Susan mooched along the disinfectant‑smelling corridors. She wasn't particularly worried about what Miss Butts was going to think. She didn't usually worry about what anyone thought. She didn't know why people forgot about her when she wanted them to, but afterwards they seemed a bit embarrassed about raising the subject.
Sometimes, some teachers had trouble seeing her. This was fine. She'd generally take a book into the classroom and read it peacefully, while all around her The Principal Exports of Klatch happened to other people.
It was, undoubtedly, a beautiful harp. Very rarely a craftsman gets something so right that it is impossible to imagine an improvement. He hadn't bothered with ornamentation. That would have been some kind of sacrilege.
And it was new, which was very unusual in Llamedos. Most of the harps were old. It wasn't as if they wore out. Sometimes they needed a new frame, or a neck, or new strings ‑ but the harp went on. The old bards said they got better as they got older, although old men tend to say this sort of thing regardless of daily experience.
Imp plucked a string. The note hung in the air, and faded. The harp was fresh and bright and already it sang out like a bell. What it might be like in a hundred years' time was unimaginable.
His father had said it was rubbish, that the future was written in stones, not notes. That had only been the start of the row.
And then he'd said things, and he'd said things, and suddenly the world was a new and unpleasant place, because things can't be unsaid.
He'd said, "You don't know anything! You're just a stupid old man! But I'm giving my life to music! One day soon everyone will say I was the greatest musician in the world!"
Stupid words. As if any bard cared for any opinions except those of other bards, who'd spent a lifetime learning how to listen to music.