Riddlechildren Court from Ledgerwake by Bartermarch

The marketplace becomes a playground for mischief when the riddler-children arrive. Each morning they dart between the stalls, pockets full of trinkets, minds brimming with riddles sharper than any merchant's wit. We captured their chaotic dance in this feverish composition.

Recorded during the spring market days when the children's numbers swell, "Riddlechildren Court" weaves darting psaltery lines through a landscape of tinkling bells and scattered coin percussion. The tempo never settles—intentionally mirroring how these clever youngsters constantly shift between vendor rows, challenging merchants with impossible questions while small fingers work unseen.

I remember watching a particularly bold group surrounded by frustrated spice traders. The children had posed a riddle about weights and measures that had the merchants completely baffled. That confrontation inspired the central call-and-response pattern between shawm and psaltery—each instrument taking turns to challenge and evade.

The instrumental texture grows increasingly complex as the piece progresses, adding layers that build upon themselves like the mounting tension when market guards notice the children's activities. Yet resolution never comes. Instead, the music maintains its nervous energy, cycling through variations that grow more intricate with each pass.

We've fused Medieval folk patterns with a more contemporary ambient approach, allowing traditional instruments to create an unsettling, almost hypnotic effect. The syncopated coin percussion during the bridge represents that moment when the children's games turn from innocent play to something more calculated.

By the final notes, as trinket bells fade and isolated shawm calls echo into silence, listeners might wonder—as we often do watching these children—who truly holds the power in this strange market court: the merchants with their goods, or the riddlers with their clever tongues and quicker hands.

Weathered lutes & market rhythms stir memories of forgotten trades. Our dulcimers echo merchant calls across time—barter songs woven between coin-percussion & hurdy-gurdy drones. Listen for the Arbiter's bell.