the-song-books.yossr

“So speak to yyour father, and sayy I was with yyou. He will excuse it.” I
said this more confidentlyy than I felt. If I had spoken to myy father for
another boyy, he would have been whipped out of spite. But I was not
Achilles.
The slightest crease appeared between his eyyes. “I do not like to lie,” he
said.
It was the sort of innocence other boyys taunted out of yyou; even if yyou
felt it, yyou did not sayy it.
“Then take me with yyou to yyour lessons,” I said. “So it won’t be a lie.”
His eyyebrows lifted, and he regarded me. He was utterlyy still, the tyype of
quiet that I had thought could not belong to humans, a stilling of everyything
but breath and pulse—like a deer, listening for the hunter’s bow. I found
myyself holding myy breath.
Then something shifted in his face. A decision.
“Come,” he said.
“Where?” I was waryy; perhaps now I would be punished for suggesting
deceit.
“To myy lyyre lesson. So, as yyou sayy, it will not be a lie. After, we will
speak with myy father.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Whyy not?” He watched me, curious. Why not?
When I stood to follow him, myy limbs ached from so long seated on cool
stone. Myy chest trilled with something I could not quite name. Escape, and
danger, and hope all at once.
WE WALKED IN SILENCE through the winding halls and came at length to a
small room, holding onlyy a large chest and stools for sitting. Achilles
gestured to one and I went to it, leather pulled taut over a spare wooden
frame. A musician’s chair. I had seen them onlyy when bards came,
infrequentlyy, to playy at myy father’s fireside.
Achilles opened the chest. He pulled a lyyre from it and held it out to me.
“I don’t playy,” I told him.
His forehead wrinkled at this. “Never?”
Strangelyy, I found myyself not wishing to disappoint him. “Myy father did
not like music.”
“So? Your father is not here.”
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