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

say she was of chieri blood—a woman who has her own place in the history of our world. It is not a pleasant story. But that is the way of life,” he went on, again lost in his own thoughts. “If you win, or succeed in what you try to do, you are a hero; if not, a villain. That is the way of history.”
    Chieri blood? The word was not one she recognized, but it made her feel peculiar. “But what is so strange about this— ryll ?” Margaret asked, her fingers itching to caress the silky wood, and she banished her unease and curiosity at the same time. The instrument had fascinated her since she came into the room.
    The old man gave another sigh. “This ryll was given to me by a student of mine, some twenty years ago by our reckoning. How he came by it I do not know, but he traded it for a wooden flute—an unequal exchange—and I was too eager to have it question him as I should have done—as I might have today, if he came again. I believe it was crafted by Josef of Nevarsin. He was perhaps the finest ryll maker who ever lived. He has been dead now for more than a hundred and fifty years, but I know Mestra Melora Alindair, who is one of our best lyric performers, paid a hundred reis, which is a very substantial sum, for one of his signed instruments. She is, after all, one of the MacArans, and they know musical instruments. Of course, I know that there are such things as forgers, even on our world. But if this was not made by Josef himself, it must have been made by one of his apprentices. Josef had a way of cutting the wood which is lost now, neither on the grain nor on the cross. See here.” He pointed to the upright, where the grain seemed to spiral up as if it grew that way. “Anyone who could duplicate it today would make his fortune. It looks like the rapids running in the river. But for all of that, no one can coax a tune from it. I am no mean harpist myself, but it cannot be played. Oh, when there is a high wind it sighs a little, but so do many instruments; and if there is lightning, as there often is in summer, it moans—almost as if something were trying to get out.”
    He glanced hesitantly at them, but when Margaret made no sign of derision, or of disbelief he went on. “It makes the same uneasy chord, over and over, and it is quite unnerving to my students. Here—I will show you.”
    He laid the harp flat across his knees. His hands were old and a little stiff, but still flexible enough to pluck the strings. She now knew that he was upward of ninety, about the same age as the professor, and it hurt her to see that he could so easily do what Ivor could no longer manage. He pressed the levers at one end, and ran his hand across the strings; but although all the other instruments had quickly responded to his expert touch, this one made only a low droning noise. “See? Nothing but that—which isn’t even a proper harp sound. Here, you try it.
    Master Everard stood up and handed the instrument to Margaret. She sat down and studied it. The pale blonde wood was very beautiful, and the swirls in the grain, a little darker, made it more so. She stroked the wood, feeling for joins, and found nothing her sensitive fingers could distinguish. There were inlays of a darker wood in a decorative pattern on the sound box and under the bridge. The smell of the old wood pleased her with a faint familiarity, as with the spices in the stew last night. For a moment she saw the red-haired woman who sometimes haunted her sleep holding a ryll like this one. Then she ran her hands across the strings, pressed the levers and was rewarded with a sudden shower of cascading arpeggios, like a spring rain on Thetis.
    Margaret forgot the two old men, both staring at her in astonishment. She strummed the strings, thinking of a lullaby she had learned on Zeepangu. They had an instrument not unlike this. Her hands moved involuntarily, almost—she could not help thinking—as if the ryll were playing her, and it was not the simple