As Cramoisy talked, Orial saw the Opera House, alight with the glow of a myriad candlelamps, the sudden hush before the curtains opened, the surge of music from the orchestra hidden below the stage, the roar of the crowd as the Diva entered to sing his first aria…

The world of music in distant Bel’Esstar glittered like a dream-mirage. Entranced, Orial listened to Cramoisy’s reminiscences and all the while she listened, she felt a terrible hunger.

‘What do you feel when you first walk out on stage?’

‘Fear. And elation. Such an intoxicating mix! It’s like standing on a high, high cliff – and leaping off into the clouds, floating upwards on a current of music, almost touching the heavens –’

Arias, coloratura, cadenzas… Orial blinked as the unfamiliar terms rolled lightly off the Diva’s tongue. He mentioned composers she had never heard of: Serafín, Capelian, Talfieri… She felt awed, humbled by her lack of knowledge. Her mother Iridial must have known it all – and more – at this age.

‘Would you do something for me?’ Orial, suddenly shy, could hardly enunciate her question. ‘A favour?’

‘Name it, child.’ Cramoisy seemed in a generous mood.

‘Would you sing for me?’

‘But, yes. Yes of course I will sing for you.’ The Diva rose to his feet and, clasping his hands, appeared to drift into a trance. ‘Something simple, something requiring no accompaniment… Ah, I know. The little air Firildys sings when she is imprisoned: “Let me not die enslaved…” ‘

Cramoisy slowly walked away from Orial towards the door.

When he turned, she almost gasped aloud at the transformation. With one flick of the hand, Cramoisy pulled off his crimson perruque and dark red locks came tumbling down about his shoulders. His face, no longer animated, seemed pale and wan, his eyes dulled as they fixed on some distant point. He sank to his knees.

And as if from deep within the voice issued, low yet laden with longing. The melody gradually uncurled itself, a slow spiral yearning upwards yet never resolving…

Orial sat utterly still, transfixed. The music seemed to insinuate itself into her whole being; she was here, on the striped couch, and yet she was also, simultaneously, within the warp and weft that Cramoisy’s voice was weaving. It had become the pattern of her breathing, the pulse of her blood…

Suddenly the air seemed to express all her lifetime’s yearning to be one with the music, to live and breathe it as Cramoisy did. Suddenly everything she had done until this moment seemed meaningless – a fading shadow-world – and only the gold-spun threads of the music mattered.

And then it was over – and there was only emptiness.

‘That was so… so beautiful.’ To her horror Orial found her eyes had filled with tears; she was afraid Cramoisy would tease her for it. Her spectacles misted over; awkwardly she prised them off and tried to rub the thick pebble lenses on her apron to clean them.