Hella didn't sleep well. It was the latest in a succession of warm nights and the heat disturbed her, making her restless and unsettled, but her high temperature wasn't simply due to the ambient conditions. She was running a mild fever and slipped in and out of a number of vexing, forgettable dreams that left her feeling emotionally wrung out and exhausted without due cause. It was after the third bell before she finally settled into a longer period of more sustained slumber and when she woke in the morning her throat was dry and sore.
The widow had been given a spare pallet to sleep on by the temple entrance and as Hella stumbled down the stairs and into the main building, she thought she heard her talking in a soft voice to someone. There was a black cat and a swirl of strange grey smoke which made Hella's eyes water, and she gave a couple of painful coughs that aggravated her sore throat. The widow waved her left hand in some complex articulation and the smoke twisted rapidly, coalesced and vanished. Suddenly there were two black cats. Hella blinked in confusion. For a moment it looked almost as if that second cat had formed out of the smoke, but she must have just failed to notice it before.
"This is Nyx and this is Myx," the widow said, pointing to each of the animals in turn, although to Hella's eyes the sleekly handsome and glossy pair were quite indistinguishable. "They are two old friends of mine. They are my dream cats." Hella had no idea what that meant.
"They're lovely", she said vaguely, her voice croaking.
"Not everyone thinks so," the widow muttered obscurely. "Now sit down! I can see you're worrying about the morning water run. Leave that with me! I can go to the Fish Lord's Pier today, you have enough to think about. But before that, I'm going to get you a drink, you sound like you need one."
Hella's knees felt a bit wobbly and she sat down on a small flight of stone steps, just for a short rest, she told herself, as she allowed the widow to fuss over her, collecting the water buckets for the river and bringing her a drinking pot of ice cold water from the kitchen. Her aching throat closed around the cool liquid but it did bring some numb relief as she swallowed it. Nyx or Myx jumped on to her lap and settled there, purring loudly as she stroked it. Hella had some obscure feeling she'd met the cat before somewhere, but she couldn't think how or where. In any case the cat radiated a feeling of relaxed contentment and Hella was happy to be soothed by the somewhat forward feline.
"Look after her," the widow said as she slipped out of the side door and Hella had the slightly disconcerting thought that she couldn't quite tell if the old woman had been talking to her or talking to the cat...
City Harmoniser Kradovah Moltetch was considerably younger than his predecessor and by all accounts possessed a brilliant and incisive mind, coupled with ruthless ambition. These attributes had only recently taken him to a position where he was now in charge of all the Harmonic Order temples in Nephatar, with a radical mission to reform their programmes and practices. He was an unsettling and divisive figure and many of the older members feared his withering scorn and the effects of his re-organisations. It was thought quite likely, by those who knew him, that Moltetch would go on to the even greater role of Divine Conductor at Jebbin City in due course and the sooner the better in the opinion of his immediate underlings.
The City Harmoniser was in good spirits when he arrived at Wheat Street with an entourage of acolytes from the Nephatar Prime Temple. He sensed he was on the cusp of an important political victory in an ongoing struggle with the Fisher King's council of mages. The scheme to restore fishing yields was a plan devised jointly by the Harmonic Order and advisors loyal to the Way of the Harmonic Path, but it had to be approved by the city council of mages and naturally they could not approve anything they hadn't meddled with. Their changes to the music and the spell architecture had been accepted over his own clearly voiced objections. When they failed, no one was secretly better pleased than the City Harmoniser. If he didn't actually say 'I told you so', the implication was obvious so that now the revised music and the associated arcane casting was very much according the plans of the Order. Of course he wouldn't be able to feel so smug if anything went wrong again today.
Kradovah studied the shabby interior of the Wheat Street temple with ill-disguised disapproval. He remembered his first visit only two days ago to give personal instructions to the old priestess who ran it and he remembered thinking even then, that this was exactly the kind of place that gave the Way of the Harmonic Path a bad name. It had once been a fine building but it was falling apart. More than likely the priestesses would be badly trained and musically inept. No wonder congregations were deserting these poorer suburban temples. Well, he thought, let's at least see if they have learned how to play this piece properly!
Hella had never seen Jodyth looking so timid and fearful. The first visit of the City Harmoniser on Velday had alarmed her and made her irritable, but it was an altogether different thing to have him come here with an entourage to test their playing before such an important event. Breakfast had been a tense and anxious meal, cooked this time by Gemulae whilst the widow was fetching water. The violinist managed to burn the fried fish for which she apologised with a rueful grin, professing that cooking wasn't one of her skills, something they already knew. None of them had an appetite anyway and Nyx and Myx didn't seem to mind the less charred remnants when Hella fed them tit bits from her fingers. Hella confessed that her throat felt terrible, something that had made Jodyth go pop-eyed for a brief moment and Gemulae's jaw dropped too. Perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea for Hella to take the vocal part when she was clearly still suffering the lingering effects of an infection. But there was nothing that could be done about it now. She would just have to do the best she could.
The temple hadn't been so full for a long time. They were accustomed to small congregations, usually fewer than ten people for the daily services, but the City Harmoniser came with a contingent of more than forty. They were drawn from the Prime Temple of Nephatar. The lead Dakday sextet were there in their entirety together with the full complement of their understudies. Two of the members of the celebrated Sunday Quartet were accompanied by a group of eight assorted juniors. A group of both senior and junior priestesses from the Principal Prime Choir (known as the PPC to those that worshiped in the Prime Temple) made up the rest of the numbers. Hella recognised several of them from their performance on Laque quayside where they had been in the group charming the school of skyfinners. The younger ones were whispering and giggling as they sat cross legged on the floor but their older teachers soon quelled them with stern looks from the sidelines.
It was an intimidating audience of their fellow professionals and the knowledge that they were all here to judge critically made Hella's heart race and she felt faint. A quick prayer to Lynodyth calmed her a little and then it was time to begin.
The performance was a disaster. There was no other way to describe it. It began reasonably but then at the first crucial key change they lost the rhythm for a stumbling three beats before Jodyth's desperate chord brought them back together. When it was Hella's time to sing, she could only manage a hoarse and soft imitation of the excellent vocals she had achieved in the practice sessions. The frown of the City Harmoniser was colder than the cooling pot and there was no need to look out at the awkwardly sympathetic or sternly judgemental audience to feel the tension rising.
When at last the ordeal was over the verdict came very quickly.
"The harpest and the violinist, we can work with," Moltetch said. "The vocalist is hopeless. She must not go."
"Please sir," a timid Jodyth offered in Hella's defence. "She's been ill. She can't help how it has affected her voice."
"I dare say, but that's not really my problem is it? We have to deliver this performance later today for the people of all the city. I can't afford any weak links."
He turned to study Hella more closely, realising there was something familiar about her.
"Aren't you the girl who went overboard?" he said. "Right at the point when the weave needed reinforcing?"
"Y... yes sir."
Hella was mortified. The shame of her musical failure was compounded by this admission that she had been the one to make such a spectacular exit at the moment the Vimday charm failed. She blushed bright red and for a moment the import of the Chief Harmoniser's next few cutting words did not sink in.
"We shall have to consider your long term future in the Order, young lady. You may have to leave us. But that is a question for later. For today, I'm going to assign Ravella here to pick up the vocal part and I'll also leave you with Juan. He'll oversee the three of you and make sure you get in some more much needed practice. Don't be late at the quayside!"
With that the entire group, with the exception of Ravella and Juan, swept out of the Wheat Street temple and on to their next appointment, leaving behind a devastated Hella and a shocked and subdued Jodyth and Gemulae.
When she thought about the rest of that morning afterwards, Hella mostly remembered the martial clapping of Juan, the sternly imposing music master forcing Jodyth and Gemulae through their parts again and again, with the sweet voiced Ravella fulfilling the role that should have been hers. Her mind was in turmoil. Was she really going to be rejected by the Harmonic Order? The Order was all she had ever known since childhood and she had tried so hard to live up to their expectations. What could she do if the City Harmoniser really rejected her?
The widow clucked in sympathy and brought Hella a hot drink of black cryne, honey and mint, a combination which soothed her throat but could not soothe her spirits. Even the friendly cats served only as a temporary distraction. What she really wanted to do was to go back to bed and try to sleep off the effects of the infection, but she was determined not to do that until the musicians had departed.
At last it was time for them to leave. The demanding Juan finally admitted that Jodyth, Gemulae and Ravella were a workable trio and they could go to sea.
"He didn't mean it," Jodyth said to Hella, but whilst the younger woman appreciated her superior's attempt to restore her confidence she felt certain that the City Harmoniser did in fact mean exactly what he said and wasn't the kind of man who would change his mind. Still, she smiled bravely and wished the whole trio good luck.
"Be careful Hel," Gemulae whispered as they hugged at the temple door. "I'm not sure about the widow. We don't really know who she is. And this thing about hair. She's weird! What if she's some nasty old witch with a book of nasty spells? That's what scared me when she asked for my hair. I just didn't want to give up anything so personal to someone so odd."
"Oh come on!" Hella said. "You know she's not like that! She's just a refugee from Soque, that's all."
"You're probably right, but be careful anyway, yes? And don't you worry, I'll look after Maris for you," she concluded with a cheeky wink as she broke away.
Hella promised that she would be careful and that she wouldn't worry but that was a lie. She remembered what her friend had said in jest the other day about stealing the fisherman and although she hardly had any claim to him at all, she felt strangely more worried about that than about any of Gemulae's warnings concerning the widow. It was completely ridiculous but there it was. Surely she wasn't jealous?
