The Bird of the River by Kage Baker Page A

place. Always looking over your shoulder to see who's coming after you with a dagger. She thought about the dead boy tangled in the snag, and shuddered.

    THE MUSICIANS DID NOT STIR until long after noon, when Salpin and a few of the others, red-eyed and shaky, came creeping out to beg strong hot tea in the galley. Krelan had still not returned and so Mr. Pitspike was in an even fouler mood, but some of the women had pity and made tea for them.
    So they were all alive and tuning up on the aft deck when the guest musicians began to arrive from the other barges and the shore. There was a tattooed fiddler, a black-whiskered man with a hurdy-gurdy, and a stout man with a bass fiddle that he wheeled ahead of him on a little cart. There were four bright-haired girls with fiddles and flutes, and a pair of brothers with their boxhorns slung across their shoulders in velvet bags. And Yendri came too bearing drums and pipes, and one great harp that had to be carried by two young men while the old harpist followed, carrying his cushion under his arm. Eliss tried not to stare, since obviously everyone else was well accustomed to the Yendri visiting here.
    Wolkin popped up at her elbow, chewing something. "See that old greenie with the harp? He's famous. His name is Yellow Broom. He talked to me, once."
    "You shouldn't call them greenies," said Eliss automatically.

    "I KNOW. BUT THESE ARE our greenies. We see them all the time," said Wolkin.
    "What did he say to you?"
    "He told me to stop touching his harp," Wolkin replied proudly. "Did you see it up close? It's beautiful. Lots of curly carving and musselshell pictures on it."
    "I haven't been close enough," said Eliss. "Why is it all right for them to sell us things and ... come to our parties up here, when nobody would think of it downriver and along the coast?"
    "I don't know," said Wolkin. "That's just the way it is. So, is Alder going to go live with them now? I wish I could."
    "No, he isn't!" Eliss was startled at how angry the question made her. "He's just learning things about his--about his father's people, that's all. It's good for him."
    Wolkin took a step back, startled too. He reached out and took her hand. "Don't be sad," he said. "You want to come have some cake? They're putting the food out now."

    THE SUNLIGHT GLOWED IN THE WEST a while, making the lake a broad sheet of untroubled fire. As the glow faded, the lake reflected the first star, and then many stars, and finally the slow moon when it came shining over the eastern mountains. One by one, the colored lamps were lit aboard the Bird of the River . People milled about, helping themselves to food and greeting guests from the other barges. Plates of food and pitchers of beer were sent up to the musicians.
    Finishing a long drink of beer, the tattooed fiddler took up his instrument, set it in the crook of his neck, and took a few experimental swipes with his bow. Satisfied that his fiddle was in good order, he began to play one of the wandering, circular dance tunes Eliss heard every day from the masthead. The bass fiddler set down the dish from which he had been eating plumcake, and began to plunk out an accompaniment. One of the boxhorns took up the melody line. Salpin joined him on the concertina. The old Yendri with the harp seated himself and moved his fingers over its strings, adding notes like a soft-voiced singer.
    As though they had been waiting for him to go first, the other Yendri joined in, with drone-pipe and drums. People on the deck stopped talking, and began to sway with the music. Then the bright-haired girls joined in with their fiddles and flutes and it was as though smoldering coals had burst into flame: the music soared, couples reached for each other and swung out on the dance floor, moving round and round in the lamplight. The moon rose higher. Moonflies began to wake up in the trees, tiny winking lights like white stars among the oak leaves.
    Eliss, swaying where she sat, looked up in surprise as