Lady's Fountain Square

an ambient setting with a story and hidden lesson

Lysa clucked gently as her mare delicately stepped along the cobblestone pathway through the well-watered park. Lady’s Fountain gracefully rose and fell, the cascade splintering into droplets as it dropped from the mer-maid’s upended clay pot into the pool of bubbling water at the base. Scores of raggedy children were playing around the fountain, splashing each other as shrieks of laughter rose from their lips and more than one brave youngster toppled into the shallow pool, much to the delight of the others. Lysa paid them no mind, past a well-bred, tolerating smile at their ludicrous antics. On time past, she would have gladly joined, but now she was grown with two children of her own. Robert and Allyson. What joys they were.

She sighed contentedly. The early summer sun was beaming down on her shoulders, yet a soft breeze still carried remembrances of a cooler spring. The mare stopped by a quiet edge of the pathway, reaching her neck down to nuzzle the thick grass for the choicest morsels. A small, floppy-eared dog bounced across the way, chasing a mischievous squirrel. Its excited yapping aroused Lysa from her lethargy, and she glanced around.

The children were still playing, competing to see who could walk around the fountain ledge the longest without falling in. A traveling fiddler filled a corner of the old square with a haunting melody, sitting on a rickety wooden chair with half a leg sawn off. His eyes half-closed, he swayed in time with the meter. Lysa felt drawn to him, and her mount shuffled a bit closer. Upon hearing the hoofsteps, the fiddler slowly put down his fiddle, then opened his wrinkled eyes.

“Ah, Lady Lysa,” he said. “how are you this fine morning?”

“I’m doing well, Jorge, thank you. How are you faring? I haven’t seen you in the square for quite a long while.”

“Ah, yes…” Jorge paused, reflecting. “It is good to be back in the warm sun, I will grant you that.” He smiled, showing his worn down teeth.

“Yes, the sun is perfect - it’s a glorious day,” she murmured. Lysa wondered where he had been, but was too well-bred to ask directly. One of the children squealed in the background as she splashed about in the pool. She turned back to the fiddler.

“I didn’t recognize that tune. Is it new?” She shaded her eyes as Jorge shifted and sun rays pierced down.

“It is, my lady. I wrote it this past winter. It brings back certain memories of a lady I once loved well.” The fiddle shifted his watery blue gaze up to Lysa. “She looked a bit like you, in fact.”

Lysa smiled politely. She couldn’t imagine any proper lady being intimate with this vagabond drifter.

“I’m sure she was beautiful,” Lysa asserted.

“As noble as a lily… radiant as the sun. Her hair was black, curls down to her waist. Lips like rose petals… skin as fair as the stars. Yet… wild she was. Free, in a way that few people can manage. Fierce as a lion, loyal, tender… and true, she was.” The old man paused, his voice filled with awe. “She loved me, she said. She gifted me this violin, and filled my heart with music.”

Lysa was enchanted in spite of herself. “Where is she now?” she asked, innocently.

The fiddler looked down, plucking at the taut string across the neck of the instrument. He looked back up at her, wincing against the sun. “She’s gone,” he said simply, a pained look crossing his wrinkled face.

Lysa felt uncomfortable as witness to the fiddler’s sadness. “I’m sorry… that must be difficult,” she murmured.

“Don’t be sorry,” the old man looked up sharply to where Lysa sat her mount. “She was life itself, short as it was. She left me with a heart full of music to share with others… to share her stories. Of running through tall meadows, of laughing, of reveling in the shapes of the clouds, of loving beneath the weeping willows near the creek’s edge with the sun slowly sinking beyond the horizon, of waking in the dark heavy night to feel that solid loyalness and know that it is your - yours alone. She gave me that.” He stopped, drawing his bow hand across his eyes.

He watched Lysa, standing there alone. “What do you have to give others?” he asked fiercely, suddenly.

“I-I don’t know…” she stuttered.

“You have something,” he replied. “Cerese gave me her music… she gave me her love and life. Now I give back - with what I can… bringing what joy I can to those who care to stop and listen. It is everyone’s responsibility to give back some of what they have been given.” He smiled. “You have a listening ear, I can see that. That is a fine thing.”

Lysa hesitantly smiled back at him. “I will think on what you said, maester fiddler.”

“Good - that is all I ask.” He glanced past her to the children playing around the fountain. “I must go now, dear. My time here is done.” He packed his violin and bow into a wooden case and stood. “Farewell, my lovely Lysa. I hope we can visit again soon.” He bowed a curiously graceful bow, and strode off, carrying his fiddler’s case and broken chair.

Lysa stood looking after him until her mare shifted restlessly. What did she have to give? She was merely a well-bred lady out on a mid-day stroll. But the old man had left her with an unfinished story which would haunt her with every future pass through the old square… of the free black-haired maiden running through tall meadows, leaping laughing brooks and daring to love a mysterious vagabond fiddler.

She smiled and turned her horse’s head toward home.

Reviews

[Lee E. Powell]

Life is giving. What would life be like if we had nothing to give?
I'm not that great at giving critiques but I loved this story and I'll probably think about it well after i write this review and shut down my computer.

Thanks for sharing,
Ed