Lark and Wren Read online

  She froze in terror as he unlocked the door in the wall there; she would have bolted if he hadn't reached for her good hand and drawn her inside before she could do anything.

  Her heart pounded with panic, and she looked around at the potted greenery, expecting it to sprout guards at any moment. This was it: the Church had found her out, and they were going-

  "We're not going to do anything to you, child," said a scarlet-robed woman who stepped out from behind a trellis laden with rosevines. She had a cap of pale blond hair cut like any Priest's, candid gray eyes, and a pointed face that reminded her sharply of someone-

  Then Talaysen turned around, and the familial resemblance was obvious. She relaxed a little. Not much, but a little.

  "Rune, this is my cousin, Ardis. Ardis, this is the young lady who was too talented for her own good." Talaysen smiled, and Rune relaxed a little more.

  Ardis tilted her head to one side, and her pale lips stretched in an amused smile. "So I see. Well, come here, Rune. I don't bite-or rather, I don't bite people who don't deserve to be bitten."

  Rune ventured nearer, and Ardis waved at her to take a seat on a bench. The Priest-for so she must be, although Rune had never seen a scarlet-robed Priest before-seated herself on the same bench, as Talaysen stood beside them both. She glanced at him anxiously, and he gave her a wink of encouragement.

  "I might as well be brief," Ardis said, after a moment of studying Rune's face. "I suppose you've heard rumors of Priests who also practice magic on behalf of the Church?"

  She nodded, reluctantly, unsure what this had to do with her.

  "The rumors are true, child," Ardis said, watching her face closely. "I'm one of them."

  Rune's initial reaction was alarm-but simple logic calmed her before she did anything stupid. She trusted Talaysen; he trusted his cousin. There must be a reason for this revelation.

  She waited for Ardis to reveal it.

  "I have healing-spells," the Priest continued calmly, "and my cousin asked me to exercise one of them on your behalf. I agreed. But I cannot place the spell upon you without your consent. It wouldn't be ethical."

  She smiled at Talaysen as she said that, a smile with just a hint of a sting in it. He chuckled and shook his head, but said nothing.

  "Will it hurt?" Rune asked, the only thing she could think of to ask.

  "A little," Ardis admitted. "But after a moment or two you'll begin feeling much better."

  "Fine-I mean, please, I'd like you to do it, then," Rune stammered, a little confused by the Priest's clear, direct gaze. She sensed it would be difficult, if not impossible, to hide anything from this woman. "It can't hurt much worse than my head does right now."

  The Priest's eyes widened for a moment, and she glanced up at Talaysen. "Belladonna?" she asked sharply. He nodded. "Then it's just as well you brought her here today. It's not good to take that for more than three days running."

  "I didn't take any today," Rune said, plaintively. "I woke up with a horrid headache and sick, and it felt as if the medicine had something to do with the way I felt."

  The Priest nodded. "Wise child. Wiser than some who are your elders. Now, hold still for a moment, think of a cloudless sky, and try not to move."

  Obediently, Rune did as she was told, closing her eyes to concentrate better.

  She felt the Priest lay her hand gently on the broken arm. Then there was a sudden, sharp pain, exactly like the moment when Erdric straightened the break. She bit back a cry-then slumped with relief, for the pain in both her head and her arm were gone!

  No-not gone after all, but dulled to distant ghosts of what they had been. And best of all, she was no longer nauseous. She sighed in gratitude and opened her eyes, smiling into Ardis' intent face.

  "You fixed it!" she said. "It hardly hurts at all, it's wonderful! How can I ever thank you?"

  Ardis smiled lazily, and flexed her fingers. "My cousin has thanked me adequately already, child. Think of it as the Church's way of repairing the damage the Bardic Guild did."

  "But-" Rune protested. Ardis waved her to silence.

  "It was no trouble, dear," the Priest said, rising. "The bone-healing spells are something I rarely get to use; I'm grateful for the practice. You can take the splint off in about four weeks; that should give things sufficient time to mend."

  She gave Talaysen a significant look of some kind; one that Rune couldn't read. He flushed just a little, though, as she bade him a decorous enough farewell and he turned to lead Rune out the tiny gate.

  He seemed a little ill-at-ease, though she couldn't imagine why. To fill the silence between them, she asked the first thing that came into her head.

  "Do all Priest-mages wear red robes?" she said. "I'd never seen that color before on a Priest."

  He turned to her gratefully, and smiled. "No, actually, there's no one color for the mages. You can find them among any of the Church Brotherhoods. Red is the Justiciar's color-there do seem to be more mages among the Justiciars than any other Brotherhood, but that is probably coincidence."

  He continued on about the various Brotherhoods in the Church, but she wasn't really listening. She had just realized as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, what an extraordinarily handsome man he was. She hadn't thought of that until she'd seen his cousin, and noticed how striking she was.

  How odd that she hadn't noticed it before.

  . . . .possibly because he was acting as if he was my father. . . .

  Well, never mind. There was time enough to sort out how things were going to be between them. Maybe he was just acting oddly because of all the people around him; as the founder of the Free Bards he must feel as if there were eyes on him all the time-and rightly, given Sparrow's chattering questions the other day.

  But once the Faire was over and the Free Bards dispersed, there would be no one watching them to see what they did. Then, maybe, he would relax.

  And once he did, well-

  Her lips curved in a smile that was totally unconscious. And Talaysen chattered on, oblivious to her thoughts.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Rune caught a hint of movement in the crowd out of the corner of her eye. She kept singing, but she thought she recognized the bright red skirt and bodice, and the low-cut blouse the color of autumn leaves. . . .

  A second glance told her she was right. It was Gwyna, all right, and dressed to be as troublesome as she could to male urges and Church sensibilities. Tiny as she was, she had to elbow her way to the front of the crowd so Rune could see her, and by the look in her eyes, she knew she was causing mischief.

  Her abundant black hair was held out of her eyes by a scarf of scarlet tied as a head-band over her forehead; beneath it, huge brown eyes glinted with laughter. There was no law against showing-and none against looking-and she always dressed to catch the maximum number of masculine attentions. She garnered a goodly share of appreciative glances as she sauntered among the fair-goers, from men both high and lowly born. She preened beneath the admiration like the bright bird she so strongly resembled.

  Rune and Talaysen were singing "Fiddler Girl," though without the fiddle; Rune's arm was only just out of its sling, and she wasn't doing anything terribly difficult with it yet. Instead, she was singing her own part, and Talaysen was singing the Ghost, and making it fair blood-chilling, too. Even Gwyna shivered visibly, listening to them, and she'd heard it so many times she probably could reproduce every note of it herself in both their styles.

  They finished to a deafening round of applause, and copper and silver showered into the hat set in front of them. As Gwyna wormed her way to the center of the crowd, Rune caught sight of another of the brotherhood just coming along the street-Daran, called "Heron." Tall, gangling, and bony, he was easy to spot, as he towered a good head above the rest of the crowd. He looked nothing like a musician, but he was second only to Talaysen in the mastery of guitar, and that daft-looking, vacuous face with empty blue eyes hid one of the cleverest satiric minds in their company. Hi
s voice was a surprising tenor, silver to Talaysen's gold.

  And no sooner had Rune spotted him than she recalled a bit of wickedness the four of them had devised when she had first joined them out on the streets of the Faire, and her broken arm had prevented her from playing.

  She whistled a snatch of the song-"My Lover's Eyes" it was, and as sickening and sticky-sweet a piece of doggerel as ever a Guild Bard could produce. She saw Talaysen's head snap up at the notes, saw his green eyes sparkle with merriment. He nodded, a grin wrapping itself around his head, then nodded at Gwyna to come join them. Daran had caught the whistle, too-he craned his absurdly long neck all about, blond forelock flopping into his eyes as usual, then sighted her and whistled back. That was all it took; while the crowd was still making up its collective mind about moving on, Gwyna and Daran edged in to take their places beside Talaysen and Rune, and the song was begun.

  They sang it acappella, but all four of them had voices more than strong enough to carry over the crowd noise, and the harmony they formed-though they hadn't sung it since the fourth week of the Faire-was sweet and pure, and recaptured the fickle crowd's attention. The first verse of the ditty extolled the virtues of the singer's beloved, and the faithfulness of the singer-lover-Gwyna held Daran's hands clasped chin-high, and stared passionately into his eyes, as Rune and Talaysen echoed their pose.

  So far, a normal sort of presentation, if more than a bit melodramatic. Ah-but the second verse was coming; and after all those promises of eternal fidelity, the partners suddenly dropped the hands they held and caught those of a new partner, and without missing a beat, sang the second verse just as passionately to a new "beloved."

  Chuckles threaded the crowd. The audience waited expectantly for the next verse to see what the Bards would do.

  They lowered their clasped hands, turning their heads away from their partners, as if in an agony of moon-struck shyness. At the end of the third verse, they dropped hands again, rolled their eyes heavenward as each lifted right hand to brow and the left to bosom, changed pose again (still without looking) and groped once again for the hands of the "beloved"-

  Except that this time Talaysen got Daran's hands, and Gwyna got Rune's.

  The crowd's chuckles turned into an appreciative roar of laughter when they turned their heads back to discover just whose hands they were clutching, and jumped back, pulling away as if they'd been burned.

  The laughter all but drowned out the last notes of the song, sung to the eyes of their original partners.

  As more coinage showered into the hat, one among the crowd turned away with a smothered oath, and a look of hatred. He wore the purple and gold ribbons of a Guild Bard.

  "Well, here, my children-" Talaysen bent to catch up the laden hat. "Share and share alike. Feed your bodies that your voices not suffer; buy fairings to call the eyes of an audience, or other things-"

  He poured a generous measure of the coinage into each of their hands. "Now off with you! We'll meet as usual, just at sundown, at the tent for dinner."

  Gwyna slipped the money into her belt-pouch, and dropped Talaysen a mock-curtsy. "As you say, Master mine. Elsewhere, Tree-man, Master Heron, I'm minded to sing solos for a bit." Daran grinned and took himself off as ordered.

  Rune noticed that his eyes had been following Gwyna for some time, and she reflected that he would be no bad company for the cheerful Gypsy. Gwyna had confided a great deal to Rune over the past few weeks; they'd become very good friends. Gwyna had said that she tended to take up with either Bards or Gypsies, but that she hadn't had a lover from amongst the Free Bards in four years.

  Maybe she was thinking about it now.

  As Gwyna strolled away, it seemed her thoughts were tending in that direction, for she pulled her guitar around in front of her and began a love song. Rune exchanged a glance full of irony with Talaysen, and they began her elf-ballad.

  Gwyna didn't mind too carefully where she was wandering, until she noted that her steps had taken her away from the well-traveled ways and into the rows reserved for the finer goods. Here she was distinctly out of place, and besides, there were fewer fairgoers, and less of a chance for an audience. She turned to retrace her steps, only to find her path blocked.

  He who blocked it was a darkly handsome man, as looks are commonly judged-but his gray eyes had a cruel glint to them that Gwyna did not in the least like, the smile on his thin, hard lips was a prurient one, and he wore the robes of a Church Priest. But they were wine-dark, and she thought she could see odd symbols woven into the hem of the robe, symbols which she found even less to her liking than the glint in his eyes.

  "Your pardon, m'lord-" She made as if to step around him, but he moved like quicksilver, getting in front of her again.

  "Stay, bright songbird-" He spoke softly, his voice pitched soft and low so as to sound enticing. "A word in your ear, if I may."

  "I cannot prevent you, m'lord," Gwyna replied, becoming more uneasy by the heartbeat.

  "You have no patron, else you would not be singing to the crowd-and I think you have, at present, no-'friend'-either." His knowing look gave another meaning entirely to the word "friend"; a prurient, lascivious meaning. "I offer myself in both capacities. I think we understand each other."

  Although Gwyna was long past innocence, the blood rose to her cheeks in response to his words, and the evil, lascivious leer that lay thinly veiled behind them. Just listening to him made her feel used; and that made her angry as well as a little frightened.

  "That I think we do not, 'my lord,' " she retorted, putting a good sharp sting in her reply. "Firstly, you are a Priest of the Church, and sworn to celibacy. If you will take no care for your vows, then I will! Secondly, I am a Free Bard, and I earn my way by song-naught else. I go where I will, I earn my way by music, and I do not sell myself to such as you for your caging. So you may take your 'patronage' and offer it among the dealers in swine and sheep-for I'm sure that there you'll find bed-mates to your liking in plenty!"

  She pushed rudely past him, her flesh shrinking from the touch of his robes, and stalked off with her head held high and proud. She prayed that he could not tell by her carriage how much she longed to take to her heels and run.

  She prayed that he wouldn't follow her; it seemed her prayers were answered, for she lost sight of him immediately. And as soon as he was out of sight, she forgot him.

  The Priest clenched his jaw in rage, and his saturnine face contorted with anger for one brief instant before settling into a mask of indifference. It was only a moment, but it was long enough for one other to see.

  A plump, balding man, oily with good living, and wearing the gold and purple ribbons of a Guild Bard, stepped out from the shelter of a nearby awning and approached the dark-robed cleric.

  "If you will forgive my impertinence, my lord," he began, "I cannot help but think we have an interest in common. . . ."

  ". . . so I told him to look for bedmates among the flocks," Gwyna finished, while Daran and Rune chuckled appreciatively. She took a hearty bite of her bread and cheese-no one among the brotherhood had had extraordinary good luck, so the fare was plain tonight-and grinned back at them. Neither Erdric nor Talaysen looked at all amused, however-Erdric was as sober as a stone, and Talaysen's green eyes were darkened with worry.

  "That may not have been wise, Gypsy Robin," he said, sipping his well-watered wine. "It isn't wise to anger a Priest, and I would guess from your description that he is not among the lesser of his brethren. Granted, if you called him up before the justices this week, and you had witnesses, you could prove he meant to violate his vows-but even so, he is still powerful, and that is the worst sort of enemy to have made."

  "So long as I stay within the Faire precincts, what can he do?" Gwyna countered, nettled at Talaysen's implied criticism of her behavior. "I do have witnesses if I care to call them, and if he dares to lay a hand on me-"

  Her feral grin and a hand to the knife concealed in her skirts told the fate he could expect. Gwyna needed
no man to guard her "honor"-such as it was.

  "All right, Robin, I am rebuked. No one puts a tie on you, least of all me. Where away tonight?"

  "A party-a most decorous party. Virtue, I tell you, will be my watchword this eve. I am pledged to play and sing for the name-day feast of the daughter of the jewel-smith Marek, she being a ripe twelve on this night. I am to sing nothing but the most innocent of songs and tales, and the festivities will be over before midnight. I will be there and back again in my bed before the night is half spent."

  She drooped her eyelids significantly at Daran, who looked first surprised, then pleased. Talaysen bit his lip to keep from chuckling; he knew that tacit invitation. Gwyna would not be spending the last nights of the Faire alone.

  "Then may the Lady see to it that the jewel-smith Marek rewards you and your songs with their true value. As for the rest of us-the Faire awaits! And we grow no richer dallying here."

  They finished the last bites of their dinners, and rose from their cushions nearly as one, each to seek an audience.

  Gwyna's pouch was the heavier by three pieces of gold, and she was wearing it inside her skirts for safety, as she made her way down the aisle of closed and darkened stalls. One gold piece would go to Erdric, with instructions to purchase a roast pig and wine for the company, and keep the remainder for himself. The other two would go to Goldsmith Nosta in the morning, to be put with her other savings. Gwyna firmly believed in securing high ground against rainy days.

  With her mind on these matters, she did not see the dark shadow that followed her, mingling with the other shadows cast by the moon. Her sharp ears might have warned her of danger, but there were no footfalls for her to hear. There was only a sudden wind of ice and fear that blew upon her from behind, and hard upon that, the darkness of oblivion.

  She woke with an aching head, her vision blurred and oddly distorted, her sense of smell gone, to find herself looking out through the bars of a black iron cage. She scrambled to her feet with a frightened squawk, and a flurry of wings, shaking so hard with a sudden onset of terror that every feather trembled.