Lark and Wren Read online

  She nodded, slipping the packet into the pocket in her vest. It felt like bread; maybe even bread and cheese. That would be welcome, in a few hours. It meant something more she wouldn't have to buy.

  And courtesy of Mathe's wife, too, she had no doubt. That was a good woman, and very like Rose.

  Mathe continued with his directions and instructions. "Now, then ye go 'cross street; there be couple stalls sells vittles. Play there. There's always a crowd there-ye got the people as come t' pay tax an' tithe, ye got people as wants a bit t'eat. It's a bit too noisy fer a singer, but ye'll do fine. Nobody got that as set yet, that I heerd of. Here's bit'a map." He handed her a folded paper, and watched as she unfolded it; the maze of lines was incomprehensible at first, until she resolved it into streets, and even found the one the public house stood on, the gate she'd come in by, and the street she had followed. "See, this here, this's where we be. These little red dots, thas some'a them teachers an' instr'ment makers. See if any on 'em'll do ye." He nodded as she folded it up and stowed it in her belt-pouch, where the ten pennies from her evening's labor chinked. "Now, if I was in yer shoes, I'd play till after nuncheon, thas midmeal, when people stop buyin' things at stall, an then I'd go look up some'a them teachers and the like. But thas me. Think ye'll do?"

  "You've done more for me than I ever hoped, sir," she replied honestly. "I can't begin to thank you."

  And I don't know why you've done it, either. I'm glad you did, but I wish I knew why. . . .

  He flushed a little with embarrassment. "Ah, musickers done me a good turn or twain, figger this helps pay back. When I was jest startin' this place, musickers came round t' play jest fer the set-out, 'till I could afford t' feed 'em. Then I got my reg'lar man, an' he bain't failed me. So-I gi' ye a hand, ye gi' sommut else one 'f it's needed-"

  Someone inside called him, urgently, and he turned. "Can't be away a breath an' they need me. God be wi' ye, youngling. Watch yerself."

  And he dashed back inside, shouting, "All right! All right! I'm gettin' there fast as I can!"

  Rune headed up the street, in the same direction Mathe had pointed. It was considerably quieter in the early hours of the morning. Shops were just opening, merchants taking down massive wooden shutters, and laying displays in the windows behind thinner wooden grates to foil theft.

  The shops here seemed to tend to clothing; materials, or clothing ready-made. She passed a shop full of stockings, hats and gloves, a shoemaker, and several shops that appeared to be dressmakers and tailors. The Crowned Corn seemed to be the only inn or public house on this street, although there were vendors of foodstuffs already out with their trays about their necks. They weren't crying their wares, though; the streets weren't so full that customers couldn't see them. They ignored Rune for the most part, as being unlikely to have enough spare coin to buy their goods.

  A cart passed, and Rune noticed another odd contrivance, just under the horse's clubbed tail. This was a kind of scoop rigged to the cart that caught any droppings. A good notion, given the number of animals here. That would mean only those carts without the scoop and horses being ridden would be leaving refuse. The city, while not exactly sweet-smelling, would be a lot worse without the care taken to keep it clean.

  The merchants were doing their part, too; there were folks out scrubbing their doorsteps, and the street immediately in front of the shop, right up to the gutter-line. How the folk back in the village would stare!

  Not even the late Rose was that fanatical about cleanliness.

  On the other hand, there weren't that many people in the village. With all these people, all these animals, there would have to be extra precautions against the illnesses that came from dirt and contaminated water.

  The little black stall that Mathe had called the "Church-box" was plainly visible as soon as she crossed the first street. It had an awning above it, supported by carved wooden angels instead of simple props. And without a doubt, the awning was decorated with painted saints distributing alms, to remind the pious and impious alike where their tithes were going.

  In all probability, the stall was the last business to close at night, and the first to open in the morning. The Church never lost an opportunity to take gifts from her children.

  There was a grill-covered window in the front of the stall, and beneath it, a slot. Behind the window sat a bored young novice-Priest in his plain, black robes, yawning and making no attempt to cover his indifference to his surroundings. He blinked at her without interest, and reached for a pen when he saw she was going to stop and give him something to do. Or rather, force him to do something.

  "Name?" he mumbled. She gave it; likewise her occupation, and that she was beginning her second day in Nolton. He noted all of it down, and warned her, in a perfunctory manner, that she would have to purchase her permit to busk before the fourth day. From him, of course. And that it would be a silver penny. He did not issue any of the warnings Mathe had, about what it would mean if she neglected to do so.

  "Here's my two-pence tithe for yesterday, sir," she said, pushing the pennies across the counter to him, through the slit. He took it, with a slightly wrinkled nose, as if in disdain for the tiny amount, but he took it, nevertheless. She noted that he seemed well-fed; very well-fed in fact, round-cheeked and healthier than most. His hands were soft, and white where the ink of his occupation hadn't stained them. He dropped the two coins into something beneath the counter, just out of sight, and made a notation after her name. "And here's my two-pence tax," she said, shoving those coins across when she knew he'd made his first notation and couldn't change it.

  He frowned at her as he took the two coins. "You could have given it to me all at once," he grumbled, making a second notation. She blinked, and contrived to look stupid, and he muttered something under his breath, about fools and music, and waved her off.

  She turned away from the window. Well, that was that; fourpence lighter, and nothing to show for it. Could have been worse, she supposed. If she hadn't been warned, sooner or later the Church would have caught up with her. . . . Boony's description of his treatment as a bondservant hadn't been inviting.

  Although the idea of seeing a bondholder's face when he realized that the boy he'd thought he'd bought off was a girl was amusing, she didn't care to think about what would have followed that discovery. Probably something very unpleasant.

  Across the street were the two food-stalls Mathe had described for her, with a bit of space in between for a tall counter where folk could eat standing up; one was red-painted, and one was blue. She crossed the street under the disdainful gaze of the novice-Priest and approached the first stall-holder.

  "Would you mind if I put out my hat here, sir?" she asked politely of the thin fellow frying sausage rolls in deep skillets of lard. He glanced up at her, and shook his head.

  "So long as ye don' drive th' custom away, 'tis nobbut t' me," he replied absently. Encouraged, she repeated her question at the second stall, which sold drink, and got the same answer.

  So she found a place where she wasn't going to be in the way of people buying or eating, and set her hat at her feet, with her pack to hold it down. She took the fiddle from her carrying bag, gave Lady Rose a quick tuning, and began playing, choosing a simple jig, bright and lively.

  Although she quickly attracted a small crowd, they were mostly children and people who didn't look to have much more money than she. Still, they enjoyed her music, and one or two even bought something at the stalls on either side of her, so she was accomplishing that much. And as long as her listeners bought something, she wasn't likely to be chased away.

  By noon bell, she'd acquired a grand total of three pennies, a marble dropped in by a solemn-faced child, a little bag of barley-sugar candy added by a young girl, a bit of yellow ribbon, and at least a dozen pins. She'd never collected pins before, but any contribution was better than nothing. Once she'd straightened and cleaned them, pins were worth a penny the dozen, so that wasn't so bad, really.

  The
bad part was that she'd fiddled most of the morning and not even gained half what she'd gotten in the public house last night. She was a long way from the silver penny that permit would cost her. She took a moment for a breather, to look over the traffic on the street.

  Early days yet, she told herself, as the crowds thickened, the street filling with folk looking for a bit to eat. The first noon bell seemed to signal a common hour for nuncheon, which the people back home called midmeal. She took her eyes off her hat and fixed them on the faces about her, smiling as if she hadn't a care in the world. When you're fiddling, think about music, Raven had admonished her. Don't think about your dinner, or where you're going to sleep tonight. Tell yourself you're happy, and put that happiness into the way you're playing. Make people feel that happiness. . . .

  The faces of those about her changed as they got within earshot of the fiddle. They generally looked surprised first, then intrigued. Their eyes searched the edge of the crowd for the source of the music, then, when they found it, a smile would creep onto their lips. And, most times, they'd stop for a moment to listen. She found herself looking for those smiles, trying to coax them onto otherwise sour faces; playing light, cheerful tunes, tunes meant to set feet tapping.

  Her efforts began to pay off, now that she was looking to those smiles for her reward and not the money in the hat. A couple of children broke into an impromptu jig at her feet once; and a young couple with the look of the infatuated did an entire dance-set beside her until the glare and a word from a passing Priest sent them laughing away.

  She played a mocking run on her fiddle to follow the fat, bitter man, and thought then how odd it was that the Church seemed to frown upon everything that was less than serious-

  But frivolity puts no coins in their coffers, she reminded herself-and realized that the crowds had thinned again; the second noon-bell had rung, and the stall-keepers on either side of her were cleaning their counters instead of cooking or serving customers. She finished the piece, then looked down at her hat, and saw that the three pennies had multiplied to nine, there was a second bag of sweets beside the first, and a veritable rain of pins covered the bottom of the hat.

  "Eh, lad," said the second stall-keeper, leaning out to examine the contents of her hat with interest. " 'F ye got no plans fer them pins, I trade 'em fer ye. Fifteen pins fer a mug'a cider, an' don' matter what shape they be in, I'll swap. Wife c'n allus use pins."

  "Same here," said the sausage-roll vendor. "Fifteen pins fer a roll."

  Well, that would take care of her nuncheon with nothing out of her pocket, and she'd be saved the trouble of straightening the pins herself. And dealing with them; she hadn't a paper to stick them in, and she didn't relish the idea of lining them up in rows on her hat. She'd probably forget they were there and put her hand on them. "Done, to both of you," she replied, "and grateful, too."

  "Good enough," said the sausage vendor. And when a count proved her to have forty-three, offered her two rolls for what was left when she got her cider. She stowed the rest of her take in her pouch and pack, put away Lady Rose, drank her cider, and considered what to do with the rest of her day, devouring her rolls while she thought.

  It really wasn't worth playing her fingers off for only three pennies, not when she needed to find a place to live, a teacher, and a second instrument, in that order. So, with a wave of farewell to the two vendors, she packed herself up, and took out her map.

  After a few times of getting turned around, she learned the trick of following it. It was too bad that none of the places Mathe had marked were terribly nearby, but there were three that were kind of in a row, and she headed in their direction.

  The first shop was in the middle of a neighborhood where her shabby clothing drew dubious looks; nearly everyone she saw on the street wore clothing like the wealthier farmers' sons and daughters wore to Church services back home. One look in the shop window convinced her that this was no place for her. The instruments hung on the wall were polished and ornamented with carving and inlay work; they might well be second-hand, but they were still beyond her reach, and so, likely, was the teaching to be had.

  The second place was much like the first, and she caught sight of some of the students waiting their turns. They were very well dressed, hardly a patch or a darn or let-down hem to be seen, and most of them were much younger than she. From the bored expressions they wore, she had the notion that the only reason they were taking music lessons at all was because it was genteel to do so.

  She left the brightly painted shops behind, passed through a street of nothing but wrought-iron gates set into brick walls a story tall, gates giving onto small, luxurious gardens. The gardens were beautiful, but she didn't linger to admire them. Some of those gates had men in livery behind them, and those men wore weapons, openly. No point in giving them a reason to think she was here by anything other than accident.

  That street became a street of shops; food shops this time, Vegetables, fruit, wooden replicas of meat and fish and poultry, all displayed enticingly inside open windows, with the real meat and dairy products lying on counters inside, or hanging from the rafters and hooks on the walls. Here, the clothing of the folk in the street had a kind of uniform feel to it; all sober colors, with white aprons and caps or dark hats. Servants, she decided. Sent from those houses behind her to buy the goods for dinner. How strange to have a servant to send out-what a thought! To wait, doing whatever it was that rich folk did, until dinner appeared like magic, without ever having to raise a finger to make it all happen! And then to go up to a room, and find a bath hot and waiting, and a bed warmed and ready-a book, perhaps, beside it. And in the morning, to find clean clothing set out, breakfast prepared. . . .

  She daydreamed about this as she wormed her way down street after street, each one getting progressively narrower, and gradually shabbier. Finally she found herself on a street much too narrow for a cart, unless it was one of the dog carts; a street that even a ridden horse would probably find uncomfortably confining.

  There was only one shop in the street that had three instruments hanging in the window, although it had other things there as well; cheap copper jewelry, religious statues, cards of lace and tarnished trim that showed bits of thread on the edge where it had been picked off a garment, knives and a sword, a tarnished silver christening-goblet. . . .

  A small sign in the window said "We Buy and Sell" and "Loans Made." Another sign beneath it showed two pairs of hands; one offering a knife, the other a silver coin. A third, smaller sign said "Music Lessons."

  She looked back up at the instruments, a lute, a harp, and a guitar; they were old, plain, but well-cared-for. There wasn't a speck of dust on them anywhere. The strings looked a little loose, which meant they weren't kept tuned-something that would warp an instrument's neck if it wasn't taken down and played often. Whoever had hung them there knew what he was doing.

  The street itself was quiet; one of those "residential" areas Mathe had spoken of. There was another food-shop on the corner, but otherwise, this seemed to be the only store in this block of buildings. The rest were all wooden, two-storied, with slate roofs; they had single doors and a window on either side of the door, with more windows in the overhanging second story. A rat might have been able to scurry in the spaces between them, but nothing larger.

  The buildings themselves were old, in need of a new coat of paint, and leaned a little. They reminded Rune of a group of old granddams and grandsires, shabby, worn, but always thinking of the days when they had been young.

  Instruments and lessons-and a place where she might find somewhere to live. This was the most promising area, at least insofar as her purse was concerned, that she had encountered yet. She opened the door and went inside.

  The interior of the shop was darker than the public house had been, and smelled of mildew and dust. When she closed the door behind her, a bell jangled over it, and a voice from the back of the store said, "Be patient a moment, please! I'm up on a ladder!" The voice ma
tched the store; a little tired, old, but with a hint that it had been richer long ago.

  Rune waited, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the shop. The place was crowded with all sorts of oddments, even more so than the tiny window. Behind and in front of her were floor-to-ceiling shelves; on them were books, stuffed animals, neatly folded clothing, statues of all sorts, not just religious, one or two of which made her avert her eyes in flushed embarrassment. There were dusty crystals, strange implements of glass and metal, lanterns, and cutlery. All of it was used, much of it was old, and some of it looked as if it had sat there for centuries. Every object had a little paper tag on it; she couldn't imagine why.

  Suspended from the rafters were cloaks and coats, each with moth-bane festooning the hems. The shop itself was barely large enough for Rune, the shelves, and the tiny counter at the rear of the shop.

  After a moment, an old man dressed in a dust-colored shirt and breeches pushed aside the curtain behind the counter and peered at her, then shook his gray, shaggy head.

  "I'm sorry, lad," he said regretfully. "I'm not buying today-"

  "And I'm not selling, sir," she interrupted, approaching the counter so he could get a better look at her.

  He blinked, looked again, and chuckled; a rich, humor-filled sound that made her want to like him. He reminded her of Raven, a little. And a little of that Guild Minstrel. "And you're no lad, either. Forgive me, lass. What can I do for you?"

  A little surprised, since no one else had seen her true sex through her purposefully sexless clothing, she took another step forward. "My name is Rune. I'm a player, sir," she said, hesitantly. "I was told that I could find an instrument and lessons here."

  "That's true," the old man said, his sharp black eyes watching her so closely she felt as if her skin were off. "You can, as you know if you saw the signs in the windows. But there's more to it than that-the things that brought you to this shop in this city. Now, I like a good tale as well as any man, and it's late and near time to close up. If you'd care to share a cup of tea with me-and tell me your tale?"