Read Online Exile's Song by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online

had been begun by his own grandfather, but modestly added that it had been more a muddle than a collection when he was a boy.
    He began an unhurried tour of the room, and the professor submitted to being shown around with as much good grace as he could muster. Odd—she had never seen him quite so impatient, almost trembling with eagerness. She was kept so busy translating she hardly had time to enjoy the various instruments herself, and was sorry she had not brought the camera with her when she came down to breakfast. More, she regretted she did not have the opportunity to try the several lutes, or the small harp not unlike the one Margaret herself carried.
    It became evident that Master Everard had a museum curator’s attitude toward the collection, though not the stuffy sort that sometimes made visiting such places a boring experience. Each instrument was treated like an old friend. Margaret turned on the recorder, and listened to stories of makers long dead, or stories of pipes carried into battles so long ago that Everard himself did not know if they were history or legend. She had never seen an actual bagpipe before, though she knew about them from courses in early music at the University. Here the art of playing them, she understood, was still known. It had died out on Earth, and nobody alive could play one. “It makes a hell of a racket,” Master Everard told her. “I’ve heard they were invented to scare the foe away—and I reckon a war pipe played loud enough would scare off a banshee.”
    Margaret asked on her own accord for details of their playing. If she learned nothing else, this piece of scholarship would make their trip worthwhile. The bagpipe was the only wind instrument, however, except for a few wooden flutes; and there were no brasses except for a couple of Terran imports, clearly included because the Darkovans perceived them as exotic. It made sense that a world as metal poor as the teaching disks had insisted Darkover was would not waste any on tubas or trombones.
    Much of the morning was gone, and the question of the strange eff-holes remained undiscussed, what with trying to describe the sorts of woods used to make the lutes, and how the tuning was arranged. At last Everard reached into a niche in the wall and took out a small harplike instrument which Margaret had been eyeing with curiosity. He called it a harp, but Margaret heard, like a whisper beneath his breath, that it was called a ryll.
    “You know,” he rumbled, “that they die if they are not played.” He seemed to have forgotten that neither Margaret nor Professor Davidson knew anything of the sort, and realized he was speaking almost to himself lost in some remembrance. “You will, perhaps, think me a foolish old man. The old makers understood these things better than this generation does. They would tell you it is the spirit of the tree in the wood that gives life to the instrument. A tree is a tree, you might think. Perhaps—but wood is living stuff, not like stone or clay. Then the maker himself puts something into it, as well. And if it’s associated with one person for a very many years, it takes on something of his touch also.” Then, as if noticing them, he looked mildly embarrassed.
    Margaret smiled. “Anyone who knows anything about instrument making would agree with you, Master. I am often certain my own harp is quite alive, and Ivor has a relationship with his guitar that would make his wife jealous if she were that sort of woman.” She was surprised by her eloquence, but so pleased at her growing ease with the local language that she hardly noticed.
    “My wife was jealous, too,” replied Everard, sighing a little. “But she was born in Tanner Street and did not grow up with wood shavings in the soup, as the saying goes. Now, this ryll . . .” he used the native term in his eagerness to tell the tale, “is a real problem child. It once belonged to a woman of great talent, and more than a little madness—they