In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realizes that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Claire understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil are waging war to the death. Designated the King's 'Angel' because of his good looks, he finds himself falling in love with the young woman who is the companion of the King's adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided between duty and passion, how can Peter Claire find the path that will realize his hopes and save his soul? "The best historical novelist of her generation. She evokes the past--with sensuality, wit and superb sleights of hand." - A. N. Wilson "Lyrical, voluptuous--splendid--A sumptuous drama lit by the glamorous torchlight of the courtly past." - Sunday Times "Historical fiction so epic in scope and so moving and imaginative that the reader lives a second life." - Time Out "Superb--a wonderful, joyously noisy book." - Guardian "Tremain's achievement in Music & Silence is extraordinary--A narrative as funny as it is compelling." - Daily Telegraph "Magnificent--shot through with Tremain's unique blend of psychological acuity and charm." - The Times In the year 1629, a young English lutenist named Peter Claire arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV's Royal Orchestra. From the moment when he realizes that the musicians perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, Peter Claire understands that he's come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil are waging war to the death. Designated the King's 'Angel' because of his good looks, he finds himself falling in love with the young woman who is the companion of the King's adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided between duty and passion, how can Peter Claire find the path that will realize his hopes and save his soul? "The best historical novelist of her generation. She evokes the past--with sensuality, wit and superb sleights of hand." - A. N. Wilson "Lyrical, voluptuous--splendid--A sumptuous drama lit by the glamorous torchlight of the courtly past." - Sunday Times "Historical fiction so epic in scope and so moving and imaginative that the reader lives a second life." - Time Out "Superb--a wonderful, joyously noisy book." - Guardian "Tremain's achievement in Music & Silence is extraordinary--A narrative as funny as it is compelling." - Daily Telegraph "Magnificent--shot through with Tremain's unique blend of psychological acuity and charm." - The Times Music & Silence is Rose Tremain's eighth novel. She has completed a screenplay based on Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds and is adapting Sacred Country in three parts for television. She won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Prix Femina Etranger ( Sacred Country ), the Sunday Express Book of the Year and the Booker Prize Shortlist ( Restoration ), the Dylan Thomas Short Story Award ( The Colonel's Daughter ), a Giles Cooper Award (for the play Temporary Shelter ) and the Angel Literary Award (twice). Lilac and Linden A lamp is lit. Until this moment, when the flame of the lamp flares blue, then settles to steady yellow inside its ornate globe, the young man had been impressed by the profound darkness into which, upon his late-night arrival at the palace of Rosenborg, he had suddenly stepped. Tired from his long sea journey, his eyes stinging, his walk unsteady, he had been questioning the nature of this darkness. For it seemed to him not merely an external phenomenon, having to do with an actual absence of light, but rather as though it emanated from within him, as if he had finally crossed the threshold of his own absence of hope. Now, he is relieved to see the walls of a panelled room take shape around him. A voice says: 'This is the Vinterstue. The Winter Room.' The lamp is lifted up. Held high, it burns more brightly, as though sustained by purer air, and the young man sees a shadow cast onto the wall. It is a long, slanting shadow and so he knows it is his own. It appears to have a deformity, a hump, occurring along its spine from below the shoulder-blades to just above the waist. But this is the shadow's trickery. The young man is Peter Claire, the lutenist, and the curvature on his back is his lute. He is standing near a pair of lions, made of silver. Their eyes seem to watch him in the flickering gloom. Beyond them he can see a table and some tall chairs. But Peter Claire is separate from everything, cannot lean on any object, cannot rest. And now, the lamp moves and he must follow. 'It may be', says a tall gentleman, who hurries on, carrying the light, 'that His Majesty, King Christian, will command you to play for him tonight. He is not well and his phy