to look alike,” Elayne said. “But I think . . . it makes them . . . disappear.”

“Disappear?” Juliah scoffed. “I sometimes wish Keeper Amos would disappear. He drones on and on and never ceases.”

“The keepers want to disappear as individuals,” Elayne explained. “They want to blend into each other. To present oneness. But I like that I am different. That we are different. None of us are the same. Not me, or you, or Juliah, or Dalys, or Liis. I do not want to disappear. Do you?”

Bashti shook her head. “No. I want everyone to look at me.” They all laughed because it was true. Bashti wanted to be the very center of attention, all the time. The only one who got more attention was Alba, though she was happy to share.

“I do not know why Ghost hides,” Elayne said. “But you should never hide. If people stare, it is because you are special. You are Bashti, the performer. Bashti, the dancer, and Bashti the jester. You are a daughter of the temple, and there is only one of you. You are rare and wonderful.”

“Rare and wonderful?” Bashti said, her pout giving way to a grin.

“Yes. And beautiful, though rare is far better than beautiful. Rare is never ugly,” Elayne said, smiling too. “Now, please . . . can we go to sleep?”

Elayne doused the light and they all crawled into bed, and for once the dark silence was not a relief. It felt more like . . . disappearing.

“Will you sing to us, Liis?” Dalys asked sweetly. “When you sing, I see the colors.”

When Liis did not answer immediately, Juliah grumbled.

“Liis does not want to be rare and wonderful. She wants to be invisible. She wants us to be invisible too.”

I don’t want you to be invisible. I just don’t want to see more than you want me to see,she thought, but as usual, she said nothing. She’d found most thoughts were not usually kind. Not because people were unkind, necessarily, but because feelings were unguarded and . . . true. At least, they were true in the moment they were felt. She didn’t want to dislike her sisters. And she didn’t want to hear their dislike for her.

“You are being unfair, Juliah,” Elayne murmured, always the peacemaker.

“I am being honest,” Juliah retorted.

Bashti grunted her agreement and Dalys sighed in gusty disappointment.

“All right . . . I will sing you a lullaby,” Ghisla relented. She was safe from their thoughts underneath her covers, the soul rune tucked beneath her chin.

“I want ten lullabies,” Dalys pled, but her voice had already grown sleepy.

“I will sing until you are asleep,” Ghisla bargained, and five rare and wonderful girls drifted off to places unknown as the room reverberated with Songr lullabies.

“Liis . . . Liis, wake up.”

For a moment she was still lost in the lullaby, in soft breezes and long grass, and her mother was there. But Ghost was not her mother, and the soft sounds of the girls sleeping around her were not Gilly and Abner.

“Bayr is here. The king sent him to get you. Pull on your keeper’s robe and your shoes.”

“Why?” Ghisla said, suddenly wide awake, but Ghost laid a finger across her lips.

“Shh, do not wake the others.”

Liis slid from beneath her covers and pulled her purple keeper’s robe around her shoulders and shoved her feet into her leather slippers.

“Bayr will go with you. Don’t be afraid. Nothing will happen to you with Bayr near.”

“What does the king want?” she asked, following Ghost from the room. No one else even stirred.

For a moment Ghost didn’t answer, and her silence only increased Ghisla’s fear. As if she felt her terror, Ghost reached out and took her hand.

“He wants you to sing to him,” Ghost said as they descended the east staircase to the huge entrance below. Bayr was waiting for them.

Ghisla had sung for the king and the chieftains at the council many times before. Usually just worship songs and a simple song of Saylok that Dagmar had taught the daughters.

Take my eyes and give me wisdom.

Take my heart and give him strength.

I will fight beside my brothers.

I will battle with my men.

We will fight to see the day

When the daughters live again.

The song was meaningless to her. Silly. She’d meant not a word. But the chieftains and their warriors always banged their feet against the floor and lifted their swords in appreciation and patriotic fervor, and Ghisla and the daughters were then escorted back across the square, appearances made, their duty done.

But this was different. It was late and the other daughters would not be with her. And there were no chieftains on the hill.

“The k-k-king i-ins-sists,” Bayr stuttered in explanation, his eyes weary. His braid was rumpled and his face creased, like he too had been pulled from sleep to do the king’s bidding, but he had not awakened any of the keepers. Only Ghost. Or mayhaps she had not yet been to bed.

“If we tell Dagmar or the Highest Keeper, they, of course, will refuse to send you,” Ghost explained, her eyes pleading forgiveness. “And there will be . . . bloodshed. Bayr says the king has not slept in days, and he is . . . desperate.”

“The k-king is ill. B-bet-ter to s-sing than . . . f-f-fight. But I w-will s-stay with y-you,” Bayr promised.

“But what can I do?” She still did not understand.

“He does not trust the keepers to administer the runes, though Ivo could ease his suffering,” Ghost explained. “Bayr says your voice soothes him.”

“I w-will n-not leave y-you,” Bayr promised again. He extended his hand, waiting for her consent. She took it, but instead of leading her through the temple doors, he entered the sanctum and pushed against the wall behind the altar. The wall rattled slightly, the scrape of stone brushing stone, and an opening appeared. Bayr entered without hesitation, though the darkness was absolute.

“There are t-tunnels all over the m-mount,” he stammered. And he left it at that.

The distance felt interminable, though in truth it probably took mere minutes. When Bayr stopped and thumped the stone, the rock rumbled and an opening emerged before them, depositing them in the throne room of the king.

He was pacing and groaning, his advisors and a few of his men standing by, nervous and perspiring. The one named Bilge eyed Ghisla’s bare ankles and her messy hair and smirked as though he liked what he saw.

Bayr tried to announce her presence, but King Banruud cut him off, impatient.

“Go,” he roared, waving at the room. His advisors were eager to be gone, and Bilge swiped a bottle from the table and slinked for the door, shooting another look at Ghisla and her silent escort. Bayr did not leave.

“I w-will s-stay,” Bayr said, firm, though his stuttering tongue made him sound unsure.

“You will go.”

Bayr did not even flinch.

Banruud strode toward him—toward them—and swung at the boy. The air whooshed over Ghisla’s head and Bayr grunted, absorbing the backhand to his cheek, but he did not move. The king tensed to strike him again.

“What would you like me to sing, Majesty?” Ghisla cried, stepping in front of Bayr, and the king frowned down at her, his eyes ringed with exhaustion and shot with blood.

“You would cower behind a woman, Temple Boy?” he spat.

“Bayr says you want me to sing,” she rushed. “I will sing anything you wish.”

He glowered at her, his brow shining with perspiration, and turned away from them. Bayr’s face had already begun to swell.

The king threw himself onto his throne, rubbing at his temples and pulling at his hair, and Ghisla almost pitied him in his misery. She pitied Bayr more.

“Come here, Leok,” the king ordered, addressing her by the clan she represented. “Stand here. Next to me. Sing until I tell you to shut up.”

She looked up at Bayr and he nodded at her, trying to smile, but it looked more like a grimace. He did not trail behind her when she did as the king ordered, but he did not depart either.

She began with the song of parting, the mournful dirge that seemed most soothing, but the king swore and threw a wine-filled goblet against the floor, the deep-purple liquid dousing her feet and the strip of bare leg extending from her nightgown.

“Not keeper song,” he yelled.

“If not keeper song . . . what?”

“I do not want words. Only sound. I need bloody sound,” he ground out.

She formed her mouth in the shape of an O and pealed out the melody of several songs before the king’s head started to droop and a sigh of relief escaped his mouth. When she faltered, he lunged for her, dragging her closer.

“Do not stop,” he insisted.

She started over, her voice a wordless harp, and his hand remained a manacle around her wrist, keeping her going. The base of his big palm pressed to hers, and his mind opened like the stone wall of the tunnel.

She could hear him.

He’d had too much to drink. The wine smeared his thoughts and scattered his internal dialogue. And beneath the mess was the tinny bleating that was driving him mad.

It would drive her mad. She fixed her eyes on her wine-spattered feet and pushed onward, her voice moving over the melodies, no words, only sound, as the king had requested.

Ghost’s face and Alba’s name bounced through his dream. And another woman. Desdemona. Desdemona . . . Dagmar’s sister. Bayr’s mother. Her hair was a black tumble and her eyes were blue and filled with scorn. Desdemona’s face became Bayr’s, and Ghisla faltered again, shaken.

Banruud’s hand tightened around her wrist. She sang louder, trying not to see what was in his tormented head.

There were other names. Other faces. Flickering like flames, licking at the king’s dreams, and then . . . the ringing in the king’s head faded, bit by bit, like it too had fallen asleep. His fingers became lax and his hand fell away, dangling over the arm of his throne.

Ghisla finished her song, her final stanza so light it barely caressed her lips. She stood, staring at the slumbering king for several minutes, afraid to move and too weary to continue singing. When he did not wake, she eased away from his throne.

Bayr had fallen asleep sitting against the wall, his arms propped on his knees, his head against the frame of the door. His cheek had blackened while she sang. She walked toward him with a careful tread, but he opened his eyes when she drew near. Without a word, he rose, his gaze flickering beyond her to the sleeping king, and together they entered the tunnel in the wall and walked in the darkness back to the temple.

Someone had lit fresh candles in the sanctum, though it was well past midnight; it was closer to dawn. Ghisla guessed it was Ghost and hoped the woman had gone to bed.

“P-please do not t-tell,” Bayr whispered, pointing at his face.

“Why?”

“It w-will only c-cause them p-pain. They c-can do n-nothing.” He was fourteen years old, two years younger even than she, yet he was the protector of everyone on the mount.

“Is there anyone who can do something?” Her anger and helplessness welled again.

“Y-you d-did,” he whispered. “Y-you sang. You f-fixed him.”

“For now, but I wish I hadn’t.”

He cocked his head, his brow furrowed in question.

“He will need me again.”

He nodded sadly, admitting the truth. “Y-you are of u-use.”

“I have drawn attention to myself. That is never a good thing.”

“I w-will n-not t-tell if y-you d-don’t.” The swelling on his left cheek made his smile crooked.

“You are wise, Temple Boy. I am not fooled by your stutter.”

“And I am n-not f-fooled by your s-size, L-Liis of L-Leok. Y-you are p-powerful.”

“If you sing . . . mayhaps your words will not stick to your tongue,” she suggested.

Bayr laughed and shook his head. He touched his throat while he raised one brow and made a yodeling sound that cracked and creaked.

“I didn’t say it had to be beautiful,” she laughed.

He shook his head again and turned to go.

“My mother sang away my bruises,” Ghisla said. “It might . . . help.”

He looked back at her, hesitant, but then he nodded.

“All r-right. S-sing.”

She closed the distance between them and laid her right hand on his cheek.

Cry, cry, dear one, cry,

Let the pain out through your eyes.

Tears will wash it all away,

Cry until the bruises fade.

“Her song is like a rune,”he thought, and his inner voice did not stumble at all. She tried not to be distracted by it as she continued with her tune.

I’ll sing until you’re whole again,

No more ache and no more pain.

Bayr’s eyes immediately began to stream, just as hers had always done when her mother sang this song. He pulled away, embarrassed by his weeping, and she scowled up at him.

“It will not work so quickly,” she snapped. “Come here.”

“It f-feels b-better,” he admitted. It already looked better. “You h-have r-rune blood,” he said.

“It is not me,” she protested. “It is you. It is your tears. It is you who has rune blood.” She didn’t know if what she said was true, but he allowed her to put her hand back to his cheek and sing the song again.

Bayr’s thoughts were as kind as Elayne’s.

He was grateful that he would not have to hide his face from Alba and Dagmar, that they would not see the king’s mark. He also wanted to ask about Liis’s mother, but his reluctance to talk kept him blissfully silent. She decided his stutter was one of the loveliest things about him. It made him especially good with secrets.

Ghisla sang the tune a third time, softly, swiftly, and his tears tumbled over his cheeks and dripped off his chin, taking the swelling and the angry color from his face.

“There,” she said, dropping her hand. “It will not work for illness or serious wounds . . . but it is a tonic for the little aches. Next time . . . you can sing it yourself.” She hoped there would not be a next time but feared the king’s treatment of him was all too common.

“Th-thank y-you.”

“You will not tell?” she pressed, though she knew he wouldn’t.

He shook his head.

“Good. Master Ivo might try to make me a keeper . . . and I would like to keep my hair.”

He laughed.

“He fears you. The king . . . he fears you,” she told him. She didn’t tell him how she knew, but Bayr nodded once, like it was something he already understood, and ducked into the tunnel. The wall scraped closed behind him.

“He did not hurt you?”

She heard the fear in Hod’s question when she told him about her night singing for the king.

“No. He did not hurt me. He hurt Bayr. But Bayr did not leave me.”

She had not returned to her bed when Bayr left her in the sanctum. The dawn would be coming soon. The cock had already crowed. Instead she had walked out into the garden and through the rear gate, invigorated by her sudden freedom in the lavender-colored dawn.

Hod would be awake, she was almost certain. She’d drawn her finger over a thorn and watched as a drop of blood fattened on the tip. Tracing the rune, she’d begun to call out to him, singing the same lullaby that had accompanied her through the night.

“Why does Bayr not fight back? He has killed men with his bare hands. Surely he could defend himself.”

Hod sounded as if he wanted to kill Banruud himself, but he knew the answer to his question.

“He is the king,” Ghisla said. “And Bayr is not interested in defending himself.”

“He wants to protect everyone else.”

“Yes.” She felt close to tears and blinked them back. Her tears would not make her whole again, and tears could not fix what was wrong in Saylok.

“Is there not something more than this, Hod?”

“More than what, Ghisla?”

“More than suffering? Even the king, who causes so much pain . . . is wracked with it.”

“What did you see when you sang to him?”

“I saw Desdemona.”

“Desdemona?”

“Bayr’s mother.”

“Can you show me?”

For a moment she just hummed the lullaby, not singing the words, just like she’d done for the king, and she concentrated on the flickering image she’d seen in his head—the black-haired beauty, a sword in her hand, and a child swelling her womb. Then she released the image and let the old Songr melody score the changing sky in her here and now. She was too weary for the king’s demons.

“I am looking at the most beautiful sky,” Hod whispered.

“You can see my sky?”

“Yes,”he breathed. “What color is that?”

“It is many colors.”

“Rainbow?”

“No. Blue and black and purple—violet—and there at the bottom, lining the hills, it’s—”

“Gold.”

“Yes. The sun is rising.”

For a moment she hummed the melody, letting him see through her eyes.

“Your power is growing, Ghisla.”

Her laugh was dry. Hard. “It is odd, isn’t it?”

“What is odd?”

“I can hear a king’s thoughts and sing him to sleep. Yet I am still his prisoner.”

“Yes. I suppose . . . in a way . . . we all are. Ghisla?”

“Yes?”

“Promise me you will not give up.”

“I will not give up today.”

Hod’s conversation with Ghisla had left him shaken, and when he climbed up from the beach to return to the cave, he was in no mood for Arwin’s announcement. He had not yet slept. He rarely slept when Arwin slept.

“We will leave for Adyar soon.”

“I do not want to go to Adyar.”

“But I have found you a new teacher. He will teach you to better use your stick as a weapon.”

Arwin had secured yet another warrior to try to kill Hod for a month while he did his best to not be killed. He would be bruised and battered when he returned, and no closer to ever putting his training to any real use.

“Someday the Highest Keeper will call on you, Hod. You must be ready,” Arwin warned. He had said the same thing a thousand times.

“Why will he call on me, Master?” he sighed.

Arwin huffed at Hod’s pessimism. “I have told you. Repeatedly, I have told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“Your mother brought you to the temple. She was ill. She was desperate. And she asked Master Ivo to heal you. But the Highest Keeper recognized you.”

“He recognized me?” Hod almost laughed. Each time Arwin told the tale, it became bigger and more dramatic.

“Yes! He knew you were sent by the gods. By Odin himself.”

“So he sent me here to you to await the day when Saylok needs me,” Hod parroted. He was tired. Saylok needed girl children, not blind men who could wield a stick and draw runes.

Arwin was angry now. “Do not mock me, Hod.”

“I do not mock you, Arwin. I only mock myself.”

“You will see,” Arwin snapped. “Someday you will understand. And you will thank me for my faith and your mother’s sacrifice.”

“My mother’s sacrifice,” Hod whispered. He had not thought of Bronwyn of Berne for a long time. He had no face to match the name. He remembered very little at all of his mother, but Arwin said she was pretty and young and alone in the world. She’d died not long after delivering her small blind son to the cave keeper, and Arwin had buried her in a clearing near the cave. A boulder marked the spot where she lay.

Hod tried to summon her memory, but instead an image rose. Not his mother, but the woman—Desdemona—Ghisla had shown him from the king’s thoughts. Desdemona. A shield maiden. Bayr’s mother. She too was dead. She too had sacrificed for her son, Hod was sure. Mayhaps he and the Temple Boy had that in common.

“We will go to Adyar,” he sighed, relenting. At least it would distract him for a time.

“That is best,” Arwin said, immediately mollified. “Trust me, Hod. Trust me, and when the time comes, you will be ready.”