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  “Good evening, Lord Tolm. I hope the day finds you well?”

  “It’s that time again, eh?” asked Tolm, giving Joss a sharp look. “Well enough, I suppose. My father passed away some four days agone.”

  That was news. “I am sorry for your loss,” said Joss. “I’ll convey the news to the Queen, and I’m sure she’ll send her own condolences.”

  “If she must.” Tolm shrugged and resumed walking.

  Joss secured Dash’s reins to the saddle and followed, knowing his Companion would keep up with them. “He had a good, long life,” said Joss, looking for something to say about someone he hardly knew. “He was a good man, and fair.”

  That got him another sharp look, but only for a moment. “It was quick, at least. Died in his bed. His man found him. Better than lingering.”

  “Very true,” said Joss.

  Topics of conversation apparently exhausted, Joss said, “I’ll leave you to your business, then,” gave a short bow, and remounted Dash. Tolm grunted and waved him off.

  :What say we ride out to the end of the valley?: said Joss. :We can camp, you can commune with the sheep, then we can turn round tomorrow and ride back out.:

  :If ‘communing’ with the brainless fluffs is so fascinating to you, perhaps I’ll drive a few sheep into your tent?: said Dash, his mind-voice sweet and teasing.

  :Just a suggestion,: Joss teased back. :Thought you might be sick of my company after all this time.:

  :I am,: Dash snarked. :But even you’re preferable to a sheep.:

  :Good to know.:

  Back down in the plaza, a score or so folk still lingered, scattered into clusters, their heads close and their postures alternately hunched with worry or stiff with indignation.

  It might’ve been general upset over the transfer of power to a new baron. Any change had the potential to be for the worse, and some folk fretted over any new thought that blew by on the wind. The local barons had a good deal of power over their folk, and especially in a community as isolated as the Tolmen, there was room for no little abuse—or just ham-fisted incompetence from a lord who’d yet to grow into his duties—before help could come.

  Joss didn’t think that was the problem, though.

  The old Baron had been over eighty the last time Joss had come on Circuit, and that had been four years ago. The new Baron was over fifty and had been sharing duties with his aging father for at least thirty years.

  Some nobles’ heirs spent their lives in Haven or some other large town, spending their fathers’ coin on wine, gambling, and commercially acquired affection until they came into their inheritance. That wasn’t the case with Gaulvan Tolm.

  :Why not ask them?: suggested Dash.

  :If it were anyone else. . . . :

  :At least they’re not Holderkin.:

  Joss snorted. :No, true. But anyone except them.:

  Still, he’d learned to take a snub long ago, so Joss gave a knee signal for Dash to trot over to a clump of four folk who weren’t huddled quite as tightly as some of the others.

  He dismounted while still a few strides away, to be polite, and said, “Good afternoon. My condolences on the loss of your Baron. He was a good man.”

  The four, two grown women, a young man, and a girl nearing womanhood, exchanged quick glances, then nodded to him.

  “Our thanks, Herald,” said one of the women, her short hair silver-brown and curly. “He did be a good man, a good lord. A fair lord. We’ll that miss him.”

  A tense silence grew for a few moments, then just as Joss began to say, “Might there be anything—?” the young girl blurted, “May’p he be helping us!”

  The other woman, whose hair was darker brown and limp, glared down at the girl and snapped, “Hush, Bruny!”

  Joss glanced at them and spread his hands with a shallow bow. “If you’ve a problem, I’ll try to help. It’s what I’m here for.”

  The girl bounced on her heels a time or two but stayed silent, looking at the women and the young man, who, Joss figured, were likely her mother and brother, plus a neighbor or an aunt or some such.

  “There’s naught to be doing,” said the darker woman, her voice low and resigned. “It be the law. The old Baron did be softer with it, but it be the law and there’s no denying it. N’even a Herald won’t go agin’ the law.” She gave him a hard look, as though daring him to contradict her.

  “No, you’re right. I’ll not go against the law,” Joss allowed. “But sometimes a solid law has a postern gate through it or ’round the back, if you know where to look.”

  More looks went back and forth; the two women communicated with silent head tilts and raised eyebrows that had Joss convinced they had to be sisters.

  Finally the curly-haired one said, “Ask. If he kin card it out smooth, so to the good. If not, it be hurting none.”

  “It be hurting us if the new Baron do be riled, and yon Herald rides away with us left behind!” protested the darker woman.

  “If there’s nothing I can do, I’ll say nothing to the Baron,” said Joss. “What can it hurt to explain?”

  More looks and eyebrow quirks, then the darker woman shrugged with one shoulder. “I be telling then. But we be walking, getting home before dark.”

  Joss agreed and tucked Dash’s reins onto the saddle so he could follow without tripping while Joss walked with the Tolmen. The curly-haired woman said, “I be Adrun, and this be Agrun, my little sister. Her Ulren and her Bruny.”

  “Well met,” said Joss. “I’m Herald Josswyn and my companion is Dashell.” Dash gave a little whinny and nodded his head when the Tolmen turned round to look.

  Bruny stared, wide-eyed and giggled when Dash winked at her.

  “If you like, you may walk with Dash,” said Joss. “He likes meeting new people.”

  “Can I talk to him? Her? Him?” she asked, her eyes going even wider. They were brown eyes, bright with wonder.

  “Him,” said Joss. “And yes, you can. He can’t answer back with words, unless you can Mindspeak. But if you ask questions, he can nod and shake his head.”

  She made a squealy noise only young girls meeting a Companion—or a particularly cute kitten or puppy—seem able to make and skipped back to walk next to Dash.

  :If she chatters my ear off, I’ll blame you,: said Dash. But Joss could hear the humor in it, so he just smirked over his shoulder at his Companion.

  They headed east, the rest of the way through the small town, past a carpenter’s yard and a bakery giving off wonderfully savory smells into the air. They paused and Adrun went inside, returning with a clay pot wrapped in layers of thick rag.

  “Supper,” she said to Joss. “Tis only bean pottage, but you be welcome to sup with us, may’p you’ve a mind.”

  “Thank you, but I should not,” said Joss with another bow, hoping not to give offense. “If I’m to help you, it would be best if there’s no appearance of bribery, however slight. We have our own provisions, and I’ll sleep on the common.”

  “As you be liking,” said Adrun with a nod.

  They passed through another, smaller, opening in the earthen wall and walked on down the track through rough meadows. More low buildings, stone and sod, clustered near town, thinning out as they moved farther away.

  “So,” said Adrun, “the old Baron be passed, and Lord Gaulvan, he be the new Baron now.”

  Agrun gave her sister a sharp look and took up the tale. “That did be four days agone. The day after that one, my Ulden passed. My husband, he did be.”

  “I’m very sorry,” said Joss. “That must have been hard.”

  “It did be hard. Do be hard,” Agrun said, looking away.

  “It would be less hard if he’d passed some days earlier,” said her sister.

  “Adrun!” Agrun glared and drove a bony elbow into her sister’s ribs.

  “It be
hard but true!” Adrun glared right back, moving out of elbow range. “If he’d passed while the old Baron still lived, we’d not be looking at starving come winter!”

  “May’p so, but it be cruel to think and more cruel to say.”

  Before the sisters could settle into their brangle, Joss said, “So the new Baron is doing things differently?”

  “Yay, he be,” said Agrun. “He be claiming best beast of all the farm families. N’any be spared.”

  “We only be having the one ram,” blurted Ulren, looking away from his mother and aunt. “It be na right!”

  “Ulren, hush!” His mother scowled at him, but he scowled right back.

  “I’ll not! I be the man of the hearth now! I should say! I should be the one to be fixing it!” He stood with his back straight, but his knuckles were clenched white; Joss could tell the thought of “fixing it”—which doubtless would require bringing a protest to the Baron, or at least his reeve—was rather terrifying to the boy.

  “Until you be having a wife, you be not man of anything,” his mother retorted. She looked away from Ulren as though that settled things, and she said to Joss, “He do be saying true, however much he be sassing. We be having shares of eighteen sheep. It be paying rent on the house, but no more. Bouncer be a fine ram. Studding be nigh only trade we be having. If the Baron does be claiming him as best beast, it’ll be leaving us with nothing.”

  Joss remembered the “best beast” rule from his law classes at Collegium. It was a law the Tolmen had brought with them from wherever place they’d left centuries ago. When a head of household died, his liege lord could claim the household’s best beast as a sort of inheritance tax.

  “And the old Baron would’ve overlooked the best beast law?”

  “Yay,” said Agrun with a nod. “If a household be in a hard way, he did be choosing another beast. Or even be forgetting entire. One of the ewes would be fine eating for the Baron’s household for some days, or would add a fine wooler to the Baron’s flock, but Lord Gaulvan is being a hard man, now he sits in the chair. We’ve a cousin Adrun could live with, she be a hard worker, but we three be too much.”

  “Surely your neighbors wouldn’t let you starve?” asked Joss, while searching his memory for anything that might help.

  “Nay, but living on scraps and hand-offs . . . that be a hard thing too.” Her mouth set in a grim, tight line, and the creases in her forehead and beside her eyes and mouth deepened.

  Joss could see the shame in her eyes, and he knew he had to help somehow.

  They arrived at a small sod house with a stamped-earth yard in front. The fenced yard in the rear was all grass, the domain of a healthy looking ram with light beige wool and curly horns, doubtless the “Bouncer” Agrun had mentioned. He didn’t look terribly bouncy, but likely he had been so as a lamb.

  The family went inside to eat their pottage. Joss went around back, beyond the yard, and laid out his blanket on the rough grass. He fetched water for Dash from a narrow creek that bubbled across the meadow a short walk away and scooped some oats into his feed bag before preparing his own dinner of bread softened with a bit of salted water and a couple of strips of dried mutton. The meat was salty and strongly gamey, and it offset the blandness of the bread well enough.

  :What do you think?: he asked Dash. :How likely is it that the new Baron will show some mercy to a family in need?:

  :I suppose he might,: said Dash. :I wouldn’t bet my next meal on it, though. He made it clear in the plaza that he intends to follow the letter of the law. Doubtless his reeve will carry that out.:

  :That’s the impression I got.: Joss blew out a frustrated breath. :All those years working beside his father, you’d think he’d have learned when to temper law with compassion.:

  :Some folk never do,: said Dash. :Unfortunately, the law is on his side.:

  :Perhaps he’ll take a ewe instead? Or two ewes? For an extra beast, he might agree to leave the ram be.:

  :You can ask,: said Dash. He sounded dubious, though, and Joss agreed it wasn’t likely.

  * * *

  • • •

  The next day, Joss rose early and hiked back out to the creek to have a wash and fetch water. While he was there, he heard a young woman, likely Bruny, singing as she approached. The fringe of trees and bushes hugging the creek screened her from sight until she was nearly upon him, so he called out, “Good morning, Bruny,” when she was still some few steps away, so as not to startle her.

  The singing broke off, then she called back, “Fine morning, Herald Josswyn.”

  “You may call me Joss if you like,” he said, and he smiled as she appeared down the narrow path. She wore a wooden yoke over her shoulders with three clay jugs hanging from each end. “Let me help you fill your jugs.”

  “Thankee, Herald Joss,” she said with a pleased smile.

  He took one of the jugs and held it down in the fresh, running stream to fill. “You’ve a lovely voice, Bruny. Do you enjoy singing?”

  “Oh, yay! I be like a little bird, me mam be saying!” She dipped two jugs, one in each hand, and added, “I be hearing there be folk who are being singers for their work? In Haven?”

  “That’s right,” said Joss. “And not just in Haven. Bards are trained in Haven, at the Bardic Collegium. And plenty of minstrels sing for their suppers throughout the land.”

  “So, it be true!” she said, beaming. “Ulren be saying it be just a tale, but I was being sure it be true.”

  “It be true,” said Joss with a grin. “I’m not an expert—I can sing a bit, but I have no great skill at it. But you’ve a clear, true voice.”

  Bruny set her jugs on the bank, handed Joss an empty for his full one, and took two more empties for herself, working in silence for some moments. Then, her voice low, she asked, “Do you think may’p I could be learning to be a Bard? If I could be going to Haven some way?”

  “You could always try,” said Joss, thinking about it. It might not be a bad idea, if he could arrange safe passage for the girl, someone to look after her on the trip. If she were accepted at Bardic, it’d be one less child for her mother to feed and clothe. For that matter, if Bruny got through training, she could eventually send a bit of coin home.

  It’s not a solution entire, he thought to himself, but sometimes solutions to problems come bit by bit.

  “Do you know any especially happy songs?” he asked Bruny. “Or even any very sad ones?”

  “Oh, yay,” she said. “Be you wanting a song?”

  “Yes, if you please. Sing me something from your heart.”

  She cocked her head at him, then set down her jugs in the water and stood straight. She launched into a bouncy, rollicking song about a young he-lamb who’d tired of being a sheep, so he tried to fly like a bird, and swim like a fish, and burrow like a worm, coming to humorous grief each time. Joss couldn’t help but laugh, Bruny’s mirthful pleasure in the song threading into his very bones as he listened.

  She had the Gift, he was sure of it. It wasn’t that funny a song, but her singing it made it so.

  “You’ve the Bardic Gift, Bruny,” he said when she finished. “The masters at the Collegium would be very pleased to have you.”

  “Be it true?” Her eyes went as wide as her smile. “You’ll not be saying it to make a child happy? I be not a child, you know, and be not needing such coddles!”

  “It’s true, I promise. I’ll speak with your mother, and do what I can to see you safely to Haven, if she agrees.”

  “Oh, thankee!” Bruny splashed over to him and squeezed him tight enough to nearly crush his ribs.

  When they finished filling the jugs, he offered to take two of them from her, but she refused, saying she was used to the weight, and it was much harder without the yoke. She stepped smartly for home, and Joss had to stretch his legs to keep up with her, even unburdened.

  Bruny’s h
appy burbling completely confused her mother, but Joss broke in gently and explained.

  “It’s a Gift, Agrun. Like my Mindspeech. A kind of magic. The Bardic Gift is valued highly in Haven, and she’d have good schooling, at no cost to you. They’d see to her needs and prepare her to be a Bard. It’s a good trade.” The Bardic Masters would doubtless be horrified to hear their craft called such, but he thought Agrun would understand it in those terms.

  “And people be truly . . . singing? For their work?” she asked, clearly dubious.

  “Yes. Many people do. With her Gift, Bruny could be a Bard,” he repeated. “Minstrels can have a hard life, but a Gifted Bard will never go wanting. Once she’s through her schooling, she could send home a coin now and again.”

  “It would be lessening the burden,” said Adrun. “If they’ll be feeding her and such.”

  “My daughter be no burden!” snapped Agrun.

  “We all be burdens,” Adrun snapped right back. “That be why you be pushing me to live with Cousin Tern, because I be a burden once Bouncer be gone. I know it, and I be not too proud to own it. If these Bard folk be willing to keep Bruny, that be one step farther from starving you and Ulren will be.”

  Agrun glared, looking as though she wanted to deny it all, but clearly she couldn’t. She huffed out a breath and gave her daughter a sharp stare. “You be wanting this?”

  “Yay, mam! Please?”

  Agrun stared out the one small window for a few moments, then her shoulders slumped, just a little. “Then yay,” she said. “If the Herald can arrange it.”

  “Thankee, mam!” Bruny bounced over and hugged her mother, much as she’d hugged Joss, but for longer. Agrun murmured something to her, and she murmured something back. Joss couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he was happy something was working out.

  Joss excused himself from the family and rode Dash back into town, in search of the reeve. He had an office at the manor, and over Joss’s objections, he shooed two farmers out of it to receive Joss with no waiting. Courtesy aside, though, he had no good news for Agrun and her family.