her scent, Kevin let the exhaustion of two waking nights carry him to sleep.
He only had an hour, though, and so was vulnerable and unfocused when the presence of a third person in the room woke him. It was another girl, not Erron’s, and she was crying, her hair disordered about her shoulders.
“What is it, Tiene?” Marna asked sleepily.
“He sent me to you,” brown-haired Tiene sniffled, looking at Kevin.
“Who?” Kevin grunted, groping towards consciousness. “Diarmuid?”
“Oh, no. It was the other stranger, Pwyll.”
It took a moment.
“Paul! What did—what’s happened?”
His tone was evidently too sharp for already tender nerves. Tiene, casting a wide-eyed glance of reproach at him, sat down on the bed and started crying again. He shook her arm. “Tell me! What happened?”
“He left,” Tiene whispered, barely audible. “He came upstairs with me, but he left.”
Shaking his head, Kevin tried desperately to focus. “What? Did he… was he able to…?”
Tiene sniffed, wiping at the tears on her cheeks. “You mean to be with me? Yes, of course he was, but he took no pleasure at all, I could tell. It was all for me… and I am not, I gave him nothing, and… and…”
“And what, for God’s sake?”
“And so I cried,” Tiene said, as if it should have been obvious. “And when I cried, he walked out. And he sent me to find you. My lord.”
She had moved farther onto the bed, in part because Mania had made room. Tiene’s dark eyes were wide like a fawn’s; her robe had fallen open, and Kevin could see the start of her breast’s deep curve. Then he felt the light stirring of Mania’s hand along his thigh under the sheet. There was suddenly a pulsing in his head. He drew a deep breath.
And swung quickly out of bed. Cursing a hard-on, he kicked into his breeches and slipped on the loose-sleeved doublet Diarmuid had given him. Without bothering to button it, he left the room.
It was dark on the landing. Moving to the railing, he looked down on the ruin of the ground level of the Black Boar. The guttering torches cast flickering shadows over bodies sprawled in sleep on overturned tables and benches, or against the walls. A few men were talking in muted tones in one corner, and he heard a woman giggle suddenly from the near wall and then subside.
Then he heard something else. The plucked strings of a guitar.
His guitar.
Following the sound, he turned his head to see Diarmuid, with Coll and Carde, sitting by the window, the Prince cradling the guitar in the window seat, the others on the floor.
As he walked downstairs to join them, his eyes adjusted to the shadows, and he saw other members of the band sprawled nearby with some of the women beside them.
“Hello, friend Kevin,” Diarmuid said softly, his eyes bright like an animal’s in the dark. “Will you show me how you play this: I sent Coll to bring it. I trust you don’t mind.” His voice was lazy with late-night indolence. Behind him, Kevin could see a sprinkling of stars.
“Aye, lad,” a bulky shadow rumbled. “Do a song for us.” He’d taken Tegid for a broken table.
Without speaking, Kevin picked his way forward over the bodies on the floor. He took the guitar from Diarmuid, who slipped down from the window seat, leaving it for him. The window had been thrown open; he felt a light breeze stir the hairs at the back of his neck, as he tuned the guitar.
It was late, and dark, and quiet. He was a long way from home, and tired, and hurting in a difficult way. Paul had gone; even tonight, he had taken no joy, had turned from tears again. Even tonight, even here. So many reasons he could give. And so:
“This is called ‘Rachel’s Song,’” he said, fighting a thickness in his throat, and began to play. It was a music no one there could know, but the pull of grief was immediate. Then after a long time he lifted his voice, deep when he sang, in words he’d decided long ago should never be sung: