Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.3      Making a Splash

1.3.1    An Obligated Noble

1.3.1.10 Unspoken words

The auditorium was semi-circular, edged with thick sound muffling woolen wall hangings. At the center of the flat edge stood a wide podium and facing towards it were several low tiers of seating, a separation between chairs she recognised from the countless orchestras she’d performed or rehearsed with during her years on the road as a professional singer and violinist. She wasn’t as good on the violin as her father had been, but he hadn’t been ashamed of her playing - “You have soul”, he’d say, “and enough technique that the listener can forget you are playing and hear what you have inside you, what the music has inside itself. What more do you need than that?”

She’d never been entirely satisfied, but she enjoyed playing, no, more than that, she needed to play, and as long as she kept improving, she’d accept being worse. For now.

But singing, now that she truly was good at; the one thing in her life she had confidence in, whether her music found popularity or not. She’d started off popular while still young, but tastes had changed and she’d found it harder to keep working as expert systems improved. Yet, even in her darkest moments, she’d never doubted her own worth, her own ability. Was that arrogance? Did it matter if it was? When she stood on a stage and drew that first breath she became a different person. Or possibly she became her true self, and the way she was the rest of her time was the mask, the illusion, from behind which the real person only occasionally showed her light.

She walked over to the podium where Claudio stood with a violin that she could tell he saw as an extension of himself, just from the way he held it and was absolutely aware at all times of where it was, just as he knew where his own hand or head was.

He smiled warmly and indicated some sheet music on a stand.

Claudio: “Are you familiar with this style of musical notation?”

She hadn’t been, it was different from the modern style in several ways, but over the last week she’d studied as much of the local music as she’d been able to lay her hands upon, and she was now able to sight read it with ease.

Claudio: “Then, if we keep the pieces short, I think we just have time to each play one piece for the other, and then finish with a duet. If that suits you?”

She felt energy flowing through her, excitement and anticipation, and saw him react to the new look in her eyes.

Kafana: “Your plan suits me very well. Let me take the score for the duet with me to study while you play first.”

She sat and the piece he played almost moved her to tears so melancholic was the melody which seemed time and time again to ascend in reminiscence back to a previous state, if only temporarily, before failing and falling to mourn below the loss of all that had once been. She stayed transfixed and only once it had ended and applause started did she whisper to Minion in order to discover if the piece existed in arlife. The “Lachrimae Pavan”, the “Dance of Tears”. What an appropriate name.

The piece she’d picked to play was more upbeat and playful, though it was by Dario Castello, a Venetian who’d died of the bubonic plague at the tragically early age of 29. She discovered his “Sonata seconda a Sopran solo” while studying Music and Linguistics at UCL and then had had the delight of introducing it to her father, who’d also never heard it. Within a week he played it better than she did, of course, but now he was no longer alive every memory she had of him was precious to her. Was there something about Claudio that reminded her of him? Or was it just the piece he’d played.

She needed something different to put into her piece. Not sadness, something intricate, something that took turns being stately and being lively, with intricate byplay between the two. What did that remind her of? Ah, Tori and Herberto of course! She grinned and raised her bow.

She took care not to put any mana behind it, though the emotion and visualisation she used were nearly identical to spell casting, except for the lack of symbols that specified particular deities or types of mana. The experience, the playing, was intensely fun and left her feeling crackling, as though filled with electricity just waiting to burst out from her. She looked at the audience, noting that in addition to the Landis and the wombles there were a dozen or so others, including Lady Pia Trinci. She turned to Claudio, to see if he’d caught it.

Claudio: “That music - it described my children, didn’t it? You can’t have written it for them, you’ve only just met Tori.”

Kafana: “No, the composer was a man who died more than four hundred years ago and who never set foot in this world. But yes, I thought it fitted them too, and leaned into that interpretation. You liked it?”

Claudio: “Oh yes. Now this duet, this is one I wrote myself. It has never been played in public before.”

Kafana: “I am honoured. Let us give it a try and, if I fail to do it justice, we’ll intimidate the audience into silence and pretend it never happened.”

A teenager in the audience, who just had to be Virgil, gave her a cocky grin to indicate that if it was a dismal failure, the tale would be spread from one end of Torello to the other. She wasn’t intimidated. She’d scanned the score long enough not only to be sure she could play it, but to hear it in her head and decide that she, at least, rather liked it.

The part he’d given her was slow-paced, smooth and melodic, and for the first twenty seconds she played alone. Then, distantly at first, the voice of his violin joined in, a faster paced playful sound, teasing and joyful, which filled the gaps only hinted at in the simplicity of her line. Sometimes Claudio copied her melody, and sometimes he complemented it, like a child approaching an adult. She responded by varying the tone of her notes, adding strength in some places and reassurance in others, not dominating but supporting and teaching, wanting his voice to be heard and excel. The piece ended triumphally, with both violins in perfect harmony together at equal prominence, a balance achieved.

They took the bow together, still in harmony, and Kafana was glad to note Virgil showing honest pleasure at the music as they received polite applause. She also spotted Lady Pia leaning over, excitedly, to whisper something to Sienna. Hmm, Bulgaria had that terribly useful Acute Hearing skill didn’t he? Not to mention sense motive and sense information flow.

Kafana: {Bulgaria, can you keep an ear out for Lady Sienna? I think she’s up to something. She cornered me earlier, to check some gossip about our link to Signora and ended up asking what I’d do if I gained social rank.}

Wellington: {We should bring the Landis up to speed on our plans to create an Adventurer’s Guild and the Basso Renewal project - we’ll need to talk about the capabilities of adventurers anyway, because of the effect upon economic stability.}

They put their violins away and circulated, chatting with the other people present. Kafana asked System to display her stamina bar, then invoked her multi-tasking skill, so she could keep talking on the party chat while also paying attention to the people she was introduced to.

Bulgaria: {On it. By the way, that mistress of the 17th Count? She was a talented artist. She made very detailed sketches of her subjects. All the parts of her subjects.}

Kafana: {Oh. Um. How interesting?}

Alderney: {I bet Carlo would like them.}

Kafana: {What did you lot get up to with Tori?}

Bungo: {There’s a room on the second floor for playing games. They have a billiards table that you play using little maces instead of pool cues. The walls are full of hunting trophies, monsters, and Tori talked at length about what sort of teams it takes to bring down some of the nastier ones.}

Tomsk: {Apparently at Yule, on the longest night of the year, it is traditional to mount up at dusk then go chasing through the wildest woods you can find, to scare away the dark. An hour before the dawn, you throw your prey onto a mass bonfire, and the mages put on a great display of light and fire to ignite it. But each hunter may preserve the head of one beast they personally killed, as a trophy.}

Alderney: {Bit of a waste of potentially useful hides and ingredients, if you ask me. We got into a discussion about it. I don’t think I persuaded her, but we learned a lot about what can be harvested and how ingredient improvement can be used to provide higher quality components for armour. Apparently if you kill the right boss in the right way, there’s a chance of the armour gaining a bonus related to a skill that creature type had.}

She circulated around the room with Claudio, and eventually arrived at the other wombles, who were being introduced to Virgil by Herberto and Tori.

Claudio: “Virgil, this accomplished lady is Suor Kafana Sincero. Kafana, Virgil, my youngest.”

Virgil: “Alas, you’ll note he fails to attach any accomplishments to my name, other than youth.”

Kafana: “Which I will never be praised for, while everything I have done, you may yet equal or surpass. You have the better of it, therefore, I think. But tell me, what did you think of your father’s composition?”

As he opened his mouth to reply, she added: “And bear in mind, I have a skill that detects when people lie.”

She grinned, enjoying seeing him put upon the spot, and turned on her Truesight skill.

He closed his mouth. Opened it again to start, paused, and closed it a second time before actually thinking for several seconds. He then spoke, slowly and carefully.

Virgil: “I think it could do well at the Beltane, if expanded from a violin duet to a larger ensemble that included a cello and a harpsichord or pipe organ.”

Virgil, it seemed, was telling the truth. She noted also the shadowy grey, nebulous violet and swirling pale white mana that flowed smoothly inside his body. He was brighter than most of the others? Did that indicate points invested in MAG or attunements? She looked at herself and the other wombles, trying to work it out via comparison.

Bungo: “‘the Beltane’? I thought that was the Carnivale between spring and summer, full of boasts and military parades?”

Bungo shone brighter than Virgil, which was to be expected. At 250 points he had more in MAG than any of the other wombles, because he wanted to regain the ability to use his high tier legacy skill Living Illusion as soon as possible.

Herberto: “Beltane celebrates Zer’s dance of life. The greatest gathering of singers and musicians is held by the fair city of Bavarin in the Teutonic League, which attracts bards from all regions, but every city has a festival. People dance so much that cobblers must work overtime to repair the holes worn in all the shoes.”

Wellington had 50 points, with green and pink the strongest tinges, but also significant amounts of fiery red and ordered gold. She looked around, but couldn’t see Bulgaria.

Alderney: “Sounds great.”

Alderney and Tomsk had 1 point each, and she couldn’t detect their mana in her sight without zooming in using the handy magnifying glass icon the System had provided her. She looked down at herself.

She only had 99 points in MAG, less than half that of Bungo, but to her truesight her body blazed so brightly she had to look away. What the heck? She held out one hand and peered cautiously at a finger.

Ah, no, that wasn’t mana inside her body. It was mana covering the outside of it like a second skin, so strong and pure it became visible even to unenhanced eyes. She’d been looking at the substance of the blessing placed upon her, the Imprimatur of the Deities. It seemed she’d been doing the magic equivalent of walking around brandishing a belt-fed machine gun in one hand and a lit flame thrower in the other, while lethal looking focus drones floated about her shoulders pointing armour-piercing anti-materiel rifles at anyone who even glanced in her direction. Ooops!

Tori: “Not just dancing to music: anything that includes prancing about counts.”

Kafana: “Like tennis?”

A flicker caught her eye, and she noticed that activating truesight in addition to multitasking had now used up nearly half her stamina bar. She firmly turned both of them off.

Virgil coughed, and then altered his pose and recited, as if at a lesson.

Virgil: “And many a maid dances horizontally around the pole of her swain, to ensure he marches off to his lord’s wars with thoughts creeping ever homewards, fixated upon the vitality of her visage.”

Tomsk gave a great bellow of laughter, and Claudio eyed his younger son with mixed feelings, unable to object to a display of learning, or to him answering a guest’s question.

He was saved from having to reply when two footmen started turning a crank to furl the hangings behind the podium upon a roller high above, revealing the auditorium to be part of a balcony that looked out upon a banqueting hall. An elderly man in ornate servants robes, filled with dignity and authority, was standing by the top of stairs leading downwards, and bowed deeply when the Count turned to him.

The Steward: “My Lords, Ladies and Guests. Lady Sienna Landi bid me convey to you, in timely fashion, that a light luncheon now stands ready to be served in the Quadrate Hall.”