Free Cards of Grief by Jane Yolen

was trained as a singer.
    “Let me see your poems, child, the ones I have been told about.”
    If Gray had been one of us, a prince or other Royal, there would have followed an elaborate show of apology or regret, cozening and coyness, then final reluctant obedience. But Gray knew none of the games of court. She reached into her small reed basket immediately and drew out a handful of poems.
    “Read them to me, child,” said the Queen in her inimitable voice. She lay back against the cushions and closed her eyes.
    Gray began to read, starting with the original Gray Wanderer poem, whispering it to the Queen.
    “Louder,” instructed the Queen, “that we may all hear them.”
    For the first time Gray looked unsure. There were some thirty princes in the room, and though they had eager attentiveness written on their faces, there was a kind of predatory quality to the look. Gray whispered something to the Queen and she smiled.
    “B’oremos,” said the Queen.
    I sat up, still shaking.
    “Go to your room at once and bring your plecta and sing me the song that you wrote to accompany this poem. We will wait.”
    I hurried from the room, face flushed but triumphant. I did not even glance at T’arremos, though I could just imagine the blue veins running through the map on his cheek like pulsing, angry rivers to the sea.
    Mar-keshan was standing at the doorway of my apartment with the plecta in hand. How he knew what I wanted was one of those many small mysteries of the servant class. I was just grateful that he served so well. I grabbed the instrument from him and, tuning as I went, hurried back along the whorls of the halls, past the bells, to the Queen’s Public Room.
    It was as if no one had moved since I left. Along the aisle leading to the risers were the princes on their cushions, with T’arremos on his knees still aghast at my good fortune. The Queen was leaning back, eyes closed. Her two advisers on the second and third levels were wide-eyed and waiting. Hands folded, Gray sat as if the silence in the room had given her permission to think.
    When I reached the bottom of the levels, I strummed a full chord on the plecta. Its voice was strong and echoed beautifully with the harmonics that bounded off the rounded walls.
    I sang, slowly at first, then with gathering strength. And when I was done, Gray began to recite five other poems. They were good, solid accompaniments to the first, a strong beginning to the Gray Wanderer Cycle, though the third one, which begins “What isles are we…” is rarely heard anymore. It was hard to believe that a girl of Lands just out of the blush of childhood could have written them. The last was her very famous “Valediction.”
    The Queen sighed and waved her hand in a complicated pattern that was the signal for the priestesses to come forth.
    A door slid open to the left of the cushions and three members of Moons stepped out.
    What vestments were they wearing?
    The belted white kirtles for prophesying and the diadems, with the moon phases, on their shaven heads. The eldest priestess was the seer, though sometimes it is a younger one who has the gift of seeing time. She carried the rood of augury in one hand, the orb of prophecy in the other. Only when she had bowed to the Queen did she hand over the precious relicts to her acolytes.
    The Queen nodded to them. “What do you know of a child of Lands?” asked the Queen.
    The old priestess looked into the orb that one acolyte held cradled in her palms. For a moment the orb seemed to emit a blue light. I was awed at the time, but I have since been told by a sky-farer the secret of that inner flame. There is a cache of oil inside the globe and a pair of flints that strike when a certain mechanism is touched.
    Whoever told you was wrong to do so. It is our vow to observe, to study, to learn.
    As King it is my duty to know everything. Besides, the young man was drunk on royal wine at the time. It is better that I know the secret of the