With a frown, Rollan took a single sausage from the very end of the table and ate it, while simultaneously looking for Essix and surveying the banquet.
His attention was snagged by the musicians. A singer had joined them and they were singing a song that he knew. It was a street song about the Great Beasts that all the urchins in Concorba could sing in their sleep. The verses went through all the Great Beasts in order, the tune annoyingly monotonous, until by the fifteenth and final Great Beast, most listeners were ready to pummel whoever had decided to start the song in the first place.
The musicians played so skillfully, changing up the harmonies in each verse, that Rollan didn’t even realize that he had forgotten to be bored until it was over. In fact, it stirred that same strange part in him that the first sight of Glengavin had. This place sure was getting to him.
He told the musicians, “Usually I hate that song.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the singer said.
“But not this time,” Rollan finished. “You guys are great.”
The singer smiled graciously. “Thank you.”
The teenage harpist piped up, her voice annoyed: “But no one can hear us on the other side of the room. It’s too noisy.”
The musicians and Rollan gazed around the great hall. The arched ceiling should have been a good soundboard for the music, but the thick tapestries on the wall swallowed all sound.
“If you were higher,” Rollan suggested, “the sound would carry better. Above the tapestries. There?”
He pointed to a small, disused balcony.
“Oh, but —” started the singer in a small voice.
“Probably not,” replied the drummer.
“Not this time,” the harpist added.
Rollan was about to comment on their apparent fear of heights when he realized he could see movement on the balcony. It was Essix. At first he thought she was just flapping for a takeoff. But then her wings fluttered even more violently, and he realized she was trapped somehow. It made him feel strangely fluttery himself. Anxious.
The musicians’ gazes followed Rollan.
“Is that Essix?” breathed the harpist.
“Yes,” Rollan said, a little grim. “And she seems to be trapped. I need to know the way up to that balcony.”
“Oh, but —” started the singer.
“Probably not,” replied the drummer.
The harpist said, “No. No, you shouldn’t go up there.”
“I have to,” Rollan said. Their attitude toward the balcony was beginning to make him feel a little uneasy, though. “Why, is it unstable?”
“No,” the singer said. He glanced urgently at Lord MacDonnell, who was engaged in conversation at the raised table at the end of the hall. “No one is supposed to stand higher than the lord of the castle. It’s the law.”
Rollan thought all laws were stupid, but this one was stupider than most. He said, “But I won’t be standing. I’m freeing a bird and then coming right down.”
The musicians conferred among themselves.
“No,” the harpist said finally. “I’ll go free her. You’re a guest. You shouldn’t have to risk it.”
“Risk it?” echoed Rollan. The sight of Essix flapping was making him feel even more uneasy. “She has to be freed! What if she’s hurt? If I’m not supposed to be up there, is he going to do it himself?”
This made all the musicians glance anxiously at Lord MacDonnell.
“I’ll just go,” the harpist said. Her voice was brave, but her face looked sick. The other musicians placed their hands on her shoulders and nodded. She moved down the wall to a small door. When she opened it, Rollan saw the steep stairs that led up to the balcony. She disappeared inside.
The other musicians muttered, twisting their hands. Rollan didn’t get it.
The harpist reappeared on the balcony above them.
The musicians kept fretting.
In just a moment, Essix flapped free of whatever had trapped her on the balcony.
It was barely a minute. No time at all.
The harpist moved back toward the staircase at the wall.
Just then, Lord MacDonnell looked up sharply from his gilded chair. His eyes went right to the balcony. The harpist’s face was pale as the moon.
Without taking his gaze from her, Lord MacDonnell clapped. Just once.
Immediately, all sound ceased.
Lord MacDonnell said, “Do my people not know my law?”
The hall was quiet.
“Scribe, what is the sixteenth rule of the hall?”
A squirrelly boy at the end of the raised table spoke up. “No one shall sit higher than the lord of the castle.”
Everyone’s eyes were now on the harpist on the elevated balcony.
“Oh, my lord, I didn’t mean it as a dishonor!” she cried. “I was just trying to —”
“My castle,” said Lord MacDonnell. “My law.”
“Please —”
“Demoted!” Lord MacDonnell shouted. “You are no longer the court harpist. Ten years in the kitchen, then beg for my forgiveness.”
“My lord,” begged the harpist as the guards approached the doorway to the balcony. “That harp was made by my father.”
“And you will destroy it right now,” Lord MacDonnell ordered.
“My lord —”
“Did you know my law?”
The harpist hung her head. As Rollan’s heart charged in his chest, she stood there until guards climbed the stairs to fetch her. Limply, she accompanied them and stood before the harp.
“My castle,” repeated Lord MacDonnell. “My law.”
Rollan didn’t need Essix’s supernatural eyesight to see how much the instrument meant to the harpist. He couldn’t bear that she’d known this might happen, and risked it anyway for Essix and him.
Swiftly, Rollan stepped in front of the high table, his hands burning with anger and guilt. He held his chin up high. “It was my fault. She climbed there to free Essix for me.”
Lord MacDonnell raised a dark eyebrow. “Ah, it is the boy who walks by himself.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then he said, “There are three true things in this place: love, death, and the Law of Glengavin. Her punishment remains. But for your bravery in taking responsibility, join me here at the knights’ table. Glengavin is a home to heroes and I see that you are becoming one.”
Rollan gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted was to accept a reward for his stupidity. This was all his fault.