Lark and Wren Read online

  "He won't be able to get away with that anymore," she said. "I suspect the only reason he's gotten by this long is because he only pulls that trick on strangers. But short measure's against the law, and he knows it. He could be pilloried for that." She looked well content. "Once we get the charcoal, we'll have everything we need, I think."

  It was at just that moment that Talaysen felt ghostly fingers on his pouch. He reached back, quick as a striking snake, and caught a wrist. A bony wrist; he pulled on it, hauling the owner forward before he could bolt.

  The owner made not a sound as Talaysen dragged him-for it was a "he"-around to the front of them.

  "What-?" Rune said in surprise, then nodded. "So. Someone who didn't do well at the Faire, hmm?"

  "Caught a light-fingers?" Gwyna asked mildly. She crossed her arms and stared at the boy, who dropped his gaze to his bare, dirty feet. "You should know better than to try that game with a Gypsy, sirrah. We invented that game."

  The thief was a lot older than Talaysen had expected; roughly Rune's or Gwyna's age. Undersized, though, for his age; he didn't top Gwyna by more than an inch. The bones under Talaysen's hand were sharp; the bones of the face prominent. Three-quarters starved and filthy, with an expression of sullen resignation, he made no effort whatsoever to escape.

  Talaysen shook him a little. "Have you anything to say for yourself before I turn you over to the constables?" he asked. There was a flash of fear in the boy's face as he looked up, but then he dropped his eyes again and simply shook his head.

  "He doesn't look much like a thief, does he?" Rune mused. "At least, not a good thief. I thought they tended to look a bit more prosperous."

  Gwyna tilted her head to one side, and considered the boy. "You're right, he doesn't. He looks to me like someone who's desperate enough to try anything, including picking a pocket, but he doesn't look much like a real thief."

  Talaysen thought privately that what the boy looked like was bad-blood and bone. But he held his peace; though no stranger would know it, Gwyna had already warmed to this rag-man.

  "I don't think you should turn him over to anyone," Rune continued. The boy looked up, quickly, surprise then apprehension flashing over his face, before he dropped his eyes again. Talaysen sighed.

  "I don't think we should turn him over to anyone, either," Gwyna put in. She reached over and shook the boy's shoulder. "Here, you-if we feed you and give you a chance to clean up, will you promise not to run off until we've talked to you?"

  He looked up again, and the expression of bewildered gratitude made Talaysen abruptly revise his opinion. That was not the expression of a bad youngster-it was more along the lines of a beaten dog who has just been patted instead of whipped. Maybe there was something worth looking into with this boy after all.

  The boy nodded violently, and Talaysen released the hold he had on the boy's wrist. The youngster rubbed it a little, but made no move to escape, even though he probably could have gotten away in the crowd.

  "Here," Gwyna said, shoving her load of packages at him. He took them, automatically, his eyes widening with surprise as he staggered beneath the weight. "Make yourself useful and carry these for me. Come along."

  The boy followed her with complete docility. Or perhaps he was just stunned. If he was about Gwyna's age, he might not be too eager to run away at this point. Older men than he had been stunned by Gwyna on a fairly regular basis.

  Talaysen smiled a little; there was a method to Gwyna's seeming foolishness. With that much burdening him, he couldn't run-unless he dropped the entire load, he was effectively hobbled. And if he dropped the packages, they'd know he was going to run.

  They finished their purchases and returned to the wagon. The youngster handed his packages up to Rune to be stowed away, and looked-longingly, Talaysen thought-at the pony-mules.

  Gwyna looked the boy up and down, critically. "You'll never fit Master Wren's clothes, nor mine," she said. "Rune, do you have a pair of breeches and a shirt I can borrow? His clothing won't be fit to wear without a lot of cleaning, and maybe not then."

  "If you don't mind that they're not that far from the rag-bin themselves," Rune replied, doubtfully.

  Gwyna snorted. "It's better than what he's wearing now."

  Talaysen thought he detected a flush-of embarrassment?-under the layer of dirt coating the young man's face.

  He still hasn't spoken a word . . . I wonder why?

  With clean clothes in one hand and the boy in the other, Gwyna marched him off to the stream that had been serving for their bathing pool. He'd either bathe, or Gwyna would hold him down and wash him herself. Talaysen knew that look. He wouldn't have bet on the Master of the Bardic Guild against Gwyna when she wore that look.

  And maybe this young man will give her something to think about besides her fear. For a little while, anyway.

  Despite Gwyna's determination, Talaysen wasn't entirely certain that they'd see the lad again. On the other hand, he hadn't been acting as if he was going to run off. So Talaysen led the horses and wagon to their old campsite and waited for Gwyna to reappear, with her charge, or without him.

  She returned with him-and cleaned up, he looked a great deal better than Talaysen had expected. Some of the sullenness proved to be nothing more than dirt.

  "Here, lad," the Bard said. "We've got time to eat before we go, I think." He cut the boy a chunk of bread and cheese, and poured him a mug of water, presenting him with both as soon as the pair reached the wagon.

  The boy didn't snatch at the food as Talaysen would have expected from his starved appearance. Instead he took it politely, with a little bow, and ate it slowly and carefully rather than bolting it. Which was something of a relief; in Talaysen's experience, food bolted by someone in the boy's condition tended to come right back up again.

  "All right," Talaysen said, as the young man finished the last crumb of his meal. "The ladies here seem to have taken a liking to you. I suspect they want me to invite you to come along with us for a bit. On the other hand, you did try to lift my purse. So what do you have to say for yourself?"

  "I'm s-s-s-sorry, s-s-s-sir," the young man stammered. "I was s-s-s-starving. I d-d-d-didn't kn-kn-know wh-wh-what else t-t-t-t-to d-d-do."

  The stutter, severe as it was, seemed to be something habitual rather than feigned or out of fear. The youngster was obviously forcing the words out, and having a hard time of it. He was red with effort and embarrassment by the time he'd completed the simple sentence.

  Talaysen wanted to ask him more, but he was at a loss of how to get any information from the youngster without a similar struggle. Then he noticed that the lad's attention wasn't on him, but on something in the wagon.

  He turned to see what it was-but the only thing in sight was Gwyna's three-octave harp, the one she could only play while seated. She rarely took it out unless they were somewhere that it wouldn't be moved much. She'd been about to cover it for the trip in its oiled-canvas case, but during the packing it had been wedged between the side bunk and their packs for safekeeping.

  "Do you play, lad?" Talaysen asked. The young man nodded vigorously. Without prompting, Gwyna climbed up into the wagon and handed the harp down.

  He sat right down on a stone with it cradled in his arms; placed it reverently on the ground, and began to play.

  Talaysen had heard many Masters play in his time, but this young man was as good on the harp as Rune was on her fiddle. And this was an original composition; it had to be. Talaysen knew most of the harp repertory, and this piece wasn't in it.

  So, the boy could compose as well as play. . . .

  The young man's face relaxed as he lost himself in the music, and his expression took on the other-worldly quality seen in statues of angels. In repose he was as gently attractive as he had been sullenly unattractive when Talaysen caught him.

  Talaysen felt something else, as well; the undercurrent of melody he associated with magic. The young man made no effort to match it, but it harmonized with what he was pla
ying, and Talaysen found himself being lulled into a meditative trance. Perhaps he hasn't learned to match it because he doesn't know he can-but the power is there, and so is the heart.

  Oh yes, the power was there indeed. He shook off the lulling effect of the music to glance over at Rune-just in time to intercept her glance at him. He inclined his head toward the young man; she nodded.

  She hears it too.

  Insofar as music went, this boy was a Bard in everything but name.

  Now who is he, where is he from, and how in heaven's name did he get that way?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Talaysen reflected that it was a good thing that the wagon slept four. They looked to have acquired a second "apprentice."

  After hearing the young man play, there was no way that Talaysen was going to let him wander off on his own again. Even if he hadn't been determined in that direction, the ladies were. So they packed everything down for travel, and he and the boy went into the back while Gwyna handled the reins and Rune watched and learned.

  "Remember, speak slowly," he told the lad-no, not "the lad." The youngster had a name. Jonny Brede. He was going to have to remember that. A personable lad; thin and wiry, with a heart-shaped face and an unruly tangle of wavy brown hair. His eyes were the most attractive feature he had, probably because he tried to do most of his speaking with them rather than expose himself to ridicule. That stutter-the youngster must have gotten a lot of cruel teasing over it. "Speak very slowly. Take your time. I'm in no hurry, and neither are you, so take all the time you need."

  Strange, lying here at ease on a bed, instead of trudging down the dusty road. Very strange, but obviously much more comfortable. Though he knew why he hadn't done this long ago, and it had nothing to do with money. He knew very little about the care of horses and nothing about harnessing or driving-all of his knowledge was of riding and hunting. That didn't serve to tell him what to do with these stout little draft-beasts. How often should they be rested, for instance? And how on Earth did one manage two sets of reins? What did one do if they didn't want to get between the shafts of the wagon?

  Rune and Gwyna took up the bench seat in front, with their backs to the interior, although they could hear everything he and Jonny said. Rune evidently knew enough about mules from her days at the inn that she was a logical candidate for secondary driver. He and Jonny took their ease back in the wagon itself.

  "Tell me the earliest thing you remember," he said, staring at the bottom of a cupboard just over his head. Like the rest of the interior of the wagon, it was of brown wood polished to a high gloss.

  Jonny shook his head, his hands knotting and un-knotting in his lap.

  "Don't you remember being very small?" Talaysen prompted. "Do you recall schoolmates? Siblings? Tutors or Priests? A birthday party, perhaps?"

  Jonny shook his head even harder. "N-n-no," he replied. "N-n-nothing like that. Jus-just being sick, for a long, l-long time, and m-m-my M-M-Master."

  "Start with that, then," Talaysen told him. "Slowly. Don't force the words out. Think of speech as a song; you wouldn't rush the cadence."

  "I was r-r-real sick," Jonny said thoughtfully. "Fever; I w-w-was hot all the time. I was seeing things t-t-too. Men f-f-f-fighting, buildings b-b-burning. P-p-people yelling." He bit his lip. "Th-th-then I was at K-K-Kingsford, and M-M-Master was taking care of me."

  "Master who?"

  "M-M-Master D-D-Darian," the young man replied promptly.

  Interesting. That was a name Talaysen knew, largely because Master Darian's arrival had caused such a fuss. Master Darian wasn't rightly at Kingsford at all; he was from the Guild in Birnam. He should have gone there to retire, not to our kingdom. Talaysen remembered the minor stir that had caused; Master Darian, half-senile, demanding to be allowed to lodge in the great Guildhall at Kingsford, claiming outrageous things. That his life was in danger, that there were assassins looking for him. How had that ended up? There had been something about a usurper-

  Yes, he had it now. There had been a palace uprising, with the King of Birnam deposed by his brother, and a lot of the usual civil unrest that followed such a coup. Darian had been one of the King's Bards-a position that did not normally make one a target for assassins. The Guild had decided that old Master Darian might have seen a thing a two that had proved too much for his mind, and voted to permit him to stay instead of forcing him back to a place where he was afraid to go.

  Had there been a boy with him, an apprentice? Talaysen couldn't remember-

  Wait, there had been, and the boy had been sick with a marsh-fever. That was it. And that was another reason why the Guild had decided to let the Master stay. By the time they'd reached Kingsford, the boy had been in a bad way. It seemed too cruel even to the normally callous Guild Bards to turn them out for the boy to die on the road.

  Hmm. If he'd been at Kingsford, one of the mages might have healed him of it. Ardis would know.

  He made a mental note to write to her and ask.

  "So, you were ill, and when you finally got well, you were in Kingsford. What then?"

  "M-M-Master Darian took care of m-m-me, and when he got sick, I t-t-took care of him." The chin came up, and the big brown eyes looked defiantly into his. "Th-th-they said he was m-m-mad. He w-w-wasn't. He j-j-just had trouble remembering."

  Yes, and that was why they had permitted him to keep the "apprentice" even though the boy probably wasn't learning anything from the old man. He took care of his Master, and that had freed up a servant to run attendance on other Masters. As long as he didn't get in the way, the rest of the members of the Guild ignored him. Talaysen recalled now thinking that he ought to do something about the boy himself; teach him, perhaps. But then other things had gotten in the way, and he'd forgotten all about it by the time he left the Guild in a rage.

  "Th-th-they left us alone until M-M-Master died. Th-th-then they said I had t-t-t-to l-l-l-leave." The stutter got worse as he grew more distressed.

  "Why?" Talaysen asked.

  "B-b-because I d-d-didn't have a M-M-Master any-

  m-m-more," he said, his eyes dark with anguish. "And

  th-th-they s-s-s-said it w-w-wasn't w-w-worth w-w-wasting

  t-t-time on a ha-ha-halfwit."

  Talaysen's fists clenched and he forced himself to relax them. The bastards. The lazy bastards. A stutter is curable-and even if it wasn't, most people don't stutter when they sing, and they knew it! But this poor child had no one to speak for him, and he was a foreigner. So out he went.

  "Jonny, you are not a halfwit," he said quietly, but forcefully. "Whoever told you that was an idiot. The Guild Masters were too lazy to train you, and too foolish to see your worth, so they got rid of you and told you that to keep you from trying to get your rights." He thought quickly about all he knew of Guild law. "You came to Kingsford as an acknowledged apprentice. You had a right to another Master when yours died. You could have gone to any other Guild in Kingsford and gotten help to enforce that right-but the Bardic Guild Masters told you that you were a halfwit to prevent you from claiming that right."

  "Th-th-they did?" Jonny's eyes cleared a little.

  "I would bet fair coin on it. It's just the kind of thing they would do." He kept a tight hold on his temper; this was all in the past. Nothing could be done about it now-except to rectify what the Guild had done himself.

  "B-b-but they s-s-said I c-c-couldn't s-s-sing, or wr-wr-write m-m-music-" he objected. "And I c-c-c-can't."

  "Jonny, when did anyone ever teach you to do those things?" Talaysen asked gently. "Those are skills, not things that you absorb just by being around Bards. Ask Rune; she'll tell you."

  "Two years," Rune replied, leaning back into the wagon so she could be heard. "It took me two years to learn those things, and several different Masters."

  "You see?" Talaysen's lips tightened. "Now if you really want to know what I think was going on-it's simple. The Bardic Guild is full of lazy, self-centered fools. They saw you had no Master, you weren't import
ant to anyone, and in fact, no one in this country even knew you were here. So they decided you were too much trouble and sent you out the door."

  Jonny nodded, slowly, his own hands clenched at his sides, knotted into tight little white-knuckled fists.

  "Then what did you do?" Talaysen prompted. "After you left?"

  "I w-w-worked. At wh-wh-whatever I c-c-could. Wh-wh-when the Faire came, I w-w-worked the Faire. Animals, m-m-mostly. Animals l-l-like me."

  Talaysen could well imagine how the inarticulate lad had sought refuge in caring for creatures who didn't demand speech of him.

  "How did you get from Kingsford to the Kardown Faire?" he asked.

  "H-h-hiring fairs," the lad said simply. "G-g-got j-jobs all over. Had a j-j-job with a herder b-b-brought me here, b-b-but he sold his g-g-goats, and he d-d-didn't need me, and the m-m-man that b-b-bought them had his own h-h-h-herders."

  Hiring fairs. That made sense. Hiring fairs were held in the spring and the fall, mostly for the benefit of farmers looking for hands or servants. Sometimes other folk would come looking for skilled or unskilled laborers-and Talaysen had heard of fairs that even had mercenaries for hire. The problem was, the unskilled labor jobs seldom lasted more than a season, as Jonny had undoubtedly learned. "So, that got you to the Downs. When?"

  "Ab-b-b-bout two w-w-weeks ag-g-go," he said, sighing heavily. "Was all right d-d-during Faire, b-b-but there wasn't nothing f-f-for me after."

  Gwyna laughed without humor. "True, when the Kardown Faire is over, the town pretty much dries up, unless you're an experienced hand with sheep. Shepherd's classed as skilled labor, not unskilled, and the only person that might be trusted to come on without experience is a Gypsy."