The Bachderyn

The tavern was warm from the press of bodies.

The crowd was a glorious palette of species, size, gender and colour: from towering, steel-blue-skinned goliaths with shoulders like quarried stone, to lithe, ethereal elves who barely touched the floor, ruddy, battle-scarred orcs with olive skin and tusks like carved ivory, and tieflings of different hues thrown in for good measure. They laughed, talked over one another, arm wrestled, and flirted with the halfling and human girls weaving through them to collect empty tankards and pats on the arse.

A few merchants still wore damp cloaks from the storm rolling in off the bay. A trio of dwarves were arguing over the new tariffs from the local council.

Someone had drawn a crude symbol: a stylised dragon eye wreathed in a chain, into the dirt on one of the side windows looking out to the dark alley. I’d been seeing them more often these days.

Instead of dwelling, I stepped up onto the table and struck a low chord on my lute. I let it hum as the crowd quieted. Not all at once of course, but voices slowly fell away as “The Songbird” began to sing.

The patrons recognised me immediately and the silence swallowed my voice.

I didn’t mind. I always played the song again later when someone asked for it. It was one of my oldest and most well-known, a little ditty about a laundress caught between her master’s sheets and her mistress’ whip.

That’s what I was known for across the continent: not the safe romantic ballads, laments and hymns to old Gods that other girls sang, or long sweeping epics about Titans long dead or battles fought.

No, Astrid Bachderyn sang filth.

And I was loved for it.

The room howled with laughter, shock, and roaring approval.

Nobody knew the song was about me, not really. They may have suspected, but I always changed the names, the trades, locations, even the species to protect the innocent, and keep angry muses from hunting me down.

Of course, not all of my songs were autobiographical. Some were pure gossip, which I learned in dark corners from half-drunk traders and temple boys with loose tongues.

For instance, the one I’d performed last week in Kelethor, told the tale of a dragonian noble who liked to tie up his male servants and whisper prophecies in their ears while his wife rode them like a wild horse.

But that story had not been my own. It came from a half-elven violist I seemed to have lost track of.

It was strange.

Lucien hadn’t been one to just disappear for weeks at a time without word. Of course, he did have a tendency to hop on a ship and reappear in the tropical north a week later with a brand new repertoire, stories, and venereal diseases to share.

Maybe he’d seduced a triton lord and was living his best life playing his music to dolphins.

But still.

I felt it in my gut: something wasn’t right.

There were whispers, of course. Of cities far to the east where music was dying. Just today, I had been told by a troupe of mummers of town criers being replaced by scale-armoured acolytes who recited morning prayers in Dragonic, and of bards and street performers being arrested for “cultural subversion.”

Were people really disappearing in the night?

Surely not.

I didn’t want to think too much on it. Not yet. But worry threaded itself into my bones as I continued to travel.

Lucien, where are you?

I swayed my hips with each verse, pouted as I trilled the high notes, and flashed a wicked grin or raised eyebrow at any man who looked like he was getting too invested in the subject at hand.

I thrive here.

Every moment I’m on stage, I am come to life. My thoughts spark across her mind like fireworks: already four songs ahead in my mental setlist, gauging the mood of the crowd, marking the drunkest and clocking who might be trouble, who might be tasty…and who might be both.

A goliath at the back caught my eye: easily the largest man in the room, with granite-grey skin streaked with darker patches like rainclouds, he looked like he’d been carved from a mountain and then overfed on goat meat and sunshine. A native of Strŭmfjel, if I had to guess. Those highland bastards were always thick as tree trunks and twice as energetic.

He had a big, dumb grin and his shirt was half unbuttoned, revealing tattoos that coiled across muscles so exaggerated they looked like a child’s sketch come to life. His laughter boomed across the space like a war drum with every joke I sang, and when I crooked her finger during the bridge of a song about a blacksmith “rubbing his anvil”, he flushed like a bashful ox and spilled his beer.

Oh yes.

He’d do very nicely.

The final note of my performance rang out like a slap on bare flesh, and the room exploded into laughter, hoots, and thudding fists on tables. I stood, breathless and glowing with sweat, chest rising as if I’d just finished something far more strenuous than singing a couple of tunes.

Coins skittered towards the table. Some had already made their way into my bowl, but most of the crowd wanted my attention and waited until I was close to press a coin into my hand or peek down my now-damp blouse.

“Blessed Gods, Songbird, that was scandalous!” a violet-skinned tiefling woman slurred, waving a flagon like a foam-flecked sword.

“Aye,” said a dwarf with breadcrumbs in his beard, “I’ll never look at milk maids the same again.”

A lady-dwarf with soft, dark stubble leaned against him, “Or laundry on the line!”

Astrid winked, “Nor should you. Those stains never come out.”

A nearby table erupted into laughter, having heard the joke. I accepted a wine from a nervous boy who looked barely of age and tapped his cup with my own before taking a long sip, scanning the crowd for the one I’d already marked.

I was taller than average for a human woman, and over the heads of the stouter folk, had no problem catching the eye of the nearly 8-foot mountain now seated amongst orcs, a few humans, and elves, and a green dragonian on the opposite side of the tavern. They all appeared to be combatants of some kind. One of the elves even had a pair of kodachis crossed at his back and kept scanning the tavern as though he expected the room to devolve into violence in seconds.

The goliath was trying and failing to look casual. His elbows were on the table, massive hands cradling his drink like it might tell him what to do next. Gods, he was adorable with that messy fringe, the ridiculously thick neck, and the way he grinned wider as I meandered his way, still collecting bounty for my performance.

I continued to let the crowd orbit for a few more minutes - touches on my arm, murmured praise, someone even asked for a private show which I graciously refused, until I reached their table and slid onto the bench beside the goliath.

There was absolutely no doubt he could see straight down my blouse.

I spoke just loud enough to be heard by him over the din, “Enjoy the show?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, entranced. Then, his black eyes shot guiltily up to mine before his blue-grey cheeks turned a cute shade of pink, and he seemed to decide the bottom of his tankard held answers to the secrets of the universe.

I laughed, full and breathy, and leaned into him again, “Not shy, are we?”

“Nope.” He seemed to have found some composure in the cup.

I appraised him for a beat. He drank again, eyes disappearing as he tipped back and finished.

“You don’t say much.” I sipped my wine and watched him over the lip of my own cup.

He blinked, “Didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Ruin what?”

“The spell.”

I barked a delighted laugh and let my hand fall to his thigh, “Oh darling, if this was a spell, everybody in this tavern would be naked by now.”

He shivered. He was definitely imagining me naked.

My finger gently traced along his inner thigh. Not too close, but definitely suggesting, “What’s your name, handsome?”

“R-Raoud.” He stammered, that blush from before creeping back as his leg tensed beneath my hand.

“Hmm, I like that: Raoud.” I let the name roll around my mouth like syrup and leaned in close enough to catch the earthy scent of his skin, “You know, Raoud, all of that singing about sex and scandal makes a girl…thirsty.”

Raoud looked at my wine and then back at me.

Oh, you sweet, dumb man.

“Not for wine, Raoud.” I let my hand trail higher, making him gasp, “I’m in the mood for something… stronger.”

I stood, leaving Raoud blinking for a moment, then held my hand out to him and looked to the staircase. He nearly tipped the table over in his urgency to stand up, disturbing his friends’ drinks and card game.

“Oi!”

“Good one, dickhead!”

“Fuckin’ ’ell, Raoud!”

“Sorry,” Raoud mumbled back to them as I towed him toward the stairs.

Behind the bar, an older woman with grey streaks in her braids caught my eye and sighed, “Again?”

“What?” I shrugged and grinned wickedly, “As if you don’t know us bards are all sluts.”

The woman rolled her eyes and went back to polishing glasses.