Redwing by Holly Bennett Read Free Book Online

point is we should practice together.”
    â€œYes, yes.” Aydin flapped a hand up and down dismissively, and Rowan felt his face tighten with anger.
    â€œI can’t play on an empty stomach. Wait here and I’ll see what I can scramble up.” Aydin was shrugging into his heavy coat as he spoke. He turned the collar up against the rain and slipped out the door.
    â€œWHERE DID YOU GET THIS?”
    Aydin had returned with ends of sausage, heels of bread and a cold cooked turkey neck.
    â€œThat girl, the one who let me sleep in the root cellar. Summer, her name is.” Aydin swallowed a mouthful of sausage and grinned. “She likes me. I promised we would play at her inn tonight though—you don’t mind?”
    Rowan shook his head, bemused. Who would have thought a rich merchant’s son would be such an accomplished moocher?
    At last Aydin was ready to get to work. “We’ll have to play your Backender music, I suppose.” He pulled his viol from the case and plucked at the strings to test their tuning.
    Rowan busied himself with his own instrument, slipping on the shoulder strap and resting the box on his left knee before unhooking the bellows. He warmed up with a snatch of a simple jig, deliberately picking one of the tunes Aydin had butchered in the market the day before.
    Check it out, smart-arse , he thought, as his fingertips skipped over the buttons. Just a couple of lines, before moving on to arpeggios to stretch out his fingers. He looked up to find Aydin staring at him.
    â€œThat’s…What were you playing there?”
    â€œWe call those arpeggios.” Rowan smiled wickedly. It was nice to have the tables turned, if only for a moment.
    â€œNo, before—is that what I was playing?”
    Rowan shook his head. “No, it’s what you were trying to play. It’s called ‘The Cat and the Cream.’”
    Aydin seemed oblivious to the dig, all business now. “Play it again,” he commanded. Then, noticing Rowan’s raised eyebrows, he added, “Please.”
    It was a tune Rowan hadn’t played for years, except as a warm-up or when requested by an audience member. But his mother had taught him not to sneer at the old favorites. “It may be old and worn-out to you,” she said, “but people in the country towns don’t get to hear music every day. Why shouldn’t they want to hear a tune they know and love?”
    He played it with care, driving the rhythm along while flickering—light and precise—over the melody and trills. “Like a fairy dancing on the neck of a galloping horse,” his dad used to say. And he took it fast, holding back just enough to keep the melody clear, his right knee jigging in time.
    When Rowan was done, Aydin let out a long whistle of admiration. “I bought some music in Shiphaven,” he said. “And I played it right, but it still sounded like crap. All the tunes did.” He shrugged. “I thought you Backenders just had bad music.”
    It was an apology, of sorts. Now Rowan could afford to be gracious. “I’d probably murder your music, too, if I tried to play from a score without ever hearing it.” He grinned. “Why don’t you pull out whatever you bought, and we’ll work on those tunes first?”
    THE OWNER OF THE PIG’S EAR listened to Rowan’s proposal with open skepticism. When Rowan wound to a halt, he tipped his grizzled chin toward Aydin. “’Twas you playing in the square yesterday.” The chin moved skyward, revealing a pouched throat bristling with several days’ growth of heavy beard. (“I thought he had a hedgehog nesting under there!” Aydin joked later.) While the man gave his stubble a slow, thorough scratch, apparently as a polite alternative to saying what he had thought of Aydin’s playing, Rowan quickly pulled his box out of the case.
    â€œCould I give you a sample,