The Feast of Silence

1589-04-05
Crescent Hearth

We set the long tables end to end and covered ink stains with loaves and stews. Lanterns swung from their hooks. The writ above the hearth caught the firelight like a small sun. The monk tuned a borrowed viol. The veteran kept time on the tabletop with two fingers, stern as any drum.

They came from every corner of the broken Empire: sailors with rope burns, apprentices with chalk on their boots, a clerk with ink on his cuff, the proud noble with no sword at his hip. We ate. We told the kind of stories that walk backward, softening edges without lying. Someone recited the Four Voices. Someone else answered with the names of the steps on the star. When a young student lost a line, the room carried him through without remark.

Between courses the book went open and round the room. Each reader left a word in the margin: measure, breath, patience, resolve. Salt and lamp smoke sweetened the pages. I watched faces bend to the light and knew that more would be written than I could ever teach.

When the room grew quiet I stood only long enough to say what needed saying:

What began as war became art.
What began as song became silence.
Remember both.

No one applauded. They did not need to. The veteran raised his cup. The monk crossed himself. The noble bowed as if before a chapel door. Low voices rose again. I slipped my lute from its strap and laid it where all could see.

Before dawn, with the tide turning and the city still asleep, I chalked the star fresh on the floor and checked the shutters. The seal on the writ was dry. The book lay open to a blank page edged in gold. I left by the side door and did not look back.

My lute remained on the table.