Story for the Day: The Karnwyl Pipes -- Part 1
The Continents have their share of strident instruments. Livanon has the high bombard, Gallei has the whirring wheelfiddle, and while Frewyn has many different types of bagpipes, there is no set more offensive than the Karnwyl species. The standing joke in Frewyn is that these pipes were invented to keep out invaders, their noise being so grating and detestable they deafen anyone listening. Whether this is true is a matter under constant discussion:
Gaumhin led the way, marching down
the all with all the stateliness that the Captain of the Royal Guard could
accomplish. He walked a half step ahead of Alasdair, his shoulders straight,
his
arms swinging in time with his strides, and Alasdair half expected him to
collect the Herald as they went, compelling him to order everyone to make way
for the king.
Alasdair walked faster to keep
pace. “You could play your pipes if you want to make a ceremony of it.”
Gaumhin simpered. “Ah would if ye
asked meh, syre, but folk still might be sleepin’.” He pressed the deflated bag
under his arm and tucked the chanter under it. “No’ everyins been trained tae
wake up with the sun on Ailineighdaeth mornin’.”
“I think the only people who would
be asleep in the castle on a holiday morning are the nobles—“ Alasdair stopped
and thought. A notion prevailed him. “You know, I have half a mind to ask you
to practice in the nobles’ quarter. I’d love to see you marching up and down the
hallway frightening every lord and lady into thinking we’re marching to war.”
“For tha’, syre,” said Gaumhin, “Ah’d
need the Karnwyl pipes.”
There was a pause. Alasdair looked
serious, and Gaumhin indulged in a terrible grin.
“Do we have Karnwyl pipes in the
keep?”
“There might be a-yin in the arena,
hangin’ there since Auld Bhantar won the Clayntroda, but Ah doant thenk they
werk, syre.”
Here was a dangerous aperture.
“Would you like to find out?”
“Aye, syre,” said Gaumhin, in a
dreadful wrawl. “Ah would tha’.”
“Let’s walk toward the arena, shall
we?”
They turned down the hall, and here
Alasdair led the way, pedipulating with all the pride that the idea of
frightening the nobles could furnish. There would be only a few remaining in
the keep for the holiday morning, and many were certain to be preparing for a
day’s feriation in Farriage or festooning themselves in finery for a morning
spent in the front rows of the pews at church. The echoes of a blaring bourdon
would travel in the great hall, but as long as Gaumhin did not play near the
royal parlour, the horrendous sound should bother no one else in the keep. With
proud strides and sanguine aspect did Alasdair march into the atrium of the
arena, and with a gesture and an, “After you, Gaumhin,” he ushered the Captain
of the Royal Guard toward the hall of champions, where artifacts belonging to victors
long past hung in glorious anticipation. A pair of bracers sat in suspended
silence, a framed leather tunic stared out from the monotony of its captivity, a
pair of leather boots met nailed to the wall. Anything belonging to famous
champions like Commander Bryeison or Queen Mharacabhi had long been taken down
to the reliquary in the treasury, to be preserved and well cared for by Aldus,
but anything belonging to fighters patronized by the nobility was on display,
the most remarkable of which was a pair of hophsaas straps, lying tied across
two hooks at the far end of the wall, the plaque below them reading: Den Amhadhri Unghaahi, championed over Den
Asaan Rautu, guarantor Jaina Shea Whilhem, Duchess of Marridon.
“Here they are, syre,” said
Gaumhin, laying down his pipes and taking a set of Karnwyl pipes from the wall.
Alasdair inspected the bag and long
drones. “They cannot be very old,” he decided.
“No more than twentae year, but
naebodae’s plaed ‘em since Auld Bhantar put ‘em there.” Gaumhin tucked the bag
under his arm and began breathing into the mouthpiece. “Ye might want tae cover
yer ears, syre.”
Alasdair placed his palms over his
ears, and Gaumhin, aligning his fingers along the chanter and giving a hearty
blow, put pressure on the bag. The drones bombilated in angry defiance, a
mysterious and foreboding chirr jargled from somewhere within, and Gaumhin
played one note. The air around the drones wavered, and a fulmination of sound
attacked Alasdair’s ears. Gaumhin released, the drones wilted over his shoulder
and the bag made a lugubrious sigh of deflated expectation.
“By the Gods,” Alasdair exclaimed,
pulling on his lobes, trying to shake the sound out of his ears. “That is the
most horrendous noise.”
“Aye, syre,” said Gaumhin gravely,
grimacing at the bag. He looked up and surveyed the sky. “Ah thenk if Ah plaed
‘em outside, Ah’d murder the birds flyin’. They’d drop doun in twas and threes.”
“I think you’re right.” Alasdair
shook his head, blinked a few times, and touched his hair to make sure all was
in place. “Well,” he exhaled, smiling, “to the nobles’ quarter then.”
Gaumhin feared that even half a
reel blared out on the Karnwyl pipes would deafen its listeners, but he
delighted in the notion of rattling the lords and followed his sovereign with a
lively step. They marched back through the gallery and turned toward the main
hall, and every maid and servant about the place who saw Gaumhin readying the
Karnwyl pipes made their quick bows and scurried away, dreading the dissonant
fremenscence distilling somewhere in the bag beneath Gaumhin’s arm.
“I wish Rosse were here for this,”
said Alasdair, as they turned into the hall and walked through the guest
quarters. “The sound from those pipes would blow off all his horrid clothes.”
“Aye, syre,” said Gaumhin, the
blowpipe in the corner of his mouth. “As Auld Suilli’d sae, if ye’ll allow the
expression, syre, it’d taek the hair from yer baune.”
Alasdair’s eyes flared. “Now that
you mention it, I’m sure it would. The note you played made my innards rumble a
bit. Wait till I’m farther off before you start playing.”
“Aye, syre.”
“What about you, Gaumhin?”
“Ah’ll be o’ right, syre. Ah spent
the last few year listenin’ tae Mureadh practice.” Gaumhin looked sagacious. “Ah
put a bit o’ candle wax in mah ears before Ah plae mahsel’.”
He turned his head and leaned down,
and inside his ear, Alasdair saw a small piece of molded wax.
“Just like the cannoneers in Marridon,”
said Alasdair.
“Aye, syre, but Ah thenk Ah’d
rather hear the cannon roar than the Karnwyl pipes oan the field.”
“Remind me to write a letter to
Jaina about the dangers of the Karnwyl pipes, being more cost effective than a
Marridon mounted cannon.”
Presently they came to the nobles’
quarter, and while there was no one about in the royal parlour, voices were
heard behind a few of the doors, voices shouting to maids to pull their corset
strings tighter, voices calling out for more tea and buttered toast, voices
abusing housekeepers and flustering servants: a sundry of exsibilation, and
when they stopped at the end of the hall, where the conclamant cries for more
melted cheese and breakfast brandy converged, Alasdair stepped far away, nearly
entering the courtyard, and gave Gaumhin a nod. He smiled, covered his ears,
and crouched as Gaumhin’s chest surged with breath.
The note resonated from the drones
and broke the air around the captain in a ripple of violent sound. Gaumhin
gowled in displeasure as the piercing skirl tried to invade his ears, but his
hands found their way to the chanter and, much to his surprise, began playing
intelligible notes. He played a Westren reel, and with every succeeding
expression, the horrid bourdon emanating from the drones caromed off the castle
walls, opening doors, shutting windows, silencing all conversation from within
the chambers, and bringing their inhabitants without. They piled in doorways
and sank over thresholds, holding their hands to sides of their heads and gaping
in soundless horror at Gaumhin, who was now beginning to dance about. He hopped
in a circle, kicking behind and in front of him in Westren fashion, lifting his
opposing heels to his knees. Those who came to the doorways of their
apartments, wrapped in holiday finery, held their ears until they ached. They
were shouting something, something about his stopping this moment, about his
playing offending their ideas of musical felicity, about his ruining their exquisite
and languid breakfast parties, servants hid in back rooms, ladies escaped to
their closets, lords attempted to talk over him with a very stern “Now see
here”, but it was useless to try to surmount so insufferable a sound, and only
when Alasdair nodded to him to stop did Gaumhin let the drones rest against him
and the bag collapse.
“Oh, Lord Islington, Lord
Duvereidh,” said Alasdair, with perfect amity. “I had no idea you and your
families were still here. I thought you had already gone to your estates for
the holiday. I’m so glad you decided to stay for the morning. Sir Gaumhin was practicing
one of the marching reels he’s going to be performing later in the evening.”
A string of lesser lords and ladies
clamoured about the thresholds of their apartments, staring at the king in grim
confusion, their faces floddering, their mouths open in awe and disgust.
Someone in one of the parlours was crying, another was shouting “What? What! I
cannot hear anything with this confounded ringing!” as someone asked whether
she would not take more milk in her tea, and a few were excavating their ear
canals, industriously digging with their small fingers as they endeavoured to
hear what the king was saying.
“Sorry to have disturbed you,” said
Alasdair, in a pleasant hue. “Good morning to you and Maith Ailneighdaeth.”
He made his civil nods and turned
toward the courtyard, and Gaumhin followed, marching after his sovereign with
long and important strides, leaving the concentration of lords and ladies to
welter in cluster of nebulous dismay. What had happened? What was the king
about, letting the Captain on the gad with pipes at such a time and on such a
morning? They stood silent and stupefied: a monocle hung filipendulous and
tinkled as it fell, someone’s hair settled across their face in a matted wreck,
someone’s teeth were still buzzing, and everyone watched the king and the
captain take their leave, someone filled up the blanks in the wordless
conversation by saying, “Did you hear at
all what His Majesty was saying? For the life and soul of me, I haven’t the
faintest idea…”
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