Lark and Wren bv-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  I'd turn the stick on you, first! she thought angrily.

  "Well, as to that," Kaylan said readily. "Me da's got a cousin down Reedben way with too many kids and too little land-happen that he could send ye the twins to help out. Likely ye're goin' to want the extra help, what with summer comin' on. Boy and girl, and 'bout twelve. Old 'nough to work, young 'nough not to cause no trouble."

  "If they were willing to come for what Rune got," Jeoff said with eagerness and reluctance mixed. "Room, board and two suits 'f clothes in the year . . . haven't got much to spare, not even t' take a new wife, unless things get better."

  Rune looked down at the bag of silver coins at her belt, hearing a note in Jeoff's voice she'd never noticed before. A note of complaint, and a tight-fisted whine similar to the one in Stara's voice. And as if she had been gifted with the Sight of things to come, she knew what would happen if she went into that doorway.

  No one would ever believe that she had dared Skull Hill and its deadly Ghost, not even with this double-handful of coins to prove it. They'd think she'd found it, or-more likely-that she had stolen it. Jeoff would doubtless take it away from her, and possibly lock her in her room if suspicion ran high enough against her, at least until she could prove that she'd stolen nothing.

  Then when no one complained of robbery, they would let her go, but she'd bet they still wouldn't return her hard-earned reward to her. They'd figure she had found a cache of coins along the Old Road, dug it up in the ruins in the Skull Hill Pass, or had found a newly dead victim of the Ghost and had robbed the dead.

  And with that as justification, and because she was "just a child," Stara and Jeoff would take it all "to keep it safe for her."

  That would surely be the last she would see of it, for Stara would see to it that it was "properly disposed of." She would probably spend a long night closeted with Jeoff, and when it was over, the money would be in his coffers. She'd promise it all to him as her "dower," if he agreed to marry her; and since there wasn't a girl in the village who could boast a double handful of silver as her dower, he'd probably agree like a lightning strike. Stara would tell herself, no doubt, that since this ensured Rune a home and a father, it was in her "best interest." Never mind that Rune would be no better off than before-still an unpaid drudge and still without the means to become a Guild Bard.

  Jeoff would hide the money away wherever it was he kept the profits of the inn. Rune would never get her lessons, her second instrument. She would always be, at best, the local tavern-musician. She would still lack the respect of the locals, although Jeoff as her stepfather would provide some protection from the kind of things Jon had tried. She'd live and die here, never seeing anything but this little village and whoever happened to be passing through.

  If she was very lucky, Jib might marry her. In fact, Jeoff would probably encourage that idea. It would mean that he would not have to part with any of the Ghost's silver for Rune's dower-assuming she could induce any of the local boys to the wedding altar-and he would then have Jib as an unpaid drudge forever, as well as Rune and her mother. He would do well all the way around.

  She would still have the reputation of the tavern wench's bastard. She would still have trouble from the local girls and their mothers, if not the local boys. And there might come a time when beer or temper overcame someone's good sense-and she still might find herself fighting off a would-be rapist. There would be plenty of opportunities over the next few years for just that kind of "accident." And the boy could always pledge she'd lied or led him on, and who would the Sire's magistrate believe? Not Rune.

  That was what was in store for her if she stayed. But if she followed the Ghost's advice, to go, and not look back-

  What about Mother? part of her asked.

  A colder part had the answer already. Stara could take care of herself.

  If she couldn't, that wasn't Rune's problem.

  Besides, I've been standing here for the past few minutes listening to my own mother slash what little reputation I had to ragged ribbons. She's not exactly overflowing with maternal protection and love.

  Her jaw clenched; her resolve hardened. No, Stara could damned well take care of herself. Rune wasn't about to help her.

  But what about Jib?

  That stopped her cold for a moment. Jib had been as much prey to the village youngsters as she had, and she'd protected him for a long time now. What would they do when they found out he didn't have that protection anymore?

  How could she just leave him without a word?

  She moved into the shelter of some bushes around the forested side of the inn, leaned up against a tree, and shut her eyes for a moment, trying to think.

  He didn't need to worry about rape. No one was going to try and force him because his mother had the word of being a slut. His problems had always stemmed from the bigger, stronger boys seeing him as an easy target, someone they could beat up with impunity.

  But the bigger, stronger boys had other things to occupy them now. They'd all either been apprenticed, or they'd taken their places in the fields with their farmer-fathers. They had very little time to go looking for mischief, and there'd be no excuse for them giving Jib a hiding if he'd been sent to the village on an errand.

  Nor did Jib have to worry about the girls' wagging tongues. They didn't care one way or another about him-except, perhaps, as to whether or not he'd been tupping Rune. That might even earn him a little grudging admiration, if he refused to tell them, or denied it altogether. They'd be certain to think that he had, then.

  Besides, one way or another, he was going to have to learn to fend for himself eventually. It might as well be now.

  Sorry, Jib. You'll be all right.

  She worked her way through the bushes, farther along the side of the inn, to stand below the eaves.

  There was one way into her room that she hadn't bothered to take for years, not since she and Jib had gone swimming at night and hunting owls.

  She looked up, peering through the leaves of the big oak that grew beside the inn, and saw that, sure enough, the shutters were open on the window to her room. Stara hadn't bothered to close them.

  Very well, then. She'd make the truth out of part of the lie. Carefully, she put the fiddle down beside the trunk and pulled the pouch of coins from her belt, tucking it into her shirt. It was safer there than anywhere else while she climbed.

  She jumped up and caught the lowest limb of the oak she'd been leaning against, pulling herself up onto it, and calling up an ache in her arms. It was a lot harder to climb the tree than she remembered-but not as hard as fiddling all night.

  From that limb she found hand- and toe-holds up the trunk to the next branch. This one went all the way to her attic window, slanting above the roof and sometimes scraping against it when high winds blew.

  She eased her way belly-down along the branch, with the pouch of silver resting against her stomach above her belt. She crept along it like a big cat, not wanting to sling herself underneath the way she had when she was a kid. It was easier to climb that way, but also easier to be seen. The branch was still strong enough to take her weight, though it groaned a little as she neared the roof.

  When she got to the rooftop, she eased herself over, hanging onto the branch with both hands and arms, feeling with her toes for the windowsill. This part was easier now that she was older; it wasn't as far to reach.

  It was a matter of minutes to pack her few belongings in a roll made from her bedding: shirts, breeches, a winter cloak that was a castoff from Rose, a single skirt, and a couple of bodices and vests. Some underclothing. A knife, a fork; a wooden dish and a mug. Two hats, both battered. Stockings, a pair of sandals, and a pair of shoes. Rosin for the bow, and a string of glass beads. An old hunting knife.

  She hesitated about taking the bedding, but remembered all the work she'd done, and lost her hesitation. Jeoff owed her a couple of sheets and blankets at least, she figured, for all the work she'd done for him without pay.

  Then
she tossed the bundle into the brush where she'd left her fiddle, and eased herself down over the sill, catching the branch above and reversing her route to the ground.

  Bedroll on her back, fiddle in her hand, and silver in her shirt, she headed down the road to Beeford and beyond, without a single glance behind her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Rune paused for a moment, at the top of what passed for a hill hereabouts, and looked down on the city of Nolton. She forgot her aching feet, and the dry road-dust tickle at the back of her throat no amount of water would ease. She had been anticipating something large, but she was taken a bit aback; she hadn't expected anything this big. The city spread across the green fields in a dull red-brown swath, up and down the river, and so far as she could see, there was no end to it. A trade-city, a city that had never been under attack, Nolton had no walls to keep anyone out. Nolton wanted all comers inside, spending their coin, making the city prosper.

  The strategy must be working, for it surely looked prosperous. Houses of two and even three stories were common; in the center, there were buildings that towered a dizzying ten or eleven stories tall. The cathedral was one; it loomed over everything else, overshadowing the town as the Church overshadowed the lives of the townsfolk.

  She had also been expecting noise, but not this far away from the city itself. But already there was no doubt that she heard sounds that could only come from Nolton; even at this distance, the city hummed, a kind of monotonous chant, in which the individual voices blended until there was no telling what were the parts that comprised it.

  She had anticipated crowds; well, she'd gotten them in abundance. There had been some warning in the numbers of travelers for the past day and more on the road.

  Although there were throngs of people, until today she hadn't been as apprehensive as she might have been. After all, the whole way here, she had made her way with her fiddle and her songs-

  It hadn't been easy, drumming up the courage to approach that first innkeeper, trying to appear nonchalant and experienced at life on the road. She'd taken heart, at first, from the heavy belt of silver coins beneath her shirt. The Ghost had thought her worth listening to, and worth rewarding, for that matter. The memory gave her courage; courage to stride up to inns with all the assurance of the minstrels that had been her teachers, and present herself with an offer of entertainment in exchange for room and board.

  It got a little easier with each approach, especially when the innkeepers stayed civil at the very least, and most were cordial even in their rejection.

  Not that she had tried great inns; the inns where the Guildsmen and lesser nobles stayed. She didn't even try for the traders' inns, the kind where every traveler had at least a two-horse string. No, she had stuck to common enough inns, the sort simple peddlers and foot-travelers used. Inns like the one she had grown up in, where she figured she knew the custom and the kind of music they'd prefer. She'd been right, for they welcomed her; always, when they had no other musicians present, and sometimes even when they did, if the other musician was a local or indicated a willingness to share out the proceeds.

  No one ever complained about her playing-although she dared not try her luck too far. She didn't want to run afoul of a Guild Minstrel, so she kept her ambitions modest, collected her pennies, and didn't trespass where she had any reason to doubt her welcome. There would be time enough to play for silver or even gold, later; time enough for the fine clothing and the handsome pony to ride. Time enough, when she was a Guild Bard. She didn't want to give any Guildsman reason to protest her admittance.

  So for now, she pleased the peddlers, the farmers, and the herdsmen well enough. She took her dinner, her spot by the hearth-fire, and her bread and cheese in the morning with no complaint. She collected the occasional penny with a blessing and a special song for the giver. Every copper saved on this journey was one she could use to buy lessons and that precious instrument when she reached Nolton.

  And when there was no dinner, no spot on the hearth-she slept in barns, in haystacks, or even up a tree-and she ate whatever she had husbanded from the last inn, or doled out a grudging coin or two for the cheapest possible meal, or a bit of bread or a turnip from a market-stall. Twice, when the inns failed her, she was able to avail herself of a travelers' shelter operated by the Church. For the price of a half loaf, she was able to get not only a pallet in a dormitory with other woman travelers, but a bath and two meals. Dinner was a bowl full of thick pease-porridge and a slice of oat bread, and breakfast was more of the bread, toasted this time, with a bit of butter and a trickle of honey. More copper, or silver, produced better food and accommodations, but she saw no reason to waste her coins.

  The hidden price of this largess was that she also had to listen to sermons and scripture at both meals, and attend holy services before and after dinner and dawn prayers in the morning.

  She had been left alone, other than that, though any females with a look of prosperity about them were singled out for special attentions. Those who were single, and well-dressed, but not Guild members, were urged to consider the novitiate-those who were married or in a trade were reminded that the Church favored those daughters who showed their faith in material ways.

  Those two rest stops were enlightening, a bit amusing, and a bit disturbing. She had never quite realized the extent to which the Church's representatives worked to build and keep a hold on people. It was true that the Church did a great deal of good-but after years of living in an inn, Rune had a fair notion of how much things cost. Oat bread was the cheapest type there was; pease-porridge just as inexpensive. The Hungry Bear had never served either, except in the dead of winter when there were no customers at all and only the staff to feed. Granted, both meals at the hostel were well-made and food was given out unstintingly. But the labor involved was free; as was the labor involved in keeping the travelers' dormitory and bathhouse clean. That was provided by the novices-the lower-class novices, or so Rune suspected; she doubted those of gentler birth would be asked to scrub and cook. The Church was probably not making enough just from the meals and the price of lodging to make the kind of profit a real inn would-but there was another factor involved here, the donations coaxed from the purses of the well-off. The Church got more than enough to make a tidy profit in "free-will offerings"-at least on the two occasions Rune observed. So the lodging was a pretense for extracting more donations. For all the prating about the poverty of the Church, for all that what she saw was as bare and sparse as the clergy claimed, the money had to be going somewhere.

  She couldn't help wondering as she walked away that second morning; what happened to all that money?

  Was there something beyond those stark, severe walls, in the places where the layman was not allowed to walk?

  It was a good question, but one she didn't dwell on for long. She had her own agenda, and it had nothing to do with the Church's. She simply resolved to keep a wary eye on dealings that involved the clergy from here on. So long as they left her alone, she'd hold her peace about their profits.

  Nolton had become her goal very soon after leaving the Hungry Bear, once she'd had a chance to talk to other travelers. For all that she'd never been outside the bounds of her own village, she knew what she needed out of a town. Nolton was the nearest city with enough musicians to give her a choice in teachers-dozens of inns and taverns, she'd been told, with all manner of entertainers.

  Musicians could make a good living in Nolton. The rich had their own, family musicians as retainers-there were several Guild Halls which often hired singers and players, even whole ensembles. There were even instrument-makers in Nolton, enough of them that they had their own section in the weekly market. It was not in the direction of the Midsummer Faire, but she wouldn't be ready for the trials for at least a year, maybe two. So direction didn't much matter at the moment. What did matter was finding a good teacher, quickly.

  She hadn't once considered how big a city would have to be in order to provide work for that many music
ians. The number of ordinary folk that meant simply hadn't entered her mind; she'd simply pictured, in a vague sort of way, a place like her own village, multiplied a few times over.

  Now she found herself standing on the edge of the road, looking down on a place that contained more people than she had ever imagined lived in the whole world, and suddenly found herself reluctant to enter it.

  With all those people-the abundance of musicians abruptly became more than just a wide choice of teachers. It had just occurred to her that all those teachers were also competition. Suddenly her plan of augmenting her savings with her fiddling seemed a lot riskier. What if she wasn't good enough?

  But the Ghost thought I was. The weight of the coins she'd sewn into the linen belt she wore under her shirt served as a reminder of that.

  Still-she was good in a little village, she was passable in the country inns; but here she was likely to be just one more backwater fiddler. The tunes she knew could be hopelessly outdated, or too countrified to suit townsfolk. And she'd heard that everything was more expensive in cities; her hoard of coins might not be enough to keep her for any length of time. Apprehension dried her mouth as she stared at the faraway roofs. Maybe she just ought to forget the whole idea; turn back, and keep on as she had been, fiddling for food and a place to sleep in little wayside inns, traveling about, picking up a few coppers at weddings and Faires.