Through the Darkness

When Ealstan got to Ethelhelm’s building, the doorman gave him the once-over before letting him in. In this prosperous part of Eoforwic, his own ordinary tunic seemed almost as shabby and worthy of suspicion as those of the young men who’d been looking at the broadsheet. But then the doorman said, “You’re the chap who casts accounts for the band leader, right?”

“That’s me,” Ealstan agreed, and the flunky relaxed.

Up the stairs Ealstan went. As usual, he contrasted the stairwell in this block of flats with the one in his own. The stairs here were clean and carpeted and didn’t stink of boiled cabbage or of sour piss. Neither did the hallways onto which the stairs opened.

After he knocked, Ethelhelm opened the door and pumped his hand, saying, “Come in, come in. Welcome, welcome.”

“Thanks,” Ealstan said. Ethelhelm lived more splendidly than his own family had back in Gromheort. Living large was part of what made a bandleader what he was, while a bookkeeper who did the same would only make people wonder if he skimmed cash from his clients. Even had his father been a bandleader, though, Ealstan doubted Hestan would have flaunted his money. Powers above knew Ealstan didn’t--couldn’t--do any flaunting of his own.

“Wine?” Ethelhelm asked. When Ealstan nodded, the musician brought him some lovely golden stuff that glowed in the goblet and sighed in his throat. Ealstan wished Vanai could taste it. Calling it by the same name as the cheap, harsh stuff he brought home to their flat hardly seemed fair. Ethelhelm, by all appearances, took it for granted. That hardly seemed fair, either. The bandleader said, “Shall I bring you tea and little cakes, too, so we can pretend we’re naked black Zuwayzin?”

“No, thank you.” Ealstan laughed. Ethelhelm waved him to the sofa. When he sat down, he sank into the soft cushions there. Fighting against the comfort as he fought against the languor the wine brought on, he asked, “And did this latest tour go well?”

“I think so, but then I’ve got you to tell me whether I’m right,” Ethelhelm answered. “Everywhere we went, we played to sold-out houses. I’ve got a great big leather sack full of receipts that’ll let you figure out whether we made any money while we were doing it.”

“If you didn’t make enough to pay me, I’m going to be upset with you,” Ealstan said.

Both young men laughed. They knew it wasn’t a question of whether Ethelhelm’s band had made money, but of how much. The bandleader and drummer said, “I expect you’ll find enough in the books for that, and who’ll know whether it’s really there or not?”

To any honest bookkeeper, that was an insult. Hestan would have been coldly furious to hear it, regardless of whether he showed his anger. Ealstan forgave Ethelhelm, reasoning the band leader knew no better. He said, “It’s a wonder the Algarvians let you travel so widely.”

“They think we help keep things quiet,” Ethelhelm answered. “And I’ll be cursed if I haven’t had a good many Algarvian soldiers and functionaries listening to me this tour. They like what we’re doing, too.”

“Do they?” Ealstan said tonelessly.

“Aye.” Ethelhelm didn’t notice how Ealstan sounded. He was full of himself, full of what he and the band had done. “Everybody likes us, everybody in the whole kingdom. And do you know what? I think it’s bloody wonderful.”

More slowly than he should have, Ealstan realized Ethelhelm had already had a good deal of wine. That didn’t keep his own anger from sparking, and he wasn’t so good at hiding it as his father would have been. “Everybody, eh?”

“Aye--no doubt about it,” Ethelhelm declared. “Laborers, noblemen’s sons--and daughters--recruits for the Brigade, even the redheads, like I said. Everybody loves us.”

“Even Kaunians?” Ealstan asked.

“Kaunians.” Ethelhelm spoke the word as if he’d never heard it before. “Well, no.” He shrugged. “But that’s not our fault. If the Algarvians would have let them listen to us, they would have loved us, too. Or I think so, anyhow. A lot of them aren’t that keen on Forthwegian music, you know.”

“So I do,” Ealstan said, remembering Vanai’s reaction when he’d smuggled her to a performance of the band.

“But I’ll bet they would have liked us on this tour.” Ethelhelm rolled on as if Ealstan had sat quiet. “These new songs we’ve been doing--it doesn’t matter who you are these days. You’ll like ‘em.”

Now Ealstan did sit quiet. He didn’t care for Ethelhelm’s latest songs nearly so well as he’d liked the earlier ones. They still had the pounding rhythms that had made the band popular in the first place, but the words were just. . . words. They lacked the bite that had made some of Ethelhelm’s earlier tunes grab Ealstan by the ears and refuse to let him go.

Sadly, he said, “Let me have that sack of receipts you were talking about, and I’ll see how much sense I can make of it.”