No Tears but Ice
Posted: 2005-04-30 06:48pm
((More from the Tahalshia Family... one that I wrote after Magic's Price. Hope you like it.))
The violin or fiddle is a truly ancient instrument. Its ancestor, the Psaltery, was used throughout the Mediterranean lands in the ages before Christ. A simple hollow box of wood, with strings of gut or metal pegged down to it, and played by a small bow strung with horsehair or fax, pulled over the pegged strings to produce the notes.
Yet how did this simple instrument manage to carry itself from Greece and Rome to the lands of the Celtic civilization, where the best-known instrument was a goatskin bellows pumping air through wooden pipes to make a droning, piping song? Very easily, for the psaltery and its children were very honestly human.
Listen to the violin as it plays in an orchestra. It carries the melody, adding the elegantly sustained notes that trill and slide into each other, giving the orchestra piece a dignity and haughty grace.
Listen to the fiddle at any dancehall or pub. It bounces out the melody here as well, seeming to dance and laugh to the jig, reel, or contra-dance. Like a child at play, it calls to the heart and feet to come join the fun, irresistible.
These are very human emotions, and the fiddle touches them all. But what made the fiddle last so long, stay so close to the hearts of musicians everywhere, was simple. The fiddle could cry.
The horsehair bow, when drawn across the gut or metal strings, can sustain a note for many heartbeats. It wrings the emotion out of a person's soul, painting it in the air like a ghostly wraith. The notes glide one to the other, weeping hauntingly, drawing out tears with every slow sweep of the bow.
Teamhair's fiddle cried like that now, all her grief and despair over Blackthorne's death dripping from every pass of her bow across the strings. It wept for the loss of her soulmate, the one man that knew her better than she knew herself, and loved her anyway.
It mourned for the father of her children, that will now grow up not remembering his devoted attention and love, never knowing his pride and delight in the simple fact they were his to raise. It grieved for the long years that lie ahead, barren and empty without Blackthorne by her side, never again to feel the touch of his hand, to see his mocking smirk, to hear his beloved voice.
The fiddle wept the tears that Teamhair could not, locked in hate-fueled vengeance against the men ... the beasts … responsible for Blackthorne's death. The fiddle broke through the rage that held her heart in ice, giving her a measure of release for the pain, no matter how briefly. The songs she played did not matter, sliding into other verses with no break; or pouring forth from fingers and bow came new songs, born of grief and dying unrecorded, improvisement at its purest.
Teamhair played, the fiddle wept, and the safehouse listened silently to the requiem to the man she loved above all else. Then, the door to her room opened, and a worried man stepped inside. "Tevar?"
Nitram's voice was foreign to the music, and it stopped, the bow lifted from the strings in mid-note, the fiddle untucked from beneath the chin. Hazel-green eyes opened, tearless, hollow, burning brightly with the inner fiery rage that wanted to see his killers as dead as her murdered husband.
Nitram, Blackthorne's older cousin, stepped further into the room, concern for her painted across his face, so similar to Blackthorne's own. "You've not eaten yet. Come down to the kitchen," he said, half an order, half a plea for her to return closer to sanity.
Carelessly Teamhair set the fiddle down, this lack of respect for her instrument yet another sign of the icy coldness that had wrapped about her after the first shock of Blackthorne's death. Mechanically, she walked past Nitram out into the hallway, then paused. "I'm owin' ye an' 'pology, Nitram," she suddenly said.
Her voice was low and eerily calm, the ice around her heart giving it the mockery of normalcy. "I dinna unnerstan' 'bout yer wife... 'bout Juliet...," she continued, the hate-haunted eyes meeting Nitram's. "Nowe ... I do." She turned and walked down the hallway, and the icy chill of her hatred frosted the walls in her wake as the last echos of the fiddle's mourning faded into silence.
The violin or fiddle is a truly ancient instrument. Its ancestor, the Psaltery, was used throughout the Mediterranean lands in the ages before Christ. A simple hollow box of wood, with strings of gut or metal pegged down to it, and played by a small bow strung with horsehair or fax, pulled over the pegged strings to produce the notes.
Yet how did this simple instrument manage to carry itself from Greece and Rome to the lands of the Celtic civilization, where the best-known instrument was a goatskin bellows pumping air through wooden pipes to make a droning, piping song? Very easily, for the psaltery and its children were very honestly human.
Listen to the violin as it plays in an orchestra. It carries the melody, adding the elegantly sustained notes that trill and slide into each other, giving the orchestra piece a dignity and haughty grace.
Listen to the fiddle at any dancehall or pub. It bounces out the melody here as well, seeming to dance and laugh to the jig, reel, or contra-dance. Like a child at play, it calls to the heart and feet to come join the fun, irresistible.
These are very human emotions, and the fiddle touches them all. But what made the fiddle last so long, stay so close to the hearts of musicians everywhere, was simple. The fiddle could cry.
The horsehair bow, when drawn across the gut or metal strings, can sustain a note for many heartbeats. It wrings the emotion out of a person's soul, painting it in the air like a ghostly wraith. The notes glide one to the other, weeping hauntingly, drawing out tears with every slow sweep of the bow.
Teamhair's fiddle cried like that now, all her grief and despair over Blackthorne's death dripping from every pass of her bow across the strings. It wept for the loss of her soulmate, the one man that knew her better than she knew herself, and loved her anyway.
It mourned for the father of her children, that will now grow up not remembering his devoted attention and love, never knowing his pride and delight in the simple fact they were his to raise. It grieved for the long years that lie ahead, barren and empty without Blackthorne by her side, never again to feel the touch of his hand, to see his mocking smirk, to hear his beloved voice.
The fiddle wept the tears that Teamhair could not, locked in hate-fueled vengeance against the men ... the beasts … responsible for Blackthorne's death. The fiddle broke through the rage that held her heart in ice, giving her a measure of release for the pain, no matter how briefly. The songs she played did not matter, sliding into other verses with no break; or pouring forth from fingers and bow came new songs, born of grief and dying unrecorded, improvisement at its purest.
Teamhair played, the fiddle wept, and the safehouse listened silently to the requiem to the man she loved above all else. Then, the door to her room opened, and a worried man stepped inside. "Tevar?"
Nitram's voice was foreign to the music, and it stopped, the bow lifted from the strings in mid-note, the fiddle untucked from beneath the chin. Hazel-green eyes opened, tearless, hollow, burning brightly with the inner fiery rage that wanted to see his killers as dead as her murdered husband.
Nitram, Blackthorne's older cousin, stepped further into the room, concern for her painted across his face, so similar to Blackthorne's own. "You've not eaten yet. Come down to the kitchen," he said, half an order, half a plea for her to return closer to sanity.
Carelessly Teamhair set the fiddle down, this lack of respect for her instrument yet another sign of the icy coldness that had wrapped about her after the first shock of Blackthorne's death. Mechanically, she walked past Nitram out into the hallway, then paused. "I'm owin' ye an' 'pology, Nitram," she suddenly said.
Her voice was low and eerily calm, the ice around her heart giving it the mockery of normalcy. "I dinna unnerstan' 'bout yer wife... 'bout Juliet...," she continued, the hate-haunted eyes meeting Nitram's. "Nowe ... I do." She turned and walked down the hallway, and the icy chill of her hatred frosted the walls in her wake as the last echos of the fiddle's mourning faded into silence.
