Bard's Oath (Dragonlord)

by Joanne Bertin

  “Was I wrong? I know a dark shaman or a powerful Phoenix priest can take over a man’s mind by spellsongs and make him do anything, no matter how vile, no matter how much against his true nature it is. Is this a thing your northern bards can also do?”

  Linden shook his head. “Not that way. A bard isn’t a mage. A song might give someone ideas—witness every ballad against a tyrant that inspired people to revolt—but control them? No. Bards don’t use their voices to create magic; if they’re so blessed by the gods, their voices are their magic. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes. No. Almost,” said Shima, scratching his head.

  Linden raked his fingers through his hair, sighing in exasperation. How to best explain this?

  Before he could speak, Maurynna said, “It makes sense to me. But then, I’ve grown up listening to Otter, who does have that magic. Whenever I listen to him sing, it’s as if I’m transported elsewhere, that I’m living in his song.

  “And sometimes, when everything is just right, Otter can make you see images in the flames on the hearth or the smoke from a campfire. He did that for Raven and me many times when we were children. Nor is Otter the only one; there are other bards who can do the same.

  “But no matter how much Raven and I let the music take us someplace else, our minds were our own. Had we wanted to, we could have walked away, leaving song and visions behind,” Maurynna said. “Otter never took—couldn’t take—our free will from us. And if a bard could, he’d face Iryniel the Punisher for it.”

  “Who is that? Some royal court’s executioner?” Shima asked.

  Linden shook his head. “Bards look to Auvrian as their patron god. Iryniel is his wolf-headed servant. Remember the constellation of the Wolf that I showed you at Dragonskeep? Some say that’s Iryniel.

  “Bards who break their oath are ‘given’ to Iryniel. The torment of their punishment is as meat and drink to him—and woe to the man or woman who kills one given to Iryniel and ends that bard’s sufferings.”

  Shima grimaced. “Not a pleasant thought. But what you said before … I still don’t fully understand—it’s too different from what I know—but I’ll accept that a northern bard can’t take over another person’s mind. Both of you would know better than I. But if that kind of control isn’t possible, then that means Raven’s a cold-blooded killer who’s either hearing things or is lying. And I don’t think either of you believe that any more than I do.”

  “No more than I’d believe Morlen or any other truedragon to eat a truehuman, no matter what some of the old tales say,” Linden replied.

  “Just so,” Maurynna’s eyes blazed with a barely contained inner fire. “I know Raven. He can be a stubborn pain in the ass, but he’s no murderer. Hell, I’d have said he’s far more likely to be the victim, he can be such a pain.” Her sudden wry expression said that Raven had more than once come close to an untimely demise—or at least the threat of one.

  “All of which leaves us right where we started. And that,” the Tah’nehsieh Dragonlord sighed, “is nowhere.”

  “Not so,” said Conor suddenly. “You forget—if Raven’s hearing things or lying, then so is Robie. So am I, for that matter. And I know I’m not lying. Nor, I suspect, are the others.”

  * * *

  Robie stood in the center of the room, staring at the tiled floor and shaking so hard it was only the hard hand of Lord Portis’s man-at-arms on his shoulder that held him up. It was bad enough that his own lord and Lord Lenslee were demanding he be thrown in prison, and his father suddenly looked like he’d aged years and years, but to have the Dragonlords furious with him as well! Though he fought it, a tear trickled down his cheek. He bit his lip, thinking, I won’t be a baby! I won’t be … It was no use. More tears followed.

  He was so frightened he almost didn’t hear Linden Rathan say softly, “Don’t be so afraid, Robie. We want to help you if we can, but we need your help to do so. Do you think you can answer some questions for us? Could you tell us about the minstrel Osric?”

  Robie dared to look up at him. This was the last thing he’d expected. Dark grey eyes looked kindly back at him. Robie instinctively felt he could trust those eyes.

  “Yes, Dragonlord,” he whispered. “My father and Lord Portis were away when Osric the Minstrel came to the manor, my lord. He had a fine harp with him.…”

  * * *

  When Robie was done with his story, silence filled the room. Linden rubbed his chin, considering. He had one last question.

  “Robie, am I right in thinking that you’ve had a bit of time to wander the fair now and again? You have? Good. Now—did you ever see Minstrel Osric again?”

  Robie hesitated, then spoke in a faint whisper. “I—I thought I did, Your Grace. My father sent me for the men who … the wagon for Summer…” His face crumpled and he pressed his fists into his eyes. After a moment, he continued, “As I came back, I saw a man come out of Lord Portis’s compound. I thought it was Osric at first because there was something familiar about the way he moved. Then I wasn’t sure. But they both did this—”

  Robie stroked the indentation under his lower lip with a forefinger.

  “When I saw that, I thought maybe it was Osric after all. But I wasn’t certain so I didn’t go up to him. Then I realized it couldn’t be him. The clothes were wrong. His hair wasn’t grey, and he didn’t stoop. Osric stooped.”

  Linden nodded, thinking. “Thank you, Robie. I think that will be all for now. Conor, please go with Robie and wait with him in the hall. I’d like a word with his guard and I’m sure he has orders not to leave him alone.”

  The man relaxed perceptibly. When the boy and Conor were gone, Linden stood up. He towered over Robie’s guard. The man looked up at him with seeming calm, but the color drained from his face.

  “I charge you to tell Lord Portis and Lord Lenslee that they are not to punish the boy in any way. He may not have been responsible for his actions. We’ll know more soon. Until then, I do not want Robie mistreated.”

  The man seemed to hear the unspoken Or I shall be very angry quite clearly. Hand over heart in salute, he said, “Yes, Your Grace.” Then he bowed and left.

  When Conor returned, he asked, “Now what?”

  “Now we find out about this Osric.” Linden closed his eyes and reached out with his mind. Otter, we need you back here. We may have a light in the darkness at last.

  Fifty-two

  “A minstrel named Osric? An older man with grey hair?” Otter said. He shook his head. “There is no such man.”

  Maurynna and Conor stared at him, dismay writ large on their faces.

  “Are you certain?” Linden asked.

  “I know all the minstrels, especially the older ones. And none bears that name. Why?”

  Linden rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Because Robie said that a minstrel named Osric stopped at Lord Portis’s manor on his way to the fair. And when Conor and Master Edlunn found him in Summer Lightning’s stall after the horse’s death, the boy muttered something about hearing Osric’s music. But if there’s no minstrel named Osric, then— Wait! Otter, do you know of any minstrel who has a habit of doing this—” He rubbed under his lower lip.

  Otter frowned; Linden held his breath, waiting. Just when he was certain his old friend would say, “I’ve no idea,” Otter’s jaw dropped.

  “Not a minstrel—a bard!” he blurted out. “Leet always does that when he’s feeling particularly pleased with himself.”

  They all stared at each other in confusion.

  “What have Leet and a minstrel who doesn’t exist to do with each other?” Maurynna said.

  “I don’t know, but let us see what we have,” Linden replied grimly. “There seems to be a common thread through all this: music. Robie said he heard music that ‘Osric’ played. Could Leet have been traveling in disguise?”

  “Not like him,” Otter muttered. “Especially as a lowly minstrel. But ‘stranger things do happen’ as my granddam used to say.”

 
“Raven said he heard music. It called him to the garden where…” Maurynna bit her lip.

  “And I heard it as well,” Conor said. “That was why I turned aside.”

  “Which was unlike you,” said Linden. “I always wondered about that. A pity we’ll never know if Tirael also heard music that called him.”

  They sat in silence, considering what they had. It was, Linden thought, the thinnest of threads. But there was another one to add to it now. And no matter how thin the thread, twist enough of them together and you had a rope.

  He went on, “But there’s another thing we do know: who both Conor and Raven found at the other end of the music that night.”

  “Leet,” Maurynna said. Suddenly her eyes widened and she bounced in her chair. “Linden! Remember the day of the Queen’s Chase? When Raven was all befuddled? He said he heard music!”

  “And Leet was there as one of the marshals.” He leaned back in his chair and swore softly as he remembered something. “It was Leet who said that Raven was cooling that horse’s leg in the stream.” Another thread for the rope.…

  “So he was the last one to see Raven that day until Raven showed up in camp with the lamed horse,” Shima said. “At least—as far as we know.”

  Conor said flatly, “The race that Summer Lightning was the favorite to win. Leet was at Portis’s stable the day of Summer Lightning’s death—the day Robie saw him leaving it. Full of false sympathy, he was—I would lay any wager on it. And if I remember correctly, Lord Lenslee was surprised—hellfire, astonished—to see him. As if Leet was the last person he expected.

  “But—gah!” Conor slapped the table. A chitter of protest came from his hood. “But why in the name of all the gods would Leet want Summer Lightning dead? As a marshal, he couldn’t bet on the race.”

  Linden glanced over at Otter. The bard had a strange, faraway look on his face. “Otter, what is—”

  “‘Odd, how it’s back to Leet,’” Otter said softly. His unfocused eyes stared past them to something only he saw. He went on in the same dreamy tone, “That’s what Charilon said, you know, that day by Jaida’s grave.”

  Linden stared at Otter, startled. The bard looked as if he had forgotten where he was. And what was that about Jaida? She died years—

  All at once Otter was back in the room, his eyes hard and cold as he looked at each of them in turn. “The same day Sether, Wood Master of the Bards’ School in Bylith, was laid in his own grave after hanging himself. For no reason that anyone could fathom—just built a bonfire of some wood that was not part of the barn’s tallied holdings and then hanged himself.

  “Sether, who for the last few years was frequently visited by one Leet as if they were friends—a thing that same Leet has vehemently denied to my face.”

  The only sound was the droning of a bee that bumbled in through the open window, flew lazily around the room, then back out the window for more bountiful pastures.

  “I think,” Linden said at last, “that part of the key to saving Raven lies in the past. I’m going back to Bylith.”

  * * *

  “Dragonlord—I’m sorry to bother you, but may I speak with you a moment?”

  Maurynna turned, one arm still over Boreal’s back. The last thing she wanted was to talk to anyone save Linden and he was gone again. She needed to be doing something; every nerve in her body cried for action, yet she also did not want to leave Balyaranna and Raven. So she’d come to the stables for the comfort of her Llysanyin. His stolid presence helped as she pressed her cheek against him, listening to the strong beat of his heart.

  She still didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  But the young woman standing at the paddock fence and looking apprehensively at her wore a bard’s torc. Maurynna thought she could guess who she was.

  “It’s no bother,” she lied. “You’re my cousin Kella’s harp teacher, Bard Daera, yes? Please come in. Boreal won’t mind.”

  “Thank you, Your Grace.” To Maurynna’s amusement, instead of going to the gate, Daera scrambled over the fence as nimbly as a sailor and dropped cat-footed to the ground.

  “You look worried, Bard Daera. Is it something I can help you with?”

  Daera nodded. “It’s about Kella, Dragonlord. Do you know when she’s coming back for lessons? It’s a pleasure teaching her. She makes up for the, um, less enthusiastic students.”

  Maurynna remembered the letter from Maylin and sighed. “I’m afraid she won’t be coming back. She’s given up the harp.”

  She thought she’d rarely seen anyone so surprised—and dismayed—as the bard.

  “What?” Daera gasped. “But Dragonlord—Kella has a real gift! I truly believe she’d get into the School eas— Oh gods … is it because of what happened with Bard Leet? Is that why she went home?”

  Maurynna stiffened. Leet again! “‘What happened with Bard Leet’?” she repeated, standing away from Boreal. “What do you mean? What happened with Bard Leet?”

  For a moment Maurynna thought Daera might turn and run; she had the sick expression of someone realizing she’d just kicked over a bucket of worms.

  “He—he slapped her hand one day. Hard. Too hard,” she said weakly. She rushed on, “She saw his harp in the garden and thought it was mine, you see, and he thought she was a servant trying to touch his harp. He didn’t know she’s your…”

  Maurynna remembered the bruise on Kella’s hand with cold fury. “She told me she’d fallen on it.”

  “She was humiliated. She didn’t want anyone to know. He … yelled at her.” Daera looked up at her nervously. “I thought you already knew, that she’d tell you at least.”

  Maurynna seethed inwardly. Striking a child hard enough to leave a bruise like that—and her cousin, no less! Leet was damned lucky he was a—

  “Wait—this happened before Linden, Shima, and I arrived, didn’t it?”

  Daera nodded. “Yes. That was the day I got word that my mother was gravely ill. You came after I left.”

  Maurynna tugged at a lock of her hair, thinking furiously. Aside from the bruised hand, Kella had been well at the time of their arrival; Maurynna was certain her later illness was not because of that. Besides—she knew her little cousin. Kella would have been plotting revenge, not taking to her bed with a delayed case of the vapors!

  And she knew just the person to talk to: Kella’s partner in mischief, Prince Rann.

  * * *

  “But I promised Kella I wouldn’t tell,” Rann said weakly. He looked from one stern face to another and sighed. If only it wasn’t Maurynna Kyrissaean and Bard Daera. At least Aunt Beryl and Uncle Beren weren’t here as well.

  “Your Highness,” the Dragonlord said with a sad smile. “Keeping someone’s secret is a good thing—but not when it hurts that person.”

  “Prince Rann, please tell us what you know,” Daera said. “You know that Kella is truly talented, don’t you? We need to know if what made her so ill is why she gave up the harp.”

  Startled, Rann blurted, “Gave up the harp? But she can’t! It’s all Kella dreams about—going to the Bards’ School someday!”

  “She’s refused to play since her mysterious ‘illness,’” Maurynna Kyrissaean said. “She even refused the gift of a harp back home in Casna.”

  Rann twisted his fingers together in an agony of indecision. Kella would never forgive him. But something had happened that day she’d gone to play Bard Leet’s harp. He knew it. Something bad …

  Then Maurynna Kyrissaean spoke the words that freed him from his oath.

  “Rann, dear,” she said gently, “would it help if I said ‘Dragonlord’s orders’?”

  Fifty-three

  Ever since they’d left the main Wort Hunters’ encampment, they’d had good luck with the weather if nothing else, Pod thought wryly. But now even that was ending. The day had started with the sun rising in a clear sky. Now grey, threatening clouds were moving in. She hoped the rain would hold off.

  They had spent the morning and early afternoo
n exploring and calling Kiga. Pod blamed herself for the woods dog’s continued absence. Her last words to her familiar echoed in her mind: “And don’t come back until you’ve caught something!”

  Hadn’t every apprentice at Grey Holt been warned again and again to be careful what they asked their familiars to do? Faithful hearts that they were, the animals would try to walk through fire if their persons asked it of them. Worse yet, she’d “pushed” at Kiga, reinforcing her order with her power as a Beast Healer. She could only hope that he’d come back soon.

  As they passed quietly through woods now turned gloomy—even frightening—Kaeliss stopped with a gasp.

  “By the Lord and Lady of the Forests!” she cried, and fell to her knees by a patch of red flowers that covered the ground between the trees. “Fiarin wasn’t lying!”

  “What are they?” Pod asked as she knelt beside the other young woman. Whatever these were, Kaeliss was well-nigh weeping with joy. Pod studied them.

  They were pretty things and looked, she thought, rather like morning glories, but much smaller and with deeply ruffled edges. They were also growing singly, not on a vine. She looked around. “Look—there’s an even bigger patch!” she said, pointing to where the ground was literally carpeted with dark red as far as she could see in the dim woods.

  Kaeliss looked. “Oh dear gods—it’s just as Fiarin said! King’s Blood is incredibly rare—the conditions have to be just perfect for it or it won’t grow! You’re lucky if you find a patch of three or four plants, and the chosen of the gods if you find more! I’ve only heard of one place where—”

  As Pod stared in astonishment, the color drained from Kaeliss’s face, leaving her a sickly grey. She looked as if she might be ill any moment.

  “No,” Kaeliss whispered at last, still staring at the flowers. “No—Fiarin wouldn’t have been planning to bring us there. I know he was jealous of Currin, but we’ve lost so many people here. Fiarin knows—knew…”