The Innkeeper's Song by Peter S. Beagle

Hello, Stranger.

Let's talk about Peter S. Beagle's The Innkeeper's Song.

The Short of It

Plot: Tikat will stop at nothing to be reunited with his deceased love, three mysterious travelers try to track down their friend, and Karsh just wants his inn to run smoothly. 

Page Count: 346

Award: 1993 Locus Fantasy.

Worth a read: Yes.
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Pass
Technobabble: Nope
Review: Beautifully written straightforward fantasy. Excellent use of perspective switches to both contextualize events and add depth to characters. Leans into tropes and clichés to place characters and interpersonal relationships at the fore. Superb use of diction and speech style to distinguish between different narrators. Pacing does not always work - there are major lulls which do not have enough payoff to be worth the break. Overall a warm glass of milk with honey: inoffensive but hits the spot.

The Medium of It

Spoiler Free!

My name is Karsh. I am not a bad man. I am not a particularly good one, either, though honest enough in my trade. Nor am I at all brave—if I were, I would be some kind of soldier or sailor. And if I could write even such a song as that nonsense about those three women which someone has put my name to, why, then I would be a songwriter, a bard, since I would certainly be fit for nothing else. But what I am fit for is what I am, everything I am. Karsh the innkeeper. Fat Karsh.
They talk foolishness about me now, since those women were here. Since that song. Now I am all mystery, a man from nowhere; now I am indeed supposed to have been a soldier, to have traveled the world, seen terrible things, done terrible things, changed my name and my life to hide from my past. Foolishness. I am Karsh the innkeeper, like my father, like his father, and the only other country I have ever seen is the farmland around Sharan-Zek, where I was born. But I have lived here for almost forty years, and run The Gaff and Slasher for thirty, and they know that, every one of them. Foolishness.

The boy brought those women here to devil me, of course, or else simply to make me overlook his slipping off after that butterfly-brained Marinesha. He can smell strangeness—has that from me, at least—he knew those three were not what they seemed, and that I want no part of any such folk, no matter how well they pay. Mischief enough with the usual lot of drunken farmers on their way to Limsatty Fair. All he had to do was direct them to the convent seven or eight miles east: the Shadowsisters, as we call them. But no, no, he must needs bring them to my door, fox and all. Fox and all. That bloody fox is in the song, too. 

So begins The Innkeeper's Song. And what a clever beginning it is. We are introduced to Karsh: not even a reluctant hero, but no hero at all. A few other characters are set up to be important: The Boy, whoever he may be; Those Women, and the trouble they bring; Marinesha, who sounds like she is not the brightest; and even That Bloody Fox. Lots teased in but a handful of introductory paragraphs. 

There's also a different aspect to this intro: that perhaps what we're about to read is not quite how it happened. If Karsh has been lionized by time and myth, then perhaps the story we're seeing suffers the same embellishments against which he rails. All is, it would seem, not as it is being related to us.

There is something absolutely delightful about the simplicity of The Innkeeper's Song. Interwoven plots add a level of complexity, yet when peeled apart it becomes clear that each of these stories is itself an almost pure distillation of fantasy tropes. The lover pushing past the bounds of death for their partner. The wizards clashing. The students tracking down their old master. If the actual storylines and plot beats of any of these sub-narratives come as a surprise, this may well be your first fantasy novel. But huge twists are not why we are here.

Character work is placed in the foreground for the entirety of The Innkeeper's Song and, simply put, it works. The predictable nature of the plot does not matter if the emotional beats still land - and land they do. Beagle manages to fit an impressive amount of character growth into a slim novel. Even side characters have their own small but meaningful arcs. This is a book that relies upon its readers being invested in characters and their growth - and it works, because Beagle delivers on making us care.

The Long of It

Spoilers Ahead!

There is only one significant twist in the whole book - that of Rosseth's parentage. We've spent the whole book watching the damaged but meaningful relationship between Rosseth and Karsh. A tragic parent/child relationship.

When Karsh finally sits down to tell Rosseth about his parents, I assumed the obvious: we were going to learn that Karsh really was Rosseth's father, and that all of the stories about picking him up at the side of the road were made up. That he really does love Rosseth as a son. 

The truth is so much worse. 

“I went to the window,” I said. “Forced the catch with my staff and climbed over the sill. It was dark inside there, Rosseth, because of being shut up so tight and me coming out of the sunlight. I could hear the baby—you— but I couldn’t see you, or anything else. I just had to stand still until I got used to the darkness.”

He knew what was coming now. Not the way I knew, but you could tell. He wouldn’t look at me, but kept wetting his lips and staring down at the barn floor. My face and hands were cold. I said, “Somebody hit me. Hard, here, on the side of my head. I thought it was a sword. I went straight down, and they were all over me. Not a sound out of them—it felt like a dozen people hitting me everywhere at once, kicking, pounding me like mashing up a tialy root. A dozen people, killing me, I couldn’t see even one of them. I swear, that’s what it was like.”

“But there were only two,” Rosseth said. His face had gone as white as Lukassa’s, and so small. He said, “There were only two.”

“Well, I didn’t know that, did I? They never said a word, I told you that. All I knew was, I was being fucking murdered.” I didn’t realize that I was shouting until a couple of the horses nickered in alarm. “Rosseth, I couldn’t see for the blood, I thought they’d split my head. Look, right here, it’s still tender after fifteen years. I thought I was dead as that thing in the oven, do you understand?“

He did not answer. He got up off the hay-bale and turned in a circle, arms hanging, eyes vague, still not looking at me. After a bit of that, he wandered back toward the horse he’d been doctoring, but then he turned again and just stood there. I said, “I had my staff. I got my legs under me somehow, and I just struck out, left, right, swinging blind in the dark, trying to keep them off. That’s all I wanted to do, keep them off me.”

I had to sit down again. I was dripping and reeking with sweat, and beginning to wheeze as though I’d been for another brisk stroll up those stairs. Rosseth stayed where he was, looking down at me. He said, “My mother and my father.”

I nodded, waiting for the next question, the one I hear in my sleep most nights, even now. But he couldn’t ask it, he could not make the words come out. Trust him, I had to say it all myself, and me with a load of mortar hardening in my chest. “I killed them,” I said. “I never meant to. I didn’t know.”

In the dreams he usually comes for me, screaming, trying to tear me apart with his hands. I was ready for that, or for him crying, but he didn’t do either. His knees folded slowly, and he dropped to the floor and stayed there, kneeling with his arms wrapped tight around himself and his head bowed. He was making a tiny dry sound. I’d never have heard it in that burned-out village.

This awful reveal comes after the resolution of everything else. We've sorted out our wizards, we've put our star-crossed lovers on the path to improvement, we've made it through to the other side. And then, out of nowhere, a massive punch to the gut. We can tell how much it hurts both of them to know this: that Karsh does care for Rosseth, in his own tortured way; that Rosseth viewed Karsh as a parent after a fashion. And we can tell that nothing will be the same between the two after this. In some ways that is all we want for the two - a return to normalcy. They've weathered so much, made it through conflicts that they were only tangentially a part of. And instead of a well-earned respite, they have their lives upended.

If you were Karsh, would you have told him, Stranger?

And don't forget to read a book!