“Veswees,” she murmured, so quietly as to be almost whispering. “Do you know why they won’t let us sing?”
He stared into her eyes, as though searching for something there, some keyhole into which he might put a key, perhaps. Some door he might open. “I know two reasons,” he said.
“Tell me.”
“The first reason is a simple one. Back some hundreds of years, in the time of some Lord Paramount or other, an oracle spoke to him saying that when a noble young woman sang to the seas, the reign of the nobles on Haven should end.”
“How strange.”
“That’s the story, at least. The other reason is merely something I’ve thought from time to time. Voices, you know, are very individual. Harp music is harp music, well or badly played, but anonymous. The same could be said for piano, or violika, or cortuba. One string quartet, assuming competence on the part of the performers, is rather like any other string quartet. But if someone sings really well, the voice becomes totally recognizable, does it not?”
She puzzled over this. “And so?”
“And so, if a noblewoman were very talented in music, if she sang in public, if she became very muchfollowed one might say, her loss would be greatly felt. Being known, and followed, and grieved over would be quite inappropriate for a noblewoman.”
He turned away and busied himself, saying nothing more, his very posture telling her he had said all he would say. Though she had been wondering about this ever since she began reading Stephanie’s book, which referred repeatedly to singing, she let the matter drop. If Veswees was uncomfortable speaking of it, probably she herself should be equally wary. On the afternoon of the next dinner, a pale and weary-looking Aufors Leys came to visit her, bearing formality before him like an offering.
“You have done well, my lady,” he said tonelessly, with a sorry attempt at a smile. “This time there are no mortal enemies on the guest list, and your seating plan has been quite thoughtfully worked out.”
“Lady Alicia helped me,” she said, fighting her desire to reach out and touch him. He looked so sad, and his arms were so close. She could move one hand, only a little, and it would rest on his. She clasped both hands firmly in her lap, cleared her throat, and looked up at the ceiling. “She’s been very kind.”
“Your dressmakers worked out well?” he asked, making an attempt at conversation.
“Two of them made gowns for me. The woman did two very pleasant ones, beyond reproach as to taste and fabric, though rather dull. They are no doubt superbly covenantly.”
A smile barely flickered at the corners of his mouth.
“Craftsman Veswees finished a very dramatic gown for me to wear tonight, and he’s working on two more. Father is quite annoyed at the cost, of course. I don’t think he understood quite what he was getting into, coming here to Havenor. Things were much less expensive in Langmarsh.”
“The provinces are much less expensive, yes. And preferable not only for that reason.”
Long silence, while Aufors shifted from foot to foot and stared at the wall and Genevieve remained a statue graven in stone: Woman, looking at her clenched hands.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, my lady?”
“Oh, Aufors,” she cried, unable to contain herself. “Even though I said we must be proper, I hoped you would go on being my friend.”
He reached for her hands, squeezed them painfully in his own, and said in a husky voice, “Never doubt it for a moment, Jenny. But don’t let me show it, for if I do, my words can only lead me directly to your lips.”
Stunned by his words, she drew back, jerking her hands from his amid a flood of feeling that was totally foreign to her. It was like a drunkenness, a tottery feeling, as though both her legs and her brain had lost their blood supply, which had suddenly gone heatedly elsewhere in a frightening maelstrom of feeling. It was as though something clutched her there, clutched and squeezed! She was fainting, drowning, and it took all her strength not to fall forward into Aufors’s arms. Instead, she grasped the arm of her chair and flapped the fingers of her other hand at him, as though shooing chickens, meaninggo away, oh, go away, what have I done? He gave her a look of tragic intensity and went to gasp for breath outside the room, while she, inside the room, did the same.