[Intro] [Lute plucks unsteady; drone low; tavern noise dies down] The fire warms the hall, but not these hands… I drink, yet the taste is iron and sand. [Verse 1] [Lute and drum, slow and heavy] I buried a boy with his father’s sword, The hilt still warm, though the steel was scored. His eyes stayed wide when the crows drew near, I sang him down so he wouldn’t hear. [Chorus 1] [Drone rises; fiddle moans soft] So spare your coin if you’d rather not know, These songs are graves, and I reap what I sow. Each verse a wound that refuses to close, Each note a face that the darkness chose. [Verse 2] [Lute deepens; drum echoes slower] A maiden’s hand clutched mine in the fen, She swore she’d wait till I came again. I came with coin but her hearth was bare, Her bones were ash in the cold night air. [Chorus 2] [Hurdy-gurdy drone loud; voice breaking] So drink if you must, but don’t raise a cheer, The dead still follow, they sit too near. I sing for silence, but it never stays— It clings to my throat in a hundred ways. [Bridge] [Fiddle screeches faintly, then falls hollow] Steel on flesh, and the stink of rain, No prayer can cleanse what the earth retains. The gods keep their distance, they measure my breath, But it’s not their hand that decides my death. [Final Chorus] [Lute fading; drum like a weak heartbeat] So hear my song, though it curdles the wine, The life I’ve led was never mine. Ash on my tongue, and blood on the flame, I play to forget — but it ends the same. [Outro] [Lute cuts to silence; tavern holds its breath] Remember the tune, though you damn my name.
