He was down beside the river, wading ankle deep in the fast moving current that caught the bend below the castle, when he first heard her. The night was clear and bright with the glow of the new moon. He should have been somewhere else, doing some dire task, but the music of rushing water had called him and could not be ignored. Then above the sound of the dancing Cam came an even sweeter melody; a voice, high and clear like that of a young girl’s. 

Her song was melancholy – he could not discern the words, but the sense of it came to him through the long, haunting phrases of tune. Spellbound, he listened, his eyes scanning the dark walls for some window or sign of life. He saw no one, and when, after a few minutes, the singing stopped, he dragged himself away.

The following evening he returned a little before dusk, carrying a pot that would allow him the pretext of looking for shell fish. The dark windows above seemed menacingly lifeless. He knew he had no place here. A passing light caught his eye, and for a moment he saw a feminine figure silhouetted for a moment and then gone. The sweet voice of the singer was not to be heard.

After a week he had heard nothing of her, and could not quite bring himself to believe that she had been no more than some rambling of his own mind. In desperation, he did his best to learn a song of his own – a bright tune to offer instead of the dreary one that she had cast into the night. His voice was not yet settled in him and wavered unnervingly, but he had nothing else to offer this distant maiden imprisoned in the rock hewn fortress.

He sang alone on the river bank, painfully self conscious and praying that no one from the village would pass close enough to hear him. He feared being asked to explain his actions. When his own song had died away, he waited, enslaved by the hopes that his voice might merit some response. Then from the impenetrable darkness of some room, he heard a second singer sing a few lines of his own melody back to him.

All that summer, they spoke in song, neither able to see the other’s face nor know anything of them. Bertram had never taken much notice of tunes before, but set himself to learning new ones with a passion that astounded friends and family. Her songs had a different character to his, and even though her soft tones would not carry the words to him, he knew they were songs of court and castle. 

He toyed with the idea of swimming the river and climbing the walls so that he might see her – it was a matter of some hundred yards at most, but he knew the water well and that its currents about the rocky outcrop of the castle’s base were treacherous. In daylight they would be daunting, at night they would surely rob him of his life.

A Song That Echoed Clearly -2   >>>Continued