A Ghost of a Chance bv-1 Read online

  Whatever was going on in Stara's mind, there were a number of possible outcomes for this encounter, and they didn't auger well for Rune.

  The worst threat was that her mother would slip and become pregnant. In all the time Rune had been paying any attention, Stara had never once calculated anything correctly if it involved numbers greater than three. That made a pregnancy horribly likely-if not this time, then the next.

  Rune stared up blankly at the darkness of the roof above her. If Stara became pregnant, married or not, it would mean the end of Rune's free time. She'd have to take all of Stara's work as well as her own for months before the birth, and after-

  And doubtless the added expense of a non-productive mouth to feed would convince Jeoff there was no money to hire any more help.

  And Rune would have to help with the baby, when it came. As if she hadn't already more than enough to do! There would be no time for anything but work, dawn to dusk and past it. There would be no time to even practice her fiddling, much less learn new music, or work out songs of her own.

  No time for herself at all . . . things were bad enough now, but with Stara pregnant, or caring for another child, they'd be infinitely worse.

  Her eyes stung and she swallowed a lump in her throat as big as an egg. It wasn't fair! Stara had a perfectly good situation here, she didn't need to do this! She wasn't thinking-or rather, she wasn't thinking of anyone except herself. . . .

  Rune turned on her side as despair threatened to smother her, choking her breath in her throat, like a hand about it. At least I'll have a roof over my head, she thought bleakly. There's plenty that can't even say that. And food; I never go hungry around here.

  But that wasn't the worst possible situation. Supposing Stara's ploy didn't work? Suppose she couldn't get Jeoff to marry her-and got with child anyway? Jeoff probably wouldn't throw them out of his own accord, but there were plenty of people in the village who'd pressure him to do so, especially those with unmarried daughters. He was a member of the Church, a deacon, he had a reputation of his own to maintain; he could decide to lie, and say that Stara had been sleeping with the customers behind his back, so as to save that reputation. Then, out she'd go, told to leave the village and not return. Just like the last time she'd gotten herself with child.

  Oh yes, and what would happen to Rune then?

  She might well be tossed out with her mother-but likelier, far likelier, was that Jeoff would get rid of Stara, but keep her daughter. After all, the daughter was a proven hard worker, with nothing against her save that she was a light-skirt's daughter, and possibly a bastard herself.

  That wasn't her fault, but it should give Rune all the more reason that she should be grateful for a place and someone willing to employ her.

  And what would that mean, but the same result as if he married Stara?

  Rune could predict the outcome of that, easily enough. She'd wind up doing all her work and Stara's too.

  Eventually Jeoff would marry some girl from the village, like Amanda, who'd lord it over Rune and pile more work on her, and probably verbal abuse as well, if not physical abuse. It would depend on just how much Jeoff would be willing to indulge his wife, how much he'd support her against the "hired help."

  And when the new wife got pregnant, there'd be all the work tending to her precious brat. Or rather, brats; there'd be one a year, sure as the spring coming, for that was the way the village girls conducted their lives. It was proper for a wife to do her duty by her husband, and make as many babies as possible.

  No time for fiddling, then, for certain sure. No time for anything. At least Stara was old enough that there likely wouldn't be another child after the first. With a new, young wife, there'd be as many as she could spawn, with Rune playing nursemaid to all of them.

  Unless Rune told them all that she wasn't having any of that, and went off on her own, to try her hand at making a living with her fiddle.

  And for a moment, that seemed a tempting prospect, until cold reality intruded.

  Oh, surely, she told herself cynically. A fine living I'd make at it, too. I'm not as good as the worst of the minstrels who've been here-and surely they aren't as good as the Guild Musicians, or the folk who make the circuits of the great Faires. Which means, what? That I'd starve, most like.

  What would be better-or worse? Starvation, or the loss of music, of a life of her own? A dangerous life alone on the open road, living hand-to-mouth, or a life of endless drudgery?

  She sniffed, and stifled a sob. There didn't seem to be much of a choice, no matter which way she turned-both lives were equally bleak.

  And what about Stara herself? Stara was her mother; how much did Rune owe her?

  If she did get with child, and Jeoff did throw her out, Stara would be in an even worse plight than Rune faced. She would be pregnant, out of work, nowhere to go, and no longer young enough to charm her way, however briefly, into someone's household.

  For a moment, Rune suffered a pang of guilt and worry. But no one forced her into Jeoff's bed, she told herself after a moment. No one told her to go chasing after her master, hoping for a wedding ring. She's the one that made the decision, to risk her future without even a thought for what might happen to me as well as her!

  That killed any feelings of guilt. If Stara got herself into trouble, it was her problem, and she could get herself right back out again. Why should I suffer because my mother's a damn fool? She doesn't even want me to call her "Mother" any more.

  But that brought up still another possibility.

  There was no doubt of it that Stara didn't like having a fourteen-year-old daughter; that she thought it made her look old. If she decided that Rune was a liability in her plan to capture Jeoff and become his wife, she might well do something to drive Rune away herself.

  It wouldn't even be hard to find an excuse. All Stara would have to do would be to tell him that Rune was sleeping with Jib or any of the boys from the village-or, most likely of all, with the musicians that had been passing through. The villagers would be glad to believe such tales, and might even make up a few of their own.

  And Jeoff was like any other man; he was fallible and flawed, and subject to making some irrational decisions. Even though he was enjoying himself with Stara-or perhaps, because he was enjoying himself with Stara-he would never tolerate openly loose morals on his premises on the part of anyone else.

  While the large inns-so Rune had heard, from the female musicians-were tolerant of such things, Jeoff never had been. He could get away with forbidding prostitutes to use his inn because most of his custom was local. Larger inns couldn't afford such niceties, and in fact, larger inns often kept whores to supply their clients. But the folk needing rooms out here, off the main roads, most often traveled alone, or with a long-time partner. In a case like that, if the partner was a female, and the male of the pair said they were married, then they might as well have posted the banns, so Jeoff didn't enforce his rule. There was no inn nearer than Beeford, and that gave him something of a monopoly on trade. Those who needed Jeoff's rooms had no choice-and the locals would come to drink his beer whether or not he allowed loose women about.

  In fact, Jeoff and Rose had been considered pillars of the community for their godly ways. That was part of what made Jeoff such a good marital prospect now.

  And that was precisely what made it likely that he'd dismiss her at the first complaint of looseness, particularly if it came from her mother.

  Maybe I just ought to turn whore, she thought with another stifled sob. At least then I'd have something in the way of a trade. . . .

  Despite Jeoff's strictness, she wasn't entirely innocent of the ways of light-skirts. Some few of the travelers, men with gold and silver in their purses rather than copper and silver, had brought with them their own, brazen, hard-eyed women. And once or twice, other travelers in Faire season had met such a woman here, each departing in another direction after a single shared night. Jeoff had never turned these men away; they paid well, the
y often carried weapons or acted haughtily, and as if they were either dangerous or important. But he had served them himself, not permitting either Stara or Rune anywhere near them, and Rose had always worn a frown the entire time such women were under her roof.

  Then there was the fellow who came through at Faire-time with his own tents and wagons, and a collection of freaks and "dancing maidens." His "maidens" were nothing of the sort, whatever his freaks were. There were always a lot of male visitors from the village to his tents after dark when the Faire closed. . . .

  She turned on her back again, biting her lip in remembrance. That man-he'd made her feel so filthy, just by the way he acted, that she'd wanted to bathe every time she had to be anywhere near him. . . .

  He'd hired Rune once, when his own musician took sick, having her play for the performances given during the day. Rose, innocent of what those performances were like, had judged she was unlikely to come to any harm during the daylight hours and had given her leave.

  The dancers hadn't danced, much. Their costumes seemed to consist of skirts and bodices made entirely of layers and layers of veils. Their movement was minimal, and consisted of removing one veil after another, while wiggling in a kind of bored pantomime of desire to the drumbeats. It wasn't even particularly graceful.

  Rune hadn't said anything to anyone; if Jeoff knew what was going on, he didn't bother to enlighten Rose, and Rune doubted anyone else would tell her. There wasn't any reason to; Rune sat behind a screen to play for the "dancers," and no one in the audience had any notion who the musician back there was. She'd needed the money rather badly, for strings and a new bow, the old one having cracked to the point that Rune was afraid to subject it to too much stress-and she'd given her word that she'd take the job, and felt as if she couldn't walk out on it once she'd agreed. But she'd been horribly uncomfortable, embarrassed beyond words, and feeling vaguely sickened by what she saw from her hiding place. She'd been glad when the regular musician recovered from his illness after two days and resumed his place.

  It hadn't been the taking off of clothes that had bothered her, it was the way the women had done it. Even at thirteen, she'd known there was something wrong with what was going on.

  The Church said displays like that, of a woman's body, were forbidden, and a sin. Rune had never quite reasoned out why that should be so-for the Holy Book said other things, entirely, about taking joy in the way of a man and a maid, and celebrating the body and the spirit. But the dancers certainly seemed to feel the same way as the Church-yet they kept dancing, as if they reveled in doing the forbidden. And the men who came to watch them gave Rune the same feeling. There was something slimy about it all, tawdry and cheap, like the way Jon had made her feel this afternoon.

  The man who ran the show was horrible, able to make almost anything sound like an innuendo. He was using those women, using them with the same callousness that Kerd the Butcher displayed with the animals he slaughtered.

  But they, in turn, were using their audience, promising something they wouldn't deliver, not without a further price attached. Promising something they probably couldn't give-promising gold, and delivering cheap gilded lead.

  And the men in the audience were part of the conspiracy. They certainly didn't care about the women they ogled, or later bedded. They cared only for the moment's pleasure, sating themselves without regard for the women, using them as if they were soulless puppets. Things, not human beings.

  No, she couldn't do that . . . couldn't reduce herself to a creature. There was something wrong about that. And not the Church's notion of right and wrong, either. No matter what happened, she could not put herself in the position of used and user. . . .

  And yet, that's exactly the position that Stara put herself in. She was no different from any of those hard-eyed women who stayed only the night, from the "dancers" at the Faire. She had determined on a price for herself, and she was using Jeoff to get it, with never any thought of love or joy involved.

  And Jeoff was most definitely using Stara, for he was taking advantage of her by demanding what he wanted without "paying" for it first, forcing Stara to put herself in the position of begging for that price.

  It would be a different story if they had come together with care for one another.

  Not that it mattered, in the end. Whatever came of this, it would probably spell trouble for Rune.

  And with that comforting thought, exhaustion finally got the better of her, and she slept.

  " . . . and when I got out of the kitchen, he was already gone," she lamented to Jib, as they raked the area in front of the stable clean of droppings, and scattered water over the pounded dirt to keep the dust down. "I picked up a few songs from him, but he really was awfully good, and he knew more about the Bardic Guild than anyone I ever talked to before. There was so much I wanted to ask him about! I wish I hadn't had to work so hard-I could have gotten a lesson from him-"

  "It don't seem fair to me," Jib said slowly. "I know Stara wasn't doin' anythin'. She was just foolin' around the common room, actin' like she was cleanin' mugs and whatall, but she weren't doin' nothin' but fill pitchers now an' again. Them mugs was still dirty when she was done. Cook was talkin' about it this mornin' t' Tarn."

  "I shouldn't have had to play server," she complained bitterly, swinging the watering can back and forth to cover as much ground as possible. "They should've let me fiddle, like they used to. You can't have a whole evening of music with just one musician, not if you don't want him to wish he'd never walked in before the night's over. Master Heron was tired, really tired, by the time he was done. If they'd let me play, I could've let him take a good long break or two. And he wanted me to play, he said so, he wanted to know if I would play a duet with him. He could have helped me, taught me songs right-"

  "Well, heckfire, Rune," Jib replied, sounding, for the first time in weeks, like her old friend instead of the odd, awkward stranger who wanted to court her. "I dunno what t' say. Seems t' me pretty rotten unfair. Ye know? Looks t' me like your Mam is gettin' what she wants, an' ol' Jeoff is gettin' what he wants, an' all you're gettin' is hind teat. Ev'body here is doin' all right but you, and ye're th' one pickin' up the slack."

  Rune nodded unhappily, as they walked back to the stable to put the watering cans away under the shelves by the stable door. "Nobody ever asks me what I want," she said bitterly. "Anything that needs done, they throw on me, without ever asking if I've got the time. They all seem to think they can do whatever they want with me, because I'm not important. I'm just a girl, just Stara's brat, and I don't count. I'm whatever they want me to be, with no say in it."

  And that includes Jon and his friends.

  "Well, ye got a roof, an' plenty t' eat," Jib began, echoing her pessimistic thoughts of last night. "This ain't a bad life, really-"

  "It's not enough," she continued, angry now. "I hate this place, and I hate most of the people in it! I don't want to be stuck here the rest of my life, in this little hole back of beyond, where everybody knows everything about everybody else, or they think they do. And they think that they're so good, God's keeping a special place in heaven for them! I can't get anywhere here, because no matter what I did, I'd never be good enough for them to even be civil to."

  Jib's brow puckered, as if he had never once thought that someone might want something other than the life they now shared. That Rune would want the freedom to play her fiddle, he should have understood-she'd dinned it into his head often enough. But that she'd want to leave was probably incomprehensible. He certainly looked surprised-and puzzled-by her outburst. "Well," he said slowly, "What do you want, then?"

  Rune flung her arms wide. "I want the world!" she cried extravagantly. "I want all of it! I want-I want kings and queens at my feet, I want wealth and power and-"

  "Na, na, Rune," Jib interrupted, laughing at her in a conciliating tone. "That's not sensible, lass. Nobody can have that, outside of a tale. Leastwise, no musicker. What is it ye really want?"

  "Well,
if I have to be sensible . . ." She paused a moment, thought about what it was that was making her so unhappy. It wasn't the drudgery so much, as the loss of hope that there'd ever be anything else. And the confinement in a corner of the world where nothing ever happened, and nothing ever changed, and she'd always be looked down on and taken advantage of. "Jib, I want to get out of here. The people here think I'm scum, you know that. Even if the High King rode up here tomorrow and claimed me as his long-lost daughter, they'd look down their noses at me and say, 'Eh, well, and she's a bastard after all, like we thought.' "

  Jib nodded agreement, and sighed. He leaned up against the doorpost of the stable and selected a straw to chew on from one of the bales stacked there.

  "So?" he said, scratching his head, and squinting into the late afternoon sunlight. "If ye could go, how'd ye do it? Where'd ye go, then?"

  "I'd want some money," she said, slowly. "Enough to buy another instrument, a guitar, or a lute, or even a mandolin. And enough to keep me fed and under shelter, and pay for the lessons I'd need. I couldn't do that here, it would have to be in a real city. Even if I had the money, and the instrument, I can't keep going on like I have been, begging for time to play, and making do with lessons snatched from other minstrels. I need to learn to read and write better, and read and write music, too."

  "All right," Jib responded, pushing away from the doorpost. "Say you've got all that. What then?" He led the way towards the door on the other side of the stable-yard, where they both had chores awaiting them-her to clean the common room, him to scrub pots for the cook.

  "Then-" She paused just outside the inn door and looked off down the road with longing. "Then-I'd go to the big Midsummer Faire at Kingsford. I'd march straight in there, and I'd sign right up for the trials for the Bardic Guild. And I'd win them, too, see if I wouldn't. I'd win a place in the Guild, and a Master, and then just see what I'd do!" She turned to Jib with such a fierce passion that he took an involuntary step back. "You said nobody had money and power and kings and queens at their feet outside of a tale? Well, the Guild Bards have all that! All that and more! And when I was a Guild Bard there'd be nobles come wanting me to serve them, begging me to serve them, right up to kings and even the High King himself! I could come riding back in here with a baggage train a half dozen horses long, and servants bowing to me and calling me 'My Lady,' and a laurel and a noble title of my own. And then these backwater blowhards would see-"