Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3)(33)
Author: Patricia Briggs

"And this is Austin Summers," I yelled pleasantly, louder than I needed to, since Samuel’s hearing was at least as good as mine. "Austin, meet the folksinging physician, Dr. Samuel Cornick." Ever since I heard them introduce him as "the folksinging physician," I’d known he hated it – and I’d known I had to use it.

Samuel gave me an irritated look before turning a blandly smiling expression to the men we shared the table with.

I kept a genial expression on my face to conceal my triumph at irritating him while Samuel and Tim fell into a discussion of common themes in English and Welsh folk songs; Samuel charming and Tim pedantic. Tim spoke less and less as they continued.

I noticed that Austin watched his friend and Samuel with the same pleasantly interested expression that I’d adopted, and I wondered what he was thinking about that he felt he had to conceal.

A tall man stood up on a chair and gave a whistle that would have cut through a bigger crowd than this one. When everyone was silent, he welcomed us, said a few words of thanks to various people responsible for the Tumbleweed.

"Now," he said, "I know that you all know the Scallywags…" He bent down and picked up a bodhran. He sprayed the drumhead with a small water bottle and then spread the water around with a hand as he spoke with a studied casualness that drew attention. "Now the Scallywags have been singing here since the very first Tumbleweed – and I happen to know something about them that you all don’t."

"What’s that?" someone shouted from the crowd.

"That their fair singer, Sandra Hennessy, has a birthday today. And it’s not just any birthday."

"I’ll get you for this," a woman’s voice rang out. "You just see if I don’t, John Martin."

"Sandra is turning forty today. I think she needs a birthday dirge, whatd’ you all think?"

The crowd erupted into applause that quickly settled into anticipatory silence.

"Hap-py birthday." He sang the minor notes of the opening of the "Volga Boatmen" in a gloriously deep bass that needed no mike to carry over the crowd, then hit the bodhran once with a small double-headed mallet. THUMP.

"It’s your birthday." THUMP.

"Gloom and doom and dark despair,

"People dying everywhere.

"Happy birthday." THUMP. "It’s your birthday."

Then the rest of the room, including Samuel, started to sing the mournful tune with great cheer.

There were well over a hundred people in the room, and most of them were professional musicians. The whole restaurant vibrated like a tuning fork as they managed to turn the silly song into a choral piece.

Once the music started, it didn’t stop. Instruments came out to join the bodhran: guitars, banjos, a violin, and a pair of Irish penny whistles. As soon as one song finished, someone stood up and started another, with the crowd falling in on the chorus.

Austin had a fine tenor. Tim couldn’t sing on pitch if his life depended upon it, but there were enough people singing that it didn’t matter. I sang until our pizza arrived, then I ate while everyone else sang.

Finally, I got up to refill my soda, and by the time I returned, Samuel had borrowed a guitar and was at the far end of the room leading a rousing chorus of a ribald drinking song.

The only one left at our table was Tim.

"We’ve been deserted," he said. "Your Dr. Cornick was summoned to play, and Austin’s gone out to the car to get his guitar."

I nodded. "Once you get him singing"  –  I waved vaguely to indicate Samuel – "you’re in for it for a while."

"Are the two of you dating?" he asked, rolling the Parmesan jar between his hands before setting it down.

I turned to look at Samuel, who was singing a verse alone. His fingers flew on the neck of the borrowed guitar and there was a wide grin on his face.

"Yes," I said, though we weren’t really. And wouldn’t now. It was less complicated just to say yes rather than explain our situation.

"He’s a very good musician," Tim said. Then, his voice so quiet I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear him, he murmured, "Some people have all the luck."

I turned back to him and said, "What was that?"

"Austin’s a pretty good guitarist, too," he said quickly. "He tried to teach me, but I’m all thumbs." He smiled like it didn’t matter, but the skin around his eyes was taut with bitterness and envy.

How interesting, I thought. How could I use this to pry information from him?

"I know how you feel," I confided, sipping my pop. "I was practically raised with Samuel." Except that Samuel had been an adult several times over. "I can plunk a bit on the piano if someone forces me. I can even sing on key – but no matter how hard I worked at it"  –  not very – "I could never sound as good as Samuel. And he never even had to practice." I let a sharp note linger in my voice, a twin to the jealousy he’d revealed. "Everything is so easy for that man."

Zee had told me not to help him.

Uncle Mike told me to stay out of it.

But then I’d never been very good at listening to orders – ask anyone.

Tim looked at me – and I saw him register me as a real person for the first time. "Exactly," he said – and he was mine.

I asked him where he’d learned Welsh, and he visibly expanded as he answered.

Like a lot of people who didn’t have many friends, his social skills were a little lacking, but he was smart – and under all that earnest geekiness, funny. Samuel’s vast knowledge and charm had made Tim close up and turn into a jerk. With a little encouragement, and maybe the two glasses of beer he’d drunk, Tim relaxed and quit trying to impress me. Before I knew it, I found myself forgetting for a while that I had ulterior motives and got into a spirited argument about the tales of King Arthur.

"The stories came out of the courts of Eleanor of Aquitaine. They were to teach men how to behave in a civilized fashion," Tim said earnestly.

A caller with more volume than tone on the other side of the room called out, "King Louie was the king of France before the Revolu-shy-un!"

"Sure," I said. "Cheat on your husband and your best friend. The only way to find love is through adultery. All good civilized behavior."

Tim smiled at my quip, but had to wait as the whole room responded, "Weigh haul away, haul away Joe."

"Not that," he said, "but that people should strive to better themselves and to do the right thing."

"Then he got his head cut off, it spoiled his constitushy-un!"

I had to hurry to slip in before the chorus. "Like sleep with your sister and beget your downfall?"