A Video of My First Filk Song Is Posted

My first song parody, "Trinity," is based on the Lois McMaster Bujold fantasy novel The Curse of Chalion and set to the tune of "Yesterday." I composed it in 2004 and got a tape recording made a few years later at Philcon, which I subsequently got converted to a sound file. Today I sang it again for a video recording, whose visual part is simply the book standing up on a table.

The lyrics focus on the uncomfortable condition of the protagonist, Cazaril, for much of the story. At the opening he's barely staying alive, wandering the countryside of a feudal society in search of a position. On his last legs, he realizes he's arrived at the estate of a noblewoman he served in his distant youth as a page. Hoping against hope that she might remember him and let him serve as a page again, he drags his weary self to the gate. Once he gets the guard to inquire within, he finds that the noblewoman not only remembers him, but wants him for a significantly more exalted position as secretary and tutor to a young princess in the royal line of succession named Iselle, who is currently under the noblewoman's protection, and her lady in waiting. Over the next weeks they become fast friends, only to receive a mysterious summons to the royal court. Shortly after they arrive, they learn the reason: under the influence of intriguing courtiers, the King has betrothed Iselle to a lout named Dondo. Feeling he owes his life to her, Cazaril resolves to do whatever he can to save Iselle from this fate. He obtains an audience with the King in hopes of changing his mind, but is unable to sway him. Next, he attempts to assassinate Dondo by various means, but they all fail. His last resort is to death magic.

In the universe of this book there are five gods: the Lord of Winter, patron of old men; the Lord of Autumn, patron of young men; the Lady of Summer, patron of mature women; the Lady of Spring, patron of maidens such as Iselle; and finally the Bastard God, patron of all things out of season. Death magic is a ritual whereby one prays to the Bastard God to end someone's life. Two troublesome things about death magic: if it fails because the Bastard God didn't answer your prayer, the attempt is considered to have been blasphemy. On the other hand, if it succeeds you lose your own life in the process, because the death demon that the god sends in answer to your prayer takes the soul of the person for whose death you prayed and then takes your soul too.

For the first reason, Cazaril has to make his attempt in secret. He finds a section of the royal castle that's no longer in use, and since no  one else knows about what he's doing he has to conduct the entire elaborate ritual by himself. When he's finally completed it he collapses in exhaustion, hoping not to wake up since if his prayer is answered he'll be dead soon.

But he does wake up, still alive if oddly bloated. At first he thinks he must have failed, but soon learns that Dondo did in fact die mysteriously at table. He asks around and learns of an old retired wizard who's working in the King's private menagerie, whom he goes to see in hopes he might have an idea why Dondo has died yet Cazaril hasn't. The wizard gets the story from Cazaril, also noting his strangely bloated condition, and figures it out: the Bastard God answered his prayer and the death demon he sent took Dondo's soul, but before it could also take Cazaril's, one of the other gods intervened by encapsulating the demon along with Dondo's soul in Cazaril's gut. Hence the bloating. This implies that whichever god did this has some use for Cazaril, making him by definition a saint. It doesn't take him too long to figure out that the god in question is the Lady of Spring, but most of the remaining book to work out exactly what her purpose for him is. Cazaril's awkward condition is the focus of my song.

Here is a link to the video I made: https://fstube.net/w/hJRNXPjjzuXNsm8ME9Fm7t