Intro to Mina's Song - Zander Nyrond

It is turn-of-the-century London. In a few short years the world will change
beyond recognition; but to the five people in this fashionable drawing room,
the status quo seems eternal, unalterable. The four men are relaxing after a
hard day pursuing their respective careers; one stamping out the aberrations
of madness; one preserving the rule of law; one defending the privileges of
the aristocracy in the House of Lords: one carefully inculcating old knowledge
in young minds, lest they stray into freethinking and error.

They look with proprietary fondness on the woman as she moves among them,
marking with satisfaction her composed, submissive demeanour. Her husband may
compare her favourably with three women he once met in a castle, who, though
enslaved, dared to defy their master, and thus doubtless merited their
deaths. The noble lord may think for a moment of his sweet, gentle bride-to-be
who came to her own doom by abandoning the protection of the divine order.

"Sing for us something, Madam Mina," van Helsing says, a kindly suggestion
with the force of a command. It is the only sort of communication she receives
now from these men who own her. She sits dutifully at the pianoforte, looking
from one blandly smiling face to another, wondering whether she will dare,
this time, to put aside the familiar Schubert and Chopin and play the song
that uncoils dangerously in her heart.

intro to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz9n6ElmSM4
Read by Steve Savitzky in the Short Tempered Glass concert at Orycon 2010. Recorded by Jenrose.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• filk
• vampires
• feminism
• Zander Nyrond
• Tempered Glass