Lark and Wren bv-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  She set the packs aside and waited for him to return. Out beyond the Faire palings, the merchants were also breaking down and preparing to leave. The Midsummer Faire was over for another year.

  She was surprised to feel an odd sense of loss, of uncertainty. For the past three weeks at least, ever since her splint had come off, she had known what every day would bring. Now it was completely new; she hadn't ever really traveled the roads for a living, and the idea was a little daunting.

  Finally, as the sun crossed the zenith-line, he returned. "Well, are we ready?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Packed and provisioned, Master Wren." She hefted her pack up and slung it over her back; her fiddle was safe inside, and her harp and lute were fastened securely on the outside. She wished briefly that Talaysen had a horse, or even a little donkey they could use to carry their supplies. With a beast their pace could be much faster, though it would be an added expense.

  While you're wishing, Rune, why don't you wish for a pair of riding horses while you're at it?

  Still, a donkey could eat almost anything; it wouldn't be that much of a burden unless they stayed in a town.

  And a donkey makes you look more prosperous, and makes you a target for robbers.

  Talaysen blinked in surprise, and hefted his own pack onto his back. "I hadn't expected you to be ready quite so soon," he said mildly. "I took you for town-bred, and not used to the road life."

  She shrugged. "I walked from Westhaven to Nolton, from Nolton to here. I learned a bit."

  "So I see." He shifted the pack into a comfortable position on his back. "Well, if you're ready, so am I."

  So it was that simple, after all. They simply left the tent, with a farewell wave to Erdric as he gave the two hired men their instructions, and took their place in the steady stream of people leaving by the road to the north.

  Talaysen seemed disinclined to talk, so she held her peace as they walked at a good pace along the verge. The press of people leaving was not as heavy as the one of those arriving had been, and most of them were driving heavily loaded wagons, not walking. Their pace was set by the pace of whoever was in the lead of this particular group of travelers. The other folk on foot, at least those that Rune saw, were limited to some small peddlers who had probably been vending impulse-goods from trays, and nondescript folk who could have been anything. The former toiled under packs that would have made a donkey blanch; the latter beneath burdens like their own. The pace that Talaysen set had them passing most other foot-travelers, and all the carts. The sun beat down on all of them, regardless of rank or station, and while there were frequent smiles and nods from those they passed, no one seemed inclined to talk. Halfway into the afternoon, though, they took the first turning to the right, a track so overgrown that she would never have picked it herself. It seemed no one else had chosen it either, at least not today. And no one followed them for as long as she could see the main road when she glanced behind them. She cast him a doubtful look that he never noticed, and followed along a step or two behind him, keeping a sharp watch for trouble.

  Weeds grew ankle-high even in the ruts on the road itself, and were waist-high on the verge. Once under the shelter of overhanging trees, she was forced to revise her guess of how long it had been since the road had been used by other than foot traffic. From the look of the road-or rather, path-no one else had come this way since the beginning of the Faire at very best, unless they were foot-travelers like themselves. The weeds were not broken down the way they would be if cart wheels had rolled over them; she was, admittedly, no tracker, but it didn't seem to her that the weeds had been taken down by anything other than the passing of animals in days.

  Trouble on a deserted way like this could come in several forms; least likely was in the form of humans, robbers who hunted up and down a seldom-traveled track precisely because they were unlikely to be caught on it and those they robbed were unlikely to be missed. Wild animals or farm animals run feral could give a traveler a bad time; particularly wild cattle and feral pigs. She didn't think that the larger predators would range this close to the Faire site and Kingsford, but that was a possibility that shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. There had once been a wild lion loose in the forest near Westhaven and there were always wolves about. But last of all, and most likely, was that it could be that the reason why this road was unused was the same reason the road through Skull Hill Pass was little used. Something really horrible could be on it. Something that had moved in recently, that Talaysen might not know about.

  "Where are we going?" she asked Talaysen, not wanting to seem to question his judgment, but also not wanting to find herself facing something like the Ghost. The next uncanny creature might not be a music lover. And she was no hand at all with any kind of weapon.

  "What's our next destination, do you mean?" he replied, "or where are we making for tonight?" He looked back over his shoulder at her to answer, and he didn't seem at all alarmed. Surely he knew about all the signs of danger on a road. . . . Surely he was better at it than her. . . .

  "Both," she said shortly. The track widened a little, and she got up beside him so that he could talk to her without having to crane his neck around.

  "Allendale Faire, ultimately," he told her. "That's about two weeks from now. The pickings there have been good for me in the past, and no one else wanted to take it this year, so I said we would. Tonight, there's a good camping spot I think we can make by moonrise; there's water, shelter, and high ground there. I've used it before. The track doesn't get any worse than this, so I don't see any problem with pressing on after sunset."

  "After sunset?" she said doubtfully. "Master Wren, I don't think I'm up to struggling with tent poles in the dark."

  "You won't have to," he said with a cheerful smile. "There won't be anyone there but us, and since the weather is fine, there's no need to worry about putting up a tent. With luck, the weather will hold until we reach Allendale in about two weeks."

  Two weeks. That was a long time to walk through forest. She'd slept under the stars without a tent before, but never with company . . . still it wasn't that she was afraid something would happen, it was that she was afraid it wouldn't, without a little privacy to share. And she wasn't certain their provisions would hold out that long. "Is there anything on this road?" she asked.

  "Quite a bit, after tonight. Small villages, a great deal like the one you came from, and about two days apart," he told her. "We ought to be able to pick up a few nights' worth of food and lodging for music on the way to Allendale Faire."

  She frowned, not quite understanding why he was so certain of a welcome. "But they're so close to Kingsford-why would they bother to trade us for music so close to the city-and so close to Faire-time? In winter, now, I could see it-but now?"

  He chuckled. "How often did the people in your village go even as far as the next one for anything? Maybe once or twice a year? The first village is close to a two-day walk from here, and most farmers can't afford to take that much time away from crops this time of the season. Not many people take this road, either, which is why I claimed it for the start of our journey."

  "What if they've had a minstrel through here?" she asked. Then she remembered Westhaven, and shook her head. "Never mind, even if it was two days ago, we'll still be a novelty, won't we? Even if they have their own musicians. It was that way at the Hungry Bear in my village."

  He laughed. "Well, with luck, we'll be the first musicians they've seen in a while. With none, they still won't have had a musician down this way for a few days, and what's more"-his grin grew cocky and self-assured-"he won't have been as good as we are, because he won't have been a Free Bard."

  She chuckled and bent her head to keep her eye on her footing.

  They walked on in silence; the grass grown over the track muffled their steps, and though their appearance frightened the birds right on the road into silence, farther off in the woods there were plenty of them chirping and singing sleepily in the heat. These woods had none
of the brooding, ominous qualities of the ones around Skull Hill, and she began to relax a little. There was nothing at all uncanny that she could sense-and in fact, after all those weeks of throngs of people, and living with people at her elbow all the time, she found the solitude quite comforting.

  She was glad of her hat, a wide-brimmed straw affair that she'd bought at the Faire; it was a lot cooler than her leather hat, and let a bit of breeze through to her head when there was any to be had. Though the trees shaded the road a bit, they also sheltered it from what little breeze there was, and the heat beneath the branches was oppressive. Insects buzzed in the knee-high weeds beside the road, a monotonous drone that made her very sleepy. Sweat trickled down her back and the back of her neck; she'd put her hair up under the hat, but she still felt her scalp and neck prickling with heat. At least she was wearing her light breeches; in skirts, even kilted up to her knees, she'd have been fighting her way through the weeds. Grasshoppers sprang away from their track, and an enterprising kestrel followed them for a while. He was quite a sight to see, hovering just ahead of them, then swooping down on a fat 'hopper that they frightened into bumbling flight. He would carry it on ahead and perch, neatly stripping wings and legs, then eating it like a child with a carrot, before coming back for another unfortunate enough to be a little too slow.

  "Why Allendale Faire?" she asked, when the silence became too much to bear, and her ears rang from the constant drone of insects.

  "It's a decently large local Faire in a town that has quite a few Sires and wealthy merchants living nearby," he replied absently. "We need to start thinking about a place to winter-up; I'm not in favor of making the rounds in winter, personally. And you never have; it's a hard life, although it can be very rewarding if you hit a place where the town prospered during the summer and the people all have real coin to spend."

  She thought about trekking through woods like these with snow up to her knees instead of weeds, and shivered. "I'd rather not," she said honestly. "Like I told you when I met you, that isn't the kind of life I would lead by choice. That was one reason why I wanted to join the Guild."

  "And your points were well made. So, one of those Sires or the local branches of the Merchants' Guild in or around Allendale might provide a place to spend our winter." He turned his head sideways, and smiled. "You see, most Sires can't afford a permanent House musician-at least the ones out here in the country can't. So they'll take on one that pleases their fancy for the winter months, and turn him loose in the spring. That way they have new entertainment every winter, when there are long, dark hours to while away, yet they don't have the expense of a House retainer and all the gifts necessary to make sure that he stays content and keeps up his repertory." The tone of his voice turned ironic. "The fact is that once a Guild Minstrel has a position, there's nothing requiring him to do anything more. It's his for life unless he chooses to move on, or does something illegal. If he's lazy, he never has to learn another new note; just keep playing the same old songs. So the people who have House Minstrels or Bards encourage them to stir themselves by giving them gifts of money and so forth when they've performed well."

  "Gifts for doing the job they're supposed to do in the first place?" she replied, aghast.

  "That's the Guild." He shrugged again. "I prefer our way. Honest money, honestly earned."

  Still-A place in a Sire's household, even for just the winter? How is that possible? "I thought only Guild musicians could take positions with a House," she offered.

  He laughed. "Well, that's the way it's supposed to work, but once you're away from the big cities, the fact is that the Sires don't give a fat damn about Guild membership or not. They just want to know if you can sing and play, and if you know some different songs from the last musician they had. And who's going to enforce it? The King? Their Duke? Not likely. The Bardic Guild? With what? There's nothing they can use to enforce the law; out here a Sire is frequently his own law."

  "What about the other Guilds?" she asked. "Aren't they supposed to help enforce the law by refusing to deal with a Sire who breaks it?"

  "That's true, but once again, you're out where the Sire is his own law, and the Guildmasters and Craftsmasters are few. If a Craftsman enforces the law by refusing to deal with the Sire, he's cutting his own throat, by refusing to deal with the one person with a significant amount of money in the area. The Sire can always find someone else willing to deal, but will the Craftsman find another market?" He sighed. "The truth is that the Guildmasters of other Crafts might be able to do something-but half the time they don't give a damn about the Bardic Guild. The fact is, the Bardic Guild isn't half as important out of the cities as they think they are. Their real line of enforcement is their connection with the Church, through the Sacred Musicians and Bards, and the Church is pragmatic about what happens outside the cities."

  "Why is it that the Bardic Guild isn't important to the other Guilds?" she asked, hitching her pack a little higher on her back. There was an itchy spot right between her shoulderblades that she ached to be able to scratch. . . .

  If she could keep him talking a while, she might get her mind off of the itch.

  "Because most of the Crafts don't think of us as being Crafters," he said wryly. "Music isn't something you can eat, or wear, or hold in your hand, and they never think of the ability to play and compose as being nearly as difficult as their own disciplines." He sighed. "And it isn't something that people need, the way they need Smiths or Coopers or Potters. We aren't even rated as highly as a Limner or a Scribe-"

  "Until it's the middle of winter, and people are growling at each other because the snow's kept them pent up for a week," she put in. "And even then they don't think of us as the ones who cheered everyone up. Never mind, Master Wren. I'm used to it. In the tavern back home they valued me more as a barmaid and a floor-scrubber than a musician, and they never once noticed how I kept people at their beer long past the time when they'd ordinarily have gone home. They never noticed how many more people started coming in of a night, even from as far away as Beeford. All they remembered was that I lost the one and only fiddling contest I ever had a chance to enter."

  Silence. Then-"I would imagine they're noticing it now," he said, when the silence became too oppressive. "Yes, I expect they are. And they're probably wondering what it is they've done that's driving their custom away."

  Were they? She wondered. Maybe they were. The one thing that Jeoff had always paid attention to was the state of the cashbox. Not even Stara would be able to get around him if there was less in it than there used to be.

  But then again-habit died hard, and the villagers of Westhaven were in the habit of staying for more than a couple ales now; the villagers of Beeford were in the habit of coming over to the Bear for a drop in the long summer evenings. Maybe they weren't missing her at all. Surely they thought she was crazed to run off the way that she had. And the old women would be muttering about "bad blood," no doubt, and telling their daughters to pay close attention to the Priest and mind they kept to the stony path of Virtue. Not like that Rune; bastard child and troublemaker from the start. Likely off making more trouble for honest folk elsewhere. Up to no good, and she'd never make an honest woman of herself. Dreams of glory, thought she was better than all of them-and she'd die like a dog in a ditch, or starve, or sell herself like her whore of a mother.

  No doubt. . . .

  Talaysen kept an ear out for the sound of a lumber-wagon behind them. The road they followed was cleared of weeds, if still little more than a path through the forest-but this was forested country; the towns were small, and the cleared fields few. Many of the villages hereabouts made their livings off the forest itself. Every other village boasted a sawmill, or a Cooper making barrels, or a craftsman hard at work on some object made of wood. The Carpenter's Guild had many members here, and there were plenty of craftsmen unallied with the Guild who traded in furniture and carvings.

  Allendale was a half-day away, and Talaysen was both relieved an
d uneasy that their goal was so nearly in sight. The past two weeks had been something of a revelation for him. He'd been forced to look at himself closely, and he hardly recognized what he saw.

  He glanced sideways at his apprentice, who had her hat off and was fanning herself with it. She didn't seem to notice his covert interest, which was just as well. In the first few weeks of the Midsummer Faire, when Rune's arm was still healing, he'd been sorry for her, protective of her, and had no trouble in thinking of her strictly as a student. He'd felt, in fact, rather paternal. She had been badly hurt, and badly frightened; she was terribly vulnerable, and between what she'd told him straight off, and what she'd babbled when she had a little too much belladonna, he had a shrewd idea of all the hurtful things that had been said or done to her as a child. Because of her helplessness, he'd had no difficulty in thinking of her as a child. And his heart had gone out to her; she was so like him as a child, differences in their backgrounds aside. One unwanted, superfluous child is very like another, when it all comes down to it. He had sought solace in music; so had she. It had been easy to see himself in her, and try to soothe her hurts as his father would never soothe his.