Writing - A Tale of Two Bards - West Marches

Writing - A Tale of Two Bards - West Marches

“Oi! Bard!”

Sedriks looks up from a wooden bowl of eggs and pork cracklins to eye a longtable of farmhands, the lead of which, a grizzled greybeard has just addressed him.

“That twanger on your back, is it just for show or can you play a tune?”

Taking one last long pull of the mead, the bard in question responds, “Isss not for show, how dew ya do. I can play it right smartly if ye have the coin for me trouble.”

There is a slight rumble of chairs and scrapes, the farmers rustle through cotton pockets and into leather pouches to produce a fistfull of brass.

“Here then! If you are as good as they say from the night of the attack, a song. More where that came from if we likes what we hears!”

Sedriks unslings the Viola, with a nod of thanks to the waitress who deposits the coin on the table before him. The room falls to silence as a long ashwood bow is produced from within a sturdy carrying case. The first pull of the bow produces a clarion clear note, low and mournful, echoing through the rafters and out the half-cracked windows into the evening rain.

“Hah, can’t even-”

The heckler is silenced with a piercing flash of Sedriks’ grey eyes. Before the bow dances over the instrument. Nary a fork nor glass moves, not a creak of wood or paw of cat disturbs the song. It is not...joyous, instead a mournful, haunting tune rolls over itself and into every corner of the common room. It folds over and over in a whirl of music, so that one player becomes three with a slow dancing harmony. Some farmers feel tears dropping from their faces, and cannot bring themselves to wipe them away. The barkeep and waitress’ mouths both hang open, unmindful.

The song continues, pushing onwards into two, then three different tunes, before finally, the aching refrain dies in the lantern light, a voiceless plea indescribable. Silence grips the room until the spell breaks with the sound of the bow rasping back into its wooden case.

Sedriks returns to his cooling bowl of eggs, unmindful of the confused, polite applause as the farmers harruph and blow their noses, blot at their eyes and give uneasy chuckles to one another.

“If that tune were to yer fancy, I shall play more on the morrow. Mayhap.”

Chairs and stools scrape, conversations rumble back to the fore.

Leina, the other bard, a genial and well-kept woman strolls forward then. Her curiosity piqued. A fresh mug of mead she sets down in front of the ‘hero’ and leans forward on the table to make good her study. “Tell me, Bard Sedriks, do you not play happy tunes as well?”

He looks up at her, nods at the mug. “Nay, Bard Leina, d’ere are no happy tunes in me repertoire. D’ere are none I think I’ve learned at all.”

“More’s the pity, you play quite well.”

“My thanks for your sayin’ lady. ‘Ve heard ye, and tis a right compliment you pay me.”

“Do you sing then? Strange for a bard’s opening number to be...instrumental.”

“Nay lady, ‘ve no right singing voice neither.”

“A shame.”