by ‘It’s about the lyre,’ I said to Ayllin.
‘I could have guessed that much,’ she replied. Her eyes strayed to my father, still seated upon his throne, with the moonsilver lyre in his lap. I tried to read her expression, but failed; she was impassive, after an icy fashion.
‘Can you fix it?’
Her gaze returned to me. ‘Fix it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it broken?’
‘Um. My father’s presence on that throne says it is.’
To my surprise (and discomfort), she smiled at that with genuine amusement. ‘Perhaps he is not the only one who has drawn such a conclusion,’ she said. ‘But he’s no less wrong for it.’
‘I… don’t understand.’
‘How did you get it back?’
‘The lyre?’
‘Yes, the lyre. What is it doing here?’
‘We retrieved it from the water, obviously.’
‘We?’
‘Yes. You knew that was the goal — you helped us. So why do you ask?’
Her lips pursed. ‘I have helped many on that particular quest. I had no reason to imagine you would be successful, but it is always worth another try.’
‘So you wanted the lyre back? My father said—’
‘Your father appears to be spectacularly misinformed,’ she said, betraying a trace of irritation. ‘Which ought not to surprise us, considering he has spent a mere matter of hours among his people.’
‘His people threw him out. Is that not the case?
‘His people required a period of adjustment, to adapt to so much change. If he had stayed—’
‘If? Did the Yllanfalen throw him out, or did they not?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘And the lyre with him.’
‘There was anger. It was my fault. I mishandled the matter.’
‘So I heard.’ I folded my arms, and did my best to stare the lady out of countenance. I do not much enjoy being so thoroughly confused. ‘The lyre was meant to choose you, no? But strayed into my father’s hands by accident. Mishandled indeed.’
‘Accident? It would be impossible to control the course of that lyre on festival night. It takes its own course, and chooses who it will. I had hoped it would choose me, but it did not.’
‘Hoped! So you did not manipulate its song? You didn’t fix it up to pick whoever got hold of it next?’
‘Is that what our precious king thinks?’
‘He is quite convinced of it.’
‘Well. He’s modest enough, I will give him that.’ A faint smile ghosted over her face. ‘He is still wrong. Supposing it were possible to impose such a course upon that lyre, and I highly doubt it: no Yllanfalen could be so crude. Don’t you see? It is not enough simply to have a monarch, any monarch. It must be the right one for the era. One who can be… what we need.’
‘And what did you need, thirty years ago?’
‘Change.’ She was not laughing now. ‘We had grown set in our ways. Too hidden from the outside world, too closed to everything that is not tradition. It is a poor course for any culture, is it not? Look at the wider world now. So many kingdoms, so many cultures, have faded away forever — and it’s my belief they exacerbated their down troubles by their very efforts to mitigate them. Closing one’s doors to progress achieves nothing but stagnation and decay. We did not want that for the Yllanfalen.’
‘We?’
‘Our former queen, and many others, including myself. Did you never ask your father why he was here that night?’
‘No… nor my mother either.’
‘That was no accident. It was our choice to throw open the doors, to invite everyone who might feel some affinity with us and our ways. And if the lyre chose outside of our own people: perhaps that would be right.’
‘But your own people were not quite so happy with this as you’d hoped.’
‘No. Neither, crucially, was your father. And that is one thing we did not count on: the lyre must choose a monarch, but the monarch must also choose themselves. Your father did not.’
I took a moment to think, and wrap my head around Ayllin’s words. The ground was shifting under me so fast, I could barely keep up. ‘Right. But, wait. I see that it went wrong, and — what, the doors were closed again anyway?’
‘With greater emphasis than before,’ said Ayllin, with a wry smile.
‘Talk about unintended consequences.’
‘Yes. Rather what I meant, when I said that one’s best efforts to mend a problem can sometimes deepen it.’
‘But why then did you never try again? Why leave the lyre languishing at the bottom of a pool for thirty years?’
‘Oh, we tried. And we encountered a new problem: over some things, the monarch’s will holds total sway. One such, of course, is the lyre.’
‘Ohgods.’ I thought back to my doomed attempt to swipe that other set of skysilver pipes off the effigy of King Evelaern. ‘That’s why we couldn’t get the pipes.’
‘You tried, did you? Many have tried before you. And many tried to remove the lyre, too, with no more success. The bottom of the pool was its appointed place, as far as our king was concerned. Only he could reverse that command, and take it out again.’
My breath stopped, for a long, agonising moment, as my mind turned a few unhappy somersaults.
‘What?’ said Ayllin. ‘What is it?’
‘Um,’ I croaked. ‘Only the king…?’
‘So it seems, for none other has succeeded.’
‘And… and, um, do you have to play the lyre in order to be chosen as monarch?’
‘That is how it has always been done.’
‘But you wanted change.’ I had to laugh, though the sound had more despair in it than mirth.
Ayllin’s eyes widened. ‘It… it was the king who retrieved the lyre, wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘Was it… you?’
‘No.’
I saw dismay in her face. ‘Was it that handsome fellow you travel with? He plays the ancient airs like no one I’ve heard.’
My eyebrows rose. ‘Jay? No.’
Her face fell. ‘Then it was—’
‘That lady. Yep.’ My mother was on the approach, elbowing people aside as she stomped and pushed her way through the crowd. She looked in as good a mood as a day of disasters and constant pain was likely to produce, and fixed both of us with a forbidding scowl.
‘Cordelia,’ she growled. ‘These sprites will not leave me alone.’
Looking behind her, I saw Cadence, Euphony, and Descant, together with a few unfamiliar ones. How many more might be hovering invisibly around her?
Ayllin gave a great sigh, and I detected a brief roll of her eyes heavenwards. Then, to my surprise and my mother’s obvious disgust, she performed a graceful curtsey and said: ‘They are eager to greet you, Majesty, as am I. Welcome.’
Mother stared. ‘You appear to be mistaking me for my… for that man.’ She waved her stump in Dad’s general direction.
‘I think not.’
‘Don’t be absurd.’ Mother turned her shoulder to Ayllin, and frowned darkly at me. ‘I begin to think you were right. I’d be glad of some rest. Can we go? I can’t get that boy to stop playing the piano either.’
A fine concession from my mother; it told me that she was suffering, if her pallid face and weary gait had not been enough. ‘I don’t think that’s going to be possible now, Mother. Though if you want rest, you’ve only to say so, and your people will no doubt provide you with everything you could want.’
‘This isn’t an amusing joke, Cordelia.’
‘No. No, it really isn’t.’
‘Then take me home. I am sure the selection of a new leader can go on without us.’
‘It’s already happened.’
The sprites, indeed, were backing us up with coaxing professions of joy, devotion and concern, together with assorted requests and petitions. My mother ignored all of it.
‘The thing is, Mother,’ I said, interrupting her next diatribe. ‘You shouldn’t have been able to take the lyre out of the pool at all.’
‘Shouldn’t? But it was the easiest thing in the world. I just reached in and…’ She trailed off.
I mustered a faint smile. ‘It seems you weren’t the only one to try that. You were the only one to succeed, though.’
‘No.’ Mother stared at me with something like anguish. ‘It was meant to be you. I took the lyre for you!’
‘Nonetheless.’
‘But you wanted it, Cordelia. Anyone could see that, whenever you looked at it—’
‘I may lust after that lyre, but not the trappings that go with it. Besides, Mother, you miss the point. It’s not about wanting the lyre. It’s about the lyre wanting you.’
‘Why would it want me?!’
‘Good question. Are you going to argue about it all night?’
‘Or,’ Ayllin put in, ‘run away from us, like the last one?’
‘What makes you think your damned xenophobic people will want me any more than they wanted Tom?’
‘Tom’s accession was thirty years ago. Change touches us all, in the end.’
‘There’s one way to be certain about this,’ I said. ‘Ayllin, you must know that my mother has scarcely a drop of musical talent in her.’
Ayllin’s lips quirked. ‘Well, that is certainly… new.’
‘Quite. So, let’s go talk to Dad.’ I took hold of Mother Dearest and plunged into the crowd, heading for the throne. I’d expected to spend a few minutes pushing and shoving in order to reach it, but Mother — ever her impatient self, and now infinitely weary to boot — barked, ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, just step aside!’
And they did. A clear corridor opened up for us through the throng of people, giving us an unimpeded view of the throne.
Mother gaped. Those who’d so obligingly cleared space for us looked scarcely less surprised.
I grinned. ‘Oh, life never gets any less bizarre, does it?’
Jay stepped into view, flanking my father’s right hand. He’d abandoned the piano at last, apparently in favour of a little lap-harp, which he cradled in both hands. A wooden flute hung around his neck. ‘What’s going on?’ he said.
‘We’re about to witness a coronation,’ I told him. ‘Of sorts.’
He looked aghast. ‘Ves, no. You can’t let yourself be pushed into this.’
I flashed him a swift smile. ‘Don’t panic. It isn’t me.’
His eyes went from me, to Mother, to Ayllin, and settled on the latter.
‘Nope, wrong again. Dad? Can we have that lyre a minute?’
My father, for all his complaints, exhibited a trace of reluctance as he held out the lyre. I wondered what it had cost him to throw it away in the first place, for all that he did not want the responsibilities it conferred.
But he was holding it out to me; even he could not grasp the truth without assistance. I stepped aside, and ushered Mother forward.
‘Just give it a quick go, Mum. If you’re right and this is an absurd joke, you’ll soon prove it.’
Mother glowered at me, but snatched up the lyre with her good hand. There followed an ungainly fumble, for a one-handed lyre player will always find herself at a disadvantage.
My father’s eyes sparked with amusement. ‘You’ll need to sit down,’ he said, and rose from his own seat upon the throne. ‘Why don’t you try this one?’
Muttering something about conspiracies, Mother plunked herself down on the throne and settled the lyre in her lap.
And the matter was promptly settled, for once she’d set her good hand to the strings, her fingers began to move as though she had played the lyre since the cradle, and what poured forth was the most heavenly, ambrosial melody I could ever remember hearing. She even outdid Jay’s playing; her sudden talent far exceeded mine.
I gave up a polite round of applause. ‘Congratulations, Father. You’re liberated.’
And my father, wretch that he was, promptly went off into a gale of helpless laughter.
