A Ghost of a Chance

"Name?" he mumbled. She gave it; likewise her occupation, and that she was beginning her second day in Nolton. He noted all of it down, and warned her, in a perfunctory manner, that she would have to purchase her permit to busk before the fourth day. From him, of course. And that it would be a silver penny. He did not issue any of the warnings Mathe had, about what it would mean if she neglected to do so.

"Here's my two-pence tithe for yesterday, sir," she said, pushing the pennies across the counter to him, through the slit. He took it, with a slightly wrinkled nose, as if in disdain for the tiny amount, but he took it, nevertheless. She noted that he seemed well-fed; very well-fed in fact, round-cheeked and healthier than most. His hands were soft, and white where the ink of his occupation hadn't stained them. He dropped the two coins into something beneath the counter, just out of sight, and made a notation after her name. "And here's my two-pence tax," she said, shoving those coins across when she knew he'd made his first notation and couldn't change it.

He frowned at her as he took the two coins. "You could have given it to me all at once," he grumbled, making a second notation. She blinked, and contrived to look stupid, and he muttered something under his breath, about fools and music, and waved her off.

She turned away from the window. Well, that was that; fourpence lighter, and nothing to show for it. Could have been worse, she supposed. If she hadn't been warned, sooner or later the Church would have caught up with her. . . . Boony's description of his treatment as a bondservant hadn't been inviting.

Although the idea of seeing a bondholder's face when he realized that the boy he'd thought he'd bought off was a girl was amusing, she didn't care to think about what would have followed that discovery. Probably something very unpleasant.

Across the street were the two food-stalls Mathe had described for her, with a bit of space in between for a tall counter where folk could eat standing up; one was red-painted, and one was blue. She crossed the street under the disdainful gaze of the novice-Priest and approached the first stall-holder.

"Would you mind if I put out my hat here, sir?" she asked politely of the thin fellow frying sausage rolls in deep skillets of lard. He glanced up at her, and shook his head.

"So long as ye don' drive th' custom away, 'tis nobbut t' me," he replied absently. Encouraged, she repeated her question at the second stall, which sold drink, and got the same answer.

So she found a place where she wasn't going to be in the way of people buying or eating, and set her hat at her feet, with her pack to hold it down. She took the fiddle from her carrying bag, gave Lady Rose a quick tuning, and began playing, choosing a simple jig, bright and lively.

Although she quickly attracted a small crowd, they were mostly children and people who didn't look to have much more money than she. Still, they enjoyed her music, and one or two even bought something at the stalls on either side of her, so she was accomplishing that much. And as long as her listeners bought something, she wasn't likely to be chased away.

By noon bell, she'd acquired a grand total of three pennies, a marble dropped in by a solemn-faced child, a little bag of barley-sugar candy added by a young girl, a bit of yellow ribbon, and at least a dozen pins. She'd never collected pins before, but any contribution was better than nothing. Once she'd straightened and cleaned them, pins were worth a penny the dozen, so that wasn't so bad, really.

The bad part was that she'd fiddled most of the morning and not even gained half what she'd gotten in the public house last night. She was a long way from the silver penny that permit would cost her. She took a moment for a breather, to look over the traffic on the street.

Early days yet, she told herself, as the crowds thickened, the street filling with folk looking for a bit to eat. The first noon bell seemed to signal a common hour for nuncheon, which the people back home called midmeal. She took her eyes off her hat and fixed them on the faces about her, smiling as if she hadn't a care in the world. When you're fiddling, think about music, Raven had admonished her. Don't think about your dinner, or where you're going to sleep tonight. Tell yourself you're happy, and put that happiness into the way you're playing. Make people feel that happiness. . . .

The faces of those about her changed as they got within earshot of the fiddle. They generally looked surprised first, then intrigued. Their eyes searched the edge of the crowd for the source of the music, then, when they found it, a smile would creep onto their lips. And, most times, they'd stop for a moment to listen. She found herself looking for those smiles, trying to coax them onto otherwise sour faces; playing light, cheerful tunes, tunes meant to set feet tapping.

Her efforts began to pay off, now that she was looking to those smiles for her reward and not the money in the hat. A couple of children broke into an impromptu jig at her feet once; and a young couple with the look of the infatuated did an entire dance-set beside her until the glare and a word from a passing Priest sent them laughing away.

She played a mocking run on her fiddle to follow the fat, bitter man, and thought then how odd it was that the Church seemed to frown upon everything that was less than serious-

But frivolity puts no coins in their coffers, she reminded herself-and realized that the crowds had thinned again; the second noon-bell had rung, and the stall-keepers on either side of her were cleaning their counters instead of cooking or serving customers. She finished the piece, then looked down at her hat, and saw that the three pennies had multiplied to nine, there was a second bag of sweets beside the first, and a veritable rain of pins covered the bottom of the hat.

"Eh, lad," said the second stall-keeper, leaning out to examine the contents of her hat with interest. " 'F ye got no plans fer them pins, I trade 'em fer ye. Fifteen pins fer a mug'a cider, an' don' matter what shape they be in, I'll swap. Wife c'n allus use pins."

"Same here," said the sausage-roll vendor. "Fifteen pins fer a roll."

Well, that would take care of her nuncheon with nothing out of her pocket, and she'd be saved the trouble of straightening the pins herself. And dealing with them; she hadn't a paper to stick them in, and she didn't relish the idea of lining them up in rows on her hat. She'd probably forget they were there and put her hand on them. "Done, to both of you," she replied, "and grateful, too."

"Good enough," said the sausage vendor. And when a count proved her to have forty-three, offered her two rolls for what was left when she got her cider. She stowed the rest of her take in her pouch and pack, put away Lady Rose, drank her cider, and considered what to do with the rest of her day, devouring her rolls while she thought.

It really wasn't worth playing her fingers off for only three pennies, not when she needed to find a place to live, a teacher, and a second instrument, in that order. So, with a wave of farewell to the two vendors, she packed herself up, and took out her map.

After a few times of getting turned around, she learned the trick of following it. It was too bad that none of the places Mathe had marked were terribly nearby, but there were three that were kind of in a row, and she headed in their direction.

The first shop was in the middle of a neighborhood where her shabby clothing drew dubious looks; nearly everyone she saw on the street wore clothing like the wealthier farmers' sons and daughters wore to Church services back home. One look in the shop window convinced her that this was no place for her. The instruments hung on the wall were polished and ornamented with carving and inlay work; they might well be second-hand, but they were still beyond her reach, and so, likely, was the teaching to be had.

The second place was much like the first, and she caught sight of some of the students waiting their turns. They were very well dressed, hardly a patch or a darn or let-down hem to be seen, and most of them were much younger than she. From the bored expressions they wore, she had the notion that the only reason they were taking music lessons at all was because it was genteel to do so.

She left the brightly painted shops behind, passed through a street of nothing but wrought-iron gates set into brick walls a story tall, gates giving onto small, luxurious gardens. The gardens were beautiful, but she didn't linger to admire them. Some of those gates had men in livery behind them, and those men wore weapons, openly. No point in giving them a reason to think she was here by anything other than accident.

That street became a street of shops; food shops this time, Vegetables, fruit, wooden replicas of meat and fish and poultry, all displayed enticingly inside open windows, with the real meat and dairy products lying on counters inside, or hanging from the rafters and hooks on the walls. Here, the clothing of the folk in the street had a kind of uniform feel to it; all sober colors, with white aprons and caps or dark hats. Servants, she decided. Sent from those houses behind her to buy the goods for dinner. How strange to have a servant to send out-what a thought! To wait, doing whatever it was that rich folk did, until dinner appeared like magic, without ever having to raise a finger to make it all happen! And then to go up to a room, and find a bath hot and waiting, and a bed warmed and ready-a book, perhaps, beside it. And in the morning, to find clean clothing set out, breakfast prepared. . . .

She daydreamed about this as she wormed her way down street after street, each one getting progressively narrower, and gradually shabbier. Finally she found herself on a street much too narrow for a cart, unless it was one of the dog carts; a street that even a ridden horse would probably find uncomfortably confining.

There was only one shop in the street that had three instruments hanging in the window, although it had other things there as well; cheap copper jewelry, religious statues, cards of lace and tarnished trim that showed bits of thread on the edge where it had been picked off a garment, knives and a sword, a tarnished silver christening-goblet. . . .

A small sign in the window said "We Buy and Sell" and "Loans Made." Another sign beneath it showed two pairs of hands; one offering a knife, the other a silver coin. A third, smaller sign said "Music Lessons."

She looked back up at the instruments, a lute, a harp, and a guitar; they were old, plain, but well-cared-for. There wasn't a speck of dust on them anywhere. The strings looked a little loose, which meant they weren't kept tuned-something that would warp an instrument's neck if it wasn't taken down and played often. Whoever had hung them there knew what he was doing.

The street itself was quiet; one of those "residential" areas Mathe had spoken of. There was another food-shop on the corner, but otherwise, this seemed to be the only store in this block of buildings. The rest were all wooden, two-storied, with slate roofs; they had single doors and a window on either side of the door, with more windows in the overhanging second story. A rat might have been able to scurry in the spaces between them, but nothing larger.

The buildings themselves were old, in need of a new coat of paint, and leaned a little. They reminded Rune of a group of old granddams and grandsires, shabby, worn, but always thinking of the days when they had been young.

Instruments and lessons-and a place where she might find somewhere to live. This was the most promising area, at least insofar as her purse was concerned, that she had encountered yet. She opened the door and went inside.

The interior of the shop was darker than the public house had been, and smelled of mildew and dust. When she closed the door behind her, a bell jangled over it, and a voice from the back of the store said, "Be patient a moment, please! I'm up on a ladder!" The voice matched the store; a little tired, old, but with a hint that it had been richer long ago.

Rune waited, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness of the shop. The place was crowded with all sorts of oddments, even more so than the tiny window. Behind and in front of her were floor-to-ceiling shelves; on them were books, stuffed animals, neatly folded clothing, statues of all sorts, not just religious, one or two of which made her avert her eyes in flushed embarrassment. There were dusty crystals, strange implements of glass and metal, lanterns, and cutlery. All of it was used, much of it was old, and some of it looked as if it had sat there for centuries. Every object had a little paper tag on it; she couldn't imagine why.

Suspended from the rafters were cloaks and coats, each with moth-bane festooning the hems. The shop itself was barely large enough for Rune, the shelves, and the tiny counter at the rear of the shop.

After a moment, an old man dressed in a dust-colored shirt and breeches pushed aside the curtain behind the counter and peered at her, then shook his gray, shaggy head.

"I'm sorry, lad," he said regretfully. "I'm not buying today-"

"And I'm not selling, sir," she interrupted, approaching the counter so he could get a better look at her.

He blinked, looked again, and chuckled; a rich, humor-filled sound that made her want to like him. He reminded her of Raven, a little. And a little of that Guild Minstrel. "And you're no lad, either. Forgive me, lass. What can I do for you?"

A little surprised, since no one else had seen her true sex through her purposefully sexless clothing, she took another step forward. "My name is Rune. I'm a player, sir," she said, hesitantly. "I was told that I could find an instrument and lessons here."

"That's true," the old man said, his sharp black eyes watching her so closely she felt as if her skin were off. "You can, as you know if you saw the signs in the windows. But there's more to it than that-the things that brought you to this shop in this city. Now, I like a good tale as well as any man, and it's late and near time to close up. If you'd care to share a cup of tea with me-and tell me your tale?"

Part of her said not to trust this man-here he was a stranger, and offering to share his hospitality with another stranger-

But the rest of her thought-what could he possibly do to her? He was old, he moved slowly; he couldn't possibly out-wrestle her in a bad situation. Where was the harm in indulging him?

And there was more of Raven's advice. If you find yourself with someone who cares for his instruments, no matter how old, or how plain-or even how cheap-you can trust him. He's a man who knows that all value isn't on the surface. And he may have some of that hidden value himself.

"I'd like that, sir," she said, finally. But he had already raised his tiny counter on the hinges at one side, and was motioning her through as if he had never expected she would do anything other than accept. She pushed the curtains aside, hesitantly, and found herself in another narrow room, with a staircase at the farther end leading up to a loft. This room was just as crowded as the shop. There was a stove with a tiny fire in it, with a kettle atop; a broken-down bed that seemed to be in use as seating, since it was covered with worn-out cushions in a rainbow of faded materials. There seemed to be more furniture up in the loft, but the shadows up there were so thick that it was hard to see.

Besides the bed, there was a basin and ewer on a stand, a couple of tables piled with books, two chairs, and a kitchen-cupboard next to the stove. Everything stood within inches of the furniture beside it. There wasn't any possible way one more piece of furniture could have been crammed in here.

Rune took a seat on one of the chairs, placing her pack and Lady Rose at her feet. The only light came from a window at the rear of the room, below the loft, covered in oiled paper; and from a lantern on the table beside her.

There was a thump, as of heavy shutters closing, the door-bell jangled, and then a scraping sound of wood on wood came to her ears as the old man pushed the bar into place across his shutters. A moment later, he pushed aside the curtains and limped into the room.

Instead of speaking, he went straight to the stove at the rear and took a kettle off the top, pouring hot water into a cracked teapot that was missing its lid and stood on the shelf of the kitchen-cupboard beside him. He brought the pot and a pair of mugs with him, on a tarnished tray, which he sat down on the table beside her, next to the lamp, pushing the books onto the floor to make room for the tray.

"Now," he said, taking the other chair, "My name's Tonno. Yours, you said, is Rune, as I believe. While we wait for the herbs to steep, why don't you tell me about yourself? You're obviously not from Nolton, and your accent sounds as if you're from-hmm-Beeford, or thereabouts?"

She nodded, startled.

He chuckled and smiled, a smile that turned his face into a spiderweb of tiny lines, yet made him look immensely cheerful. "So, how is it that a young lady like you finds herself so far from home, and alone?"

She found herself telling him everything, for somehow his questions coaxed it all out of her; from the bare facts, to how she had managed to come here, to her desire for a place in the Guild. As the light beyond the oiled paper dimmed, and her confidence in him grew, she even told him about the Ghost, and her secret hoard of coins. Somehow she felt she could trust him even with that, and he wouldn't betray her trust.

He pursed his lips over that. "Have you told anyone else about this?" he asked sternly. She shook her head. "Good. Don't. The Church would either take a lion's share, or confiscate it all as coming from demons. I'll give you a choice; either you can keep them hidden and safe, or you can give them to me, and I'll provide you with that instrument you want and a year's worth of lessons-and give you whatever's left over, but I'll have it all changed into smaller coins. Smaller coins won't call attention to you the way silver would. I can probably manage that just on what I've saved."

She thought about that; thought about how easy it would be for the money to just trickle away, without her ever getting the lessons or the instrument. If she paid him now-

"This won't be just lessons in learning tunes, mind," Tonno said abruptly. "I'll teach you reading music, and writing it-you'll have the freedom to read any book in this shop, and I'll expect you to read one a week. I'm a hard teacher, but a fair one."

She nodded; this was more than she had expected.

"Can you play me a tune on that little fiddle of yours?" he asked-and once again, Rune took her lady from her case, and tuned her. This time, with care-for Tonno was a fellow musician, and she wanted to give him her very best.

She played him three pieces; a love song, a jig, and one of the strange Gypsy tunes that Nightingale had taught her. The last seemed to fill the shadows of the room with life, and turn them into things not properly of the waking world. It wasn't frightening, but it was certainly uncanny. She finished it with gooseflesh crawling up her arms, despite the fact that she had played the tune herself.

When she'd finished, Tonno sighed, and his eyes were a little melancholy. "I'll tell you something else," the old man said, slowly, "and I'm not ashamed to admit it, not after listening to you. I'm no better than a talented amateur. I knew better than to try and make a living at music, but I promise you that I know how to play every instrument in this shop, and I'm quite good enough to give you basic lessons. And believe me, child, if you've learned this much on your own, basic lessons in a new instrument, the ways of reading and writing the tunes you surely have in your head, and all the education you'll get from reading whatever you can get your hands on for the next year will be all that you need." He shook his head again. "After that you'll need more expert help than that, and I can probably find someone to give it to you. But I don't think that you'll need it for at least a year, and tell the truth, I wonder if some people who heard you now might not hold you back out of jealousy to keep you from outstripping them. When you get beyond me, I can send you out to others for special lessons, but until then-"

She let out the breath she'd been holding in a sigh.

"Can we chose an instrument now, sir?" she asked. "I'd like to make this a firm bargain."

They picked out a delicate little lute for her; she fell in love with its tone, and decided against the harp that Tonno thought might suit her voice better. Besides, the lute only had four strings; it would be easier to tune and keep tuned in the uncertain climes a traveling musician was likely to encounter. They agreed on a price for it and the year of lessons, and Rune retired behind a screen to take off her belt of silver coins. She knew she had spent a lot getting to Nolton; even augmenting her cash with playing on the road, the coins had been spent a lot faster than she'd liked. There was some left when they got through reckoning up how much three hours of lessons every day for a year would cost. Not much, but some. She could go ahead and buy her permit; and she would have a hedge against a lean spell.

When the commercial exchange had been accomplished, an awkward silence sprang up between them. She coughed a little, and bit her lip, wondering what to say next.

"I probably should go," she said, finally. "It's getting darker, and I've taken up too much of your time as it is. I'll come about the same time tomorrow for my first lesson-"

"Now what are your plans?" he asked, interrupting her. "Never mind what you're going to do tomorrow, what are you planning on doing tonight? You don't know the city-you could get yourself in a bad area, wandering about."

"I need a place to live," she said, now uncertain. Daylight was long spent, and she wasn't certain if those who took in lodgers would open their doors to a stranger after dark.

"What about a place to earn your keep?" he asked. "Or part of it, anyway-I-know someone looking for a musician. She could offer you a good room in exchange for playing part of the night. Possibly even a meal as well."

There was something about his manner that made her think there was a great deal more about the place than he was telling her, and she said as much.

He nodded, reluctantly. "It's a public house-a real one, but a small one. In part. And-well, the rest I'd rather Amber told you herself. If you want to go talk to her."

Tonno's diffident manner convinced her that there was something odd going on, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. She frowned a little.

He shrugged, helplessly. "It's only a few blocks away," he said. "And it's in the area where there are a lot of-places of entertainment. If you don't like Amber, or she doesn't like you, you can try somewhere else. That area is safe enough you could even busk on the street-corner and buy yourself a room when you have the two pence." He smiled apologetically. "I often go there for my dinner. I would be happy to walk you there, and introduce you to Amber."

She thought about it; thought about it a long time. In the end, what decided her was Tonno's expression. It wasn't that of a man who was planning anything, or even that of a man who was trying to keep his plans hidden. It was the anxious look of someone who has a friend of dubious character that he likes very much-and wants his new friend to like as well.

Rune was well enough acquainted with the way the world wagged to guess what Tonno's friend Amber was. A public house-"of sorts," hmm? A small one? That might be what it was below-stairs, but above . . .

Amber probably has pretty girls who serve more than just beer and wine, I'd reckon.

On the other hand, it couldn't hurt to go look. People who came to a whorehouse had money, and were ready to spend it. They might be willing to toss a little of it in the direction of a player. As long as Amber knew she was paying for the music, and not the musician.

Besides, if there was one thing the Church Priests preached against, it was the sins of the flesh. It would ease the burden of having to pay the Priests their damned tithe knowing that the money came from something they so violently disapproved of.

"All right," she said, standing up and catching Tonno by surprise. "I'll see this friend of yours. Let's go."

And I can always say no, once I've met her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the streets of Nolton darkness was total, and at first the only light they had to show them their footing were the torches at the crossroads, and the occasional candle or rushlight in a window at street level. Tonno kept a brisk pace for such an old man; Rune had to admire him. It helped that he knew the way, of course, and she didn't. He kept pointing out landmarks as they passed-a building that dated back several hundred years, a place where some significant event in the history of the city had occurred, or the site of someone's birth or death. She would strain her eyes, and still see only one more shapeless bulk of a building, with a furtive light or two in the windows. Finally she gave up trying to see anything; she just nodded (foolish, since he wouldn't be able to see the nod), and made an appreciative grunt or a brief comment.

The street Tonno led her to was not one she would have found on her own; it was reached only by passing through several other side streets, and the street itself was about a dozen houses long, and came to a dead end, culminating in a little circle with an ornamental fountain in the center of it. It was, however, very well lit, surprisingly so after the darkness of the streets around it; torches outside every door, and lanterns hanging in the windows of the first and second stories saw to that. There was an entire group of musicians and a dancer busking beside the fountain, and from the look of the money they'd collected on the little carpet in front of the drummer, the pickings were pretty good here. The fountain wasn't one of the noisy variety; it would be easy enough even for a single singer to be heard over it. A good place to put out a hat, it would seem.

The musicians looked familiar, in the generic sense; finally she realized that they were dressed in the same gaudy fashion as the Gypsies the harpist Nightingale traveled with. If this "Amber" didn't prove out, perhaps she'd see if they'd let her join them. They didn't have a fiddler, and they might recognize Nightingale's name or description, and be willing to let her join them on the basis of a shared acquaintance.

Most of the places on the circle itself were large, with three stories and lights in every window, sometimes strings of lanterns festooning the balconies on the second and third stories, as if it were a festival. There were people coming and going from them in a steady stream; men, mostly. And, mostly well-dressed. Whenever a door opened, Rune heard laughter and music for a moment, mingling with the music of the quartet by the fountain. There were women leaning over the balconies and out of the windows; most disheveled, most wearing only the briefest of clothing, tight-laced bodices and sleeveless under-shifts that fluttered like the drapes of the Ghost-

She shivered for a moment with a chill, then resolutely put the memory out of her mind. There was no Ghost here-and anyway, he'd favored her, he hadn't harmed her.

Sheer luck, whispered the voice of caution. She turned her attention stubbornly to her surroundings. Here was warmth and light and laughter, however artificial. There were no ghosts here.

All of the women, she had to admit, were very attractive-at least from this distance. They flirted with fans, combed their hair with languid fingers, or sometimes called out to the men below with ribald jokes.

She'd have to be a simpleton not to recognize what kind of a district this was. It might even be the same street Mathe had mentioned as a good place to busk at night. Her guise of a boy would probably keep her safely unmolested here-she'd seen no signs that these brothels catered to those whose tastes ran to anything other than women.

But Tonno took her to a tiny place, just two stories tall, tucked in beneath the wings of the biggest building on the circle. There were lights in the windows, but no women hanging out of them, and no balcony at all, much less one festooned with willing ladies. The sign above the door said only, "Amber's." And when Tonno opened the door, there was no rush of light and sound. He invited Rune in with a wave of his hand, and she preceded him inside while he shut the door behind them.

The very first thing she noticed were the lanterns; there was one on every table-and every table seemed to have at least one customer. So whatever this place was or did, it wasn't suffering from lack of business. The common room was half the size of the Bear's, but the difference was in more than size. Here, there were no backless benches, no trestle tables. Each square table was made of some kind of dark wood, and surrounding it were padded chairs, and there were padded booths with tables in them along the walls. The customers were eating real meals from real plates, with pewter mugs and forks to match. And the whiff Rune got of beef-gravy and savory was enough to make her stomach growl. She told it sternly to be quiet, promising it the bread and cheese still tucked into her pack. No matter what came of this meeting, she had a meal and the price of a room on her-and tomorrow would be another day to try her luck.

She'd certainly been lucky today, so far. It was enough to make her believe in guardian spirits.

Across the room, a woman presiding over a small desk beside a staircase saw them, smiled, and rose to greet them. She was middle-aged; probably a little older than Stara, and Rune couldn't help thinking that this was what Stara was trying to achieve with her paints and her low-cut bodices, and failing. Her tumbling russet curls were bound back in a style that looked careless, and probably took half an hour to achieve. Her heart-shaped face, with a wide, generous mouth, and huge eyes, seemed utterly ageless-but content with whatever age it happened to be, rather than being the face of a woman trying to hold off the years at any cost. The coloring of her complexion was so carelessly perfect that if Rune hadn't been looking for the signs, and seen the artfully painted shadows on lids and the perfect rose of the cheeks, she'd never have guessed the woman used cosmetics. Her dress, of a warm, rich brown, was of modest cut-but clung to her figure as if it had been molded to it, before falling in graceful folds to the floor.

Any woman, presented with Stara and this woman Amber, when asked to pick out the trollop, would point without hesitation to Stara, ignoring the other entirely. And Rune sensed instinctively that any man, when asked which was the youngest, most nubile, attractive, would select Amber every time. The first impression of Amber was of generosity and happiness; the first impression of Stara was of discontent, petulance, and bitterness.

She found herself smiling in spite of herself, and in spite of her determination not to let herself be charmed into something she would regret later.

"Tonno!" Amber said, holding out both hands to him, as if he was the most important person in the world. He clasped them both, with a pleased smile on his lips, and she held them tightly. "I had given up on seeing you tonight! I am so pleased you decided to come after all! And who is this young lad?"

She turned an inquiring smile on Rune that would likely have dazzled any real "lad," and yet was entirely free of artifice. It didn't seem designed to dazzle; rather, that the ability to dazzle was simply a part of Amber's personality.

"Amber, this lass is my new pupil, Rune. And, I hope, is the musician you've been asking me to find." Tonno beamed at both of them, but the smile that he turned to Rune held a hint of desperation in it, as if he was begging Rune to like this woman.

We'll see how she reacts to being told I'm a girl, first-if all she's interested in is what she can get out of someone, and she knows that as a woman I'm not as likely to be manipulated-

"A lass!" Amber's smile didn't lose a bit of its brightness. In fact, if anything, it warmed a trifle. "Forgive me, Rune-I hope you'll take my mistake as a compliment to your disguise. It really is very effective! Was this a way to avoid trouble in public? If it is, I think you chose very well."

Rune found herself blushing. "It seemed the safest way to travel," she temporized. "I never wore skirts except when I planned to stay at a hostel."

"Clever," Amber replied with approval. "Very clever. Now what was this about your being a musician? I take it you have no place yet? Tonno, I thought you said she was your student-" She interrupted herself with a shake of her head. "Never mind. Let's discuss all this over food and drink, shall we?"

Rune glanced sideways at the customer nearest her. She knew what she could afford-and she didn't think that this place served meals for a penny.

She thought she'd been fairly unobtrusive, but Amber obviously caught that quick sideways glance. And had guessed what it meant-though that could have been intuited from the threadbare state of Rune's wardrobe. "Business before pleasure, might be better, perhaps. If you'd feel more comfortable about it, we can discuss this now, in my office, and Tonno can take his usual table. Would that be more to your liking?"

Rune nodded, and Amber left her for a moment, escorting Tonno to a small table near the door, then returning with a faint swish of skirts. Rune sighed a little with envy; the woman moved so gracefully she turned the mere act of walking into a dance.

"Come into my office will you?" she said, and signaled to one of the serving girls to take care of Tonno's table. Obediently, Rune followed her, feeling like an awkward little donkey loaded down with packs, carrying as she was her worldly goods and the fiddle and lute cases.

The office was just inside the door to the staircase, and held only a desk and two chairs. Amber took the first, and Rune the other, for the second time that day dropping her packs down beside her. Amber studied her for a moment, but there was lively interest in the woman's eyes, as if she found Rune quite intriguing.

"Tonno is a very good friend, and has advised me on any number of things to my profit," she said at last. "He's very seldom wrong about anything, and about music, never. So perhaps you can explain how you can be both his student and the musician I've needed here?"

"I'm self-taught, milady," Rune replied with care. "Last night, my first in the city, the owner of the Crowned Corn said I was good enough to expect the same profit as anyone else who isn't a Guild musician. But that's on the fiddle-and I can't read nor write music, can't read much better than to puzzle out a few things in the Holy Book. So that's how I'm Tonno's student, you see-on the lute, and with things that'll make me ready for the Guild trials."

Amber nodded, her lips pursed. "So you've ambitions, then. I can't blame you; the life of a common minstrel is not an easy one, and the life of a Guild musician is comfortable and assured."

Rune shrugged; there was more to it than that, much more, but perhaps Amber wouldn't understand the other desires that fired her-the need to find the company of others like herself, the thirst to learn more, much more, about the power she sensed in music-and most especially, the drive to leave something of herself in the world, if only one song. As she knew the names of the Bards who had composed nearly every song in her repertory except the Gypsy ballads, so she wanted to know that in some far-off day some other young musician would learn a piece of hers, and find it worth repeating. Perhaps even-find it beautiful.

No, she'd never understand that.

"I will be willing to take Tonno's assessment of your ability as a given. This is what I can offer: a room and one meal a day of your choice. This is what your duty would be: to play here in the common room from sundown until midnight bell. I should warn you that you can expect little in the way of tips here; as you have probably guessed already, this is not an inn as such."

"It's a-pleasure-house, isn't it?" She had to think for a moment before she could come up with a phrase that wouldn't offend.

Amber nodded. "Yes, it is-and although many clients come here only for the food, the food is not where the profit is; it is merely a sideline. It serves to attract customers, to give them something to do while they wait their turn. Your capacity would be exactly the same. You would not be expected to serve above-stairs, is that clear?"

The relief must have been so obvious in spite of Rune's effort not to show it that Amber laughed. "My dear Rune-you are a very pleasant girl, but a girl is all you are, no matter how talented you might be in other areas. This house serves a very specific set of clients, by appointment only. And let me tell you that the four young ladies entertaining above are quite a peg beyond being either girls or merely pleasant. Beside them, I am a withered old hag indeed, and their talents and skills far outstrip mine!"

Irrationally, Rune felt a little put out at being called a "pleasant young girl"-but good sense got the better of her, and she contemplated the offer seriously for the first time since Tonno had brought the possibility up.

This meant one sure meal a day, a particularly good meal at that, and a room. She need only play until midnight bell; she would have the morning and noon and part of the afternoon to busk before her lessons with Tonno. Not a bad arrangement, really. It would let her save a few pennies, and in the winter when it was too cold to busk, she could stay inside, in a building that would, by necessity, be warmly heated. Still, this was a whorehouse . . . there were certain assumptions that would be made by the clients, no matter what Amber claimed. If Amber wanted her to dress as a female, there could be trouble.

"No one will bother you," Amber said firmly, answering the unspoken question. "If you like, you can keep to that boy's garb you've taken, although I would prefer it if you could obtain something a little less-worn."

Rune looked down reflexively at her no-color shirt, gray-brown vest and much-patched breeches, all of which had been slept in for the past three days, and flushed.

"Tonno can help you find something appropriate, I'm sure," Amber continued, with a dimpling smile. "I swear, I think the man knows where every second-hand vendor in the city is! As for the clients and your own safety-I have two serving girls and two serving boys below-stairs; you may ask them if they have ever been troubled by the clients. The ladies do not serve meals; the below-stairs folk do not serve the clients. Everyone who comes here knows that."

Rune licked her dry lips, took a deep breath, and nodded. "I'd like to try it then, Lady Amber."

"Good." Amber nodded. "Then let's make your meal for the day a bit of dinner with Tonno, and we can call tonight's effort your tryout. If you suit us, then you have a place; if not-I'll let you have the room for the rest of the night, and then we'll see you on your way in the morning."

A short trial-period, as these things went, and on generous terms. But she had nothing to lose, and if nothing else, she'd gain a dinner and a place to sleep for the night. She followed Amber back out into the common room, where she sat at Tonno's table, ate one of the best beef dinners she had ever had in her life, and listened while Amber and Tonno talked of books. The only time she'd ever eaten better was when the Sire had sent a bullock to the village to supply a feast in celebration of his own wedding, and Rune had, quite by accident she was sure, been given a slice of the tenderloin. The beef she'd normally eaten was generally old, tough, and stewed or in soup.

During that time, she saw several men leave by the stairs, and several more ascend when summoned by a little old man, so bent and wizened he seemed to be a thousand years old. They were all dressed well, if quietly, but for the rest, they seemed to fit to no particular mold.

As soon as she'd finished, she excused herself, and returned to Amber's office for Lady Rose, figuring that the office was the safest place to leave her gear for the moment. Fiddle in hand, she came back to the table, and waited for a break in the conversation.

"Lady Amber, if you please, where would you like me to sit, and what would you prefer I played?" she asked, when Amber made a point that caused Tonno to turn up his hands and acknowledge defeat in whatever they were discussing. They both turned to her as if they had forgotten she was there. Tonno smiled to see her ready to play, and Amber nodded a little in approval.

Amber's brows creased for a moment. "I think-over there by the fireplace, if you would, Rune," she said, after a moment of glancing around the room for the best place. "And I would prefer no dance tunes, and no heart-rending laments. Anything else would be perfectly suitable. Try to be unobtrusive-" She smiled, mischievously. "Seduce them with your music, instead of seizing them, if you will. I would like the clients relaxed, and in a good mood; sometimes they get impatient when they are waiting, and if you can make the wait enjoyable instead of tedious, that would be perfect."

Rune made her way around the edge of the room, avoiding the occupied tables, a little conscious of Amber's assessing eyes and Tonno's anxious ones. That was an interesting choice of music, for normally innkeepers wanted something lively, to heat the blood and make people drink faster. Evidently the "inn" was not in the business of selling liquor, either. It must be as Amber had said, that their primary income came from the rooms above. Rune would have thought, though, that an intoxicated client would be easier to handle.

On the other hand, maybe you wouldn't want the clients drunk; they might be belligerent; might cause trouble or start fights if they thought they'd waited longer than they should. So-must be that I'm supposed to keep 'em soothed. Soothing it is.

She found a comfortable place to sit in the chimney-corner, on a little padded bench beside the dark fireplace. She set her bow to her strings, and began to play an old, old love song.

This was a very different sort of playing from everything she'd done in inns up to this moment. There she had been striving to be the center of attention; here she was supposed to be invisible. After a moment, she began to enjoy it; it was a nice change.

She played things she hadn't had a chance to play in a while; all the romantic pieces that she normally saved for the odd wedding or two she'd performed at. Keeping the volume low, just loud enough to be heard without calling attention to the fact that there was a musician present, she watched her audience for a while until she became more interested in what she was playing than the silent faces at the tables. The serving-girls and men gave her an appreciative smile as they passed, but that was all the reward she got for her efforts. It was as if the men out there actually took her playing for granted.

Then it dawned on her that this was exactly the case; these were all men of some means, and no doubt many of them had household musicians from the Bardic Guild whose only duty was to entertain and fill the long hours of the evening with melody. That was why Amber had warned her she should expect little in the way of remuneration. Men like these didn't toss coins into a minstrel's hat-they fed him, clothed him, housed him, saw to his every need. And on occasion, when he had performed beyond expectation or when they were feeling generous, they rewarded him. But that only happened on great occasions, and in front of others, so that their generosity would be noted by others. They never rewarded someone for doing what she was doing now; providing a relaxing background.

Ah well. If I become a Guild musician, this may well be my lot. No harm in getting used to it.

After a while, she lost herself in the music-in the music itself, and not the memories it recalled for her. She began to play variations on some of the pieces, doing some improvisational work and getting caught up in the intricacies of the melody she was creating. She closed her eyes without realizing she'd done so, and played until her arm began to ache-

She opened her eyes, then, finished off the tune she'd been working on, and realized that she must have been playing for at least an hour by the way her arms and shoulders felt. The customers had changed completely; Tonno was gone, and Amber was nowhere to be seen. One of the serving-girls glided over with a mug of hot spiced cider; Rune took it gratefully. They exchanged smiles; Rune found herself hoping she'd be able to stay. Everything so far indicated that all Amber had claimed was true. She hadn't seen the serving-girls so much as touched. And both the girls, pretty in their brown skirts and bodices, one dark-haired and one light, had been friendly to her. They acted as if they were glad to have her there, in fact. Perhaps the clients were making fewer demands on them with Rune's playing to occupy their thoughts.

When she had shaken the cramps out, and had massaged her fingers a bit, she felt ready to play again. This time she didn't lose herself in the spell of the music; she watched the customers to see what their reaction was to her playing.

A head or two nodded in time to the music. There were two tables where there were pairs of men involved in some kind of game; it wasn't the draughts she was used to, for the pieces were much more elaborate. Those four ignored her entirely. There were another three involved in some kind of intense conversation who didn't seem to be paying any attention either. Then she noticed one richly dressed, very young man-hardly more than a boy-in the company of two older men. The boy looked nervous; as an experiment, she set out deliberately to soothe him. She played, not love songs, but old lullabies; then, as he began to relax, she switched back to love songs, but this time instead of ballads, she chose songs of seduction, the kind a young man would use to lure a girl into the night and (hopefully, at least from his point of view) into his bed.

The young man relaxed still further, and began to smile, as if he envisioned himself as that successful lover. He sat up straighter; he began to sip at his drink instead of clutch it, and even to nibble at some of the little snacks his companions had ordered for their table. By the time the wizened man summoned them, he was showing a new self-assurance, and swaggered a bit as he followed the old man up the stairs. His two companions chuckled, and sat back to enjoy their drink and food; one summoned one of the serving-boys, and a moment later, they, too, were embroiled in one of those games.

At first Rune was amused. But then, as she started another languid ballad, she felt a twinge of conscience. If the boy had actually responded to what she'd been doing, rather than simply calming normally, then she had manipulated him. She'd had her own belly full of manipulation; was it fair to do that to someone else, even with the best of intentions?

Did I do that, or was it just the liquor? And if it was me, what gave me the right?

She wondered even more now about these invisible "women" Amber employed. Did they enjoy what they were doing? Were they doing it by choice, or because of some kind of constraint Amber had on them? Were they pampered and protected, or prisoners? Just what kind of place was this, exactly?

She had finished her second mug of cider and was well into her third set, when the midnight bell rang, signaling the end of her stint. There was no sign that the custom had abated any, though; the tables were just as full as before. While she wondered exactly what she should do, Amber herself glided down the stairs and into the room, and nodded to her. She finished the song, slid Lady Rose into her carrying bag, and stood up, a little surprised at how stiff she felt. She edged past the fireplace to Amber's side, without disturbing anyone that she could tell. Amber drew her into the hall of the staircase, and motioned that she should go up.

"At this point, the gentlemen waiting are in no hurry," she said. "At this late hour, the gentlemen have usually exhausted their high spirits and are prepared to relax; past midnight I probably won't ever need your services to keep them occupied."

They got to the top of the stairs, where there was a hall carpeted in something thick and plushly scarlet, paneled in rich wood, and illuminated by scented candles in sconces set into the walls. She started to turn automatically down the candlelit hallway, but Amber stopped her before she'd gone a single pace. "Watch this carefully," the woman said, ignoring the muffled little sounds of pleasure that penetrated into the hall and made Rune blush to the hair. "You'll have to know how to do this for yourself from now on."

She tried to ignore the sounds herself, and watched as Amber turned to the shelves that stood where another hall might have been. She reached into the second set of shelves, grasped a brass dog that looked like a simple ornament, and turned it. There was a click, and a door, upon which the set of shelves had been mounted, swung open, revealing another hall. Amber waved Rune through and shut the door behind them.

This was a much plainer hallway; lit by two lanterns, and with an ordinary wooden floor and white-painted walls. "This subterfuge is so that the customers don't 'lose their way,' and blunder into our private quarters," Amber said, in a conversational voice. "I never could imagine why, but some people seem to think that anything ordinary in a pleasure-house must conceal something extraordinary. The serving-girls got very tired of having clients pester them, so I had the shelves built to hide the other hall. I took the liberty of having old Parro bring your things up to your new room so you wouldn't have to; I imagine that you're quite fatigued with all your walking about the streets today."

Rune tried to imagine that poor, wizened little man hauling her pack about, and failed. "He really didn't have to," she protested. "He-he doesn't-"

"Oh, don't make the mistake of thinking that because he's small and a bit crippled that he's weak," Amber said. "He wouldn't thank you for that. He's quite fiercely proud of his strength, and I have him as my summoner for a good reason. He can-and has-brought strong guardsmen to their knees, and men constantly underestimate him because of the way he looks."

"Oh," Rune said weakly.

"You'll meet everyone tomorrow; I thought you'd rather get to sleep early tonight," Amber continued, holding open a door for her. "This is your room, by the way. You did very well, just as well as Tonno said you would. I'm happy to welcome you to my little family, Rune."

Rune stepped into the room before the last remark penetrated her fatigue. "You are?" she said, a little stupidly.

Amber nodded, and lit a candle at the lantern outside the door, placing it in a holder on a little table just inside. "The bathroom is at the end of the hall, and there should be hot water in the copper if you want to wash before you go to bed. In the morning, simply come downstairs when you're ready, and either Parro or I will introduce you. Goodnight, Rune."

She had closed the door before Rune had a chance to say anything. But what could she say, really? "Wait, I'm not sure I should be doing this?" That wasn't terribly bright. "Just what is going on around here?" She knew what was going on. This was a whorehouse. She was going to entertain here. The madam was a gracious lady, of impeccable manners and taste, but it was still a house of pleasure-

But this was certainly the oddest bawdy-house she'd ever heard of.

She looked around at her room-her room, and what an odd sound that had! There wasn't much: a tiny table, a chair, a chest for clothing, and the bed. But it was a real bed, not a pallet on the floor like she'd had all her life. And it was much too narrow for two, which in a way, was reassuring.

There's no way anyone would pay to share that with Amber, much less with me.

The frame was the same plain wood as the rest of the furniture; the mattress seemed to be stuffed with something other than straw. Not feathers, but certainly something softer than she was used to; she bounced on it, experimentally, and found herself grinning from ear to ear.

There were clean, fresh sheets on the bed, and blankets hung over the footboard, with clean towels atop them. The plain wooden floor was scrubbed spotless, as were the white-painted walls. There was one window with the curtains already shut; she went to it and peeked out. Less than an arm's length away loomed the wooden side of the house next door; there were windows in it, but they were set so that they didn't look into any windows in this building, thus ensuring a bit of privacy. Not much of a view, but the window would probably let in some air in the summer, as soon as the warmer weather really arrived. It was better than being in the attic, where the sun beating down on the roof would make an oven of the place in summer, and the wind whistling under the eaves would turn it into the opposite in winter.

Her room. Her room, with a latch on the inside of the door, so she could lock it if she chose. Her room, where no one could bother her, a room she didn't have to share with anyone. Maybe it was the size of a rich man's closet, but it was all hers, and the thrill of privacy was heady indeed.

She looked longingly at the bed-but she knew she was filthy; she hadn't had a bath in several days, and to lie down in the clean sheets unwashed seemed like a desecration. It also wouldn't give Amber a very good impression of her cleanliness; after all, the woman had gone out of her way to mention that there was water ready for washing even at this late hour. That could have been a hint-in fact, it probably was.

She took the towels and went to the end of the hall to find the promised bathroom. And indeed, it was there, and included the indoor privies she had seen in the Church hostels, which could be flushed clean by pulling a chain that sluiced down a measured amount of water from a reservoir on the roof. There were two privies in stalls, and two bath-basins behind tall screens. One was big enough to soak in, but the other wouldn't take as long to fill, and she was awfully tired. Both the baths were fixed to the floor, with permanent drains in their bottoms.

She filled the shallow bath with equal measures of hot and cold water, dipped from the copper and a jar, both of which were also fed by the roof-reservoir. As she dipped the steaming water out of the top of the cauldron, she longed more than ever to be able to take a good long soak-

But that could wait until she had a half-penny to spare for the public baths and steam-house. Then she could soak in the hot pools, swim in the cold, and go back to soak in the hot pools until every pore was cleansed. She could take an afternoon from busking, perhaps the Seventh-Day, when people would be going to Church in the morning and spending the afternoon at home. That would mean there'd be fewer of them in the streets, and her take wouldn't be that much anyway; it wouldn't hurt her income as much to spend the afternoon in the bath-house.

But for now, at least, she could go to bed clean.

She scrubbed herself hastily, rinsed with a little more cold water, and toweled herself down, feeling as if she were a paying patron. And if this was the treatment that the help got, how were the patrons treated?

With that thought in mind, she returned to her room, locked herself in for the night, and dug out her poor, maltreated bread and cheese. It was squashed, but still edible, and she found herself hungry enough to devour the last crumb.

And with the last of her needs satisfied, she blew out the candle and felt her way to her bed, to dream of dancing lutes dressed in Gypsy ribbons, and fiddles that ran fiddle-brothels where richly dressed men came to caress their strings and play children's lullabies, and strange, wizened old men who lifted houses off their foundations and placed them back down, wrong-way about.

She woke much later than she had intended, much to her chagrin. She hurried into the only clean set of clothing she had-a shirt and breeches that had seen much better days-and resolved to find herself more clothing before Amber had a chance to comment on the state of her dress.

When she found her way down to the common room, she discovered the exterior doors locked tight, and a half-dozen people eating what looked like breakfast porridge, and talking.

One of those was the most stunning young woman Rune had ever seen. Even in a simple shift with her hair combed back from her face, she looked like-

An angel, Rune thought wonderingly. She was inhumanly lovely. No one should look that lovely. No one could, outside of a ballad.

The girl was so beautiful it was impossible to feel jealousy; Rune could only admire her, the way she would admire a rainbow, a butterfly, or a flower.

Her hair was a straight fall of gold, and dropped down past her waist to an inch or two above the floor; her eyes were the perfect blue of a summer sky after a rain. Her complexion was roses and cream, her teeth perfect and even, her face round as a child's and with a child's innocence. Her figure, slight and lissome, was as delicate as a porcelain figure of an idealized shepherdess.

Her perfect rosebud mouth made a little "o" as she saw Rune, and the person sitting with her, who Rune hadn't even noticed at that moment, turned. It was Amber.

"Ah, Rune," she said, smiling. "Come here, child. I'd like you to meet Sapphire. She is one of the ladies I told you about last night."

Rune blinked, and made her way carefully to the table. Anyone with that much beauty can't be human. She probably has the brains of a pea-

"Hello, Rune," Sapphire said, with a smile that eclipsed Amber's. "That isn't my real name, of course-Amber insisted we all take the names of jewels so when I leave here and retire, I can leave 'Sapphire' behind and just be myself."

Amber nodded. "It will happen, of course. This is not a profession one can remain in for long."

"Oh," Rune said, awkwardly. "Then-"

"Amber is not my real name, either-at least, it isn't the one I was born with," Amber said easily.

"I'll probably become 'Amber' when I take over as Madam," Sapphire continued. "Since there's always been an 'Amber' in charge here. This Amber decided to take me as her 'prentice, so to speak. I already help with the bookkeeping, but I'm going to need a lot more schooling in handling people, that much I know."

Rune nearly swallowed her tongue; this delicate, brainless-looking creature was doing-bookkeeping?

Sapphire laughed at the look on her face; Rune felt like a fool. "You're not the first person who's been surprised by Sapphire," Amber said indulgently. "I told you the ladies were all something very special."

"So are you, love," Sapphire replied warmly. "Without you, we'd all be-"

"Elsewhere," Amber interrupted. "And probably just as successful. All four of you have brains and ambition; you'd probably be very influential courtesans and mistresses."

"But not wives," Sapphire replied, and her tone was so bitter that Rune started.

"No," Amber said softly. "Never wives. That's the fate of a lovely woman with no lineage and no money. The prince doesn't fall in love with you, woo you gently, carry you away on his white horse and marry you over his father's objections."

"No, the prince seduces you-if you're lucky. More often than not he carries you off, all right, screaming for your father who doesn't dare interfere. Then he rapes you-and abandons you once he knows you're with child," Sapphire said grimly, her mouth set in a thin, hard line.

"And that is the prerogative of princes," Amber concluded with equal bitterness. "Merchant princes, princes of the trades, or princes by birth."

They both seemed to have forgotten she was there; she felt very uncomfortable. This was not the sort of thing one heard in ballads. . . .

Well, yes and no. There were plenty of ballads where beautiful women were seduced, or taken against their will. But in those ballads, they died tragically, often murdered, and their spirits pursued their ravagers and brought them to otherworldly justice. Or else they retired to a life in a convent, and only saw their erstwhile despoilers when the villains were at death's door, brought there by some other rash action.

Apparently, it wasn't considered to be in good taste to survive one's despoiling as anything other than a nun.

"Well, I'm not going to let one damn fool turn me into a bitter old hag," Sapphire said with a sigh, and stretched, turning from bitter to sunny in a single instant. "That's over and done with. In a way, he did me a favor," she said, half to Rune, half to Amber. "If he hadn't carried me off and abandoned me here, I probably would have married Bert, raised pigs, and died in childbed three years ago."

Amber nodded, thoughtfully. "And I would have pined myself over Tham wedding Jakie until I talked myself into the convent."

Sapphire laughed, and raised a glass of apple juice. A shaft of sunlight lancing through the cracks in the shutters pierced it, turning it into liquid gold

"Then here's to feckless young men, spoiled and ruthless!" she said gaily. "And to women who refuse to be ruined by them!"

Amber solemnly clinked glasses with her, poured a third glass for Rune without waiting for her to ask, and they drank the toast together.

"So, Rune, how is it that you come here," Sapphire asked, "with your accent from my own hills, and your gift of soothing the fears out of frightened young men?"

Rune's jaw dropped, and Amber and Sapphire both laughed. "You thought I hadn't noticed?" Amber said. "That was the moment when I knew you were for us. If you can soothe the fears out of a young man, you may well soothe the violence out of an older one. That is a hazard of our profession. Oh, our old and steady clients know that to come here means that one of the ladies will be kind and flattering, will listen without censure, and will make him feel like the most virile and clever man on Earth-but there are always new clients, and many of them come to a whore only because they hate women so much they cannot bear any other relationship."

"Then-I did right?" Rune asked, wondering a little that she brought a question of morality to a whore-but unable to believe that these two women were anything but moral. "I thought-it seemed so calculating, to try and calm him down-"

"The men who come here, come to feel better," Amber said firmly. "That is why I told you we serve a very special need. We hear secrets they won't even tell their Priests, and fears they wouldn't tell their wives or best friends. If all they wanted was lovemaking, they could go to any of the houses on the street-"

"Unskilled sex, perhaps," Sapphire commented acidly, with a candor that held Rune speechless. "Not lovemaking. That takes ability and practice."

"Point taken," Amber replied. "Well enough. Our clients come to us for more than that. Sapphire, Topaz, Ruby, and Pearl are more than whores, Rune."

"I'm-" she said, and coughed to clear her throat. "I'm, uh-beginning to see that."

"So how did you come here, Rune?" Sapphire persisted. "When I heard you speak, I swear, you carried me right back to my village!"

Once again, Rune gave a carefully edited version of her travels and travails-though she made light of the latter, sensing from Sapphire's earlier comments that her experiences had been a great deal more harrowing than Rune's. She also left out the Skull Hill Ghost; time enough to talk about him when she'd made a song out of him and there'd be no reason to suspect that the adventure was anything more than a song.

Sapphire sat entranced through all of it, though Rune suspected that half of her "entrancement" was another skill she had acquired; the ability to listen and appear fascinated by practically anything.

When Rune finished, Sapphire raised her glass again. "And here's to a young lady who refused to keep to her place as decreed by men and God," she said. "And had the gumption to pack up and set out on her own."

"Thank you," Rune said, flattered. "But I've a long way to go before I'm a Guild apprentice. Right now I intend to concentrate on keeping myself fed and out of trouble until I master my second instrument."

"Good." Amber turned a critical eye on her clothing, and Rune flushed again. "Please talk to Tonno about finding you some costumes, would you?"

That was a clear dismissal if ever Rune had heard one. And since she had decided to take advantage of her promised meal by making it supper-especially if she was going to dine like she had last night-she took her leave.

But she took to the streets in search of a busking-corner with her head spinning. Nothing around here was the way she had thought it would be. The folk who should have been honest and helpful-the Church-were taking in money and attempting to cheat over it at every turn. And the folk who should have been the ones to avoid-Amber and her "ladies"-had gone out of their way to give her a place. Of course, she was going to have to work for that place, but still, that didn't make things any less than remarkable. Amber was about as different from the fellow who set up at the Faires as could be imagined-and the ladies, at least Sapphire, as different from his hard-eyed dancers. They seemed to think of themselves as providing a service, even if it was one that was frowned upon by the Church.

Then again, it was the Church who frowned upon anything that didn't bring money to its coffers and servants to its hands. Doubtless the Church had found no way for the congress between men and women to bring profit to them-so they chose instead to make it, if not forbidden, then certainly not encouraged.

Rune shook her head and stepped out into the sunlight surrounding the fountain. It was all too much for her. Those were the worries of the high and mighty. She had other things to attend to-to find breakfast, pay her tax and tithe, buy her permit, and set up for busking until it was time for her lessons.

And that was enough for any girl to worry about on a bright early summer morning.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Midmorning found her back on the corner between the drink-stall and the sausage-stall, and both owners were happy to see her; happier still to see the badge of her permit pinned to the front of her vest. She set herself up with a peculiar feeling of permanence, and the sausage roll vendor confirmed that when he asked her if she planned to make this her regular station. She didn't have a chance to answer him then, but once the nuncheon rush was over and he had time again to talk, he brought it up again.

She considered that idea for a moment, nibbling at her lip. This wasn't a bad place; not terribly profitable, but not bad. There was a good deal of traffic here, although the only folks that passed by that appeared to have any money at all were the Church functionaries. Still, better spots probably already had "residents." This one might even have a regular player later in the day, when folk were off work and more inclined to stop and listen.

"I don't know," she said truthfully. "Why?"

"Because if ye do, me'n Jak there'll save it for ye," the sausage-man told her, as she exchanged part of her collection of pins for her lunch. "There's a juggler what has it at night, but we c'n save it fer ye by day. Th' wife knows a seamstress; th' seamstress allus needs pins." He leaned forward a bit, earnestly, his thin face alive with the effort of convincing her. "Barter's no bad way t'go, fer a meal or twain. An 'f ye get known fer bein' here, could be ye'll get people comin' here t' hear ye a-purpose."

"An we'll get th' custom," the cider-vendor said with a grin, leaning over his own counter to join the conversation. "Ain't bad fer ev'body."

Now that was certainly true; she nodded in half-agreement.

"Ye get good 'nough, so ye bring more custom, tell ye what we'll do," the cider-vendor Jak said, leaning forward even farther, and half-whispering confidentially. "We'll feed ye fer free. Nuncheon, anyway. But ye'll have t' bring us more custom nor we'd had already."

After a moment of thought, the sausage-vendor nodded. "Aye, we c'n do that, if ye bring us more custom. 'Nough t' pay th' penny fer yer share, anyway," he said. "That'll do, I reckon."

His caution amused her, even while she felt a shade of annoyance at their penny-pinching. Surely one sausage roll and a mug of cider wasn't going to ruin their profits in a day! "How would I know?" Rune asked with a touch of irony. "I mean, I'd only have your word that I hadn't already done that."

"Well now, ye'd just haveta trust us, eh?" Jak said with a grin, and she found herself wondering what the juggler thought of these two rogues. "What can ye lose? Good corners are hard t' find. A' when ye find one, mebbe sommut's already there. An' ye know ye can trade off yer pins here, even if we says ye hain't brought in 'nough new business t' feed ye free. Not ev'body takes pins. Ask that blamed Church vulture t'take pins, he'll laugh in yer face."

That was true enough. She looked the corner over with a critical eye. It seemed to be adequately sheltered from everything but rain. The wind wouldn't whip through here the way it might a more open venue. Sure, it was summer now, but there could be cold storms even in summer, and winter was coming; she was going to have to think ahead to the next season. She still had to eat, pay her tax and tithe on the trade-value of what she was getting from Amber, and enlarge her wardrobe. Right now she had no winter clothes, and none suitable for the truly hot days of summer. She'd have to take care of that, as well.

" 'F it rains, ye come in here," Jak said, suddenly. "I reckon Lars'd offer, but he's got that hot fat back there, an' I dunno how good that'd be fer th' fiddle there. Come winter, Lars peddles same, I peddle hot cider wi' spices. Ye can come in here t'get yer fingers an' toes warm whene'er ye get chilled."

That settled it. "Done," Rune replied instantly. It wasn't often a street-busker got an offer of shelter from a storm. That could make the difference between a good day's take and a poor one-shelter meant she could play until the last moment before a storm broke, then duck inside and be right back out when the weather cleared. And a place out of the cold meant extra hours she could be busking. That alone was worth staying for. These men might be miserly about their stock, but they were ready enough to offer her what someone else might not.

She left the corner for the day feeling quite lighthearted. On the whole, her day so far had been pretty pleasant, including the otherwise unpleasant duty of paying the Church. She'd been able to annoy the priest at the Church-box quite successfully; playing dunce and passing over first her tithe, counted out in half-penny and quarter-pennies, then her tax, counted out likewise, and then, after he'd closed the ledger, assuming she was going to move on, her permit-fee, ten copper pennies which were the equivalent of one silver. She'd done so slowly, passing them in to him one at a time, much to the amusement of a couple of other buskers waiting to pay their own tithes and taxes. They knew she was playing the fool, but he didn't. It almost made it worth the loss of the money. He had cursed her under his breath for being such a witling, and she'd asked humbly when she finished for his blessing-he'd had to give it to her-and he'd been so annoyed his face had been poppy-red. The other buskers had to go around the corner to stifle their giggles.

Now it was time to go find Tonno's shop-she needed at least one "new" outfit to satisfy Amber's requirements, and Tonno knew where she was going to be able to find the cheapest clothes. That expenditure wasn't something she was looking forward to, for the money for new clothing would come out of her slender reserve, but she had no choice in the matter. Amber's request had the force of a command, if she wanted to keep her new place, and even when she'd gotten her old clothing clean, it hadn't weathered the journey well enough to be presentable "downstairs." It would do for busking in the street, where a little poverty often invited another coin or two, but not for Amber's establishment.

On the other hand, the money for her lodging was not coming out of her reserves, and that was a plus in her favor. And she did need new clothes, no matter what.

When she pushed open the door, she saw that Tonno had a customer. He was going over a tall stack of books with a man in the long robes of a University Scholar, probably one of the teachers there. She hung back near the door of the shop until she caught his eye, then waited patiently until the Scholar was engrossed in a book and raised her eyebrows in entreaty. He excused himself for a moment; once she whispered what she needed, he took Lady Rose and her lute from her to stow safely behind the counter until lesson time, then gave her directions to Patch Street, where many of the old clothes sellers either had shops or barrows. She excused herself quickly and quietly-a little disappointed that he wouldn't be able to come with her. She had the feeling that he'd be able to get her bargains she hadn't a chance for, alone.

It was a good thing that she'd started out with a couple of hours to spend before her first lesson. Patch Street was not that far away, but the number of vendors squeezed into a two-block area was nothing less than astonishing. The street itself was thick with buyers and sellers, all shouting their wares or arguing price at the tops of their lungs. The cacophony deafened her, and she began to feel a little short of breath from the press of people the moment she entered the affray. The sun beat down between the buildings on all of them impartially, and she was soon limp with heat as well as pummeled by noise and prodded by elbows.

She now was grateful she had left Lady Rose with Tonno; there was scarcely room on this street to squeeze by. She tried to keep her mind on what she needed-good, servicable clothing, not too worn-but there were thousands of distractions. The woman in her yearned for some of the bright silks and velvets, worn and obviously second-hand as most of them were, and the showman for some of the gaudier costumes, like the ones the Gypsies had worn-huge multicolored skirts, bright scarlet sashes, embroidered vests and bodices-

She disciplined herself firmly. Under-things first. One pair of breeches; something strong and soft. Two new shirts, as lightweight as I can get them. One vest. Nothing bright, nothing to cry out for attention. I'm supposed to be inconspicuous. And nothing too feminine.

The under-things she found in a barrow tended by a little old woman who might have been Parro's wizened twin. She suspected that the garments came from some of the houses of pleasure, too; although the lace had been removed from them, they were under-things meant to be seen-or rather, they had been, before they'd been torn. Aside from the tears, they looked hardly used at all.

She picked up a pair of underdrawers; they were very lightweight, but they were also soft-not silk, but something comfortable and easy on the skin. Quite a change from the harsh linen and wool things she was used to wearing. The tears would be simple enough to mend, though they would be very obvious. . . .

Then again, Rune wasn't likely to be in a position where anyone was going to notice her mended underwear. The original owners though-it probably wasn't good for business for a whore to be seen in under-things with mends and patches.

It was odd, though; the tears were all in places like shoulder-seams, or along the sides-where the seams themselves had held but the fabric hadn't. As if the garments had been torn from their wearers.

Maybe they had been. Either a-purpose or by chance.

Perhaps the life of a whore wasn't all that easy. . . .

Her next acquisition must be a pair of shirts, and it was a little hard to find what she was looking for here. Most shirts in these stalls and barrows were either ready to be turned into rags, or had plainly been divested of expensive embroidery. The places where bands of ornamentation had been picked off on the sleeves and collars were distressingly obvious, especially for someone whose hands and arms were going to be the most visible parts of her. Although Rune wasn't the most expert seamstress in the world, it looked to her as if the fine weave of the fabrics would never close up around the seam-line. It would always be very clear that the shirt was second-hand, and that wouldn't do for Amber's. As she turned over garment after garment, she wondered if she was going to be able to find anything worth buying. Or if she was going to have to dig even deeper into her resources and buy new shirts. She bit her lip anxiously, and went back to the first barrow, hoping against hope to find something that might do-

" 'Scuse me, dearie." A hand on her arm and a rich, alto voice interrupted her fruitless search. Rune looked up into the eyes of a middle-aged, red-haired woman; a lady with a busking-permit pinned to the front of her bodice, and a look of understanding in her warm green-brown eyes. "I think mebbe I c'n help ye."

She licked her lips, and nodded.

"Lissen, boy," the woman continued, when she saw she'd gotten Rune's attention, leaning towards Rune's ear to shout at her. "Can ye sew at all? A straight seam, like? An' patch?"

What an odd question. "Uh-yes," Rune answered, before she had time to consider her words. "Yes, I can. But I can't do any more than that-"

"Good," the woman said in satisfaction. "Look, here-" She held up two of the shirts Rune had rejected, a faded blue, and a stained white, both of lovely light material, and both useless because the places where bands of ornament had been picked off or cut away were all too obvious. "Buy these."

Rune shook her head; the woman persisted, "Nay, hear me out. Ye go over t' that lass, th' one w' th' ribbons." She pointed over the heads of the crowd at a girl with a shoulder-tray full of ribbons of various bright colors. "Ye buy 'nough plain ribbon t' cover th' places where the 'broidery was picked out, an' wider than' the 'broidery was. Look, see, like I done wi' mine."

She held up her own arm and indicated the sleeve. Where a band of embroidery would have been at the cuff, there was a wide ribbon; where a bit of lace would have been at the top of the sleeve, she'd put a knot of multicolored ribbons. The effect was quite striking, and Rune had to admit that the shirt did not look as if it had come from the rag-bin like these.

The woman held up the white one. "This 'un's only stained at back an' near th' waist, ye see?" she said, pointing out the location of the light-brown stains. "Sleeves 'r still good. So's top. Get a good vest, sew bit'a ribbon on, an nobbut'll know 'tis stained."

Rune blinked, and looked at the shirts in the woman's hands in the light of her suggestions. It would work; it would certainly work. The stained shirt could even be made ready by the time Rune needed to take up her station at Amber's tonight.

"Thank you!" she shouted back, taking the shirts from the woman's hands, and turning to pay the vendor for them. "Thank you very much!"

"Think nowt on't," the woman shouted back, with a grin. "'Tis one musicker to 'nother. Ye do sommut else the turn one day. 'Sides, me niece's th' one w' the ribbon!"

She bought the shirts-dearer than she'd hoped, but not as bad as she'd feared-and wormed her way to the ribbon vendor's side. A length of dark blue quite transformed the faded blue shirt into something with dignity, and a length of faded rose-obviously also picked off something else-worked nicely on the stained white. And who knew? Maybe someone at Amber's would know how to take the stains out; they looked like spilled wine, and there was undoubtably a lot of spilled wine around a brothel.

Now for the rest; she had better luck there, thankful for her slight frame. She was thin for a boy, though tall-her normal height being similar to the point where a lad really started shooting up and outgrowing clothing at a dreadful rate. Soon she had a pair of fawn-colored corduroy breeches, with the inside rubbed bare, probably from riding, but that wouldn't show where she was sitting-and a slightly darker vest of lined leather that laced tight and could pass for a bodice when she wore her skirts. The seams on the vest had popped and had not been mended; it would be simplicity to sew them up again. With the light-colored shirt, the breeches, and the new vest, she'd be fit for duty this evening, and meanwhile she could wash and dry her blue breeches and skirt, and her other three shirts. Once they were clean, she could see how salvageable they were for night-duty. If they were of no use, she could come back here, and get a bit more clothing. And they'd be good enough for street-busking; it didn't pay to look too prosperous on the street. People felt sorry for you if you looked a bit tattered, and she didn't want that nosy Church-clerk to think she was doing too well.

She wormed her way out of the crowd to find that two hours had gone by-as well as five pennies-and it was time to return to Tonno.

* * *

Rune's head pounded, and her hands hurt worse than they had in years.

Blessed God. She squinted and tried to ignore the pain between her eyebrows, without success. Her fingers and her head both hurt; she was more than happy to take a break from the lesson when Tonno ran his hand through his thick shock of gray hair and suggested that she had quite enough to think about for the moment. She had always known that the lute was a very different instrument from the fiddle, but she hadn't realized just how different it was. She shook her left hand hard to try and free it from the cramps, and licked and blew on the fingertips of her right to cool them. There wouldn't be any blisters, but that was only because Tonno was merciful to his newest pupil.

Playing the lute was like playing something as wildly different from the fiddle as-a shepherd's pipe. The grip, and the action, for instance; it was noticably harder to hold down the lute's strings than the fiddle's. And now she was required to do something with her right hand-bowing required control of course, but all of her fingers worked together. Now she was having to pick in patterns as complicated as fingering . . . more so, even. She was sweating by the time Tonno called the break and offered tea, and quite convinced that Tonno was earning his lesson money.

It didn't much help that she was also learning to read music-the notes on a page-at the same time she was learning to play her second instrument. It was hard enough to keep notes and fingerings matched now, with simple melodies-but she'd seen some music sheets that featured multiple notes meant to be played simultaneously, and she wasn't sure she'd ever be ready for those.

"So, child, am I earning my fee?" Tonno asked genially.

She nodded, and shook her hair to cool her head. She was sweating like a horse with her effort; at this rate, she'd have to wash really well before she went on duty tonight. "You're earning it, sir, but I'm not sure I'm ever going to master this stuff."

"You're learning a new pair of languages, dear," he cautioned, understanding in his eyes. "Don't be discouraged. It will come, and much more quickly than you think. Trust me."

"If you say so." She put the lute back in its carrying case, and looked about at the shop. There were at least a dozen different types of instruments hanging on the wall, not counting drums. There were a couple of fiddles, another lute, a guitar, a shepherd's pipe and a flute, a mandolin, a hurdy-gurdy, a trumpet and a horn, three harps of various sizes, plus several things she couldn't identify. "I can't imagine how you ever learned to play all these things. It seems impossible."

"Partially out of curiosity, partially out of necessity," Tonno told her, following her gaze, and smiling reminiscently. "I inherited this shop from my father; and it helps a great deal to have a way to bring in extra money. But when he still owned it and I was a child, he had no way of telling if the instruments he acquired were any good, so when I showed some aptitude for music, he had me learn everything so that I could tell him when something wasn't worth buying."

"But why didn't you-" Rune stopped herself from asking why he hadn't become a Guild musician. Tonno smiled at her tolerantly and answered the question anyway.

"I didn't even try to enter the Guild, because I have no real talent for music," he said. "I have a knack for picking up the basics, but there my abilities end. I'm very good at teaching the basics, but other than that, I am simply a gifted amateur. Oh-and I can tell when a musician has potential. I am good enough to know that I am not good enough, you see."

Rune felt inexplicably saddened by his words. She couldn't imagine not pursuing music, at least, not now. Yet to offer sympathy seemed rude at the least. She kept her own counsel and held her tongue, unsure of what she could say safely.

"So," Tonno said, breaking the awkward silence, "It's time for your other lessons. What do you think you'd like to read? Histories? Collected poems and ballads? Old tales?"

Reading! She'd forgotten that was to be part of her lessoning. Her head swam at the idea of something more to learn.

"Is there anything easy?" she asked desperately. "I can't read very well, just enough to spell things out in the Holy Book."

Tonno got up, and walked over to the laden shelves without answering, scrutinizing some of the books stacked there for a moment.

"Easy, hmm?" he said, after a moment or two. "Yes, I think we can manage that. Here-"

He pulled a book out from between two more, and blew the dust from its well-worn cover. "This should suit you," he told her, bringing the book back to where she sat with her lute case in her lap. "It's a book of songs and ballads, and I'm sure you'll recognize at least half of them. That should give you familiar ground to steady you as you plunge into the new material. Here-" He thrust it at her, so that she was forced to take it before he dropped it on her lute. "Bring it back when you've finished, and I'll give you something new to read. Once you're reading easily, I'll start picking other books for you. It isn't possible for a minstrel to be too widely read."

"Yes, sir," she said hastily. "I mean, no, sir."

"Now, run along back to Amber's," he said, making a shooing motion with his hands. "I'm sure you'll have to do something with those new clothes of yours to make them fit to wear. I'll see you tomorrow."

How he had known that, she had no idea, but she was grateful to be let off. Right now her fingers stung, and she wanted a chance to rest them before the evening-and she did, indeed, have quite a bit of mending and trimming to do before her garments were fit for Amber's common room.

The first evening-bell rang, marking the time when most shops shut their doors and the farmer's market was officially closed. She hurried back through the quiet streets, empty of most traffic in this quarter, reaching Amber's and Flower Street in good time.

None of the houses on the court were open except Amber's, and Rune had the feeling that it was only the "downstairs" portion that was truly ready for business. There were a handful of men, and even one woman sitting in the common room, enjoying a meal. As Rune entered the common room, her stomach reminded her sharply that it would be no bad thing to perform with a good meal inside her. As she hesitated in the stairway, one of the serving-girls, the cheerful one who had smiled at her last night, stopped on her way to a table.

"If you'd like your meal in your room," she said, quietly, "go to the end of the corridor, just beyond the bathroom. There's a little staircase in a closet there that leads straight down into the kitchen. You can get a tray there and take it up, or you can eat in the kitchen-but Lana is usually awfully busy, so it's hard to find a quiet corner to eat in. This time of night, she's got every flat space filled up with things she's cooking."

"Thanks," Rune whispered back; the girl grinned in a conspiratorial manner, and hurried on to her table.

Rune followed her instructions and shortly was ensconced in her own room with a steaming plate of chicken and noodles, a basket of bread and sliced cheese, and a winter apple still sound, though wrinkled from storage. Although she was no seamstress, she made a fairly quick job of mending the vest and trimming the light shirt, taking a stitch between each couple of bites of her supper. The food was gone long before the mending was done, of course; she was working by the light of her candle when a tap at her door made her jump with startlement.

"Y-yes?" she stuttered, trying to get her heart down out of her throat.

"It's Maddie," said a muffled voice. "Lana sent me after your dishes."

"Oh-come in," she said, standing up in confusion, as the door opened, revealing the serving-girl who'd told her the way to the kitchen. With her neat brown skirt and bodice and apron over all, she looked as tidy as Rune felt untidy. Rune flushed. "I'm sorry, I meant to take them down-I didn't mean to be any trouble-"

The girl laughed, and shook her head until her light brown hair started to come loose from the knot at the back of her neck. "It's no bother," she replied. "Really. There's hardly anyone downstairs yet, and I wanted a chance to give you a proper hello. You're Rune, right? The new musician? Carly thought you were a boy-she is going to be so mad!"

Rune nodded apprehensively. The girl seemed friendly enough-she had a wonderful smile and a host of freckles sprinkled across her nose that made her look like a freckled kitten. She looked as if she could have been one of the village girls from home.

Which was the root of Rune's apprehension. Those girls from home hadn't ever been exactly friendly. And now this girl had been put out of her way to come get the dishes, and had informed her that the other serving-girl was going to be annoyed when she discovered the musician wasn't the male she had thought.

"Well, I'm Maddie," the girl said comfortably, picking up the tray, but seeming in no great hurry to leave with it. "I expect we'll probably be pretty good friends-and I expect that Carly will probably hate you. She's the other server, the blond, the one as has the sharp eyes and nose. She hates everyone-every girl, anyway. But she's Parro's daughter, so Lady Amber puts up with her."

"What's Carly's problem?" Rune asked, putting her sewing down.

"She wants to work upstairs," Maddie said with a twist of her mouth. "And there's no way. She's not nowhere good enough. Or nice enough." Maddie shrugged, at least as much as the tray in her arms permitted. "She'll probably either marry some fool and nag him to death, or end up down the street at the Stallion or the Velvet Rope. There's men enough around that'll pay to be punished that she'd be right at home."

Rune found her mouth sagging open at Maddie's matter-of-fact assessment of the situation. And at what she'd hinted. Back at home-

Well, she wasn't back at home.

She found herself blushing, and Maddie giggled. "Best learn the truth, Rune, and learn to live with it. We're on Flower Street, and that's the whore's district. There's men that'll pay for whores to do weirder things than just nag or beat 'em, but that doesn't happen here. But this's a whorehouse, whatever else them 'nice' people call it; the ladies upstairs belong to the Whore's Guild, and they got the right to make a living like any other Guild. Got Crown protection and all."

Rune's mouth sagged open further. "They-do?" she managed.

"Surely," Maddie said, with a firm nod. "I know, 'tis a bit much at first. Me, my momma was a laundry-woman down at Knife's Edge, so I seen plenty growing up. . . . and let me tell you, I was right glad to get a job here instead of there! But young Shawm, he's straight from the country like you, and Carly made his life a pure misery until me and Arden and Lana took him in hand and got him used to the way things is. Like we're gonna do with you."

Rune managed a smile. "Thanks, Maddie," she said weakly, still a little in shock at the girl's frankness. "I probably seem like a real country-cousin to you-"

Maddie shook her head cheerfully. "Nay. Most of the people here in town think just like you-fact is, Amber's had a bit of a problem getting a good musicker because of that. Whoring is a job, lass, like any other. Whore sells something she can do, just like a cook or a musicker. Try thinking on it that way, and things'll come easier." She tilted her head to one side, as Rune tried not to feel too much a fool. At the moment, she felt as naive as a tiny child, and Maddie, though she probably wasn't more than a year older, seemed worlds more experienced.

"I got to go," the other girl said, hefting the tray a little higher. "Tell you what, though, if you got clothes what need washing, you can give 'em to me and I'll take 'em to Momma with Lana and Shawm's and mine tonight. 'Twon't cost you nothing; Momma does it 'cause Lana gives her what's left over. Lady Amber don't allow no leftovers being given to our custom."

"Oh-thank you!" Rune said, taken quite aback. "But are you sure?"

Maddie nodded. "Sure as sure-and sure I won't never do the same for Carly!" She winked, and Rune stifled a giggle, feeling a sudden kinship with the girl. "I'll come by in the morning and you can help me carry it all down to Momma, eh?"

Rune laughed. "Oh, I see! This way you get somebody to help you carry things!"

Maddie grinned. "Sure thing, and I don't want to ask Shawm. I got other things I'd druther ask him to do."

Rune grinned a little wider-and dared to tease her a little. "Maddie, are you sweet on Shawm?"

To her surprise, the girl blushed a brilliant scarlet, and mumbled something that sounded like an affirmative.

Rune could hardly believe Maddie's sudden shyness-this from the girl who had just spoke about being brought up in a whorehouse with the same matter-of-factness that Rune would have used in talking about her childhood at the Hungry Bear. "Well, don't worry," she said impulsively, "I won't tell him or Carly. If that's what you want."

Maddie grinned gratefully, still scarlet. "Thanks. I knew you were a good'un," she said. "Now I really do have to go. The custom's gonna start coming in right soon, and Shawm's down there by himself."

"I'll see you down there in a little bit," Rune replied. "And if you can think of anything you'd like to hear, let me know. If I don't know it, I bet Tonno does, and I can learn it from him."

"Thanks!" Maddie said with obvious surprise. "Hey-you know, 'Ratcatcher'? I really like that song, and I don't get to hear it very often."

"I sure do!" Rune replied, happy to be able to do something for Maddie right away in return for the girl's kindness. "I'll play it a couple times tonight, and if you think of anything else, tell me."

"Right-oh!" Maddie said, and turned to go. Rune held the door open for her, then trotted down to the end of the hall to hold open the door to the stairway as well.

She returned to put the last touches on her costume for tonight and get Lady Rose in tune, feeling more than a little happy about the outcome of the day so far. She'd gotten her first lesson, a permanent busking site with some extra benefits, acquired the first "new" clothing she'd had in a while, been warned about an enemy-

And found a friend. That was the most surprising, and perhaps the best part of the day. She'd been half expecting animosity from the other girls-but she was used to that. She'd never expected to find one of them an ally.

She slipped into her new garb and laced the vest tight, flattening her chest-what there was of it-and looking down at herself critically. Neat, well-dressed-and not even remotely feminine looking. That would do.

Time to go earn her keep. She grinned at the thought. Time to go earn my keep. At a house of pleasure. With my fiddle. And my teacher thinks I'm going to be good. Go stick that in your cup and drink it, Westhaven.

And she descended the front stairs with a heady feeling of accomplishment.

CHAPTER NINE

"I can't imagine what Lady Amber thinks she's doing, hiring that scruffy little catgut-scraper," Carly said irritably-and very audibly-to one of the customers, just as Rune finished a song. "I should think she'd drive people away. She gives me a headache."

Rune bit her tongue and held her peace, and simply smiled at Carly as if she hadn't been meant to overhear that last, then flexed her fingers to loosen them.

Bitch. She'd fit right in at Westhaven. Right alongside those other sanctimonious idiots.

"I think it's very pleasant," the young man said in mild surprise. He looked over to Rune's corner and lifted a finger. "Lass, you wouldn't know 'Song of the Swan,' would you?"

"I surely would, my lord," she said quickly, and began the piece before Carly could react, keeping her own expression absolutely neutral. No point in giving the scold any more ammunition than she already had. Rune got along fine with everyone else in the house; it was only Carly who was intent on plaguing her life. Why, she didn't know, but it was no use taking tales to Lady Amber; Amber would simply fix her with a chiding look, and ask her if it was really so difficult to get along with one girl.

The young man looked gratified at being called "my lord"; Amber had told her to always call men "my lord" and the few women who frequented the place "my lady." "It does no harm," Amber had said with a lifted eyebrow, "and if it makes someone feel better to be taken for noble, then it does some good."

That seemed to be the theme of a great many things that Amber said. She even attempted to make the sour-tempered Carly feel more contented. Of course, the girl did do her work, quickly, efficiently, and expertly-she could serve more tables than Shawm, Maddie, or Arden. That was probably one of the things that saved her from getting the sack, Rune reflected. If she'd shirked her work, there would be no way that even Amber would put up with her temper.

Now that summer was gone, and autumn nearly over as well, Rune was a standard fixture at Amber's and felt secure enough there that she had dropped the boy disguise, even when she wore her breeches instead of skirts. The customers never even hinted at services other than music, for she, along with the rest of the downstairs help, did not sport the badge of the Whore's Guild. And that made her absolutely off-limits, at least in Amber's. In one of the other houses on the street, that might not be true, but here she was safe.

She knew most of the regular customers by sight now, and some by name as well. Tonno's friends she all knew well enough even to tease them a bit between sets-and they frequently bought her a bit of drink a little stronger than the cider she was allowed as part of her keep. A nice glass of brandy-wine did go down very well, making her tired fingers a little less tired, and putting a bit more life in her hands at the end of a long night. That was the good part; the bad part was that her income had fallen off. There were fewer people on the street seeking nuncheon during the day, the days themselves were shorter, and winter was coming on very early this year. Jak and his fellow vendor had been looking askance at the weather, and Jak had confessed that he thought they might have to close down during the bitterest months this year, shutting up the stalls and instead taking their goods to those public houses that didn't serve much in the way of food.

If that happened, Rune would still have her corner, but no shelter. Already she had lost several days to rotten weather; rains that went on all day, soaking everything in sight, and so cold and miserable that even Amber's had been shy of custom come the evening hours.

The winter did not look to be a good one, so far as keeping ahead of expenses went. The best thing she could say for it was that at least she had a warm place to live, and one good, solid meal every day-she still had her teacher, and a small store of coin laid up that might carry her through until spring. If only she didn't have the damned tax and tithe to pay. . . .

No one made any further suggestions, so Rune let her wandering mind and fingers pick their own tunes. Today had been another of those miserable days; gray and overcast, and threatening rain though it never materialized. The result was that her take was half her norm: five pennies in half and quarter pence and pins, and out of that was taken three pence for tithes and taxes. The only saving grace was that since her corner was right across from the Church-box, the Priest could see for himself how ill she was doing and didn't contest her now that she was paying less. Nor, thank God, had he contested her appraisal of her food and lodging as five pennies. She hadn't told him where it was, or she suspected he'd have levied it higher. She'd seen the clients paying over their bills, and the meal alone was generally five copper pennies.

It's a good thing I've already got my winter clothes. I'd never be able to afford them now. The local musicians had a kind of unofficial uniform, an echo of what the Guild musicians wore. Where Guildsmen always wore billowy-sleeved shirts with knots of purple and gold or silver ribbons on the shoulders of the sleeves, the non-Guild Minstrels wore knots of multicolored ribbons instead. Rune had modified all her shirts to match; and since no one but a musician ever sported that particular ornament, she was known for what she was wherever she went. During the summer she'd even picked up an odd coin now and again because of that, being stopped on the street by someone who wanted music at his party, or by an impromptu gathering on a warm summer night that wanted to dance.

But that had been this summer-

A blast of cold wind hit the shutters, shaking them, and making the flames on all the lanterns waver. Rune was very glad of her proximity to the fireplace; it was relatively cozy over here. Maddie and Carly wore shawls while they worked, tucking them into their skirt bands to keep their hands free. She couldn't wear a shawl; she had to keep hands and arms completely free. If she hadn't been in this corner, she'd be freezing by now, even though fiddling was a good way to keep warm.

The winter's going to be a bad one. All the signs pointed in that direction. For that matter, all the signs pointed to tomorrow being pretty miserable. Maybe I ought to just stay here tomorrow. . . .

Carly passed by, scowling. Just to tweak the girl's temper, Rune modulated into "I've A Wife." Since it was quite unlikely that Carly would ever attain the married state, it was an unmistakable taunt in her direction. Assuming the girl was bright enough to recognize it as such.

On the other hand, staying here tomorrow means I'd have to put up with her during the day. I can't stay in bed all day reading, and it's too cold to stay up there the whole day. It's not worth it.

Maybe Tonno could use some help in his shop. . . .

She changed the tune again, to "Winter Winds," as another blast hit the shutters and rattled them. She told herself again that it could be worse. She could be on the road right now. She could be back in Westhaven. There were a hundred places she could be; instead she was here, with a certain amount of her keep assured.

Sapphire drifted down the stairs, dressed in a lovely, soft kirtle of her signature blue. That was a rarity, the ladies didn't usually come downstairs after dark. Rune was a little surprised; but then she saw why Sapphire had come down. While luxurious, the lady's rooms were meant for one thing only-besides sleep. And then, it got very crowded with more than two. If clients wanted simple company, and in a group rather than alone, well, the common room was the best place for that. There were four older gentlemen waiting eagerly for Sapphire at their table, a pentangle board set up and ready for play.

If all they wanted was to play pentangle with a beautiful woman who would tease and flatter all of them until they went home-or one or more of them mustered the juice to take advantage of the other services here-then Amber's would gladly provide that service. And now Rune knew why Carly was especially sour tonight. Bad enough that she wasn't good enough to take her place upstairs. Worse that one of the ladies came down here, into her sphere, to attract all eyes and remind her of the fact. For truly, there wasn't an eye in the place that wasn't fastened on Sapphire, and well she knew it. Though Carly was out-of-bounds, she liked having the men look at her; now no one would give her any more attention than the lantern on the table.

Sapphire winked broadly at Rune, who raised her eyebrows and played her a special little flourish as she sat down. Rune knew all the ladies now, and to her immense surprise, she found that she liked all of them. And never mind that one of them wasn't human. . . .

That was Topaz; a lady she had met only after Maddie had taken her aside and warned her not to show surprise if she could help it. What Topaz was, Rune had never had the temerity to ask. Another one of those creatures who, like Boony, came from-elsewhere. Only Topaz was nothing like Boony; she was thin and wiry and com-

pletely hairless, from her toe and finger-claws to the top of her head. Her golden eyes were set slantwise in her flat face, which could have been catlike; but she gave an impression less like a cat and far more like a lizard with her sinuosity and her curious stillness. Her skin was as gold as her eyes, a curious, metallic gold, and Rune often had the feeling that if she looked closely enough, she'd find that in place of skin Topaz really had a hide covered in tiny scales, the size of grains of dust. . . .

But whatever else she looked like, Topaz was close enough to human to be very popular at Amber's. Or else-

But Rune didn't want to speculate on that. She was still capable of being flustered by some of the things that went on here.

Her fingers wandered into "That Wild Ocean"-which made her think of Pearl, not because Pearl was wild, but because she reminded Rune of the way the melody twisted and twined in complicated figures, for all that it was a slow piece. Pearl was human, altogether human, though of a different race than anyone Rune had ever seen. She was tiny and very pale, with skin as colorless as white quartz, long black hair that fell unfettered right down to the floor, and black, obliquely slanted eyes. She and Topaz spent a great deal of their free time together; Rune suspected that there were more of Topaz's kind where Pearl came from, although neither of them had ever said anything to prove or disprove that. Occasionally Rune would catch them whispering together in what sounded like a language composed entirely of sibilants, but when Rune had asked Pearl if that was her native tongue, the tiny woman had shaken her head and responded with a string of liquid syllables utterly unlike the hissing she had shared with Topaz.

But for all their strangeness, Pearl and Topaz were very friendly, both to her and to Maddie, Shawm, and Arden. Maddie frankly adored Pearl, and would gladly run any errand the woman asked of her. Shawm, white-blond and bashful, with too-large hands and feet, was totally in awe of all the ladies, and couldn't even get a word out straight when they were around. Arden, tall and dark, like Rune, teased them all like a younger brother, and took great pleasure in being teased back. He was never at a loss for words with any of them-

Except for one; the fourth lady, Ruby, who was the perfect compliment to Sapphire. Her eyes were a bright, challenging green, in contrast to Sapphire's dreamy blue. Her hair was a brilliant red, cut shorter than Rune's. Her figure was athletic and muscular, and she kept it that way by running every morning when she rose, and following that by two hours of gymnastic exercises. Where Sapphire was soft and lush, she was muscle and whipcord. Where Sapphire was gentle, she was wild. Where Sapphire was languid, she was quicksilver; Sapphire's even temper was matched by her fiery changeability.

Predictably enough, they were best friends.

And where Arden could tease Sapphire until she collapsed in a fit of giggles, he became tongue-tied and silent in the presence of Ruby.

And Carly hated that.

Well, fortunately Ruby was fully occupied at the moment-so Arden could tease Sapphire as she teased the old gentlemen at her table, and Carly only glowered, she didn't fume.

All four of them, plus Maddie, were the first female friends Rune had ever had. She found herself smiling a little at that, and smiled a bit more when she realized that her fingers had started "Home, Home, Home." Well, this was the closest thing she'd ever had to a home. . . .

One by one, the four ladies had introduced themselves over the course of her first few weeks at Amber's, and gradually Rune had pieced together their stories. Topaz's history was the most straightforward. Topaz, like Boony, had been a bondling, and had been taken up for the same reason; failure to pay tax and tithe. She had been a small merchant-trader until that moment. Amber had bought her contract from one of the other houses at Pearl's hysterical insistence when the tiny creature learned that Topaz was in thrall there.

"And just as well," Topaz had said, once. "One more night there, and . . . something would have been dead. It might have been a client. It might have been me. I cannot say."

Looking at her strange, golden eyes, and the wildness lurking in them, Rune could believe it. It was not that Topaz had objected to performing what she called "concubine duties." Evidently that was a trade with no stigma attached in her (and Pearl's) country. It was some of the other things the house had demanded she perform. . . .

Her eyes had darkened and the pupils had widened until they were all that was to be seen when she'd said that. Rune had not asked any further questions.

Pearl had come as a concubine in the train of a foreign trader; when he had died, she had been left with nowhere to go. By the laws of her land, she was property-and should have been sent back with the rest of his belongings. But by the laws of Nolton, even a bondling was freed by the death of his bondholder, and no one was willing to part with the expense of transporting her home again.

But she had learned of Flower Street and of Amber's from her now-dead master, and had come looking for a place. Originally she had intended to stay only long enough to earn the money to return home, but she found that she liked it here, and so stayed on, amassing savings enough to one day retire to a place of her own, and devote herself to her other avocation, the painting of tiny pictures on eggshells. As curiosities, her work fetched good prices, and would be enough to supplement her savings.

Sapphire's story was the one she had obliquely referred to that first morning when Rune had met her; carried off and despoiled by a rich young merchant's son, she had been abandoned when her pregnancy first became apparent. She had been befriended by Tonno, who had found her fainting on his doorstep, and taken to Amber. What became of the child, Rune did not know, though she suspected that Amber had either rid the girl of it or she had miscarried naturally. Amber had seen the haggard remains of Sapphire's great beauty, and had set herself to bringing it back to full bloom again. And had succeeded. . . .

Then there was Ruby, who had been a wild child, willful, and determined to be everything her parents hated and feared. Possibly because they had been so determined that she become a good little daughter of the Church-perhaps even a cleric-Priest or a nun. She had run away from the convent, got herself deflowered by the first man she ran across (a minstrel, she had confided to Rune, "And I don't know who was the more amazed, him or me") and discovered that she not only had a talent for the games of man and maid, she craved the contact. So she had come to Nolton ("Working my way"), examined each of the brothels on Flower Street, then came straight to Amber, demanding a place upstairs.

Amber, much amused by her audacity and impressed by her looks, had agreed to a compromise-a week of trial, under the name "Garnet," promising her a promotion to "Ruby" and full house status if she did well.

She was "Ruby" within two days.

Ruby was the latest of the ladies, a fact that galled Carly no end. Carly had petitioned Amber for a trial so many times that the lady had forbidden her to speak of it ever again. She could not understand why Ruby had succeeded where she had failed.

Sapphire left the gentlemen for a moment and drifted over to Rune's corner. Seeing where she was headed, Rune brought her current song to an end, finishing it just as Sapphire reached the fireplace. The young gentleman who had earlier requested a song hardly breathed as he watched her move, his eyes wide, his face a little flushed.

"Rune, dear, each of the gentleman has a song he'd like you to play, and I have a request too, if you don't mind," Sapphire said softly, with an angelic smile. "I know you must be ready for a break, but with five more songs, I think dear Lerra might be ready to-you know."

Rune smiled back. "Anything for you ladies, Sapphire, and you know it. I didn't get to play much out on the street today; my fingers aren't the least tired."

That was a little lie, but five more songs weren't going to hurt them any.

"Thank you, dear," Sapphire breathed, her face aglow with gratitude. That was one of the remarkable things about Sapphire; whatever she felt, she felt completely, and never bothered to hide it. "All right, this is what we'd like. 'Fair Maid of The Valley,' 'Four Sisters,' 'Silver Sandals,' 'The Green Stone,' and 'The Dream of the Heart.' Can you do all those?"

"In my sleep," Rune told her, with a grin. Sapphire rewarded her with another of her brilliant smiles, and started to turn to go-

But then she turned back a moment. "You know, I must have thought this a thousand times, and I never told you. I am terribly envious of your talent, Rune. You were good when you first arrived-you're quite good now-and some day, people are going to praise your name from one end of this land to the other. I wish I had your gift."

"Well-" Rune said cautiously, "I don't know about that. I've a long way to go before I'm that good, and a hundred things could happen to prevent it. Besides-" she grinned. "It's one Guild Bard in a thousand that ever gets that much renown, and I doubt I'm going to be that one."

But Sapphire shook her head. "I tell you true, Rune. And I'll tell you something else; for all the money and the soft living and the rest of it, if I had a fraction of your talent, I'd never set foot upstairs. I'd stay in the common room and be an entertainer for the rest of my life. All four of us know how very hard you work, we admire you tremendously, and I want you to know that."

Then she turned and went back to her little gathering, leaving Rune flattered, and no little dumbfounded. They admired her? Beautiful, graceful, with everything they could ever want or need, and they admired her?

This was the first time she had ever been admired by anyone, and as she started the first of the songs Sapphire had requested, she felt a little warm current of real happiness rising from inside her and giving her fingers a new liveliness.

Even Jib thought I was a little bit daft for spending all my time with music, she thought, giving the tune a little extra flourish that made Sapphire half turn and wink at her from across the room. Tonno keeps thinking about what I should be learning, Maddie doesn't understand how I feel about music, and even to Lady Amber I'm just another part of the common room. That's the very first time anyone has ever just thought that what I did was worth it, in and of itself.

The warm feeling stayed with her, right till the end of the fifth song, when Sapphire laughingly drew one of the gentlemen to his feet and up the stairs after her.

She played one more song-and then she began to feel the twinges in her fingers that heralded trouble if she wasn't careful. Time for a break.

She threw the young gentleman a good-natured wink, which he returned, and set off to the kitchen for a bit of warm cider, since it was useless to ask Carly for anything.

They admire me. Who'd have thought it. . . .

Rune let her fingers prance their way across her lute-strings, forgetting that she was chilled in the spell of the music she was creating. Tonno listened to her play the piece she had first seen back in the summer, and thought impossible, with all its runs and triple-pickings, with his eyes closed and his finger marking steady time.

She played it gracefully, with relish for the complexities, with all the repeats and embellishments. She couldn't believe how easy it seemed-and how second-nature it was to read and play these little black notes on the page. She couldn't have conceived of this back in the summer, but one day everything had fallen into place, and she hadn't once faltered since. She came to the end, and waited, quietly, for her teacher to say something. When he didn't, when he didn't even open his eyes, she obeyed an impish impulse and put down the lute, picking up Lady Rose instead.

Then she started in on the piece again-this time playing it on the fiddle. Of course, it was a little different on the fiddle; she stumbled and faltered on a couple of passages where the fingering that was natural for the lute was anything but on the fiddle, but she got through it intact. Tonno's eyes had flown open in surprise at the first few bars; he stared at her all through the piece, clearly dumbfounded, right up until the moment that she ended with a flourish.

She put the fiddle and bow down, and waited for him to say something.

He took a deep breath. "Well," he said. "You've just made up my mind for me, dear. If ever I was desirous of a sign from God, that was it."

She wrinkled her brow, puzzled. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked. "It was just that lute-piece, that's all."

"Just the lute-piece-which you proceeded to play through on an instrument it wasn't intended for." Tonno shook his head. "Rune, I've been debating this for the past two weeks, but I can't be selfish anymore. You're beyond me, on both your instruments. I can't teach you any more."

It was her turn to stare, licking suddenly dry lips, not sure of what to say. "But-but I-"

This was too sudden, too abrupt, she thought, her heart catching with something like fear. She wasn't ready for it all to end; at least, not yet. I'm not ready to leave. There's still the whole winter yet, the Faire isn't until Midsummer-what am I supposed to do between now and then?

"Don't look at me like that, girl," Tonno said, a little gruffly, rubbing his eyebrow with a hand encased in fingerless gloves. "Just because you're beyond my teaching, that doesn't mean you're ready for what you want to do."

"I'm-not?" she said dazedly, not certain whether to be relieved or disappointed.

"No," Tonno replied firmly. "You're beyond my ability to contribute to your teaching-in music-but you're not good enough to win one of the Bard apprenticeships. And I've heard some of your tunes, dear; you shouldn't settle for less than a Bardic position. Of all the positions offered at the Faire, only a handful are for Bardic teaching, and you are just not good enough to beat the ninety-nine other contenders for those positions."

Good news and bad, all in the same bite. "Will I ever be?" she asked doubtfully.

"Of course you will!" he snapped, as if he was annoyed at her doubt. "I have a damned good ear, and I can tell you when you will be ready. What we'll have to do is find some of my truly complicated music, the things I put away because they were beyond my meager capabilities to play. You'll practice them until your fingers are blue, and then you'll learn to transpose music from other instruments to yours and play that until your fingers are blue. Practice is what you need now, and practice, by all that's holy, is what you're going to get."

I guess it's not over yet. Not even close. She sighed, but he wasn't finished with his plans for her immediate future.

"Then there's the matter of your other lessons," he continued inexorably. "I've taught you how to read music; now I'll teach you how to write it as well-by ear, without playing it first on your instruments. I'll see that you learn as much as I know of other styles, and of the work of the Great Bards. And then, my dear, I'm going to drill you in reading, history in particular, until you think you've turned Scholar!"

"Oh, no-" she said involuntarily. While she was reading with more competence, it still wasn't something that came easily. Unlike music, she still had to work at understanding. History, in particular, was a great deal of hard work.

"Oh, yes," he told her, with a smile. "If you're going to become a Guild Bard, you're going to have to compete with boys who've been learning from Scholars all their lives. You're going to have to know plenty about the past-who's who, and more importantly, why, because if you inadvertently offend the wrong person-"

He sliced his finger dramatically across his neck.

She shuddered, reflexively, as a breath of cold that came out of nowhere touched the back of her neck.

"Now," he said, clearing the music away from the stand in front of her, and stacking it neatly in the drawer of the cabinet beside him. "Put your instruments back in their cases and come join me by the stove. I want you to know some hard truths, and what you're getting yourself into."

She cased the lute and Lady Rose obediently, and pulled her short cloak a little tighter around her shoulders. Tonno's stove didn't give off a lot of heat, partially because fuel was so expensive that he didn't stoke it as often as Amber fueled her fireplaces. Rune would have worried more about him in this cold, except that he obviously had a lot of ploys to keep himself warm, He spent a lot of time at Amber's in the winter, Maddie said; nursing a few drinks and keeping some of the waiting clients company with a game of pentangle or cards, and Amber smiled indulgently and let him stay.

I wonder what it is that he did for her, that they're such good friends?

Rune followed him to the back of the living-quarters, bringing her chair with her, and settled herself beside him as he huddled up to the metal stove.

He wrapped an old comforter around himself, and raised his bushy gray eyebrows at her. "Now, first of all, as far as I know, there are no girls in the Guild," he stated flatly. "So right from the beginning, you're going to have a problem."

She nodded; she'd begun to suspect something of the sort. She'd noticed that no one wearing the purple ribbon-knots was female-

And she'd discovered her first weeks out busking that every time she wore anything even vaguely feminine out on the street, she got propositions. Eventually, she figured out why.

There were plenty of free-lance whores out on the street, pretending to busk, with their permits stuck on their hats like anyone else. She found out why, when she'd asked the dancers that performed by the fountain every night. The permit for busking was cheaper by far than the fees to the Whore's Guild, so many whores, afraid of being caught and thrown into the workhouse for soliciting without a permit or Guild badge, bought busking permits. The Church, which didn't approve of either whores or musicians, ignored the deception; the city frowned, but looked the other way, so long as those on the street bought some sort of permit. Real musicians wore the ribbon knots on their sleeves, and whores didn't, but most folk hadn't caught on to that distinction. So, the result was undoubtedly that female musicians had a reputation in the Guild for being something else entirely.

But still-the auditions should weed out those with other professions. Shouldn't they? And why on Earth would a whore even come to the trials?

"The reason there aren't any females in the Guild," he continued, "is because they aren't allowed to audition at the Faire. Ever."

She stared at him, anger warming her cheek at the realization that he hadn't bothered to say anything to her about this little problem with her plans before this.

"I imagine you're wondering why I didn't tell you that in the first place." He raised an eyebrow, and she blushed that he could read her so easily. "It's simple enough. I didn't think it would be a problem as long as you were prepared for it. You've carried off the boy-disguise perfectly well; I've seen you do it, and fool anyone who just looks at the surface of things. I don't see any reason why you can't get your audition as a boy, and tell them the truth after you've won your place."

She flushed again, this time at her own stupidity. She should have figured that out for herself. "But won't they be angry?" she asked, a little doubtfully.

Tonno shrugged. "That, I can't tell you. I don't know. I do know that if you've been so outstanding that you've surprised each and every one of them, if they are any kind of musician at all, they'll overlook your sex. They might make you keep up the disguise while you're an apprentice, but once you're a master, you can do what you want and they can be hanged."

That seemed logical, and she could see the value of the notion. So long as she went along with their ideas of what was proper, they'd give her what she wanted-but once she had it, she would be free of any restraints. They weren't likely to take her title away; once you were a Master Bard, you were always a Master, no matter what you did. They hadn't even taken away the title from Master Marley, who had lulled his patron, Sire Jacoby, to sleep, and let in his enemies by the postern gate to kill him and all his family. They'd turned him over to the Church and the High King for justice, but they'd left him his title. Not that it had done much good in a dungeon.

"I intend you to leave here with enough knowledge crammed into that thick head of yours-and enough skill in those fingers-to give every boy at the trials a run for his money," Tonno said firmly. "I trust you don't plan to settle for less than an apprenticeship to a Guild Bard?" He raised one eyebrow.

She shook her head, stubbornly. Guild Minstrels only played music; Guild Bards created it. There were songs in her head dying to get out-

"Good." Tonno nodded with satisfaction "That's what I hoped you'd say. You're too good a musician to be wasted busking out in the street. You should have noble patrons, and the only way you're going to get that is through the Guild. That's the only way to rise in any profession; through the Guilds. Guildsman keep standards high and craftsmanship important. And that's not all. If you're good enough, the Guild will make certain that you're rewarded, by backing you."

"Like what?" she asked, curiously, and tucked her hands under her knees to warm them.

"Oh, like Master Bard Gwydain," Tonno replied, his eyes focused somewhere past her head, as if he was remembering something. "I heard him play, once, you know. Amazing. He couldn't have been more than twenty, but he played like no one I've ever heard-and that was twenty years ago, before he was at the height of his powers. Ten years ago, the High King himself rewarded Master Gwydain-made him Laurel Sire Gwydain, and gave him lands and a royal pension. A great many of the songs I've been teaching you are his-'Spellbound Captive,' 'Dream of the Heart,' 'That Wild Ocean,' 'Black Rose,' oh, he must have written hundreds before he was through. Amazing."

He fell silent, as the light in the shop began to dim with the coming of evening. Soon Rune would have to leave, to return to Amber's, but curiosity got the better of her; after all, if Gwydain had been twenty or so, twenty years ago, he couldn't be more than forty now. Yet she had never heard anyone mention his name.

"What happened to him?" she asked, breaking into Tonno's reverie. He started a little, and wrinkled his brow. "You know, that's the odd part," he said slowly. "It's a mystery. No one I've talked to knows what happened to him; he seems to have dropped out of sight about five or ten years ago, and no one has seen nor heard of him since. There've been rumors, but that's all."

"What kind of rumors?" she persisted, feeling an urgent need to know, though she couldn't have told why.

"Right after he vanished, there was a rumor he'd died tragically, but no one knew how-right after that there was another that he'd taken vows, renounced the world, and gone into Holy Orders." Tonno shook his head. "I don't believe either one, if you want to know the truth. It seems to me that if he'd really died, there'd have been a fancy funeral and word of it all over the countryside. And if he'd taken Holy Orders, he'd be composing Church music. There's never been so much as a hint of scandal about him, so that can't be it. I just don't know."

Rune had the feeling that Tonno was very troubled by this disappearance-well, so was she. It left an untidy hole, a mystery that cried to be cleared up. "What if he gave up music for some reason?" she asked. "Then if he'd gone into the Church, he'd have just vanished."

"Give up music? Not likely," Tonno snorted. "You can't keep a Bard from making music. It's something they're born to do. No," he shook his head vehemently. "Something odd happened to him, and that's for sure-and the Guild is keeping it quiet. Maybe he had a brainstorm, and he can't play, or even speak clearly. Maybe he took wasting fever and he's too weak to do anything. Maybe he ran off to the end of the world, looking for new things. But something out of the ordinary happened to him, I would bet my last copper on it. It's a mystery."

He changed the subject then, back to quizzing Rune on the history she'd been reading, and they did not again return to the subject of Master Bard Gwydain. Eventually darkness fell, and it was time for her to leave.

She bundled herself up in her cloak, slung her instruments across her back underneath it to keep them from the cold, and let herself out of the shop, wanting to spare Tonno the trip up through the cold, darkened store. As she hurried along the street towards Amber's, the wind whipping around her ankles and crawling under her hood until she shivered with cold, she found herself thinking about the mystery.

She agreed with Tonno; unless she were at death's door, or otherwise crippled, she would not be able to stop making music. If Gwydain still lived, he must be plying his birthright, somewhere.

And if he was dead, someone should know about it. If he was dead, and the Guild was keeping it quiet, there must be a reason.

And I'll find it out, she decided, suddenly. When I get into the Guild, I'll find it out. No matter what. They can't keep it a secret forever. . . .

CHAPTER TEN

Rune fitted the key Tonno had given her into the old lock on the front door of the shop, and tried to turn it. Nothing happened.

Frozen again, she thought, and swore under her breath at the key, the ancient lock, and the damned weather. She pulled the key out and tucked it under her armpit to warm it, wincing as the cold metal chilled her through her heavy sweater, and flinching again as a gust of wind blew a swirl of snow down her neck. She glanced up and down the silent street; the only traffic was a pair of tradesmen muffled in cloaks much heavier than hers, probably hurrying to open their own shops, and a couple of apprentice-boys out on errands. Other than that, there was no one. The slate-colored sky overhead spilled thin skeins of flurries, and the wind sent them skating along the street like ghost-snakes.

Whatever could have been in God's mind when He invented winter? Thrice-forsaken season. . . .

It didn't look like a good day for trade-but Scholars made up half of Tonno's business, and days like today, she had learned, meant business from Scholars. They'd be inside all day, fussing over their libraries or collections of curiosities, and discover they had somehow neglected to buy that book or bone or odd bit of carving they'd looked at back in the summer. And now, of course, they simply must have it. So they'd wait until one of their students arrived for a special lesson, and the hapless youth would be sent out On Quest with a purchase-order and a purse, will-he, nill-he. Those sales made a big difference to Tonno, especially in winter, and made it worth keeping the shop open.

She pulled out the key and stuck it back into the lock quickly, before it had a chance to chill down again. This time, when she put pressure on it, the lock moved. Stiffly, but the door did unlock, and she hurriedly pushed it open and shoved it closed against another snow-bearing gust of wind.

"Tonno?" she called out. "I'm here!"

She flipped the little sign in the window from "Closed" to "Open," and made her way back to the counter, where she raised the hinged part and flipped it over. "Tonno?" she called again.

"I'm awake, Rune," he replied, his voice distant and a little weak. "I'm just not-out of bed yet."

She frowned; he didn't sound well. She'd better get back to him before he decided to be stubborn and open the shop himself. In weather like this, or so Amber told her, Tonno did better to stay in bed.

She pushed the curtain in the doorway aside and hurried over to his bedside. Before he had a chance to struggle out of the motley selection of comforters, quilts, and old blankets he had piled, one atop the other so that the holes and worn spots in each of them were compensated for by the sound spots in the others, she reached him and had taken his hand in both of hers, examining the joints with a critical eye. As she had expected, they were swollen, red, and painful to look at.

"You aren't going anywhere," she said firmly. "There's a storm out there, and it's mucking up your hands and every other bone you've got, I'd wager."

He frowned, but it was easy to see his heart wasn't in the protest. "But I didn't get up yesterday except-"

"So you don't get up today. what's the difference?" she asked, reasonably. "I can mind the shop. We'll probably get a customer or two, but not more. That's hardly work at all. And I'm not busking today; it's too damned cold and I'll not risk Lady Rose to weather like this. I might just as well mind the shop and give your lessons to-who is it today-Anny and Ket? I thought so. They're bare beginners. Easy. I could teach them half asleep. And their parents don't care if it's me or you who teaches them, so long as they get the lessons they've paid for."

"But you aren't benefiting by this-" Tonno said fretfully. "You should be out earning a few coppers-"

She shrugged. "There's no one out there to earn coppers from. I picked up a little in my hat at Amber's last night, enough for the tax and tithe. And I am benefiting-" She gave him a wide grin. "If I'm here, I'm not there, and I don't have to listen to Carly's bullying and whining."

"You haven't been tormenting her, have you?" Tonno asked sharply, with more force than she expected. She gave him a quizzical look, wondering what notion he'd gotten into his head. Surely Carly didn't deserve any sympathy from Tonno!

"Not unless you consider ignoring her to be tormenting her," she replied, straightening his bedcovers, then putting a kettle on the stove and a brick to heat beneath it. "I try not to let her bother me, but she does bully me every chance she gets, and she says nasty things about my playing to the customers. She'd probably say worse than that about me, but the only thing she can think of is that since I dress like a boy sometimes, I might be a poppet or an androgyn. That's hardly going to be an insult in a place like Amber's! It's just too bad for her that the clients all have ears of their own, and they don't agree with her. Maddie is the one who teases her."

Tonno relaxed. "Good. But be careful, Rune. I've been thinking about her, and wondering why Amber keeps her on, and I think now I know the reason. I think she's a spy for the Church."

"A what?" Rune turned from her work to gape at him. "Carly? Whatever for? What reason would the Church have to spy on a brothel?"

"I can think of several reasons," he said, his face and voice troubled. "The most obvious is to report on how many clients come and go, and how much money they tip in the common room, to make certain that all taxes and tithes have been paid for. That's fairly innocuous as things go, since we both know perfectly well that all the fees are paid at Amber's and on time, too. There's another reason, too, though; and it's one that would just suit the girl's sour spirit right down to the core."

"Oh?" she asked, a cold lump of worry starting in the pit of her stomach. "What's that?"

She couldn't imagine what interest the Church would find in a brothel-and if she couldn't imagine it, it must be something darkly sinister. She began wondering about all those rumors she'd heard of Church Priests being versed in dark magics, when his next words cleared her mind entirely. "Fornication," he said. "Fornication is a sin, Rune. Although the laws of the city say nothing about it, the only lawful congress by the Church's rule, is between man and woman who are wedded by Church ceremony. And, by Church rule, sins must be confessed and paid for, either by penance or donation."

Her first impulse had been to laugh, but second thought proved that Tonno's concern was real, though less sinister than her fears. She nodded, thoughtfully. "So if Carly keeps a list of who comes and goes, and gives it to the Church, the next time Guildsman Weaver shows up to confess and do penance, if he doesn't list his visit to Amber's-he's in trouble."

Tonno sighed, and reached eagerly for the mug of hot tea she handed to him. "And for the men of means who visit Amber's, the trouble will mean that the Priest will confront them with their omission, impress them with his 'supernatural' understanding, and assign additional penance-"

"Additional guilt-money, you mean," she finished cynically. "And meanwhile, no doubt, Carly's record-keeping is paying off her sins for working in a brothel in the first place." She sniffed, angrily. "Oh, that makes excellent sense, Tonno. And it explains a lot. Since Carly can't have a place at Amber's, she'll do her best to foul the bedding for everyone else. And she'll come out sanctimoniously lily-white."

She picked up the hot brick and tucked it into the foot the bed, replacing it under the stove with another. The heat did a great deal of good for Tonno; already there was a bit more color in his face, and some of the lines of pain around his eyes and mouth were easing.

He took another sip of tea, and nodded. "Do you see what I mean by suiting the girl's nature? Likely she's even convinced herself that this was why she came to work there in the first place, to keep an eye on the welfare of others' souls."

"No doubt," Rune said dryly. She stirred oatmeal into a pot of water, and set it on top of the stove beside the kettle to cook. "She'll always want the extreme of anything; if she can't be a highly paid whore, she'll be a saint. What I can't understand is why Amber lets her stay on-you pretty much implied that she knows what Carly's up to."

Tonno laughed, though the worry lines about his mouth had not eased any. "That's the cleverness of our Lady Amber, dear. As long as Carly is in place, she knows who the spy is. If there is truly someone whose reputation with the Church is so delicate that he must not be seen at Amber's, then all the lady needs to do is make certain Carly doesn't see him. And I suspect Lady Amber has whatever official Carly reports to quite completely bribed."

Wiser in the ways of bribery than she had been a scant six months ago, Rune nodded. "If she got rid of Carly, someone else might get his agent in, and she'd have to find out what his price was."

"But if she stopped bribing the old official, he'd report on what Carly had given him already." Tonno shrugged. "Amber knows what's going on, what's being reported, and saves money this way as well. And what does Carly cost her, really? Nothing she wouldn't be paying anyway. She'd have to bribe someone in the Church to be easy with the clients, no matter what."

Rune shook her head. "I guess I'll have to put up with it, and be grateful that I personally don't care that much about the state of my soul to worry about what working in a whorehouse is going to do to it. I'm probably damned anyway, for having the poor taste to be born on the wrong side of the blankets."

"That's the spirit!" Tonno laughed a little, and she cheered up herself, seeing that he was able to laugh without hurting himself. She gave the room a sketchy cleaning, and washed last night's supper dishes. By then the oatmeal was ready and she spooned out enough for both of them, sweetening it with honey. She ate a lot faster than he did; he wasn't even half finished with his portion when she'd cleaned her bowl of the last spoonful. She put the dish into the pan of soapsuds just as the bell to the front door tinkled.

He started to get up from sheer habit, but she glared at him until he sank back into the pillows, and hurried to the front of the shop.

As she'd anticipated, since it was too early for either of the children having music lessons to arrive, the person peering into the shop with a worried look on his face was one of the University Students. The red stripe on the shoulders of his cloak told her he was a Student of Philosophy. Good. They had money-and by extension, so did their teachers. Only a rich man could afford to let his son idle away his time on something like Philosophy. And rich men paid well for their sons' lessons.

"Can I help you, my lord?" she said into the silence of the shop, startling him. He jumped, then peered short-sightedly at her as she approached.

"Is this the shop of-" he consulted a strip of paper in his hand "-Tonno Alendor?"

"Yes it is, my lord," she said, and waited. He looked at her doubtfully.

"I was told to seek out this Tonno himself," he said. The set of his chin told her that he was of the kind of nature to be stubborn, but the faint quiver of doubt in his voice also told her he could be bullied. Another of Tonno's lessons: how to read people, and know how to deal with them.

"Master Tonno is ill. I am his niece," she lied smoothly. "He entrusts everything to me."

The soft, round chin firmed as the spoiled young man who was not used to being denied what he wanted emerged; in response to that warning, so did her voice. "If you truly wish to disturb him, if you feel you must pester a poor, sick old man, I can take you to his bedside"-and I'll make you pay dearly for it in embarrassment, her voice promised-"but he'll only tell you the same thing, young man."

Her tone, and the scolding "young man," she appended to her little speech, gave him the impression she was much older than he had thought. Nearsighted as he was, and in the darkness of the shop, he would probably believe it. And, as she had hoped, he must have a female relative somewhere that was accustomed to browbeating him into obedience; his resistance collapsed immediately.

"Scholar Mardake needs a book," he said meekly. "He looked at it last summer, and he was certain he had purchased it, but now he finds he hadn't, and he has to have it for his monograph, and-"

She let him rattle on for far too long about the monograph, the importance of it, and how it would enhance Scholar Mardake's already illustrious reputation. And, by extension, the reputations and status of all of Mardake's Students.

What a fool.

She tried not to yawn in his face, but it was difficult. Jib had more sense in his big toe than this puffed-up popinjay had in his entire body. And of all the things to be over-proud of-this endless debate over frothy nothings, like the question of what a "soul" truly consisted of, made her weary to the bone. If they would spend half the time on questions of a practical nature instead of this chop-logic drivel, the world would be better run. Finally he came to the point: the name of the book.

"By whom?" she asked, finally getting a word in. Of all of the Scholars, the Philosophers were by far and away the windiest.

"Athold Derelas," he replied, loftily, as if he expected that she had never heard of the great man.

"Ah, you're in luck," she replied immediately. "We have two copies. Does your master prefer the annotated version by Wasserman, or the simple translation by Bartol?"

He gaped at her. She stifled a giggle. In truth, she wouldn't have known the books were there if she hadn't replaced a volume of history by Lyam Derfan to its place beside them the day before. It was bad enough that she'd known of the book; but she'd offered two choices, and he didn't know how to react. He'd loftily assumed, no doubt, that she was the next thing to illiterate, and she'd just confounded him.

He'd have been less startled to hear a pig sing, or an ape recite poetry.

She decided to rub the humiliation in. "If your master is doing a monograph covering Derelas' work as a whole, he would probably want the annotated version," she continued blithely, "but if all he wants is Derelas' comments on specific subjects, he'd be better off with the Bartol translation."

Now the young man had to refer to the slip of paper in his hand. He looked from it, to her, and back again, and couldn't seem to come to a decision. His face took on a pinched look of miserable confusion.

"Perhaps he'd better have both," she suggested. "No knowledge is ever wasted, after all. The Wasserman is rare; he may find enough of interest in it for an entirely new monograph."

The Student brightened up considerably. "Yes, of course," he said happily, and Rune had no doubt that he would parrot her words back to his Scholar as if they were his own, and suggesting that the shop-girl hadn't known what a rarity the Wasserman was, so that he'd gotten the book at a bargain price.

Before he could change his mind-it was his master's money he was spending, after all, and not his own-she rolled the floor-to-ceiling ladder over to the "D" section, and scampered up it. The Student virtuously averted his eyes, blushing, lest he have an inadvertent glimpse of feminine flesh. As if there was anything to be seen under her double skirts, double leggings, and boots.

Besides being the most long-winded, Philosophers were also the most prudish of the Scholars-at least the ones that Rune had met. She much preferred the company of the Natural Scientists and the Mathematicians. The former were full of the wonders of the world, and eager to share the strange stories of birds and beasts; the latter tended to make up for the times when they lost themselves in the dry world of numbers with a vengeance. And both welcomed women into their ranks far oftener than the Philosophers.

Doubtless because women are too sensible to be distracted for long by maunderings about airy nothings.

She came down with both books clutched in her hand, eluding his grasp for them so easily he might not even have been standing there, and took them behind the counter. There she consulted the book where Tonno noted the prices of everything in the shop, by category. It was a little tedious, for things were listed in the order he had acquired them, and not in the alphabetical order in which they were ranked on the shelves. But finally she had the prices of both of them, and looked up, reaching beneath the counter for a piece of rough paper to wrap them in.

"The Wasserman, as I said, is rare," she said, deftly making a package and tying it with a bit of string. "Master Tonno has it listed at forty silver pieces."

His mouth gaped, and he was about to utter a gasp of outrage. She continued before he had a chance. "The other is more common as I said; it is only twenty. Now, as it is Master Tonno's policy to offer a discount to steady clients like your Scholar, I believe I can let you have both for fifty." She batted her eyelashes ingenuously at him. "After all, Master Tonno does trust me in all things, and it isn't often we have a fine young man like you in the shop."

The appeal to his vanity killed whatever protest he had been about to make. His mouth snapped shut, and he counted out the silver quickly, before she could change her mind. He knew very well-although he did not know that she knew-his Scholar was anything but a steady customer; he bought perhaps a book or two in a year. What he did not know-and since he was not a regular customer, neither would his Scholar-was that she had inflated the listed prices of both books by ten silver pieces each. She had heard other Scholars speaking when she had tended the shop before, chuckling over Tonno's prices. She heard a lot of things Tonno didn't. The Scholars tended to ignore her as insignificant.

So whenever she had sold a book lately, she had inflated the price. Scholars would never argue with her, assuming no woman would be so audacious as to cheat a Scholar; their Students never argued with her because she bullied and flattered them the same way she had treated this boy, and with the same effect. And when she added the nonsense about a "discount," they generally kept their mouths shut.

She handed him the parcel, and he hurried out into the cold. She dropped the taxes and tithes into the appropriate boxes, and pocketed the rest to take back to Tonno. Merchants with shops never went to a Church stall the way buskers and peddlers did; they kept separate tax and tithe boxes which were locked with keys only the Church Collectors had. The Collectors would come around once a week with a city constable to take what had accumulated in the boxes, noting the amounts in their books. Rune actually liked the Collector who serviced Tonno's shop; she hadn't expected to, but the first day he had appeared when she was on duty he had charmed her completely. Brother Bryan was a thin, energetic man with a marvelously dry sense of humor, and was, so far as she could tell, absolutely honest. Tonno seemed convinced of his honesty as well, and greeted him as a friend. And whenever she was here and Tonno was ill, he would make a point of coming to the back of the shop to see how the old man was faring, pass the time of day with him, and see if he could find some way to entertain Tonno a little before he continued on his rounds of the other shops.

She dipped a quill in a bit of ink and ran a delicate line through the titles of the two books to indicate they had been sold, and returned to Tonno.

He sat up with interest, and demanded to know what had happened. He shook his head over her duplicity with the spurious "discount," but she noted that he did not demand that she refund the extra ten silvers.

"You should update your prices," she said, scolding a little. "You haven't changed some of them from the time when your father ran this shop. I know you haven't, because I've seen the prices still in his handwriting."

He sighed. "But people come here for bargains, Rune," he replied plaintively. "Even when father had the shop, this district was changing over from shops to residences. Now-it's so out of the way that no one would ever come here at all if they didn't know they'd get a bargain."

"You can make them think you've given them a bargain and still not cheat yourself," she said, taking the empty bowl from the floor beside his bed and swishing it in the painfully cold wash-water until it was clean.

"I hope you put what was due in the tax box, and not what was in the book," he said suddenly.

She grimaced, but nodded. "Of course I did. Although I can't for the life of me see why. That Scholar isn't likely to tell anyone how much he paid, and you need every silver you can get. We may not have another sale for a week or more!" She put the bowl back on the shelf with a thud.

"Because it's our responsibility, Rune," he replied, patiently, as if she was a child. He said that every time she brought up the subject of taxes, and she was tired to death of hearing it. He never once explained what he meant, and she just couldn't see it. There were too many rich ones she suspected of diddling the tax rolls to get by with paying less than they should.

"Why is it our responsibility?" she asked fiercely. "And why ours? I don't see anyone else leaping forward to throw money in the tax and tithe boxes! You and Amber keep saying that, and I don't see any reason for it!"

He just looked at her, somberly, until she flushed. He made her feel as if she had said something incredibly irresponsible, and that made no sense. She didn't know why she should feel embarrassed by her outburst, but she did, and that made her angry as well.

"Rune," he said slowly, as if he had just figured out that she was serious. "There truly is a reason for it. Now do you really want to hear the reason, or do you want to be like all those empty-headed fools out there who grumbled about taxes and cheat when they can, and never once think about who or what they're cheating?"

"Well, if there's a reason, I'd certainly like to hear it," she muttered, skeptically, and sat down in the chair beside his bed. "Nothing I've seen yet has given me a reason to think differently, and you're the one who taught me to trust my eyes and not just parrot what I've been told!"

"You've lived here for almost half a year," Tonno replied. "I know that there's a world of difference between Nolton and your little village; there are things we do here that no one would ever think of doing back in Westhaven." She made a face, but he continued. "I know I'm saying something obvious, but because it's obvious, you might not have thought about it. There are things that people take for granted after they've been here as long as you have; things that are invisible, but that we couldn't do without. Dung-sweepers, for instance. Who cleans up the droppings in Westhaven?"

"Well, no one," she admitted. "It gets kicked to one side or trodden into the mud, that's about it."

"But if we did that here, we'd be knee-deep in manure in a week," Tonno pointed out, and she nodded agreement. "Who do you think pays the dung-sweepers?"

"I never wondered about it," she admitted with surprise. "I thought the dung must be valuable to someone-for composting, or something-"

"It is, and they sell it to farmers, but that's not enough to compensate a man for going about with a barrow all day collecting it," Tonno pointed out. "The city pays them-right out of that tax box." She rubbed her hands together to warm them, about to say something, but he continued. "Who guards the streets of Westhaven by day or night from robbers, drunks, troublemakers and thieves?"

She laughed, because it was something else that would never have occurred to her old village to worry about. "No one. Nobody's abroad very late, and if they are, there's no one to trouble them. If a drunk falls on his face in the street, he can lie there until morning."

But she couldn't keep the laughter from turning uneasy. It might not have occurred to them, but it would have been a good thing if it had. A single constable could have prevented a lot of trouble in the past. If there'd been someone like the city guard or constables around, would those bullies have tried to molest her that day? Even one adult witness would likely have prevented the entire incident. How many times had something like that happened to someone who couldn't defend herself?

Was that how Stara had gotten into trouble in the first place, as a child too young to know better? Was that why she had gone on to trade her favors so cheaply?

If that incident with Jon and his friends hadn't occurred, would Rune have been quite so willing to seek a life out in the wider world?

"That will do for a little village, but what would we do here?" Tonno asked gently. "There are thousands of people living here; most are honest, but some are not. What's a shopkeeper to do, spend his nights waiting with a dagger in hand?"

"Couldn't people-well-band together, and just have one of them watch for all?" she asked, self-consciously, flushing; knowing it wasn't any kind of a real answer. "I suppose they could pay him for his troubles-" Then she shook her head. "That's basically what the constables are, aren't they? That's what you're trying to tell me. And they're paid from taxes too."

"Constables, dung-sweepers, the folk who repair and maintain the wells and the aqueducts, and a hundred more jobs you'd never think of and likely wouldn't see. Rat-catchers and street-tenders, gate-keepers and judges, gaolers and the men who make certain food sold in the marketplace is what it's said to be." Tonno leaned forward, earnestly, and she saw that the light was fading.

"I suppose you're right." She lit a candle at the stove, but he wasn't going to be distracted from his point.

"That's what a government is all about, Rune," he said, more as if he was pleading with her than as if he was trying to win an argument. "Taking care of all the things that come up when a great many people live together. And yes, most of those things each of us could do for himself, taking care of his own protection, and his family's, and minding the immediate area around his home and shop-but that would take a great deal of time, and while the expenses would be less, they would come in lumps, and in the way of things, at the worst possible time." He laughed ruefully, and so did she. It hadn't been that long ago they'd had one of those lump expenses, when the roof sprang a leak and they'd had it patched.

She could see his point-but not his passion. And for something as cold and abstract as a government. "But you don't like paying taxes either," she said in protest, and he nodded.

"No, I don't. That's quite true. There are some specific taxes that I think are quite unfair. I pay a year-tax leavened against the shop simply because I own it, rather than renting, and when my father died, I paid a death-tax in order to inherit. I don't think those taxes are particularly fair. But"-he held up his hand to forestall her comments-"those are only two taxes, with a government that could leaven far more taxes than it does. I've heard of cities where they tax money earned, then tax the goods sold, then tax every stage a product goes through as it changes hands-"

She shook her head, baffled. "I don't understand-" she said. "How can they do that?"

He explained further. "Take a cow; it is taxed when it is sold as a weanling, taxed again when it is brought to market, the rawhide is taxed when it comes into the hands of the tanners, taxed again when it goes to the leather-broker, taxed when it is sold to the shoemaker, then taxed a final time when the shoes are sold."

Her head swam at the thought of all those taxes.

"That kind of taxation is abusive; when the time comes that the price of an object is doubled to pay the taxes on it, that is abusive. And governments of that nature are generally abusive of the people that live under them as well." Tonno leaned back into his pillows, and he looked like a man who was explaining something he cared about, deeply.

As deeply as I care about music, she thought in surprise. She had found his secret passion. And it was nothing like what she would have expected.

"Before you ask," he told her, carefully, as if he was weighing each word for its true value, "I can tell you that you'll get a different definition of an abusive government from nearly everyone who cares to think about such things. In general, though, I would say that when a government is more concerned with keeping itself in power, and keeping its officials in luxury, whether they were elected to the posts, appointed, or inherited the position, then that government is abusive as well. Government is what takes care of things beyond you. Good government cares for the well-being of the people it serves. Abusive government cares only for its own well-being. The fewer the people, the less government you need. Does that seem clear to you?"

She thought about it for a moment. She'd begun listening to this mostly because she respected Tonno, and this seemed to mean a great deal to him. But the more he'd said, the more she began to get a glimmering of a wider sphere than the one she was used to dealing with-and it intrigued her in the way the things the Mathematicians said intrigued her. And now she realized that Amber had said basically the same things, in cryptic little bits, over the past several months. Reluctantly, she had to agree that they were right.

Still-this was the real world she was living in, and not some Philosopher's book, where everyone did as he should, and everything was perfect. "But what about the stories I keep hearing?" she protested, taking one last shot at disproving his theories. "The things about the inspectors who take bribes, and the gaolers who turn people loose no matter what they've done, so long as they've got money enough? What about the clerics at the Church stalls, who'll take all your money as tax or tithe, then insist you owe as much over again for the one you didn't pay? I bet they pocket the difference!"

Tonno shrugged, then chuckled a little, though sadly. "You're dealing with people, Rune, and the real world, not a Philosopher's ideal sphere," he said, echoing her very thoughts. "People are corruptible, and any time you have money changing hands, someone is likely to give in to temptation. So I'll give you another definition: since there's always going to be corruption, a good government is one where you have a manageable level of corruption!"

He laughed at that one. She made a face, but laughed with him. "Right, I'll grant your stand on taxes, but what about tithes? What's the Church doing to earn all that money? They take in as much as the city, and they aren't hiring the rat-catchers!"

"What's the Church doing-or what is it supposed to be doing, rather?" he asked, his expression hardening. "What it's supposed to be doing is to care for those who can't care for themselves-to feed and clothe the impoverished, to heal the sick, to bring peace where there is war, to be family to the orphaned, find justice for those who have been denied it. The Priests are bound to make certain every child can read and write and cipher, so that it can grow up to find a place or earn a living without being cheated. That's what it's supposed to be doing. That, and give the time to God that few of us have the leisure for, so that, hopefully, God will know when we have need of His powers, having run out of solutions for ourselves."

She nodded. That was, indeed, what the village Priest was supposed to deal with-when he wasn't too busy with being holy, that is. He seemed to spend a great deal of time convincing the villagers that he was much more important than they were. . . .

Tonno took note of her abstracted nod. "And we all pay tithes to see that it gets done-because one day I may be too ill to care for myself, you may find yourself in a town on the brink of war, your friend's child may lose its parents, you might find yourself in the right-but up against the Sire himself, with no hope from his courts. And some of that is done."

"But?" she asked, a little more harshly than she intended. Nobody had seen that justice was done for her-or Jib. Had she been raped, would the Priest have lifted a finger to see that the bullies paid? Not a chance. More likely he'd have condemned her for leading them on.

"But not enough to account for the enormous amount of money the Church takes in," Tonno replied, his mouth a tight, grim line. "And I could be in very deep trouble if you were ever to repeat my words to a Church official other than, say, Brother Bryan. The Church is an example of an abusive government; it punishes according to whim, or according to who can afford to buy it off. Within Church ranks, dissenters must walk softly, and reform by infinitesimal degrees if at all. The Church is a dangerous enemy to have-and there's only one reason why it isn't more dangerous than it is. It is so involved in its own internal politics that it rarely moves to look outside its walls. And for that, I am profoundly grateful."

This last colloquy aroused intense feelings of disquiet in Rune's heart; she was glad when he fell silent. She'd never thought much about the Church-but the few glimpses she'd had from inside, in the hostels, only confirmed what Tonno had just told her. If the Church as a whole ever decided to move against something-

-say, for instance, the Church were to declare non-humans as unholy, anathema, as they had come very close to doing, several times, according to the history books she'd read-

She shivered, and not from the cold. Boony, Topaz-they were as "human" as she was. There was nothing demonic about them. And when would the Church end, once it had begun? Would exotics, like Pearl, also fall under the ban?

What if they decided to ban-certain professions? Whores, or even musicians, dancers, anyone who gave pleasure that was not tangible? That sort of pleasure could be construed as heretical, since it took attention away from God.

And what about all those rumors of dark sorceries that some priests practiced, using the mantle of the Church to give them protection?

She was glad to hear the shop bell, signaling the arrival of one of the two youngsters due for lessons today. Ket was due first; he was late, but that was all right. Her thoughts were all tangled up, and too troubled right now. It would be a relief to think about simpler things, like basic lute lessons.

She forgot about her uneasiness as she gave Ket his teaching, then drilled Anny in her scales. The children were easier to deal with than they normally were; this kind of weather didn't tempt anyone to want to play outside, not even a child. And Anny was home alone with her governess, a sour old dame who sucked all the joy out of learning and left only the withered husks; she was glad for a chance to get away and do something entirely different. The lute lessons and the sessions she had with her dancing teacher were her only respites from the heavy hand of the old governess.

So it wasn't until after they'd left that Tonno's words came back to trouble her-and by then she had convinced herself that she had fallen victim to the miserable weather. She made a determined effort to shake off her mood, and by the time she left Tonno curled up in his blankets with bread and toasted cheese beside him and a couple of favorite books to read, she was in as cheerful a mood as possible, given her long walk back to Amber's through the dark and blowing snow.

And by midnight, she'd forgotten it all entirely.

But her dreams were haunted by things she could not recall clearly in the morning. Only-the lingering odor of incense.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rune sailed in the door of Tonno's shop singing at the top of her lungs, with a smile as wide and sunny as the day outside, and a bulging belt-pouch.

"Well!" Tonno greeted her, answering her smile with one of his own. "What's all this?"

She leaned over the counter and kissed him soundly on the cheek. He actually blushed, but could only repeat, "Well! Welladay!"

She laughed, pulled her pouch off her belt, and spread her day's takings out on the countertop for him to see. "Look at that! Just look at it! Why, that's almost ten whole silver pennies, and a handful of copper! Can you believe it?"

"What did you do, rob someone?" Tonno asked, teasingly.

"No indeed," she said happily. "Do you remember that city ordinance that was passed at Spring Equinox session? The one that was basically about female buskers?"

He sobered, quickly. "I do, indeed," he replied. The ordinance had troubled him a great deal; he had fretted about it incessantly until it was passed, and he had warned Rune not to go out on the streets as a musician in female garb once it was passed. Not that she ever did, at least, not to busk. The ordinance had been aimed squarely at those females who were using busking to cover their other business; it licensed inspectors who were to watch street and tavern musicians to be certain that their income was derived entirely from music. A similar ordinance, aimed at dancers, had also passed. Rune, of course, had either not come under scrutiny-at least that she was aware of-because of her habit of taking on boy-disguise, or she had passed the scrutiny easily. For some reason it never occurred to the inspectors or to those who had passed the ordinance that males might be operating the same deceptions. But the ordinance had pretty much cleared the streets of those women who had bought cheaper busking licenses and were using them to cover their other activities. The ordinance directed that any such woman be made to tender up not one, but two years' dues in the Whore's Guild, and buy a free-lancer's license as well. The Whore's Guild and the Bardic Guild had backed it; the Whore's Guild since it obviously cut down on women who were practicing outside the rules and restrictions of the Guild, which set prices and ensured the health of its members. Amber hadn't said much, but Rune suspected that she both approved and worried.

She partially approved of it, obviously, because she felt the same way about those women who were abusing the busker's licenses as Rune felt about amateur musicians who thought they could set up with an instrument they hardly knew how to play and a repertoire of half a dozen songs and call themselves professionals. But Rune knew that Amber and Tonno both worried about this law because the Church had also been behind it-and they feared it might be the opening move in a campaign to end the Whore's Guild altogether, and make the Houses themselves illegal.

It had been hard for Rune to feel much concern about that, when the immediate result had been to free up half the corners in Nolton to honest musicians and dancers, and to send even more clients to Amber's than there had been before. Amber had been forced to add a fifth and sixth lady; both of whom had passed their trial periods with highest marks-which had made Carly even more sour than before. Carly now stalked the hall of the private wing with a copy of the Holy Book poking ostentatiously out of her pocket. And she spent most of her time off at the Church, at interminable "Women's Prayer Meetings." She had even tried to drag the boys off to a "Group Prayer Meeting," but both of them had told her to her face that they'd rather scrub chamber pots.

The two new ladies, Amethyst and Diamond, got along perfectly well with the other four; Rune liked them both very much, especially Diamond, who had the most abrasive and caustic sense of humor she'd ever encountered. It was Diamond who had suggested her current project.

Diamond was an incredibly slender woman with pure white hair-naturally white, claimed Maddie, who often helped Diamond with the elaborate, though revealing, costumes she favored. Diamond had been in the common room one night (dressed-so to speak-mostly in strings of tiny glass beads made into a semblance of a dress) when Rune had played a common song called "Two Fair Maids" at a client's request. Diamond had politely waited until that client had gone upstairs before she said anything, but then she had them all in stitches.

"Just once-" she'd said vehemently, "just once I'd like to hear a song about that situation that makes some sense!"

One of the gentlemen with her, who Rune had suspected for some time really was nobly born, had said, ingenuously, "What situation?" That had pretty much confirmed Rune's suspicions, since it would have been hard to be a commoner and not have heard "Two Fair Maids" often enough to know every word of every variant.

Diamond, however, had simply explained it to him without betraying that. "It's about two sisters in love with the same man," she told him. "He's been sleeping with the older one, who thinks he's going to have to marry her-but he proposes to the younger one, who accepts. When the older one finds out, she shoves the younger one in the river." She turned to Rune, then, and included her in the conversation. "Rune, what are all the various versions of it after that?"

"Well," Rune had answered, thinking, "There's three variations on how she dies. One, the older girl holds her under; two, she gets carried off by the current and pulled under the millrace; three, that the miller sees her, wants her gold ring, and drowns her. But in all of the versions, a wandering harpist-Bard finds her-or rather, what's left of her after the fish get done-and makes a harp of her bones and strings it with her long, gold hair."

"Dear God!" the gentleman exclaimed. "That's certainly gruesome!"

"And pretty stupid," Rune added, to Diamond's great delight. "I can't imagine why any musician would go making an instrument out of human bone when there are perfectly good pieces of wood around that are much better suited to the purpose! And I can't imagine why anyone would want to play such a thing!" She shivered. "I should think you'd drive customers into the next kingdom the first time they caught sight of it! But anyway, that's what this fool does, and he takes it to court and plays it for the Sire. And, of course, the moment the older sister shows up, the harp begins to play by itself, and sing about how the little idiot got herself drowned. And of course, the sister is burned, and the miller is hung, and the bastard that started it in the first place by seducing the first sister gets off free." She curled her lip a little. "In fact, in one of the versions he gets all kinds of sympathy from other stupid women because his syrupy little true love drowned."

"And that's what I mean by I wish that someone would write a sensible version," Diamond said, taking up where Rune left off. "I mean, if I was the wronged sister, I wouldn't blame my brainless sib, I'd go after the motherless wretch that betrayed me! And if I was the younger sister, if I found out about it, I'd help her!" She turned to Rune, then, with a mischievous look on her face that made her pale blue eyes sparkle like the stone she was named for. "You're a musician," she said, gleefully. "Why don't you do it?"

At first Rune could only think of all the reasons why it wouldn't work-that people were used to the old song and would hate the new version, that the Bardic Guild would hate it because their members had written a great many of the variants, and that it wasn't properly romantic.

But then she thought of all the reasons why, if she chose her audience properly, picking mostly young people who were in a mood to laugh, it would work. There were not a great many comic songs out in the world, and she could, if she managed this successfully, get quite a following for herself based on the fact that she had written one. In fact, there were a great many really stupid, sentimental ballads like "Two Fair Maids" in existence; if she wrote parodies of them, she could have an entire repertory of comic songs.

And songs like that were much more suited to the casual atmosphere of street-busking than the maudlin ones were.

She'd started on the project in late spring; she already had four. She'd moved to a new corner, vacated by one of the buskers-that-weren't, on a very busy crossroads. It wasn't a venue usually suited to busking, but she'd made a bargain with one of the Gypsy-dancers who had reappeared at the fountain in Flower Street with the spring birds. Rune would play the fiddle for her to dance from exactly midday until second bell and split the take, if the Gypsies would hold the corner for her to play from two hours before midday till the dancer showed up. No one wanted to argue with the Gypsies, who were known to have tempers and be very quick with their knives, so the corner was Rune's without dispute.

Now what she had planned to do, was to alternate lively fiddling with comic songs, to see how well they did, and if she could hold a rowdy crowd with them.

She had discovered this afternoon that not only could she hold the crowd, she now had a reputation for knowing the funny songs, and there were people coming to her corner at lunch just to hear them.

And furthermore, they were willing to pay to hear them. Every time she'd tried to go back to the fiddle today, someone had called out for one of her songs. And when she'd demurred, protesting that she'd already done it, or that people must be getting tired of it, at least three coins were tossed into her hat as an incentive. In the end, she had made as much during her stint alone as she and the dancer had together.

She explained all that to Tonno, who looked pleased at first, then troubled. "You didn't write anything-satiric, did you?" he asked, worriedly. "These were just silly parodies of common songs, am I understanding you correctly?"

She sighed, exasperated. He was beating around the bush again, rather than asking her directly what he wanted to know, and she was tired of it. "Tonno, just what, exactly, are you asking me? Get to the point, will you? I'm not one of your Scholar customers, that you have to build a tower of logic for before you get a straight answer."

He blinked in surprise. "I suppose-did you make fun of anyone high-ranking enough to cause you trouble? Or did you sing anything satirical about the Church?"

"If anybody in one of those songs resembles someone in Nolton, I don't know about it," she told him in complete honesty. "And I must admit that I had considered doing something about a corrupt Priest, but I decided against it, after seeing Carly leaving my room. It would be just like her to take a copy to the Church with her, when she goes to one of her stupid Prayer Meetings, and find a way to get me in trouble."

Tonno let out a deep sigh of relief. "I'd advise you to keep to that decision," he said, passing his hand over his hair. "At least for now, when you have no one to protect you. Later, perhaps, when you have Guild status and protection, you can write whatever you choose." He smiled, weakly. "Who knows; with the force of a Guild Bard behind a satiric song, you might become an influence for good within the Church."

"What are you so worried about, really?" she asked, putting her instruments down on the counter. "Did Brother Bryan tell you something? Is the Church planning on backing more of those ordinances you don't like?"

He shook his head. "No-no, it's that I've been debating doing something for a while, and I've been putting it off because I didn't have the connections. Remember when I started sending you to other people for lessons this spring?"

She nodded. "Mandar Cray for lute, and Geor Baker for voice. You told me you weren't going to be useful for anything with me except for reading and writing." Mandar and Geor were two of the people she had considered as teachers when she first came to Nolton, as it turned out. Both of them were Guild musicians; both had very wealthy students. Had she approached them on her own, she probably would have gotten brushed off.

But both were clients and friends of both Tonno and Amber, and both had heard her sing and play. They were two very different men; Mandar tall and ascetic, Geor short and muscular; Mandar hardly every ate, at least at Amber's, and Geor ate everything in sight. Mandar fainted at the thought of bloodshed, let alone the sight of blood, and Geor was a champion swordsman. But they had one other thing in common besides being clients and friends of Amber and Tonno-they both adored music. For the opportunity to teach someone who loved it as much as they did, and had talent, as opposed to the rich, bored children who were enduring their lessons, both of them cut their lesson-rates to next-to-nothing.

They wouldn't teach her for free-for one thing, that could get them in trouble with the Guild-for another, they felt, like Tonno, that paying for something tended to make one pay attention to it. But they weren't charging her any more than Tonno had, and she was learning a great deal he simply could not show her.

"I've been wanting to find someone who could teach you composition," Tonno said, his expression still worried, "But the only Bards I knew of in the city were either in a Great Household, or-in the Church."

Rune's mouth formed a silent "O" of understanding. Now all of Tonno's fussing made some sense. If he'd wanted to find her a teacher and she'd gotten herself in trouble with the Church-

But he wasn't finished. "I didn't have the contacts to get you lessons with any of the Church Bards," he continued. "But last week Brother Bryan mentioned that he'd listened to you playing out on the street and that he thought you were amazing. He still thinks you're a boy, you understand-"

Rune nodded. Brother Bryan had never seen her in female garb; she and Tonno had judged that the best idea. Many Church men felt very uneasy around females for one thing-and it seemed no bad idea to have her female persona unknown to the Church, after all the ordinances and the snooping Carly was doing. They might not connect the "Rune" that busked with the "Rune" that played at Amber's. And even if they did, they might not know that Rune was really a girl, if Carly hadn't gone out of her way to tell them. Rune didn't think she had; she just reported the activities going on, but because she knew Rune's sex, she would probably assume the Church did, too.

"Well, Brother Bryan was very impressed by what he'd heard. He asked if you composed, then before I could say anything, he offered to see if he couldn't get Brother Pell to take you in his class." Tonno was clearly torn between being proud and being concerned at a Church Collector's interest in his pupil. "That's why I wanted to know what your comic songs were about; if you'd done anything to annoy the Church officials, going to that class could be walking you into a trap. The Church has no power outside the cloister, but once they had you inside, they could hold you for as long as they cared to, and the city couldn't send anyone to get you out. Assuming they'd even bother to try, which I doubt. The only people the constables and guards are likely to exert themselves for have more money than you and I put together."

Rune's mouth went dry at the bare thought of being held by the Church for questioning. She recalled the high walls around the cloister all too well-walls that shut out the world. And held in secrets? "They wouldn't-"

He saw her terrified expression, and laughed, easing her fear. "Oh, all they'd do, most likely, is try to frighten you; to bully you and make you promise never to write something like that again." He cocked his head sideways, for a moment, and his expression sobered. "But if they connected you with the musician at Amber's, they could threaten other punishments, and make you promise to spy at Amber's in return for being set free. I doubt Carly is terribly effective."

"I wouldn't do that!" she exclaimed, hotly.

"You might, if you were frightened enough," he admonished her. "I'm not saying you also wouldn't go straight to Amber afterwards and tell her what they'd gotten from you, but don't ever underestimate the power of a skilled Church interrogator. They could make you promise to do almost anything for them, and you'd weep with gratitude because they had forgiven you for what you'd done to them. They are very skilled with words-with innuendo-with making threats they have no intention of carrying out. And they are a force unto themselves on their own ground."

"And maybe they're as skilled with magic as they are with words?" Rune frowned; those were some of the whispered rumors she'd heard. That the Church harbored Priests and Brothers who were powerful magicians, who could make people do what they wanted them to with a few chosen words and a spell to take over their will.

"Possibly," Tonno conceded wearily. "Possibly; I don't know. I've never seen a Church mage, and I don't know of anyone who has, but that doesn't mean anything, does it? Since you haven't angered them, and don't intend to, you're unlikely to see one either. Let's face it, Rune, you and I are just too small for them to take much notice of. It's not worth the time they'd spend."

"Something to be said for being insignificant," she commented sardonically.

He nodded. "At any rate, I'm quite confident that you'll be in no danger whatsoever, if you want to take these lessons. Brother Bryan told me that Brother Pell is-well, 'rather difficult to get along with,' is the way he put it. I pressed him for details, but he couldn't tell me much; I gather he has a bad temper and a sour disposition. He doesn't like much of anybody, and even someone as even-tempered as Bryan has a hard time finding good things to say about him."

"Sounds like taking lessons from Carly," she said, with a wry twist to her mouth.

"Perhaps," Tonno replied thoughtfully. "But there is this; Bryan said that by all reports, even of those who don't like him at all, Pell is the best composition teacher in all of Nolton."

"Huh," Rune said thoughtfully. "I'd be willing to take lessons even from Carly if she was that good. Am I supposed to be a boy or a girl?"

"Boy," Tonno told her firmly. "Women have very little power in the Church, at least here in Nolton, and I gather that Pell in particular despises the sex. Go as a girl, and he'll probably refuse to teach you on the grounds that you'll just go off and get married and waste his teaching." He gave her a long, level look, as he realized exactly what she'd said. "I take it that you want the lessons, then?"

"I said I'd even take lessons from Carly if she had anything worth learning," Rune replied firmly. "When can I start?"

She didn't feel quite so bold a few days later, as she meekly showed her pass to the Brother on watch at the cloister gate. In the year she'd been here, she'd never once been inside the huge cathedral in the center of Nolton, big enough to hold several thousand worshipers at once. In fact, she avoided it as much as possible. That wasn't too difficult, since there was no use in busking anywhere near it; the Priests and Brothers made a busker feel so uncomfortable by simply standing and staring with disapproval that it was easier to find somewhere else to play.

It was an imposing, forbidding edifice, carved of dark stone, with thousands of sculptures all over its surface; there wasn't a single square inch that didn't hold a carving of something. Down near the base, it was ordinary people doing Good Works, and the temptations of the Evil One trying to waylay them. Farther up, there were carvings of the lives of the saints and all the temptations that they had overcome. The next level held the bliss of Paradise. The uppermost level was carved with all the varied kinds of angels, from the finger-length Etherials, to the Archangels that were three times the height of a man.

There was a sky-piercing tower in the middle of it, carved with abstract water and cloud shapes, that held the bells that signaled the changes of the hours for everyone in the city. Inside, she had been told, it was different; not dark and foreboding at all, full of light and space-those carved walls held hundreds of tiny windows filled with glass, and most of the ones near the ground were of precious colored glass. Every saint's shrine, every statue inside had been gilded or silvered; places where the light couldn't reach were covered with banks of prayer candles. When the sun shone, or so Tonno claimed, the eye was dazzled. Even when it didn't, there were lights and reflective surfaces enough to make the interior bright as day in an open meadow.

She hadn't cared enough to want to see it, although it was quite an attraction for visitors just to come and gawk at. Behind the cathedral was the cloister; a complex of buildings including convents for men and for women, a school, and the Church administrative offices. All that was held behind a high wall pierced with tiny gates, each guarded day and night by a Brother. Rune had never been inside those walls, and didn't know anyone who had.

Plenty of people had been inside the cathedral though. The High Priest of Nolton was said to be a marvelous speaker, although, again, Rune couldn't have said one way or another. She hadn't cared to see him, either, though Carly went to the service he preached at as faithfully as the bells rang.

From the little she saw outside the walls, the cloister was twice as forbidding as the cathedral, because it had none of the cathedral's ornamentation. Now that she was inside the walls, it was worse, much worse. The place looked like a prison. The buildings were carved of the same dark stone, with tiny slits for windows. It looked as if it was a place designed to keep people from escaping; Rune hoped she'd never have occasion to discover that her impression was true.

The Brother at the gate, anonymous in his dark gray robe, directed her to go past the building immediately in front of her and take the first door she saw after that. She walked slowly across the silent, paved courtyard; nothing behind her but the wall with its small postern gate, nothing on either side of her or before her but tall, oblong buildings with tiny passages between them. Nothing green or growing anywhere, not even a weed springing up between the cobblestones. It seemed unnatural. A few robed figures crossed the courtyard ahead of her; none looked at her, no one spoke. In their dark, androgynous robes, she couldn't even tell if they were men or women.

Once past the first building, she felt even more hemmed in and confined. How can anyone bear to live like this? she wondered. No need to look for a reason why Brother Pell was so sour; if she had to live here, she'd be just as bitter as he was.

There was another Brother at the door of the building, sitting behind a tiny desk; once again, she showed her pass, and was directed to a second-floor room. She looked back over her shoulder for a moment as she climbed the stair; the Brother was watching her-to be certain she went where she was told? Possibly. That might be simple courtesy on the part of the Brothers. It might be something else. There was no point in speculating; she was just here for composition lessons, not anything sinister. She didn't want to stay here a moment longer than she had to. Let the Brother watch; he'd see only a young boy obeying, doing exactly what he was told.

She opened the designated doorway and went inside. There was no one there, and nothing but one large desk and six smaller ones. She discovered that she was the first to arrive of a class of six, including her. The classroom was a tiny cubicle, narrow, with enough space for their six desks arranged two by two, with Brother Pell's large desk facing them, and behind that, a wall covered in slate.

Brother Pell appeared last, a perfectly average man, balding slightly, with his hands tucked into the sleeves of his gray robe and a frown so firmly a part of his face that Rune could not imagine what he would look like if he ever smiled. If he had been anything other than a Brother, she would have guessed at Scholar or clerk; he had that kind of tight-lipped look.

There was a nagging sense of familiarity about him; after a moment, she knew what it was. She had seen this man often, out on the street, ever since the ordinance against pseudo-buskers had been passed. Presumably he was one of the inspectors. And now that she thought about it, she realized that there were a great many more Brothers and Sisters out on the street since the ordinance had been passed. Interesting; she had never thought of them as being inspectors, but it made sense. The inspectors were being paid very little, about the same as a lamp-lighter or a dung-sweeper. Unless you had no other job, it wasn't one you'd think of taking. A few of the real buskers had become inspectors by day, and did their busking at night. But Church clerics-well, it wouldn't matter to them how small the fee was. It was very probable that, since everyone in the Church took a vow to own nothing, their fees as inspectors went to the Church itself.

Very interesting, and not very comforting, that the Church who had backed the law should send its people out into the streets as an army of enforcers of that law. She'd have to tell Tonno about her suspicion and see what he said.

Brother Pell did not seem to recognize her, however, although she recognized him; his eyes flitted over her as they did the other five boys in the class without a flicker of recognition. He consulted a list in his hand.