The dirge of the pipes blanketed the hillside, mirroring the drumbeat in Chrisandor’s aching heart.
You’re not a sissy, are you, boy? His father’s last words to him carved through his mind, cutting deeper than any knife.
N-no, Father. He hadn’t meant to cry, but he’d fallen so fast, and his arm had burnt like fire.
He swallowed a sob and forced tiny, staccato breaths past the invisible chains crushing his chest.
It’d been his own fault. He’d known better than to climb into the loft unsupervised. And his father had already been late for work. He always said things he didn’t meant when he got angry.
You’re not a sissy, are you, boy?
Chrisandor stared at his mother, resplendent in her funeral white, and squeezed her fingers. Her hand engulfed his as she returned the gesture.
The pipes fell silent.
The godsman emerged from the ring of mourners and pushed a torch into the pyre.
N-no, Father.
Wood snapped and fire crackled, singing of need and hunger. Wind blasted the hillside with the ferocity of a man’s dying breath, and flames leapt skyward, roaring his agony with every snap, pop, and hiss.
You’re not a sissy, are you, boy?
The pall encasing his father’s body warped and blackened in the centre of the fire.
…not a sissy…
…not a sissy…
“Chrisandor?”
Chrisandor jumped and dragged his gaze from the shrinking pyre. His mother frowned at him, her eyes red-rimmed and glistening. A man stood beside her. Tall. Broad. Grim faced. A stranger.
So many strangers.
“Yes, Ma?”
“This is Master Findale. He runs the lumber yard where your father worked.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Findale.” Chrisandor bowed, bringing his eyes level with the man’s hands. Big hands. Dirt-stained, cracked, and calloused. “Like father’s.”
The man frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Your hands. They’re like father’s.”
“Ah.” The man extended his hands and flipped them to reveal the creases crisscrossing his palms. “A worker’s hands. Just like yours will be if you accept my offer.”
Chrisandor craned his head. “Ma?”
“Master Findale has an opening for an apprentice at the yard. He’s offered to take you on.”
“Me?” Chrisandor looked at those hands again. Those coarse, insensitive, unfeeling hands. “But—”
“You don’t have to answer.” The man glanced at the pyre. “Not today. But I will need your decision soon. It pays well. A round a week. And I know your mother could use the coin, with your father passed.”
“Sir.”
“Goodwoman Dylis. Master Chrisandor. I’ll leave you to your grief.” The man dipped his head and departed.
Smoke gathered over the pyre like a shroud, carrying with it the stink of wood, cloth, and burnt flesh. Chrisandor sneezed and retreated from the heat.
More mourners approached after Master Findale, to pay their respects to his Ma and commiserate the loss of a friend. She didn’t notice when he freed his hand from hers. Nor when he escaped to seek fresh air.
Soft grass gave way to hard dirt. He stumbled, staggered, and regained his balance at the edge of the path.
A lumberjack.
His mother wanted him to be a lumberjack.
After all her promises; all her smiles and laughter when he’d told her of his dreams.
A lumberjack, when he lacked the strength to swing an axe.
He continued to backpedal, tripping over unseen divots and bumps, until he could look down on the dark shadow within the flames and the mourners circling it like two-legged, bleating sheep.
“Goodbye, Father.”
Chrisandor turned and ran, needing to escape the smell. The platitudes. The fake smiles on unknown faces.
A lumberjack.
The exertion drove the tightness from his lungs, loosening the snot lodged in his nose and throat.
You’re not a sissy, are you, boy?
No.
No, he wasn’t.
And he wasn’t afraid of hard work either, but…
A lumberjack?
His life would become a monotony of sawing, chopping, and hauling. The same rhythm played over and over. Droning. Dreary.
Without hope.
He burst over the crest of the hill and through the open town gate. A herd of pigs blocked the main road, the chaotic melody of their oinks and snorts a perfect mirror to the confusion chiming inside him. The swineherd’s whip cracked, a snap of authority demanding attention, seeking control as a conductor would with a baton.
Like my father when he shouts.
You’re not a sissy, are you, boy?
Chrisandor flinched and darted into the maze of back-alleys that would take him home. He reached the first junction and stopped, doubled-over and panting.
Home?
Home was darkness and despair. A hunkered hovel heavy in its silence. An empty shell without a soul.
The dingy alley loomed ahead of him, a descent into a pit of shadow waiting to swallow him whole. He stared down the its length for a count of ten then fled in the opposite direction.
Bells jangled, hinges creaked, and conversation died when Chrisandor opened the door to Bryant’s Music Store. The shop’s three occupants turned to watch him.
Master Bryant stood behind the counter, looking dapper in a pristine white tunic and black waistcoat. His eldest apprentice, Errol, stood near the window, holding a viola for a young woman’s inspection. Chrisandor swallowed, dodged the closing door, and wiped his feet on the doormat.
“Young Chrisandor,” Master Bryant said, his voice filling the shop with warm, rolling tones. “I hadn’t expected to see you today of all days.”
As if queued by Master Bryant’s speech, the apprentice and his client turned back to each other and resumed their whispered conversation.
“N-no, sir, but I—” Chrisandor took a deep breath, throwing off the chains threatening to silence him, and stretched to his full height, though it brought the top of his head no higher than Master Bryant’s robust belly. “I have a request, sir.”
“A request?” Master Bryant stepped out from behind the counter and invited Chrisandor forward with a curled wave of his hand. “What sort of request?”
Chrisandor stole a surreptitious look at the viola’s sumptuous curves as he shuffled into the shop. Then his gaze jumped to the drums and cymbals. The grand harp. The pianoforte. “I—” He stopped in front of Master Bryant and tilted his head to look him in the eye. “I want to be your apprentice, sir. Please.”
“Ah, Chrisandor.” Master Bryant clapped his hand to Chrisandor’s shoulder. “I know you’re fascinated by what we do here, but you know my situation. I already have a full complement of apprentices. Until Errol earns his journeyman’s ribbon, I can’t afford—”
“But…”
Lumberjack, lumberjack, lumberjack.
You’re not a sissy, are you, boy?
N-no, Father.
“But I need to. You must feel it, too. The music. The rhythm. Every day, all around us. People walking in the street.” He ran to a drum and beat his palms on the skin at a steady tempo. “And others running.” He beat the drum faster. “Their conversations.” He softened his blows and played a near-continuous roll. “Their shouts.” He ended the roll with a palm-stinging slap. “Alone, each sound is weak, but together… together they create the… the…”
“Harmony?” Master Bryant asked with a lopsided smile.
“Yes. Harmony. Together they create Fourtrees Crossing’s harmony. And then…” Chrisandor glanced at Errol and the young woman, who’d broken off their conversation to listen. “Then there’s the weather. Like the rain.” He abandoned the drum in favour of the pianoforte and tapped out a tippy-tappy rhythm on the final two keys. “And the storms.” He shimmied to the other end of the keyboard and banged out a discordant counter. “And then there are the animals, like the birds.” He turned from the pianoforte, dashed across the room, and reached for the viola in Errol’s hand. “Um…”
Errol laughed and turned the instrument to rest its foot against his shoulder. “Like this?” He lifted the bow to the strings and played a quick, high-pitched ditty.
“Yes. Yes. You see. You all see.” He spun in a circle, hand extended to point at each member of his audience in turn. “Music is everywhere. In my heartbeat.” He tapped his chest. “In your laughter.” He pointed to Errol. “And even in your breath.” He finished with a flourish that brought him face-to-face with Master Bryant. “I need this, Master Bryant. Please. It’s here.” He thumped his chest again. “It’s part of me.”
Master Bryant frowned, turning his normally warm face cloudy. “You realise a musician’s apprenticeship isn’t easy, lad? It’s not all playing, and laughing, and fun.”
Chrisandor clasped his hands behind his back and adopted the most serious expression he could muster. “I know, sir.”
“And if you think you can waltz in here, piddle about, collect your wage at the end of the month, and then fritter it away come Mournday, you’ve a sharp shock coming.”
“But I don’t think that, sir. And I don’t want the wage for myself. I want you to give it to my Ma. She needs it now, Father… Now he’s…”
“Aye, lad.” Master Bryant grasped Chrisandor’s upper arm and squeezed. “I know. But you’ll take a round or two for yourself, regardless. I won’t have people saying I don’t treat my apprentices right. A trial then. You work hard and stick it out ‘til the end of the month, and I’ll take you on full time.”
Chrisandor swallowed the lump in his throat. “You mean it?”
“Come on through the back. You may as well make a start. Errol, watch the shop for me.”
“Yes, Master Bryant.”
The stench of horse glue turned Chrisandor’s stomach, and its thick vapours clogged his lungs. He sniffed to clear the snot from his nostrils and continued to stir the pot, timing each stroke to the beat of the metronome, nodding with each completed revolution, determined not to fail in this, his first assigned task.
You’re not a sissy, are you, boy?
N-no, Father.
But I’m not you either. I’m like a violin to your drum. I need to follow my own rhythm. Chrisandor bowed his head, released the tension that had gripped him since his father’s death, and wept.