Lark and Wren

by Mercedes Lackey

  Power corrupted; power made it easy to see what you wanted as something that was morally "right." Power made it easy to find excuses. Had King Rolend already fallen victim to the seductive magic that Power sang?

  Those who voiced those questions hoped for the "lost prince" to return as someone who had not yet fallen victim to that seductive song. Rune couldn't help noticing that they used the same words in describing this mythical Sional as the Priests used in describing the Sacrificed God. . . .

  But behind all these well-meaning and earnest folk, these dreamers and mystics, there were always the others. The powerful who had lost the power they craved, the Priests who had been toppled from thrones of their own, the pampered and indulged who had fallen from grace.

  If they found Sional they'd make him over into exactly the image the others craved. The pure innocent.

  The pure innocent fool, who'll say whatever they tell him to say. . . .

  But there was one possible way that Sional could win back his throne without becoming a puppet. To take it the same way that his uncle had. Except that instead of soldiers, he'd have Bardic magic on his side. Magic that might even make it possible to avoid killing King Rolend and the cousin he vaguely remembered.

  And if that was what he truly wanted-well, Rune would back him, and she suspected that Talaysen would, too. They'd had some long, late-night discussions about good government, about the seduction of power. Discussions that reminded her poignantly of the ones she'd had with Tonno.

  They'd slipped into more than a dozen meetings of these purported enemies of the King, most of which were held on Church grounds, which somehow hadn't surprised her much. She and Talaysen had gotten fairly adept at rooting out who the malcontents were, convincing them to reveal what they knew with a focused thought and a few hummed phrases of music. They were even more adept at going to the meeting-places cloaked, and persuading the guards with their magic that they were trusted conspirators. Once or twice, they'd even put guards to sleep that way. This magic, though it left them weary, still represented a lot of power, and it was very tempting to use it for more than defense. And it was in one of those discussions of power that Rune had realized with a little shock how easy it was to just use it. Power was as seductive as anything else, and now she could see why others had succumbed to the lure of it, even in the Church. How close had she and the others come to that kind of attitude, where the end was more important than the means, and all that mattered was that the end be theirs?

  That was when they'd had other discussions, about the kind of people who were behind the uneasy stirrings of unrest. Unspoken agreement had been reached about the use of magic, then, and the late-night sorties into the camps of the conspirators ended.

  She knew that Talaysen was worried. However well-meaning Sion was, how could he stay out of the hands of those people for long once he revealed who and what he was? And if he somehow managed to, against all odds, how long would he be able to hold his throne? How long could he play their game without getting caught at it?

  She sighed, and the mules flicked back their ears at the sound.

  They'd turn against him eventually-unless he managed to play the Church against the nobles, and vice versa-and use the Guild to keep both sides stirred up.

  She shook her head, and rubbed her temple. Her head ached from all the unresolved problems. A man as old as Rolend, and as experienced, could probably do just that. In fact, there were some signs that he had begun to play that very game, now that his country was stable and prosperous. Several of the little cabals they had visited had been very suspicious of outsiders, and not as agents from the King, but as agents from one of the other groups. That must surely be Rolend's work, at least in part.

  But could Sional play that kind of game?

  I don't know. Talaysen could-but Sional-he's no older than I am. And I don't think I could, not for long.

  And there was one final concern-insignificant so far as the fate of a kingdom was concerned, but one that was tearing her heart in two.

  Gwyna.

  Gypsy Robin had fallen in love with Kestrel, and he with her. And now, the nearer they came to the palace and the throne, the more Gwyna looked at Kestrel and saw Prince Sional.

  Prince Sional, who could not possibly marry even with a commoner, much less with a Gypsy.

  Gwyna grieved-characteristically, in silence, hiding her grief behind a smile and a quick wit. But she mourned Kestrel's loss already. Rune felt it, and she could do nothing, for there was nothing she could do. Their worlds could not be reconciled. If Prince Sional took his throne, Kestrel died.

  If Prince Sional failed in his attempt to take his throne, Kestrel died.

  But if Kestrel was to live, something must be done about the assassins. And what that solution was, Rune had no idea.

  It wasn't possible that the King would believe that Sional didn't want the throne. And even if he did, he must know that the moment his enemies discovered Sional's existence, they'd try to use him.

  So even if Prince Sional gave up his throne, sooner or later, Kestrel would die.

  If Talaysen had any plans on that score, he hadn't confided them to her.

  So they had their answers now-but they weren't any help. And Rune couldn't keep herself from feeling that she was driving their little wagon into a maze with no escape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The wagon seemed the safest place to stay, all things considered. Rune found a travelers' inn that would let them pull their wagon in behind the stable for a fee. It was clean, shaded and secluded back there; evidently there were often travelers staying in their own conveyances, and the inn had set up this little yard for them. A little more money produced fodder and water for the mules, and gave them use of the inn bathhouse. While the others got their baths, she fetched some hot food from the inn's kitchen; they were all tired of their own limited cooking abilities. They returned about the same time she did, and she went for her wash.

  By the time she got back, it was obvious from the tense atmosphere in the wagon that Kestrel was about to make a decision, and had been waiting for her to return. He and Gwyna sat on one bunk, not touching, and Talaysen sat facing them. The food was hardly touched, Gwyna was sitting very still and her face had no color at all, and Talaysen had not bothered to light the lamps.

  Rune climbed into the wagon, lit the lamp beside the door herself and shut the door behind her. Kestrel cleared his throat self-consciously, and Gwyna jumped.

  "I-I d-d-don't want the d-d-d-d-damn th-throne," he said, thickly. "I w-wouldn't b-be ha-ha-half the K-King m-my uncle is. I'm a g-g-good m-musician. I'd be a ho-horrible K-King!"

  Gwyna made a curious little sound, half laugh, half sob. Talaysen let out the breath he'd been holding in, and Rune sat down on the bunk with a thud.

  "I can't tell you how glad I am that you've decided that," Talaysen said, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "I agree with you. But that just gives us another problem. How the hell are we going to keep you alive?" He reached for his mug of cider and took a long drink. Rune picked up a barely warm meat pie to nibble on. Their problems weren't over yet; in fact, as Talaysen had pointed out, they'd just begun.

  "C-can't we k-keep d-doing what w-we have b-been?" Kestrel asked, after a moment of forlorn hesitation.

  Rune and Talaysen both shook their heads, and Rune spoke first. "Sooner or later he's going to find another kind of seeking-charm, and give the new ones to his agents. We won't know how to counter them, and they'll find you again. And while we're waiting for that to happen, some of these other lunatics we've seen are going to realize you really are alive, and come looking for you themselves. Then what?"

  She put the pie down; her appetite was entirely gone.

  Sional set his mouth stubbornly and raised his chin. "I t-tell them t-to g-go t-to hell."

  "And when they find a mage to change your mind for you?" Talaysen asked, gently. "Oh, don't shake your head, Kestrel. They've got mages, especially Church mages. An
d ask Gwyna how powerful some of them are. She spent several days as a bird-a real bird, with feathers-and for anyone who can turn a woman into a bird, taking over your mind would be a mere exercise." He closed his eyes for a moment. "What we've begun to learn-it's nothing compared to what happened to Gwyna. I think that one day, we will be powerful enough to protect you from all of them. Rune, especially; I've never heard of anyone facing down elves the way she did. But we aren't that strong yet."

  "I-I d-d-d-" He paused, and flushed. "I h-have to t-talk t-to my uncle," he said, his eyes meeting first Rune's, then Gwyna's. "I d-don't kn-know what else t-t-to s-say. H-he w-wasn't always l-like th-this. M-m-maybe if I t-talk t-to him, he'll und-d-derstand. And l-leave m-me al-l-lone. Th-that's th-the only th-thing I c-can th-think of." His face twisted up, and he looked about to cry. "R-Robin, I l-l-l-"

  She caught his hands in hers. "I know that," she replied. "I do, I know that. I love you. And if there's any way I can make you safe-"

  "How are we going to get you to him?" Rune asked. "That's the first question-"

  "I c-c-an remember th-the p-palace, g-g-good enough to d-draw a m-map," he said. "If Master Wr-wren c-can d-do what P-P-Peregrine d-did to m-make m-me remember-"

  "I can," Talaysen said slowly. "Then what?"

  "I f-find a w-way to t-talk t-to my uncle alone," Sion repeated. "In h-his b-bedroom, m-maybe. If I c-can t-talk t-to him alone, h-he'll have to believe me!"

  "First problem," Rune pointed out. "Getting into the palace."

  "You can leave that to me," Talaysen told her. "I've slipped into a fair number of buildings in my time. The easiest way in is as a servant, openly, since servants are invisible to those they serve."

  "Next problem-what if your uncle won't believe you?" Gwyna was still pale, and she didn't look as if she liked this plan at all.

  "Magic," Rune said. "At least we can keep him convinced long enough for us to get out of here and somewhere safer. After that-well, our influence is going to wear off after a while."

  "I say we can fake Kestrel's death once we're well away," Talaysen said unexpectedly. "I faked my own, I ought to be able to do his!"

  Slowly Gwyna's color came back, and she nodded. "That should work," she said, and grinned a little-a feeble grin, but it was there, and real. "If it makes him safe from his uncle and those greedy fools, that's the best solution of all."

  Rune sighed with relief. Good sense to the rescue, she thought. "The only question I can see is, the fake won't hold forever-it didn't for Master Wren. Then what? We're right back at the beginning!"

  Talaysen chuckled, much to her surprise, and evidently to Kestrel and Robin's as well, from the incredulous looks they gave him.

  "Kestrel wasn't a famous Bardic Guild Master who refused to quit making music," he said. "That was my own fault. If I'd had the sense to become a carpenter or something, they'd never have found me again. Kestrel, on the other hand, is not going to go find himself another position as a prince, and no one but us knows he really is a Bard."

  "All right," Rune said. "I can accept that. So now the question is-how to we get into the palace? Everything we want to do hinges on that. If we can't get in and convince Rolend long enough to give us that breathing space to fake a death, we can't make all this work."

  "I've been thinking for the past week or so," Talaysen said slowly. "Trying to come up with a plan that would work whether Kestrel wanted the crown or not-and I think I've got one."

  He couldn't possibly have said anything that would have had a better chance of capturing their attention. As one, they leaned forward to listen.

  Talaysen nodded, as if he was satisfied. "Remember what I said about servants being invisible? Think about that-then remember what Rune and I can do to fog peoples' thoughts and confuse them. Combine those two factors, and I think we can get in ourselves, find a way into the private quarters, for all of us, and once we have that, we have everything. Now-here is what we do, to start. Or rather, what Rune and I do. . . ."

  * * *

  Rune scrubbed pots with a will, her hands deep in lukewarm, soapy water. and kept her head down with her hair straggling into her eyes.

  She hummed as she worked, concentrating on not being noticed. The girl whose clothes she had stolen was her same height and general build, but she looked nothing like the Bard-and while she could use magic to keep people from looking too closely at her, if she worked too hard at bespelling people now, she'd have no energy reserves for dealing with King Rolend later. The kitchen suffered from lack of light, though, which was to her advantage. Talaysen and the other two looked a great deal more like their own counterparts, but she was the weakest link here; there simply weren't too many women with Rune's inches.

  Too bad she didn't have another job, Rune thought, with an idle corner of her mind, as she chipped away at some burnt-on porridge that had been left there since this morning. When I left the Bear, I thought I'd left this behind me too. Ick. I hate pot-scrubbing.

  The stone-walled kitchen, too small for the number of people crowded into it, was ill-lit, with only two lanterns for the whole room, cramped and hot; in the inevitable confusion of dinner preparation it had been fairly simple for them to slip into the root-cellar to hide, then to lure individuals away and knock them out with a song of sleep. Their victims would be found in the cellar some-time tomorrow, but the chances of their being discovered before then was fairly remote-Talaysen had waited until the last foray after roots and onions was over before sending them to dreams. There was no reason for anyone to go down there now, and raw roots weren't high on anyone's list of edibles to steal. King Rolend's expert handling of his people extended to his kitchens and servants-they were all well-fed, and if they stole anything to munch on, it would be a bit of meat or a pastry, not a raw onion.

  The pot-scrubbers ate first, even before the courtiers and high servants that the meal had been prepared for, so the only time anyone said anything to Rune and her fellow cleaners, it was about the dirty dishes. Other than that, they were left alone.

  She freed a hand long enough to wipe sweat from her forehead and the back of her neck. The other three had taken the place of other cleaners and sweepers. Gwyna was two stations over, in charge of pewter mugs and utensils; Talaysen and Sional had been in charge of carrying garbage out to the compost-heaps. Now they waited, brooms in hand, for the signal that the nobles were finished eating. That was when they and the other cleaners would trot up the steps into the dining-hall-

  That is, that's what they would do if they really were sweepers.

  The lowest of the low, the invisibles. Dull-witted, just bright enough to clean up after others, not bright enough to be any danger to anyone. That was the kind of servant Talaysen had been looking for to impersonate. Someone no one in his right mind would ever suspect.

  It wouldn't be long now. The great ovens were closed; the last of the pastry courses had been sent out. Servants were trickling out of the kitchen, in the opposite direction of the stair they were going to take; heading for the barn-like servants' hall and their own dinner. A gong sounded above, as Rune watched them out of the corner of her eye. That was the signal that dinner was over, and no one was lingering over food or wanted something else. The cooks gathered up the last of their utensils and dropped them in the nearest dishtub. The cleaners could now begin their job-

  The chief cook and all her helpers swept out of the room, chattering and complaining, which left no one to oversee the kitchen itself. The drudges on dishwashing duty were normally half-wits at best, like Maeve; dull creatures that would do anything they'd been set at until the last dish was washed, or until they were stopped and set on something new. They wouldn't notice when Gwyna and Rune left.

  Talaysen and Sional hung back from the rest of the sweepers; like the drudges, the sweepers weren't the brightest of folk. Probably no one would notice that they were missing until noses were counted-and then it would be assumed that the missing men were either off drinking filched wine, or tupping the mis
sing drudges. When servants were missing, their superiors generally assumed "improper conduct" rather than anything sinister, and the lowlier the servant, the more likely that was. That was why Talaysen had chosen the ones he had; the ones thought to be shiftless, ne'er-do-wells. When he and Rune had made their earlier foray into the kitchens, there'd been trouble with those two men over laziness and slacking. For the kitchen steward, it would simply seem a repetition of the same, with the tall simpleton drawn into the group to make up a foursome.

  Gwyna and Rune dropped what they'd been working on back into the dishtubs and joined the men. As they had figured, the other drudges didn't even look up form their work.

  "Follow me," Talaysen whispered, propping his broom in an out-of-the-way corner full of shadows where it might not be seen for a while. Kestrel did the same. Rune wiped her hands on her apron, grateful that the King's concern for his servants extended to keeping them bathed and clean. Some of the drudges she'd seen in inn kitchens would have given them away by the reek of their stolen clothing, and there weren't any fleas to torment the conspirators with unexpected biting at precisely the wrong moment.

  They followed Talaysen up a back stair-not quietly, but yawning and letting their feet scuff against the stairsteps, talking among themselves as if they had just finished dinner and were heading for bed. Talaysen first, followed by Kestrel-then Robin and Rune together, as if they were two best friends, whispering and giggling behind Kestrel's back. This part of the staircase was well and brightly lit, and it would have been impossible to slip past the guard posted at the entrance to the second floor-so they weren't even going to try. Instead, they were going to be as obvious as possible.