Bard's Oath (Dragonlord)

by Joanne Bertin

  But could he trust him? He didn’t dare. Shima Ilyathan was a Dragonlord. Rann couldn’t take the chance that his sympathies might be with Bard Leet. Why, what if the Dragonlord considered this some kind of, of … sacrilege? Being a prince wouldn’t help him escape punishment if a Dragonlord denounced him. It would only lessen the severity of that punishment.

  But Kella had no rank of her own to protect her, just his friendship and her kinship to Maurynna. And she was the one actually trespassing in a senior bard’s chamber; everyone’s wrath would fall upon her. At the least she’d be banned from the castle. He’d never see her again.

  Was it beginning already? Surely Bard Leet had been gone too long just to retrieve a music case. Rann’s imagination presented image after horrible image: Leet catching Kella playing his harp; Leet hitting her, dragging her out into the hallway as he yelled for the guards; Kella being dragged away by the soldiers. Worst of all, a weeping Kella lying on the filthy straw in a dungeon cell, to remain there until she died.

  Despite the sunshine, Rann turned cold at the thought of the last image. But he didn’t dare let any of his fears show.

  “No, Dragonlord,” he told Shima. “Nothing’s amiss. Nothing at all.” He pulled up a handful of grass and concentrated on the blades drifting through his fingers back to the earth so that he wouldn’t have to meet Shima Ilyathan’s worried gaze.

  Twenty-nine

  Against her will and despite the stiffness in her hand, Kella’s fingers danced unerringly through the unknown song. Not once did she damp the wire strings; they rang on and on. Yet the sound never muddied as it should have. Instead each new note added its voice to the others, added another layer to wrap her in darkness. To catch and keep her.…

  Her heart pounded; whatever was in the harp wanted to devour her. She knew it. She was terrified as she’d never been in all her eight years, yet could do no more than stare in horror as her fingers darted like mad swallows. Why hadn’t Otter or Daera ever mentioned that there was a curse on a bard’s harp to punish someone playing without permission?

  She had to stop—she had to! Or else whatever was in the harp would eat her very soul. But her hands, burning with the unholy cold emanating from the strings, would not obey her. She played on and on.

  Finally, in pure desperation, Kella swung her head sharply, smashing her cheek into the top edge of the soundbox. The instrument slewed in her arms, turning the run of notes into musical gibberish. Her cheek throbbed as if she’d been clubbed, but she was free. She clapped her hands together from either side of the harp, trapping some of the strings between her tight-pressed palms, silencing their deadly ringing. She slid her hands down the rest of the strings. Note by note, the sweet, poisonous sound died away.

  Silence had never been so welcome. Kella’s hands dropped heavily to her sides; they felt like lead weights—if lead weights could burn with cold. With an effort almost beyond her, she held them up before her face. They way they feel, they should be bleeding or blistered, she thought hazily. She felt strangely detached from the pain in her hands and what had just happened; her thoughts blundered through a fog, impossible to catch and shake into order. She fancied she could almost hear them whimpering like blind puppies lost from their mother.

  Then the last sound she wanted to hear brought her back to herself: the rattling of the latch.

  She was caught! For a moment that lasted beyond forever, she stood frozen with panic, listening to whoever was on the other side struggle with the stiff catch. Then, with a swift movement, Kella threw the heavy silk covering back over the harp. The next instant she dove under the bed—and smacked her head on the corner of something already there. Blinking back tears of pain, Kella squirmed around it, pushing aside a sack full of something that rustled and smelled faintly sweet, rather like honey. She settled herself so that she could peek into the room, but well back so that she couldn’t be seen. It severely limited her range of vision, but she didn’t dare risk moving closer to the edge of the bed.

  It was only as the door swung open that Kella remembered the ewer and towel on the little table. Kella prayed as hard as she could that whoever it was wouldn’t notice them beside the basin.

  He—for the boots that were all she could see were definitely those of a man—didn’t seem to, thank all the gods. Whoever he was walked across the floor, breathing heavily as if he’d been running.

  Kella held her breath, staring at those boots. They were of too good quality for a servant. This was Bard Leet himself. Would he notice the cloth over the harp had been moved? Would he notice the ewer? Would he find her?

  The boots crossed to the bed and turned. The bed ropes above Kella creaked as the mattress pushed down against them. She pressed herself against the floor. One foot disappeared from sight. She heard a soft grunt.

  Kella stared in horror at the stockinged foot that reappeared within her range of vision. What was the bard doing?

  “Gods—I haven’t run that far in ages. Whew!”

  She listened to him catch his breath. Then a horrible thought flashed into her mind. Oh gods—what if he lies down for a nap?

  She nearly yelped from sheer nerves when a tiny pebble hit the floor and tik-tik-tikked across the tiles to rest bare inches from her nose. Kella pressed her hand over her mouth.

  “Ah, that’s better.”

  She remembered to breathe. It was just a stone in his boot, she thought. But her relief was short-lived.

  The bed ropes creaked again as Leet lay across the bed. “Trying to get out again?” the bard asked. He sounded amused.

  Kella was too stunned to answer right away. How did he know? Did someone see me after all? Or did he see the ewer and towel?

  Then the bard plucked the lowest string of the harp. It sang, though muffled by the heavy silk.

  That was cruel! He doesn’t have to mock—

  Had her hand not been over her mouth, Kella would have cried out as one all-important detail suddenly dawned on her: She could still see one of the bard’s feet on the floor in front of her. Even lying across the bed, Bard Leet couldn’t have plucked that string, not unless he’d wriggled all the way across the wide bed first—the harp was too far away on the other side. She doubted if even Linden could reach it, and he was the tallest person she knew. Yet Leet still had that one foot on this side of the bed. That meant …

  That meant the harp had played by itself.

  No, it can’t be. That’s impossible!

  More strings joined, the lowest chord it could play. And now she heard a word in those notes: Blood.

  BloodbloodbloodbloodBLOOOOOOD, the harp sang over and over.

  Kella hoped she’d never hear anything like it again; it made her feel as if something cold and slimy and with far too many legs squirmed down her back. She closed her eyes, wondering if she’d gone mad, trying not to cry in sheer terror. Better to think about how much her cheek and forehead hurt. That was ordinary—and safe.

  Yet if she had gone mad, so, it seemed, had Leet. For the bard chuckled and said, “No, no blood for you today, friend Gull.”

  Gull? Who’s Gull? Then Kella remembered the mark burned into the harp.

  Leet went on, “There are no fawns or rabbits or squirrels to charm in here.”

  The chord warped into angry dissonance.

  The bard laughed softly, a sound that chilled Kella to the bone. “Well-a-well, perhaps someday we’ll get that bastard alone, so don’t lose hope. But today you shall remain here. It’s safer—there are too many people wandering the gardens today. When I think back on how that child nearly…”

  The strings thrummed so violently Kella thought they would snap. Above her, the ropes creaked again as Leet sat upright once more.

  Kella lay sick and shaking, her eyes squeezed shut, hardly aware when Leet put his boot back on and got up, or when he walked around the bed to the harp on the table. When he spoke, his words barely penetrated the miasma of fear and shock that gripped her.

  “You really must stop
disarranging your cover, friend Gull,” the bard said as if he spoke to another person—or the harp could understand him. “After all—it’s not as if you could go anywhere by yourself, now is it?”

  Dimly she heard the rustle of silk, and an eerie few chords that nearly made her scream; she knew those chords only too well. They were part of the diabolical tune with which the harp had almost trapped her.

  But Leet only laughed again. “No, I haven’t changed my mind. I want this music case and your sister, not you.”

  Next she heard him go to one of the chests at the foot of the bed, heard it open. Next came a rustling sound, followed by the lid slamming shut once more.

  She listened to his boot heels cross the floor to the door, listened as the door swung shut once more.

  Get up, get up, get up and get out of here, her mind whimpered desperately.

  But she was as afraid to move as she was to stay. What if, when she crawled out from under the bed, she saw the harp moving under its cover? From what Bard Leet had said, it could! What if—may the gods forbid it—it played by itself once more, and called her?

  What if she went to it?

  Tears welled from beneath her eyelids. She had to leave, and leave now. Weeping, she scrabbled forward, determined to at least keep the width of the bed between her and the hellish thing on the table.

  She burst from under the bed. Keeping her gaze upon the tiles before her, she half crawled, half stumbled as fast as she could to the door. Behind her she heard the first chords of the demon song, soft and mocking. Only instinct made her snatch up the ewer and towel before opening the door and running out into the hall.

  The scented water, cool now, sloshed over her hands as she ran. She didn’t care; all she wanted was to get as far away from that harp as she could.

  Tears streaming down her face, she ran through the castle as if a nightmare chased her. And, still hearing the harp’s song in her mind, she wondered if it was no more than the truth. What had just happened was so awful she wanted it to be a dream. The only thought in her mind was to reach her own room and hide there.

  People called after her as she raced headlong down the halls. Some sounded concerned, others furious at the way she pushed by. She ignored them all, lord, lady, or servant. If she stopped, it would get her.

  At last she reached the shelter of her little chamber. Kella burst into the room and, casting aside the ewer, threw herself onto her bed and burrowed headfirst beneath the blanket.

  Despite the stifling heat, she lay shivering, the horrible tune still running through her mind as if it would never let her go. It didn’t release her until she cried herself into an exhausted sleep.

  * * *

  By the time Bard Leet came back around the rose hedge, Bramble was snoring gently in the sun, and the patch of lawn around Rann was well on its way to looking as if a starving gopher had fallen upon it. When Rann saw the harp in the bard’s arms, he felt sick to his stomach. Had Kella—? He was afraid to even complete the thought.

  But … the bard was smiling. It was a moment before that realization penetrated the panic shrouding Rann’s mind. The young prince heaved a huge sigh of relief.

  If he’d caught Kella, he wouldn’t look so happy. He’d still be furious. Hurrah! She must have gotten away! he thought, nearly bouncing with delight. He could feel Shima Ilyathan’s concerned—and suspicious—gaze on him, but kept his own on the Master Bard.

  “I brought my own harp,” Bard Leet announced, “because it has a larger range than yours, Your Highness.” To Shima he explained, “It makes it easier to work out the accompaniment, Dragonlord.”

  Shima Ilyathan nodded. “I see.”

  It sounded as if he did, too; Rann wondered glumly if he was the only person in the world who couldn’t understand music. Scales and modes and inversions and major and minor keys and chords and the gods only knew what else. The most frustrating part was that the wretched chords wouldn’t stay decently in one shape, but turned themselves inside out on top of everything else—and not once, but twice! No wonder they kept falling out of his head. And Kella understood everything so easily.…

  Rann sighed at the unfairness of it all. She’d better have a good tale to tell him when this was all over.

  Bard Leet sat on the grass and arranged some parchment scores from his music case before him, then settled his traveling harp in his lap. “If you would kindly begin again, Your Grace.”

  Worn out with worrying, Rann lay on the grass alongside Bramble as Shima Ilyathan sang that song and others for Leet’s benefit. He wanted nothing more than to run off and find Kella, but thought it best to stay and listen as if he had nothing better to do. Shima Ilyathan was already watching him too closely.

  So Rann pillowed his head on the wolfhound’s sturdy flank and watched the bard’s clever fingers move along the strings, echoing Shima Ilyathan’s song.

  I wonder why he had the luthier put a seagull on the harp—they don’t have pretty voices was the last thought to drift across his mind before he fell asleep in the warm sun.

  Thirty

  Leet wandered through the gardens, harp case on his back, the small oil lamp in his hand lighting the way. He hadn’t meant to come out this evening, but he’d been driven to it. When he’d touched the harp’s strings back in his room, he’d nearly recoiled at the intense feelings that had come through: hunger, anger, and … cheated?

  The last made no sense, but the ravening hunger drove all speculation from his mind. Leet packed the harp and took himself outside. He thought of going to the place he’d found, but then considered it would be best to save that against some great need; it would be best not to wear a path to it.

  So he found an isolated spot and stood, listening carefully. Not that it was likely anyone would be out at this candlemark but one never knew with couples in the first throes of a dalliance.

  The only sounds that greeted him were those of crickets and other night singers, and frogs from some nearby pool. Leet nodded in satisfaction. This would do.

  He settled himself on the ground and made himself ready. Then, harp nestled in his arms, lamp and well-honed knife by his side, Leet began to play.

  Soon a rabbit peered at him from a stand of lilies. Leet smiled as, transfixed, it emerged from its shelter and lolloped slowly across the lawn, pausing now and again to study him.

  Switching the melody to his left hand, Leet slowly took up the knife. “Come along, come along,” he sang softly.

  The rabbit obeyed.

  * * *

  Coryn looked over his shoulder. No, no one from Lord Sevrynel’s was following him. He heaved a sigh of relief and shook his head. He still couldn’t believe that Arisyn hadn’t told their foster father that Tirael was here in Balyaranna. But, wonder of wonders, the little prig hadn’t, thank all the gods.

  He slipped inside Garron’s tavern tent, wondering if Tirael would be here this early. Coryn hoped so; he didn’t have time to go searching. He was on duty today and had to get back before the banquet started. Though if he couldn’t find Tirael, he wouldn’t have to tell him.…

  But there sat Tirael in the midst of an admiring group of young nobles, many—like Tirael himself—heirs to rich holdings. Though proud to count himself among such company—for his parents had but one manor—Coryn reluctantly made his way to Tirael’s side.

  Once there, he laid a hand upon his hero’s shoulder. Before Tirael could curse him for interrupting his story, Coryn quickly whispered a single word into his ear. “Merrilee.”

  Tirael stood up and followed him to the back of the tent. They stepped over the snoring drunks Garron’s men had dragged here to sleep off their wine and ale.

  “What news?” Tirael demanded. “Did she read my note?”

  “She did,” Coryn said slowly. He dug a folded sheet of parchment from his belt pouch. “Then she gave it back to me.”

  Tirael snatched the note from Coryn’s fingers and examined it. He frowned. “She didn’t write anything. Wasn’t there a r
eply?”

  Coryn desperately hoped that Tirael was not inclined to blame the messenger for bearing bad news—and worse news. “She asked me to tell you to … to stop.”

  “‘Stop’?” Tirael asked, incredulous. “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Writing to her. Asking her to meet you, to run away with you, all that sort of thing.”

  Tirael gawped at him. “That’s impossible.”

  Coryn squirmed. That was the bad news; now came the worse. “Tir—Eadain’s courting her.” He didn’t have the nerve to add, “And I think she’s listening.” Not with that look on Tirael’s face. Instead he mumbled, “I have to get back before they miss me,” and fled.

  * * *

  It took a bit of doing, but Merrilee finally managed to elude her admirers long enough to escape to the terrace. Fond as she was of him, she wished Lord Sevrynel didn’t have a banquet or other gathering every night! They lived quietly at home; life here was nigh overwhelming—at least during the fair. She supposed it was different the rest of the time.

  She sat on a stone bench and fanned herself with a hand. While the summer night was warm, it was still cooler than the great hall, and the air much fresher. She inhaled deeply as a stray breeze brought her the rich scent of roses from the night-shrouded gardens. She closed her eyes and smiled, savoring it, and blessed whichever ancestors of Lord Sevrynel’s had been at least as interested in roses as they had been in horses.

  “So you still sneak out for a bit of air after banquets? Good,” a voice whispered out of the darkness.

  Merrilee jumped up and spun around, so frightened she could barely breathe. Her heart pounded; she knew that voice. She stared out into the darkness but could see nothing beyond the light of the torches that marked the stairs.

  It went on, “You’ve been avoiding me, Merri, and I don’t like that.”

  She fell back, one step at a time, as a man came slowly up the wide, shallow stairs that led to the gardens and into the torchlight. Tirael stopped at the top and frowned.