The crowd clapped uproariously. Usually the approbation of the crowd was more subtle, dimmed down by the soft sounds of the harp. But tonight, at the Harpers Court, the harpists were not there at all. Instead, it was a band of merry fiddle players, playing the score for a small opera, which was performed by a few women in rather profuse costume makeup, as well as some gentlemen in excessive robes.
The young, raven-haired woman sat between two rather handsome lords, donning a deliciously low cut dress of red silk, her hair hung loosely down her back and over her bosom. She laughed as each of the men whispered into her ear, trying her best to shush them both with a finger to her pouting red lips.
"You mustn't speak while they are singing. It is ever so rude!" she said lowly to both of them. They continued this sort of teasing and tormenting of her. The man to her left was much taller than she, and somewhat thin. His hair was as though it were made of ebon silk, and flowed toward his shoulders. He was, she thought (as she always thought), beautiful. His eyes were blue, but rather a stormy gray than a clear blue, like her own. He was elegant, refined, his robes of the finest make.
The man to her right was nearly as handsome, though she did not care for him as much as the one to her left. His hair, though of a similar shade of black, though it held a few gray streaks. On his tanned cheek was a scar some years old, as though from the cut of a blade. He was rather portlier than the other man, and his hand lingered on hers, which had rested on her thigh.
Isulril came back to attention. She had been walking with the woman who had not only doused her in water, but opened the wound in her hand. They struggled toward the home of the physician, walking in awkward silence through the night. They had searched the hospital and the infirmary, but finally found his house. The other woman knocked and they were greeted by the physician himself, a man mildly irritated by their sudden presence.
She looked at the man peering out from the doorway, and she remembered.
There was laughter. The opera was a comedy. She remembered how men would go by, how they had all envied Lord Handrynhad and his friend, the Lord Hathostaran her company, how they had envied the beauty and presence she had brought to the two. It all began swimming in her head.
The physician let them both inside. They debated about who should re-stitch her hand, to the point where Isulril snapped. She had hated the whole affair, had hated the fact that they had both thought of her as an object on which to experiment, rather than as a person. It hurt her pride, if she had any left.
The woman stitched her up, slowly and carefully, while the physician watched, making some commentary in regards to her method. Isulril let herself go, go back to that night.
The applause was unbearable, the crowd rushing forward to see the actresses and actors, to congratulate the fiddlers. Isulril had been carted off between the two gentlemen, arm in arm with both. She remembered the stares. And she remembered not caring. How strange it would be, to no longer care again about the opinions of others.
But she turned back to her present, the nearly ominous black-clad figure, the not-quite-sober person who had just stitched up her hand, and eventually a gray cat who sat on aforesaid ominous figure's lap. There was a climax of words between herself and the physician, while the drunken woman had sort of looked on, sort of dazed but also sort of irritated, she could tell.
Things seemed at a resolution, a denouement between the three of them. She felt she could leave without the feeling that she needed to leave. She asked for the other woman to walk her home, and they did, both silent as they were when they had arrived. They had left the physician seated with the cat.
She threw the woman some blankets, and left her outside, where she insisted on taking her sleep. When Isulril returned to her bed and lay her head upon the pillow, she thought one more time of those two men, of her time in the Harpers Court.
"Sing, oh do! It would be lovely to hear you sing!" Lord Hathostaran had insisted that she would sing, one of the fiddlers playing accompaniment. The three had sat away from the crowd, in the outdoor tavern, two bottles of wine between them. Isulril rose and began to sing. As she sang, she watched Lord Handrynhad, watched his expressions, his movements; she sang for him.
It had been so long since Isulril had sung anything. Perhaps soon.
