Lady Constance Knows a Song

originally posted April 25, 2006

"You sung once of Ekipa, called the Serpent of Thentis," the gentle free woman, Lady Constance, said to me.
We were not alone, of course. Nearby, at an adjacent low table were her father Gerald, he of the Vintners, and Vesutto, Merchant of Venna. We were in an open courtyard that overlooked the city proper. The House of Clark sits high in the slopes of the Thentis range.
"I am surprised to learn that you know of such songs, Lady" I admitted.
She smiled. I knew this, of course, from the tone of her voice. She was much veiled. Her hands, even, were gloved.
"As children, we learned the words," she told me. Her voice was quiet, lilting, a bit timid. "They call him the Serpent, O'er fields his tarns ride..." she spoke the first line, letting it trail off with her breath.
It was not unpleasant to hear a line from such an old song sung back to me. I met Ekipa, a hero of Thentis, ten years ago in a tavern of Ar. He told me of the glories of war, how stained they were with politics and rhetoric. I could see, clearly, the theater of conflict as he spoke of it. I uttered the second line to the song, causing the Lady Constance to lean forward a bit in her stately, chaste kneel.
"Bolt after bolt carries flames from his Pride," I said.
"The might of Ko-ro-ba, Ekipa did say," she added, "would not match his ambition, thus he made his play."
Gerald of Thentis, her father, the Vintner, paused in his conversation with Vesutto to glance in our direction.
"He planned and he plotted, the Black Caste he knew," I said, "would come for his head, so a hard line he drew.
"The Lady Constance well contained her emotion, recollecting the deportment, the dignified mien expected of her.
"The gates he did seal and he brought down his fist," she continued, "Thentis was closed. They could not resist."
I wondered at her recollection of the song. Such a young Lady, perhaps half my years, knew the words as well as, if not better than, I did. Indeed, it was only the prompting she provided with a previous line that made it possible for me to precisely recall the subsequent one.
"But, oh, in Ko-ro-ba, they would not stand pat. They brought the game to him with devious attacks," I said.
Only one couplet remained.
"So who were the heroes," she queried, "and who were the foes?"
I replied, "With the peasants of both towns hit hardest, who knows?"

I remember Ekipa speaking of the burning fields of Sa Tarna, the displaced peasants and men of low caste outside city walls having to bear, often, the greatest brunt of the attacks. It soured him to war, I think. It was not truly 'peril and steel', but the Kaissa of politicians that powered the machine of conquest and retribution. The song was first sung in a city sponsored tavern along Wagon Street in my city. Men of his Pride, having accompanied him to Ar on matters of business, of treaty, were the first to hear it, to hold it close to their hearts. In war, I sung to them, there is often no wrong or right. There is just fighting. "Children will sing this song in the streets of Thentis, Poet," one of his men told me. "That they recollect the nature of things."And so they did.
---
"She is a fine match, Poet," Vesutto said to me. "Yes, I think that is true," I smiled.