The Eighth Lute

---Four Months Ago---

Rope was easy to find wherever there were boats. When coils of it went missing, sailors shrugged and said "Ulmo" then blamed it on the Sea. Nature's greatest thief.

So it was that Ryheric had collected a comically impressive mountain of rope, with none the wiser for it. He'd hidden it in the trees with the sound of the waves lulling over the sand, night and day. A woodworker's axe went missing outside the manse. No one noticed that acquisition, either. There were benefits to being forgotten. Benefits to navigating the art of being nothing. Ryheric had honed this state of being before he'd ever had a blade in his hands.

Aerluinil's lessons were arrogantly cast aside. He did not need them, anymore. His heart was shut.

The waves lapped softly on the first night, the second, the third. On the fourth night there was a storm. No one heard the axe's bite into the fallen tree branches. Each one similar to the last. Many branches were cut to size before the storm was on the ebb.

On the fifth night, Cwenawynn came to see him. His new stack of cut branches was concealed in the scrub. She must have seen it, but he played ignorant, and so the girl pretended it wasn't there, too.

Good.

The sixth night, he lashed the branches together with the rope. It was just as his new raft was built and ready to put to sea and embark, when he heard the groan. It was wooden and displaced the sighs of lapping water. He knew the sound of oars when he heard it.

The dark-hared woman arrived on the far end of the island near his primitive masterpiece. He remained silent at first. But a dare from her to show himself indicated she must have heard him lashing the final branches together.

He gave himself up. It was just Nine, after all. Words were exchanged. She tried to appeal to his better judgment. But words meant so little to Ryheric, and his heart was shut.

Then, she went back to the row boat, and brought back a cradled object wrapped in soft leather.

He knew the shape of it before the unveiling. His hands closed around the wrapped lute, and he slid the leather away, laying eyes on it as carefully as the first glimpse of a nervous bride.

Nine watched him, and though no words were said in this moment, her appeal was made, and she watched the intoxication saturate him while the slip and whisper of waves carried with it the promise of music.

The man had not touched a lute in months. Everything was yellow - passion, and then red - hunger. The colours refused to blend. No rich orange to speak of. Instead, a scintillating dance of ecstasy and gnawing, starving torture. Grief that had nowhere else to go. Folly. Love. Voracity. Wrath.  

Day seven, eight, nine and ten, he played until his fingers bled. Then he wrapped each offending digit in strips of cloth, and played for the eleventh day. Many heard the notes on the breeze in gasps and grasps. None came close enough to hear the music.

Good.

His heart was shut.

On the twelfth black, starless night, he strapped the lute to his new raft, deploying the sluggish float into the water to make his escape. He knew Ceilawynn had left the black colt for him on land. The colt would bear him away like a shadow. None would notice, not for days at least. He knew there would be no goodbyes.

It didn't matter. His heart was shut, and he left.

He had a horse and a lute again. Next was his sword, and his task to reclaim it was blood red.