A Ghost of a Chance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No doubt. . . .

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

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

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

But once she stopped taking the medicines that fogged her thoughts; and even more, once her arm was out of the sling and she began playing again, all that changed. Drastically. Overnight, the child grew up.

He strode through the ankle-high weeds at the walking pace that was second-nature to him now, paying scant attention to the world about him except to listen for odd silences that might signal something or someone hidden beside the road ahead-and the steady clop-clopping of the hooves of draft-horses pulling timber-wagons; this was the right stretch of road for them, which was why the weeds were kept down along here.

Bandits wouldn't bother with a timber-wagon, but he and Rune would make a tempting target. Highwaymen knew the Faire schedule as well as he did, and would be setting up about now to try to take unwary travelers with their pouches of coin on the way to the Faire. They wouldn't be averse to plucking a couple of singing birds like himself and his apprentice if the opportunity presented itself.

And if Talaysen didn't anticipate them. He'd been accused of working magic, he was so adept at anticipating ambushes. Funny, really. Too bad he wasn't truly a mage; he could transform his wayward heart back to the way it had been. . . .

It was as hot today as it had been for the past two weeks, and the dog-days of summer showed no sign of breaking. Now was haying season for the farmers, which meant that every hot, sunny day was a boon to them. Same for the lumberjacks, harvesting and replanting trees in the forest. He was glad for them, for a good season meant more coin for them-and certainly it was easier traveling in weather like this-but a short storm to cool the air would have been welcome at this point.

A short storm . . . Summer thunderstorms were something he particularly enjoyed, even when he was caught out in the open by them. The way the air was fresh, brisk, and sharp with life afterwards-the way everything seemed clearer and brighter when the storm had passed. He wished there was a similar way to clear the miasma in his head about his apprentice.

He'd hoped that being on the road with her would put things back on the student-teacher basis; she didn't have real experience of life on the road, and for all that she was from the country, she'd never spent a night camped under the open sky before she ran away from home. This new way of life should have had her reverting to a kind of dependence that would have reawakened his protective self and pushed the other under for good and all.

But it didn't. She acted as if it had never occurred to her that she should be feeling helpless and out of her depth out here. Instead of submissively following his lead, she held her own with him, insisting on doing her share of everything, however difficult or dirty. When she didn't know how to do something, she didn't make a fuss about it, she simply asked him-then followed his directions, slowly but with confidence. She took to camping as if she was born to it, as if she had Gypsy blood somewhere in her. She never complained any more about the discomforts of the road than he did, and she was better at bartering with the farm-wives to augment their provisions than he was.

Then there was music, God help them both. She was a full partner there, though oddly that was the only place her confidence faltered. She was even challenging him in some areas, musically speaking; she wanted to know why some things worked and some didn't, and he was often unable to come up with an explanation. And her fiddling was improving day by day; both because she was getting regular practice and because she'd had a chance to hear some of the best fiddlers in the country at the Faire. Soon she'd be second to none in that area; he was as certain of that as he was of his own ability.

Not that he minded, not in the least! He enjoyed the novelty of having a full partner to the hilt. He liked the challenge of a student of her ability even more. No, that wasn't the problem at all.

This was all very exciting, but he couldn't help but notice that his feelings towards her were changing, more so every day. It was no longer that he was simply attracted to her-nor that he found her stimulating in other areas than the intellectual.

It was far worse than that. He'd noticed back at the last Faire that when they'd sung a love duet, he was putting more feeling into the words than he ever had before. It wasn't acting; it was real. And therein lay the problem.

When they camped after dark, he was pleased to settle the camp with her doing her half of the chores out there in the darkness, even if she didn't do things quite the way he would have. When he woke up in the middle of the night, he found himself looking over at the dark lump rolled in blankets across the fire, and smiled. When he traded sleepy quips over the morning fire, he found himself not only enjoying her company-he found himself unable to imagine life without her.

And that, frankly, frightened him. Frightened him more than anything he'd ever encountered, from bandits to Guild Bards.

He watched her matching him stride-for-stride out of the corner of his eye, and wanted to reach out to take her hand in his. They suited each other, there was no doubt of it; they had from the first moment they'd met. Even Ardis noticed it, and had said as much; she'd told him they were two of a kind, then had given him an odd sort of smile. She'd told him over and over, that his affair with Lyssandra wouldn't work, that they were too different, and she'd been right. By the time her father had broken off the engagement because he'd fled the Guild, they were both relieved that it was over. That little smile said without words that Ardis reckoned that this would be different.

Even the way they conversed was similar. Neither of them felt any great need to fill a silence with unnecessary talk, but when they did talk, it was always enjoyable, stimulating. He could, with no effort at all, see himself sharing the rest of his life with this young woman.

That frightened him even more.

How could he even think something like that? The very idea was appalling! She was younger than he was; much younger. He was not exaggerating when he had told Ardis that he was twice her age. He was, and a bit more; on the shady side of thirty-five, to her seventeen or eighteen. How many songs were there about young women cuckolding older lovers? Enough to make him look like a fool if he took up with her. Enough to make her look like a woman after only his fame and fortune if she took up with him. There was nothing romantic about an old man pairing with a young woman, and much that was the stuff of ribald comedy.

Furthermore, she was his apprentice. That alone should place her out of bounds. He was appalled at himself for even considering it in his all-too-vivid dreams.

He'd always had the greatest contempt for those teachers who took advantage of a youngster's eagerness to please, of their inexperience, to use them. There were plenty of ways to take advantage of an apprentice, from extracting gifts of money from a wealthy parent, to employing them as unpaid servants. But the worst was to take a child, sexually inexperienced but ripe and ready to learn, and twist that readiness and enthusiasm, that willingness to accommodate the Master in every way, and pervert it into the crude slaking of the Master's own desires with no regard for how the child felt, or what such a betrayal would do to it.

And he had seen that, more than once, even in the all-male Guild. If the Church thundered against the ways of a man and a maid, this was the sin the Priests did not even whisper aloud-but that didn't mean it didn't occur. Especially in the hothouse forcing-ground of the Guild. That was one of the many reasons why he'd left in a rage, so long ago. Not that men sought comfort in other men-while he did not share that attraction, he could at least understand it. The Church called a great many things "sins" that were nothing of the sort; this was just another example. No, what drove him into a red rage was that there were Masters who abused their charges in body and spirit, and were never, ever punished for it. The last straw was when two poor young boys had to be sent away to one of the Church healers in a state of hysterical half-madness after one of the most notorious lechers in the Guild seduced them both, then insisted both of them share his bed at the same time. The exact details of what he had asked them to do had been mercifully withheld-but the boys had been pitiful, and he would not blame either of them if they had chosen to seek the cloisters and live out their lives as hermits. In the space of six months, that evil man had changed two carefree, happy children into frightened, whimpering rabbits. He'd broken their music, and it was even odds that it could be mended.

Talaysen still boiled with rage. It was wrong to take advantage of the trust that a student put in a teacher he respected-it was worse when that violation of trust included a violation of their young bodies. He'd gone to the Master of the Guild when he'd learned of the incident, demanding that the offending teacher be thrown out of the Guild in disgrace. Insisting that he be turned over to the Justiciars. Quite ready to take a horsewhip to him and flay the skin from his body.

He'd been shaking, physically shaking, from the need to rein in his temper. And the Master of the Guild had simply looked down his nose at him and suggested he was overreacting to a minor incident. "After all," Master Jordain had said scornfully, "they were only unproven boys. Master Larant is a full Bard. His ability is a proven fact. The Guild can do without them; it cannot do without him. Besides, if they couldn't handle themselves in a minor situation like that, they probably would not have passed their Journeyman period; they were just too unstable. It's just as well Master Larant weeded them out early. Now his valuable time won't be wasted in teaching boys who would never reach full status."

He had restrained himself from climbing over the Master's desk and throttling him with his bare hands by the thinnest of margins. He still wasn't certain how he'd done it. He had stalked out of the office, headed straight to his own quarters, packed his things and left that afternoon, seeking shelter with some Gypsies he'd met as a young man and had kept contact with, renouncing the Guild and all that it meant, changing his name, and his entire way of life.

But there it was; he'd seen how pressure of that nature could ruin a young life. How could he put Rune in the untenable position those poor boys had been in? Especially if he'd been misreading her, and what he'd been thinking was flirtation was simple country friendliness.

And there was one other thing; the stigma associated with "female musicians." Rune didn't deserve that, and if they remained obviously student and teacher, all would be well. Or at least, as "well" as it could be if she wore skirts. But he wouldn't ever want her to bear that stigma, which she would, if she were ever associated with him as his lover. Assuming she was willing . . . which might be a major assumption on his part.

Oh, if he wasn't misreading her, if she was interested in him as a lover, he could wed her. He'd be only too happy to wed her. . . .

Dear gods, why would she ever want to actually wed him? Him, twice her age? She'd be nursing a frail old man while she was still in the prime of her life, bound to him, and cursing herself and him both.

Furthermore, there would always be the assumption by those who knew nothing about music that she'd become his apprentice only because she was his lover; that she was gaining her fame by borrowing the shine of his.

No, he told himself, every time his eyes strayed to her, and his thoughts wandered where they shouldn't. No, and no, and no. It's impossible. I won't have it. It's wrong.

But that didn't keep his eyes from straying.

Or-his heart.

Rain fell unceasingly down from a flat gray sky, plopping on her rain-cape, her hat, and into the puddles along the road. Rune wondered what on Earth was wrong with Talaysen. Besides the weather, of course. He'd been out of sorts about something from the moment they'd left the Allendale Faire. Not that he showed it-much. He didn't snap, rail about anything, or break into arguments over little nothings. No, he brooded. He answered questions civily enough, but neither his heart nor his thoughts were involved in the answer.

It could be the weather; there was more than enough to brood over in the weather. After weeks of dry, sunny days, their streak of good luck had finally broken, drowning the Allendale Faire in three days of dripping, sullen rain.

But they'd gotten around that; they'd succeeded in finding a cook-tent big enough to give them a bit of performing room, and they'd done reasonably well, monetarily speaking, despite the weather.

The rain had kept away all the wealthy Guildmasters and the three Sires that lived within riding distance, however. Perhaps that was the problem. They'd made no progress towards finding a wintering-over spot, and she sensed that made Talaysen nervous. At the next several large Faires, he had told her soberly, they could expect to encounter Guild musicians, Journeymen looking for permanent places for themselves. And they could encounter toughs hired by the Guild, either to "teach them a lesson" or to keep them from taking hire with one of the Sires for the winter.

One thing was certain, and only one; she was just as out-of-sorts as he was, but her mood had nothing to do with the weather or the state of their combined purse. She knew precisely why she was restless and unhappy. Talaysen. If this was love, it was damned uncomfortable. It wasn't lust, or rather, it wasn't lust alone-she was quite familiar with the way that felt.

The problem was, Talaysen didn't seem inclined to do anything to relieve her problem, despite all the hints she'd thrown out. And she'd thrown plenty, too. The only thing she hadn't tried was to strip stark naked and creep into his bedroll after he fell asleep.

Drat the man, anyway! Was he made of marble?

She trudged along behind him, watching his back from under her dripping hat-brim. Why didn't he respond to her?

It must be me, she finally decided, her mood of frustration turning to one of depression, as the rain cooled her temper and she started thinking of all the logical reasons why he hadn't been responding. Obviously, he could have anyone he wanted. Gwyna, for instance. And she's not like me; she's adorable. Me, I'm too tall, too bony, and I can still pass for a boy any time I choose. He just doesn't have any interest in me at all, and I guess I can't blame him. She sighed. The clouds chose that moment to double the amount of rain they were dropping on the two Bards' heads, so that they were walking in their own road-sized waterfall.

She tallied up her numerous defects, and compared herself with the flower of the Free Bard feminine contingent, and came to the even more depressing conclusion that she not only wasn't in the running, she wasn't even in the race when it came to attracting her Master in any way other than intellectually. And even then-the Free Bards were anything but stupid. Any of the bright lovelies wearing the brotherhood's ribbons could match witticisms with Talaysen and hold her own.

I don't have a prayer. I might as well give up.

Depression turned to despondency; fueled by the miserable weather, she sank deep inside herself and took refuge in composing the lyrics to songs of unrequited love, each one worse and more trite than the one before it. Brother Pell would have had a fit.

She stayed uncharacteristically silent all morning; when they stopped for a brief, soggy lunch, she couldn't even raise her spirits enough to respond when he finally did venture a comment or two. He must have sensed that it would be better to leave her alone, for that was what he did, addressing her only when it was necessary to actually tell her something, and otherwise leaving her to her own version of brooding.

On the the fifteenth repeat of rhyming "death" with "breath," she noticed that Talaysen had slowed, and was looking about for something.

"What's the matter?" she asked dully.

"We're going to have to stop somewhere for the night," he said, the worry evident in his voice, although she couldn't see his expression under his dripping, drooping hat brim. "I'm trying to find some place with at least a little shelter-however small that may be."

"Oh." She took herself mentally by the scruff of the neck and shook herself. Being really useful, Rune. Why don't you at least try to contribute something to this effort, hmm? "What did you have in mind?" she asked.

He shrugged-at least, that was what she guessed the movement under his rain-cape and pack meant. "I'd like a cave, but that's asking for a bit much around here."

She had to agree with him there. This area was sandy and hilly, rather than rocky and hilly. Not a good area for caves-and if they found one, say, under the roots of a tree, it would probably already have a tenant. She was not interested in debating occupancy with bears, badgers or skunks.

"Let's just keep walking," she said, finally. "If we don't find anything by the time the light starts to fade, maybe we can make a lean-to against a fallen tree, or something. . . ."

"Good enough," he replied, sounding just as depressed as she was. "You watch the right-hand side of the track, I'll watch the left."

They trudged on through the downpour without coming to anything that had any promise for long enough that Rune was just about ready to suggest that they not stop, that they continue on through the night. But it would be easy to get off the track in weather like this, and once tangled in the underbrush, they might not be able to find their way back to the road until daylight. If there was anything worse than spending a night huddled inside a drippy lean-to wrapped in a rain-cape, it was spending it caught in a wild plum thicket while the rain beat down on you unhindered even by leaves.

Meanwhile, her thoughts ran on in the same depressing circle. Talaysen was tired of her; that was what it was. He was tired of his promise to teach her, tired of her company, and he didn't know how to tell her. He wanted to be rid of her. Not that she blamed him; it would be much easier for him to find that wintering-over place with only himself to worry about. And if that failed, it would be very much harder for him to make the winter circuit with an inexperienced girl in tow.

He must be bored with her by now, too. She wasn't very entertaining, she wasn't city-bred, she didn't know anything about the Courts that she hadn't picked up from Tonno-and that was precious little.

And he must be disgusted with her as well. The way she'd been shamelessly throwing herself at him-he was used to ladies, not tavern-wenches. Ill-mannered and coarse, a country peasant despite her learning. Too ugly even to think about, too.

She felt a lump of self-pity rising in her throat and didn't even try to swallow it down. Too ugly, too tall, too stupid-the litany ran around and around in her thoughts, and made the lump expand until it filled her entire throat and made it hard to swallow. It overflowed into her eyes, and tears joined the rain that was leaking through her hat and running down her face. Her eyes blurred, and she rubbed the back of her cold hand across them. They blurred so much, in fact, that she almost missed the little path and half-ruined gateposts leading away from the road.

Almost.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes again hastily. "Master Wren!" she croaked around the lump in her throat. He stopped, turned. "There!" she said, pointing, and hoping he didn't notice her tear-marred face. She was under no illusions about what she looked like when she cried: awful. Blotchy face and swollen eyes; red nose.

He looked where she pointed. "Huh," he said, sounding surprised. "I don't remember that there before."

"It looks like there might have been a farmhouse there a while back," she said, inanely stating the obvious. "Maybe you didn't notice it because the last time you were through here you weren't looking for a place to shelter in."

"If there's a single wall standing, it'll be better than what we have now," he replied, wearily. "If there's two, we can put something over them. If there's even a corner of roof, I'll send Ardis a donation for her charities the next time we reach a village with a Priest."

He set off towards the forlorn little gate; she followed. As overgrown as that path looked, there wasn't going to be enough room for them to walk in anything other than single file.

It was worse than it looked; the plants actually seemed to reach out to them, to tangle them, to send out snags to trip them up and thorns to rake across their eyes.

The deeper they went, the worse it got. Finally Rune pulled the knife from her belt, and started to hack at the vegetation with it.

To her surprise, the going improved after that; evidently there was point of bottleneck, and then the growth wasn't nearly so tangled. The bushes stopped reaching for them; the trees stopped fighting them. Within a few moments, they broke free of the undergrowth, into what was left of the clearing that had surrounded the little house.

There was actually something left of the house. More than they had hoped, certainly. Although vines crawled in and out of the windows, the door and shutters were gone entirely, and there was a tree growing right through the roof, there were still walls and a good portion of the roof remaining, perhaps because the back of it had been built into the hill behind it.

They crossed the clearing, stepped over a line of mushrooms ringing the house, and entered. There was enough light coming in for them to see-and hear-that the place was relatively dry, except in the area of the tree. Talaysen got out his tinderbox and made a light with a splinter of wood.

"Dirt floor-at least it isn't mud." Rune fumbled out a rushlight and handed it to him; he lit it at his splinter. In the brighter flare of illumination, she saw that the floor was covered with a litter of dead leaves and less identifiable objects, including a scattering of small, roundish objects and some white splatters. Talaysen leaned down to poke one, and came up with a mouse-skull.

He grinned back at Rune, teeth shining whitely from under his hat brim. "At least we won't have to worry about vermin. Provided you don't mind sharing your quarters with an owl."

"I'd share this place with worse than an owl if it's dry," she replied more sharply than she intended. Then she laughed, in a shaky attempt to cover it. "Let's see what we can do about putting together someplace to sleep. Away from where the owl is. I can do without getting decorated with castings and mutes."

"Why Rune, we could set a whole new fashion," Talaysen teased, his good humor evidently restored. He stuck the rushlight up on what was left of a rock shelf at the back of the house, and they set about clearing a space to bed down in.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"There," Rune said, setting her makeshift broom of broken branches aside. "That's as clean as it's going to get." She made a face at the piled debris on the other side of the ash tree; there had been too much garbage to simply sweep out the door.

"That's clean enough," Talaysen told her, from where he knelt just under the window, striking his flint and steel together as he had been the entire time she'd been sweeping. He had a knack for fires that she didn't; making a fire from sparks was a lot harder than village-folk (or especially city-folk) realized. "Now if I can just-there!"

He blew frantically at the little pile of dry leaves and shavings in front of him, and was rewarded this time with a glow, and then with a tiny flame. Carefully sheltering it from an errant breeze, he fed it with tiny twigs, then branches, then finally built a real fire with wood scavenged from the cottage's interior about his core-blaze. Just as well, as it was definitely getting darker outside. Hopefully the smoke would go out the window, and not decide to fill the cottage. The chimney of this place was choked with birds' nests and other trash.

Rune took a look around, now that she had more light to see by. This hadn't been a big farmhouse; one room, with a tiny loft just under the roof for sleeping. But the inside looked very odd for a place gone to ruin, and she puzzled over it as Talaysen picked up wood, trying to figure it out.

Then she had it: the cottage had been abandoned in a hurry. Nothing had been taken, not even the smallest stool. The wood that Talaysen was collecting had come from wrecked furniture. The doors and windows had been forced-but forced out, not in, and the shutters over the windows had been smashed at about the same time. Something got in here, then smashed its way out. But what could have been strong enough to do that-and nasty enough to keep the owner from coming back for his goods? She felt a chill finger of fear trace a line down the back of her neck. . . .

But then she shrugged and turned her attention to setting up their "camp." Whatever had done this was long gone, and not likely to return; there was no sign that anything had been living here except the owl.

He handed their nesting cook-pot and kettle to her; she dug out the dried meat and vegetables and the canister of herb tea. It was Talaysen's turn to cook, while she spread out the sleeping rolls and went to get water.

Well, that wouldn't be hard. There was a lot of water available right now.

She stuck the kettle, then the pot, out the window, holding them under the stream of water coming off the eaves. After all the rain they'd been having, the roof was surely clean. As clean as most streams, anyway. The presence of the owl probably kept birds from perching on the roof by day, and there wasn't much else that would matter.

Already it was hard to see across the clearing. She was profoundly grateful that they'd found this bit of shelter when they had. Now they'd be able to have a hot meal, warm and dry their clothing by the fire, check their instruments, maybe even practice a little.

As if he had followed her thoughts, Talaysen looked up from his cooking. "Get my lute out, will you, Rune? I think it's warm and dry enough in here that it won't come to any harm."

She nodded, and took the instrument out of its oiled-leather case, inspecting it carefully for any signs that the rain or damp might have gotten to it. Satisfied that it was untouched, she laid it on his unrolled bedding and did the same with her fiddle.

Like any good musician, she made a detailed examination of both instruments. So detailed, in fact, that by the time she was finished, the food and tea were both ready. She dug into her own portion with a nod of thanks, a little surprised at how hungry she was. The food evaporated from her wooden bowl, and she mopped every last trace of juice up with a piece of tough traveler's bread. The bowl hardly needed to be washed after she was through, and Talaysen's was just as clean.

Once they had finished eating, Talaysen was not to give her any time to brood over the thoughts that had caused her depression today, either. Instead, he insisted that they rehearse a number of songs she was only vaguely familiar with.

Odd, she thought, after the first few. He seemed to have chosen them all for subject-matter rather than style-every single one of them was about young women who were married off to old men and disappointed in the result. In a great many of the songs, they cuckolded their husbands with younger lovers; in the rest, they mourned their fates, shackled for life to a man whose prowess was long in the past. Sometimes the songs were comic, sometimes tragic, but in all of them the women were unhappy.

After about the fifth or sixth of these, she wondered if he was trying to tell her something. After the fifteenth, she was certain of it. And despite the message, she grew more and more cheerful with every chorus.

He had noticed how she'd been flinging herself at him! And this wasn't the reaction she'd been thinking he'd had to her. Was the message in these ballads that he was attracted, but thought he was too old to make her happy? It surely seemed likely.

Where did he get an idea like that? He wasn't that much older than she was! Girls in Westhaven got married to men his age all the time-usually after they'd worn out their first wives with work and childbearing, and were ready for a pretty young thing to warm their beds at night. Oh, at thirty-mumble, if he had been a fat merchant, or an even fatter Guild Bard, maybe she'd have been repulsed . . . but it would have been the overstuffed condition of his body that would have come between them, not his age.

At first she was too startled by what she thought he was trying to tell her to act on it-then, after a moment of reflection, she decided she'd better not do anything until she'd had a chance to plan her course of attack. She held her peace, and played the dutiful apprentice, keeping her thoughts to herself until they were both too tired to play another note. By then, the fire was burning low, and she was glad to creep into her now-warmed blankets.

But although she intended to ponder all the possible meanings of the practice session, though she did her best to hold off sleep, it overtook her anyway.

There. I think I've gotten my message across. Talaysen put his lute back in its case with a feeling of weary, and slightly bitter, satisfaction. Hopefully now his young apprentice would think about what she was doing, and stop making calf's-eyes at him.

What he was going to do about the way he felt was another matter altogether.

Suffer, mostly.

Eventually, though, he figured that he would be able to convince himself that their relationship of friendship was enough. After all, it was enough with all the other Free Bard women he'd known.

Maybe he could have another brief fling with Nightingale to get the thought of Rune out of his head. Nightingale had yet to find the creature that would capture her heart, but she enjoyed an amorous romp as well as anyone.

At least he'd given Rune something to think about. And the next time they met up with one of the gypsy caravans or another gathering of Free Bards, she'd start looking around her for someone her age. That should solve the problem entirely. Once he saw her playing the young fool with all the other young fools, his heart would stop aching for her.

He looked down at her sleeping face for a moment, all soft shadows and fire-kissed angles. Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on Raven, he thought, dispiritedly. Maybe I should have encouraged him. He was one of her teachers before; he knows her better than I do. They might get on very well together. . . .

But though the idea of Rune with another was all right in the abstract, once he gave the idea a face, it wrenched his heart so painfully that his breath caught.

Dear God, I am a fool.

He slipped inside his own bedroll, certain that he was going to toss and turn for the rest of the night-

Only to fall asleep so quickly he might have been taken with a spell of slumber.

It was the sound of a harp being played that woke him; he found himself, not lying in his bedroll in the tiny, earthen-floored cottage, but standing on his feet in the middle of a luxuriously green field. Overhead was not a sky filled with rain clouds-not even a sky at all-but a rocky vault studded with tiny, unwinking lights and a great silver globe that shone softly down on the gathering around him.

Before him, not a dozen yards away, was a gathering of bright-clad folk about a silver throne. After a moment of breathlessness and confusion, he concluded that the throne was solid silver; for the being that sat upon it was certainly not human. Nor were those gathered about him.

Eyes as amber as a cat's stared at him unblinking from under a pair of upswept brows. Hair the black of a raven's wing was confined about the wide, smooth, marble-pale brow by a band of the same silver as the throne. The band was centered by an emerald the size of Talaysen's thumb. The face was thin, with high, prominent cheekbones and a sensuous mouth, but it was as still and expressionless as a statue. Peeking through the long, straight hair were the pointed ears that told Talaysen his "host" could only be one of the elven races.

There were elvenkin who were friends and allies to humans. There were more who were not. At the moment, he had no idea which these were, though the odds on their being the latter got better with every passing moment.

The man was clothed in a tunic of emerald-green silk, with huge, flowing sleeves, confined about the waist with a wide silver belt and decorated with silver embroidery. His legs were encased in green trews of the same silk, and his feet in soft, green leather boots. His hands, resting quietly on the arms of his throne, were decorated with massive silver rings, wrought in the forms of beasts and birds.

A young man sat at his feet, clad identically, but without the coronet, and playing softly on a harp. Those about the throne were likewise garbed in silks, of fanciful cut and jewel-bright colors. Some wore so little as to be the next thing to naked; others were garbed in robes with such long trains and flowing sleeves that he wondered how they walked without tripping themselves. Their hairstyles differed as widely as their dress, from a short cap like a second skin of brilliant auburn, to tresses that flowed down the back in an elaborate arrangement of braids and tied locks, to puddle on the floor at the owner's feet, in a liquid fall of silver-white. All of them bore the elven-king's pointed ears and strange eyes, his pale flesh and upswept brows. Some of them were also decorated with tiny quasi-living creations of magic; dragon-belts that moved with the wearer, faerie-lights entwined in the hair.

Talaysen was no fool, and he knew very well that the elves' reputation for being touchy creatures was well-founded. And if these considered themselves to be the enemies of men, they would be all the touchier. Still-they hadn't killed him out of hand. They might want something from him. He went to one knee immediately, bowing his head. As he did so, he saw that his lute was lying on the turf beside him, still in its case.

"You ventured into our holding, mortal," said a clear, dispassionate tenor. He did not have to look up to know that it was the leader who addressed him. "King" was probably the best title to default to; most lords of elvenkin styled themselves "kings."

"Your pardon, Sire," he replied, just as dispassionately. "I pray you will forgive us."

When he said nothing else, the elven-king laughed. "What? No pleas for mercy, no assertions that you didn't know?"

"No, Sire," he replied carefully, choosing his words as he would choose weapons, for they were all the weapon that he had. "I admit that I saw the signs, and I admit that I was too careless to think about what they signified." And he had seen the signs; the vegetation that tried to prevent them from entering the clearing until Rune drew her Iron knife; the Fairie Ring of mushrooms encircling the house. The ash tree growing right through the middle, and the condition of the house itself. . . .

"The mortal who built his house at our very door was a fool, and an arrogant one," the elven-king replied to his thought, his words heavy with lazy menace. "He thought that his God and his Church would defend him against us; that his Iron weapons were all that he needed besides his faith. He knew this was our land, that he built his home against one of our doors. He thought to keep us penned that way. We destroyed him." A faint sigh of silk told him that the king had shifted his position slightly. He still did not look up. "But you were weary, and careless with cold and troubles," the king said. His tone changed, silken and sweet. "You had no real intention to trespass."

Now he looked up; the elf lounged in his throne in a pose of complete relaxation that did not fool Talaysen a bit. All the Bard need do would be to make a single move towards a weapon of any kind at all, and he would be dead before the motion had been completed. If the king didn't strike him down with magic, the courtiers would, with the weapons they doubtless had hidden on their persons. The softest and most languid of them were likely the warriors.

"No, Sire," he replied. "We had no intention of trespass, though we were careless. It was an honest mistake."

"Still-" The elf regarded him with half-closed eyes that did not hide a cold glitter. "Letting you go would set a bad example."

He felt his hands moving towards his instrument; he tried to stop them, but his body was no longer his to control. He picked up his lute, and stripped the case from it, then tuned it.

"I think we shall resolve your problems and ours with a single stroke," the elf said, sitting up on the throne and steepling his hands in front of his chin. "I think we shall keep you here, as our servant, to pay for your carelessness. We have minstrels, but we have no Bards. You will do nicely." He waved his hand languidly. "You may play for us now."

Rune awoke to a thrill of alarm, a feeling that there was something wrong. She sat straight up in her bed-and a faint scrape of movement made her look, not towards the door, but to the back of the cottage, where it was built into the hillside.

She was just in time to see the glitter of an amber eye, the flash of a pointed ear, and the soles of Talaysen's boots vanishing into the hillside as he stumbled through a crack in the rock wall at the rear of the cottage. Then the "door" in the hill snapped shut.

Leaving her alone, staring at the perfectly blank rock wall.

That broke her paralysis. She sprang to her feet and rushed the wall, screaming at the top of her lungs, kicking it, pounding it with hands and feet until she was exhausted and dropped to the ground, panting.

Elves. That was what she'd seen. Elves. And they had taken Talaysen. She had seen the signs and she hadn't paid any attention. She should have known-

The mushrooms, the ash-tree-the bushes that tried to keep us out-

They were all there; the Fairie-circle, the guardian ash, the tree-warriors-all of them in the songs she'd learned, all of them plain for any fool to see, if the fool happened to be thinking.

Too late to weep and wail about it now. There must be something she could do-

There had to be a way to open that door from this side. She felt all over the wall, pressing and turning every rocky projection in hopes of finding a catch to release it, or a trigger to make it open.

Nothing.

It must be a magic door.

She pulled out her knife, knowing the elves' legendary aversion to iron and steel, and picked at anything she found, hoping to force the door open the way she had forced the trees to let them by. But the magic in the stone was sterner stuff than the magic in the trees, and although the wall trembled once or twice beneath her hand, it still refused to yield.

Thinking that the ash tree might be something more than just a tree, she first threatened it with her dagger, then stabbed it. But the tree was just a tree, and nothing happened at all, other than a shower of droplets that rained down on her through the hole in the roof as the branches shook.

Elves . . . elves . . . what do I know about elves? God, there has to be a way to get at them, to get Talaysen out! What do I have to use against them?

Not much. And not a lot of information about them. Nothing more than was in a half-dozen songs or so. She paced the floor, her eyes stinging with tears that she scrubbed away, refusing to give in, trying to think. What did she know that could be used against them?

The Gypsies deal with them all the time-

How did the Gypsies manage to work with them? She'd heard the Gypsies spoken of as "elf-touched" time and time again . . . as if they had somehow won some of their abilities from the secretive race. What could the Gypsies have that gave them such power over the elvenkin?

Gypsies, elves-

She stopped, in mid-stride, balancing on one foot, as she realized the secret. It was in one of the songs the Gypsy called Nightingale had taught her.

Music. They can be ruled by music. They can't resist it. That's what the song implied, anyway.

She dashed to her packs and fumbled out her fiddle. Elves traditionally used the harp, but the fiddle was her instrument of choice, and she wasn't going to take a chance with anything other than her best weapon. She tuned the lovely instrument with fingers that shook; placed it under her chin, and stood up slowly to face the rock wall.

Then she began to play.

She played every Gypsy song she knew; improvised on the themes, then played them all over again. The wailing melodies sang out over the sound of the storm getting worse overhead. She ignored the distant growl of thunder, and the occasional flicker of lightning against the rock in front of her. She concentrated all of her being on the music, the hidden door, and how much she wanted that door to open.

Let me in. Let me in. Let me in to be with him. Let me in so I can get him free!

She narrowed her eyes to concentrate better. She thought she felt something-or rather, heard something, only it was as if she had an extra ear somewhere deep inside, that was listening to something echo her playing.

Echo? No, it wasn't an echo, this was a different melody. Not by much-but different enough that she noticed it. Was she somehow hearing the music-key to the spell holding the door closed, resonating to the tune she was playing?

She didn't stop to think about it; obeying her instinctive feelings, she left the melody-line she was playing and strove to follow the one she heard with that inner ear. She felt a tingle along her arms, the same tingle she had felt when Gwyna had been transformed back to her proper form.

Not quite a match . . . she tried harder, speeded up a little, trying to anticipate the next notes. Closer . . . closer . . .

As she suddenly snapped into synch with that ghostly melody, the door in the wall cracked open-then gaped wide.

She found herself in a tunnel that led deep into the hillside, a tunnel that was floored with darkness, and had walls and a ceiling of swirling, colored mist. If she had doubted before, this was the end of doubts; only elves would build something like this.

The door remained open behind her. She could only hope it would stay that way and not snap shut to block her exit.

If she got a chance to make one.

She clutched her fiddle in her hand and ran lightly down the tunnel; it twisted and turned like a rabbit's run, but at length she saw light at the end. More than that, she heard music, and with her ears, not whatever she'd used to listen before. Music she knew; Talaysen's lute. But not his voice; he was not singing, and that lack shouted wrongness at her. There was a stiffness to his playing as if he was being constrained by something, forced to play against his will.

She ran harder, and burst through a veil of bright-colored mist at the very end of the tunnel. She stumbled onto a field of grass as smooth and close-clipped as a carpet, under a sky of stone bejeweled with tiny, artificial stars and a featureless moon of silver. Small wonder the songs spoke of elven "halls"; for all that they aped the outdoors, this was an artifice and would never look like a real greensward.

The elves gathered beneath that artificial moon in the decorous figures of a pavane stopped and turned to stare in blank surprise at her. Talaysen stood between them and her-and his expression was of surprise warring with fear.

She knew she daren't give them a moment to get over their surprise; if they did, they'd attack her, and if they attacked her, they'd kill her. The songs made that perfectly clear as well.

She grasped for the only weapon she had.

So you want to dance, do you?

She shoved the fiddle under her chin, set bow to strings, and played. A wild reel, a dance-tune that never failed to bring humans to their feet, and called the "Faerie Reel." She hoped there was more in the name than just the clever title-

There was. Or else the elves were as vulnerable to music as Gypsy legend suggested. They seized partners by the hands and began flinging themselves through the figures of the dance, just as wildly as she played, as if they couldn't help themselves.

She didn't give them a respite, either, when that tune had been played through three full sets; she moved smoothly from that piece into another, then another. Each piece was repeated for three sets; she had a guess from some of what the Gypsy songs said that "three" was a magic number for binding and unloosing, and she wanted to bind them to their dancing, keeping them occupied and unable to attack.

She played for them as fiercely as she had for the Ghost, willing them to dance, faster and faster, until their eyes grew blank, and their limbs faltered. Finally some of them actually began dropping from exhaustion, fainting in the figures of the dance, unable to get up again-

One dropped; then two, then a half dozen. The rest staggered in the steps, stumbling over the fallen ones as if they could not stop unless they were as unconscious as the ones on the ground seemed to be. Another pair fainted into each other's arms, and the elven-king whirled, his face set in a mask of un-thought.

Then she changed her tune. Literally.

She brought the tune home and paused, for just a heartbeat. The elves' eyes all turned toward her again, most of them blank with weariness or pleading for her to stop. The elven-king, stronger than the rest, staggered towards her a step or two. She set bow to the strings again, and saw the flicker of fear in their eyes-

And she launched into the Gypsy laments.

Before she had finished the first, the weariest of the elves were weeping. As she had suspected, the Gypsy songs in particular held some kind of strange power over the elves, a power they themselves had no defense against. By the time she had completed the last sorrowing lament that Nightingale had taught her, even the elf with the coronet was in tears, helpless, caught in the throes of grief that Rune didn't understand even though she had evoked it.

She took her bow from her strings. Now there was no sound but soft sobbing.

They're mine. No matter what they try, they're too tired and too wrought up to move fast. I can play them into the ground, if I have to.

I think. Provided my arms hold out. . . .

Elves, she couldn't help but notice resentfully, looked beautiful even when weeping. Their eyes and cheeks didn't redden; their noses didn't swell up. They simply sobbed, musically, perfect crystal tears dropping from their clear amber eyes to trickle like raindrops down their cheeks.

She looked for the one with the coronet; he was climbing slowly to his feet, tears in his eyes, but his chin and mouth set with anger. She strode quickly across the greensward to get past Talaysen as the elven-king brought himself under control, and by the time he was able to look squarely at her, she was between him and her Master, with her bow poised over the strings again, and her face set in an expression of determination she hoped he could read.

"No!" he shouted, throwing out a hand, fear blazing from his eyes.

She removed her bow a scant inch from the strings, challenge in hers.

"No-" he said, in a calmer voice. "Please. Play no more. Your magic is too strong for us, mortal. We have no defense against it."

About him, his people were recovering; some of them, anyway. The ones who could control themselves, or who had not fainted with exhaustion earlier, were helping those who were still lying on the velvety green grass; trying to wake them from their faint, helping them to their feet.

Rune said nothing; she only watched the elven king steadily. He glanced at his courtiers and warriors, and his pale face grew paler still.

"You are powerful, for all that you are a green girl," he said bitterly, turning a face full of carefully suppressed anger back to her. "I knew that the man was powerful, and I confined him carefully, wrapping his music in bonds he could not break so that he could not work against us. But you! You, I had not expected. You have destroyed my defenses; you have brought my people to their knees. No!" he said again, as she inadvertently lowered her bow a trifle. "No, I-beg you. Do not play again! Elves do not weep readily; many more tears, and my people may go mad with grief!"

"All right," she replied steadily, speaking aloud for the first time in this encounter, controlling her voice as Talaysen had taught her, though her knees trembled with fear and her stomach was one ice-cold knot of panic. "Maybe I won't. If you give me what I want."

"What?" the elven-king replied swiftly. "Ask and you shall have it. Gold, jewels, the treasures of the Earth, objects of enchantment-"

"Him," she interrupted, before he could continue the litany, and perhaps distract her long enough to work against both of them. "I want my lover back again."

Then she bit her lip in vexation. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. She had meant to say "Master," but her heart and her nerves conspired to betray her.

"Lover?" the elven-king said, one eyebrow rising in disbelief as he looked from Talaysen to her and back to Talaysen. "Lover? You-and he? What falsehood is this?" But then he furrowed his brows, and peered at her, as if he was trying to look into her heart. "Lover, no-" he said slowly, "but beloved, yes. I had not thought of this, either. Small wonder your music had such power against me, with all the strength of your heart behind it."

"You can't keep him," she said swiftly, trying to regain the ground she had lost with her inadvertent slip of the tongue. "If you can see our thoughts, then you know I am not lying to you. If you cage a songbird, it won't sing; if you keep a falcon mewed up forever, it will die. Do the same to my Master, and he'll die just as surely as that falcon will. He gave up everything for freedom-take it from him, and you take away everything that makes him a Bard. He'll waste away, and leave you with nothing. And I will never forgive you. You'll have to kill me to rid yourself of me, and the cost will be higher than you may want to pay, believe me."

The elven-king's eyes narrowed. "There's truth in that," he said slowly. "Truth in everything you have said thus far. But you, mortal girl-you're made of sterner, more flexible stuff. You would not pine away like a linnet in a cage. Tell me, would you trade your freedom for his?"

"Yes," she said, just as Talaysen cried out behind her, "No!"

The elf considered them both for a moment longer, then shook his head. "No," he said, anger filling his voice. "No, it must be both of you or neither. Cage the one, and the other will come to free it. Keep you both, and you will have my kingdom in ruins within the span of a single moon. You are too powerful to hold, too dangerous to keep, both of you. Go!"

He flung his arm up, pointing at the tunnel behind her. But Rune wasn't finished yet; the treachery of elves was as legendary as their power and secretiveness. She dropped the bow to the strings and played a single, grief-filled phrase.

"Stop!" The elven-king cried over it, tears springing into his eyes, hands clapped futilely over his ears. "What more do you want of us?"

She lifted the bow from the strings. "Your pledge," she replied steadily. "Your pledge of our safety."

She saw the flash of rage that overcame him for a moment, and knew that she had been right. The elven-king had planned to ambush them as soon as their backs were turned, and probably kill them. He had lost a great deal of pride to her and her music; only destroying them would gain it back.

"Swear," she insisted.

"By the Moon our Mother, the blood of the stars, and the honor of the Clan," Talaysen whispered.

"Swear by the Moon our Mother, the blood of the stars, and the honor of the Clan that you will set us free, you will not hinder our leaving; you will not curse us, nor set magic nor weapons against us. Swear it!" she warned, as the rage the elven-king held in check built in his eyes and threatened to overwhelm his self-control. "Swear it, or I'll play till my arms fall off! I played all one night before, I can do it again!"

He repeated it between gritted teeth, word for word. She slowly lowered her arms, and tucked fiddle and bow under one of them, never betraying by a single wince how both arms hurt.

She turned just as slowly, and finally faced Talaysen, just as fearful of what she might see in his eyes as of all the power the elven-king could raise against them.

He smiled, weakly; his face a mask that covered warring emotions that flickered behind his eyes. But he picked up his lute and case, and offered her his arm, as if she was his lady. She took it gravely, and they strolled out of that place of danger as outwardly calm as if they strolled down the aisles of a Faire.

But once they reached the cottage, the rock door slammed shut right on their heels, and she began throwing gear into her pack, taking time only to wrap her fiddle in her bedding and stow it in the very bottom for safety. He joined her.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he said, over the steady boom of thunder from overhead. The fire was almost out, but they didn't need it to see; lightning flashing continuously gave them plenty of light to see by.

"I think so," she shouted, stuffing the last of her gear into her pack, with her tiny harp cushioned inside her clothing to keep it safe. "I don't trust him, no matter what he swore by. He'll find a way to get revenge on us. We'd better get out of here."

"This may be his revenge!" Talaysen said grimly, packing up his own things and slinging them on his back, throwing his rain-cape over all, then pointing to the storm outside the windows. "He didn't swear not to set the weather on us. As long as he doesn't touch us directly, he hasn't violated his pledge. A storm, lightning-those aren't strictly weapons."

She swore. "Elves," she spat. "They should be Churchmen. Or lawyers. Let's get out of here! A moving target is harder to hit!"

Talaysen was in perfect agreement with her, apparently; he strode right out into the teeth of the storm, and she was right behind him.

The trees didn't stop them this time; evidently the prohibition against using magic held the grasping branches off. But the storm was incredible; lightning striking continuously all about them. Rain lashed them, pounding them with hammers of water, sluicing over their rain-capes until they waded ankle-deep on the path. Talaysen insisted, shouting in her ear to be heard over the storm, that they walk down in the streambed next to the road; it was full of rushing water that soaked them to their knees, but with the rain lashing them from every angle it didn't much matter, they were wet anyway. And when lightning struck the roadway, not once, but repeatedly, she saw the sense of his orders. The streambed was deep enough that not even their heads were above the roadway. Lightning always sought the highest point; they had to make certain that point wasn't them.

But the streambed turned away from the roadway eventually, and ran back into the trees. Now the question was: follow the road, and take their chances with the lightning, or follow the streambed and hope it led somewhere besides into the wilderness?

Talaysen wavered; she made up his mind for him, pushing past him and following the streambed under the trees. People always built their homes beside water; with luck, they'd come across something in a day or two.

With no luck, at least they wouldn't be turned into Bard-shaped cinders. And they could retrace their path if they had to, until they met up with the road again.

The terrain was getting rockier; when she could see through the curtains of water, the streambed looked as if it had been carved through what looked like good, solid stone. And the banks were getting higher. If they couldn't find a house, maybe they could find a cave.

If they couldn't find either, maybe they could just walk out the storm.

It was awfully hard to think with rain beating her skull, and water tugging at her ankles, forcing her constantly off balance. She was so cold she couldn't remember being warm.

The thunder and lightning raged above their heads, but none of it was getting down to the ground anymore, not even the strikes that split whole trees in half. And the very worst of it seemed to be behind them, although the rain pounded them unabated. Her head was going to be sore when they were out of this. . . .

Maybe they were getting out of the elven-king's territory. How far could magic reach?

She found out, as there was a sudden slackening in the rain, a moment when the lightning and thunder stopped. Both she and Talaysen looked up as one, but Rune was not looking up with hope.

She felt only a shudder of fear. This did not have the feeling of a capitulation. It had the feeling of a summoning. The elven-king was bringing one final weapon to bear upon them.

That was when they saw the wall of wind and water rushing down on them, walking across the trees and bending them to the earth as it came. Not like a whirlwind-like a moving waterfall, a barrier of water too solid to see through.

Talaysen was nearer to shelter; he flung himself down in a gully carved into the side of the streambed. She looked about frantically for something big enough to hold her.

Too late.

The wind struck her, staggering her-she flailed her arms to keep her balance, then in a flash of lightning, saw what looked like half a tree heading straight for her-

Pain, and blackness.

Talaysen saw the tree limb, as thick around as he was, hit Rune and drop her like a stone into the water, pinning her in the stream beneath its weight.

He might have cried out; it didn't matter. In the next instant he had fought through the downpour and was clawing at the thing, trying to get it off her, as the wind screamed around him and battered him with other debris. She'd been knocked over a boulder, so at least her head was out of the water-but that was all that fortune had granted her. She was unconscious; she had a pulse, but it was weak and slow.

And he couldn't budge the limb.

Frantic now, he forced himself to calm, to think. Half-remembered hunter's lessons sprang to mind, and he recalled shifting a dead horse off another boy's leg with the help of a lever-

He searched until he found another piece of limb long and stout enough; wedged it under the one pinning Rune, and used another boulder for a fulcrum. There should have been two people doing this-he'd had the help of the huntsman before-

Heave. Kick a bit of flotsam under the limb to brace it. His arms screamed with pain. Heave. Another wedge of wood. His back joined the protest. Heave-

Finally, sweating and shaking, he had it balanced above her. It wouldn't hold for long; he'd have to be fast.

He let go of the lever, grabbed her ankle, and pulled.

He got her out from under the limb just as it came crunching back down, smashing to splinters one of the bits of wood he'd used to brace it up.

The wind died, and the rain was slackening, as if, with Rune's injury, the elven-king was satisfied. But the lightning continued, which now was a blessing; at least he had something to see by.

He bent down and heaved Rune, pack and all, over his shoulders, as if she was a sack of meal. Fear made a metallic taste in his mouth, but lent him strength he didn't know he had and mercifully blanked the pain of his over-burdened, aging body.

He looked about, frantically, for a bit of shelter, anything. Somehow he had to get her out of the rain, get her warm again. Her skin was as cold as the stones he'd pried her out of-if he couldn't get her warm, she might die-

Lightning flickered, just as his eyes passed over what he'd thought was a dark boulder.

Is that-

He staggered towards it, overbalanced by the burden he carried, and by the press of the rushing water against his legs. Lightning played across the sky overhead-he got another look at the dark blot in the stream wall. No, it wasn't a boulder. And it was bigger than he thought-

He climbed up onto the bank, peered at it in another flash of lightning-and nearly wept with relief. It was. It was a cave. A small one, but if it wasn't too shallow, it should hold them both with no difficulty. Pure luck had formed it from boulders caught in the roots of a tree so big two men couldn't have spanned the trunk with their arms.

And a pair of bright eyes looked out of it at him.

He didn't care. Whatever it was, it would have to share its shelter tonight. The eyes weren't far enough apart for a bear, and that was all he cared about.

Somehow he got himself up into the cave; somehow he dragged Rune up with him. Erratic lightning showed him what it was in the cave with him; an entire family of otters. They stared at him fearlessly, but made no aggressive moves towards him. He ignored them and began pawing through the packs for something warm and dry to put on her.

He encountered the instruments first. His lute-intact. Hers was cracked, but might be repaired later. Her penny-whistle was intact, and the tiny harp he'd given her. The bodhran drum was punctured; his larger harp needed new strings-

All this in mental asides as he pawed through the packs, pulling out soaked clothing and discarding it to the side.

Finally he reached the bottom of the packs. And in the very bottom, their bedding; somehow dry. Her fiddle wrapped in the middle of it, safe.

There wasn't much time, and he didn't hesitate; every moment she stayed chilled was more of a threat. He stripped her skin-bare and bundled her into both sets of bedding. Then he stripped himself and eased in with her, wrapping her in his arms and willing the heat of his body into her.

For a long time, nothing happened. The storm died to the same dull rain they'd coped with for the length of the Faire; the lightning faded away, leaving them in the dark. Rune breathed, but shallowly, and her body didn't warm in the least. Her breathing didn't change. She wasn't waking; she wasn't falling into normal sleep. If he couldn't get her warm-

Lady of the Gypsies, help me! You are the queen of the forests and wilds-help us both!

Finally he heard faint snuffling sounds, and felt the pressure of tiny feet on his leg and knee.

The otters' curiosity had overcome their fear.

They sniffed around the bundle of humans and blankets, poking their noses into his ear and sneezing into his face once. It would have been funny if he hadn't been sick with worry for Rune. She wasn't warming. She was hardly breathing-

One of the otters yawned; another. Before he realized what was happening, they were curling up on him, on Rune, everywhere there was a hollow in the blankets, there was an otter curling up into a lithe-warm!-ball and flowing over the sides of the hollows.

As they settled, he began to warm up from the heat of their six bodies. And as he warmed, so, at last, did Rune. Her breathing eased, and finally she sighed, moved a little-the otters chittered sleepily in complaint-and settled into his arms, truly asleep.

He tried to stay awake, but in a few moments, exhaustion and warmth stole his consciousness away, and he joined her and their strange bed-companions in dreams.

He woke once, just after dawn, when the otters stirred out of sleep and left them. But by then, they were not only warm, they were a bit too warm, and he bade the beasts a sleepy, but thankful, good-bye. One of the adults-the female, he thought-looked back at him and made a friendly chitter as if she understood him. Then she, too, was gone, leaving the cave to the humans.

Rune woke with an ache in her head, a leg thrown over hers, and arms about her. Behind her, someone breathed into her ear.

What happened? She closed her eyes, trying to remember. They weren't in the cottage they'd found; that much was for certain. . . .

Then she remembered. The elves, her one-sided fight with music and magic, then the flight through the storm. After that was a blur, but she must have gotten hurt, somehow-

She wormed one arm out of the blankets, reached up to touch the place on her head that hurt worst, and found a lump too tender to bear any pressure at all, with a bit of a gash across the middle of it.

That was when she realized that she wasn't wearing so much as a stitch. And neither was Talaysen.

He murmured in his sleep, and held her closer. His hands moved in half-aware patterns, fitfully caressing her breasts, her stomach. . . .

And there was something quite warm and insistent poking her in the small of the back.

She held very still, afraid that if she moved, he'd stop. Despite the ache in her head, her body tingled all over, and she had to fight herself to keep from squirming around in his arms and-

Suddenly he froze, one hand on her breast, the other-somewhat lower.

He woke up. And now he's going to go all proper on me.

"If you stop," she said conversationally, "I am going to be very angry with you. I thought you taught me to always finish a tune you've started."

Please, God. Please, whoever's listening. Don't let him go all formal now. . . .

"I-I-uh-" He seemed unable to form any kind of a reply.

"Besides," she continued, trying to think around the pain in her skull, "I've been trying to get you into this position for weeks."

"Rune!" he yelped. "I'm your teacher! I can't-"

"You can't what? What difference does being my Master make? You've only got one apprentice, you can't be accused of favoring me over anyone else. You haven't been trying to seduce me, I've been trying to waylay you. There's a difference." There, she thought with a certain satisfaction. That takes care of that particular argument. "It's not as if you're taking unfair advantage of your position."

"But-the pressure-my position-"

"I like the pressure," she replied thoughtfully, "though I'd prefer to change the position-" And she started to squirm around to face him. He choked.

"That's not what I meant!" he said, and then it was too late; they were face-to-face, cozily wound in blankets, and he couldn't pretend he didn't understand her. She could read his expression quite clearly from here. She smiled into his eyes; he blushed.

"I know that's not what you meant," she told him. "I just don't see any 'pressure' on me to drag you into my bed except the pressure of wanting you."

"But-"

"And if you're going to tell me something stupid, like you're too old for me, well you can just forget that entirely." She kissed his nose, and he blushed even redder. "I wouldn't drink wine that was a month old, I wouldn't play a brand new fiddle, and I wouldn't hope for fruit from a sapling tree."

"But-"

"I also wouldn't go to an apprentice in any Craft for anything important. I'd go to a Master."

"But-"

She blinked at him, willing the pain in her head to go away. "You're not going to try and tell me that you've been celibate all these years, are you? If you are, then Gwyna was lying. Or you are. And much as I'd hate to accuse my Master of telling falsehoods, I'd believe Gwyna on this subject more than I'd believe you."

His mouth moved, but no words emerged. She decided he looked silly, gasping like a fish, and saved his dignity by stopping it with a kiss.

He disengaged just long enough to say, "I yield to your superior logic-" And then the time for talk was over, and the time for a different sort of communication finally arrived.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"You are going to marry me, aren't you?" Talaysen asked plaintively, picking his now-dry clothing off the rocks beside the stream and packing it away. There was no sign of last night's storm; even most of the debris had been washed downstream. And as if in apology, the day had turned bright and sunny around noon. Rune had caught a fish, using some of their soggy bread for bait; he'd managed to get a fire going, so they could cook it. The rest of the day they'd spent in laying out everything that had gotten wet to dry, and figuring out just how badly Rune had gotten hurt.

She'd gotten off fairly easily, as it turned out. She had gotten a bad knock on the head, but nothing a lot of valerian couldn't help. They were now a day behind, of course, but that was better than being lightning victims, or confined in the elven-king's hall.

Rune looked over at Talaysen's anxious face, and grinned wickedly, despite the black eye and bruises the tree limb had gifted her with. "Isn't it supposed to be me that's asking that?" she mocked. "You sound like one of the deflowered village maidens in a really awful Bardic Guild ballad."

He flushed. "I'm serious. I-you-we- We can't just go on like this. You're going to get harassed enough if we're legally wed! If we aren't-"

She looked at him with an expression of exasperation, and carefully folded one of her shirts before answering. "Is that the only reason? To make an 'honest woman' out of me? To protect me from disgrace?"

"No!" he blurted, and flushed again. "I mean-I-"

"Ah." She put the shirt back into her pack. "That's just as well, since protecting a nameless bastard from disgrace is pretty much like protecting a thief from temptation. Why don't you just tell me why you're so set on this, and let me think about your reasons."

For a moment, he sat back on his heels and stared at her helplessly. For all that he was a Bard, and supposed to be able to work magic with words, he felt suddenly bereft of any talent with his tongue whatsoever. How could he tell her-

She waited patiently, favoring her left side a little. He marshaled his thoughts. Tried to remember what he always told others when they were tongue-tied, when the gift seemed to desert them.

Begin at the beginning. . . .

So he did.

She listened. Once or twice, she nodded. It got easier as he went along; easier to find the words, though they didn't come out of his mouth with any less effort. He'd lived for so long without telling people how he felt-how he really felt, the deep feelings that it was generally better not to reveal-that each confession felt as if he was trying to lift another one of those trees. Only this time, the back he was lifting it from was his own. The logical reasons: why it was better not to give the Guild another target; how being legally married would actually cut down on petty jealousy within the Bards; how it might keep petty officials of the Church not only from harassing them, but from harassing other Free Bard couples who chose to perform as a pair.

The reasons with no logic at all, and these were harder to get out: that he not only loved her, he needed her presence, that she made him feel more alive; his secret daydreams of spending the rest of his days with her; how she brought out the best in everything for him.

The reasons that hurt to confess: how he was afraid that without some form of formal tie binding them, one day she'd tire of him and leave him without warning; how he felt as if her refusal to formally wed him was a kind of rejection of him, as if she were saying she didn't feel he was worth the apparent sacrifice of her independence.

Finally he came to the end; he had long since finished his packing, and he sat with idle hands clenched on stones to either side of him.

She let out her breath in a sigh. "Have you thought about this?" she asked. "I mean, have you really thought it through? Things like-how are the other Free Bards going to react to a wife? You think that it will cut down on petty jealousy-why? I think it might just make things worse. A lover-that would be no problem, but a wife? Wouldn't they see me as some kind of interloper? I'm the newest Free Bard; how did I get you to wed me? Wouldn't they think I'm likely to try interfering with you and the rest of them?"

"I can't read minds," he said, slowly. "But I truly don't think there'd be any problem. I know every one of the Free Bards personally, and I just don't think the kinds of problems you're worried about would even occur. Marriage might make things easier, actually; I can't be everywhere at once, and sometimes I've wished there were two of me. And there are things the females haven't always felt comfortable in bringing to me-they tell Gwyna a lot of the time, but that really isn't the best solution. With you there-my legal partner-there's a partnership implied with marriage that there isn't with a lover. Stability; they aren't going to tell you something then discover the next time we met that there's someone else with me, and wonder what that means to their particular problem." He relaxed a little as she nodded.

"All right-I can see that. But we should try to anticipate problems and head them off before they become problems. For instance: divided authority. Someone trying to work us against each other. If you give me authority, it should be only as your other set of ears. All right?" She waited for his nod of agreement before continuing.

"What about children?" she said, surprising him completely.

"What about them?" he replied without thinking.

"I want them. Do you? Have you thought about what it would take to raise them as Free Bards?" She held up her hand to forestall his protest that it would not be fair to her to saddle her with children she might well have to raise alone. "Don't tell me that you're old, you'll die and leave me to raise them alone. I don't believe that for a minute, and neither do you."

He snapped his mouth shut on the words.

"Well?" she said, rubbing her head to relieve the ache in it. "Is there a way to have children and still be Free Bards?"

"We could settle somewhere, for a while," he suggested tentatively.

She shook her head, and winced. "No. No, I don't think that would work. You have to be visible, and that means traveling. If we lived in a big city, we'd have to leave the children alone while we busked-no matter how good we were, we would still be taking whatever jobs the Guild Minstrels didn't want, and that's pretty precarious living for a family. And the Guild would be only too happy to flaunt their riches in the face of your poverty-then come by and offer you your old position if you just gave all the Free Bard nonsense up."

She watched him shrewdly to see if he'd guess the rest of that story. "And of course, that would mean either giving you up, or persuading you to turn yourself into a good little Bard-wife and give up your music." He shook his head. "What a recipe for animosity! You know them better than I thought you did."

She snorted. "Just figured that if there was a way to make people jealous of each other, and drive a wedge between them, they'd know it. I imagine there's a lot of that going on in the Guild."

He pondered her original question for a moment, and emptied his mind, waiting to see if an answer would float into the emptiness. He watched the dance of the sunlight on the sparkling waters, flexing and stretching his fingers, and as always, waiting for the tell tale twinges of weather-soreness. His father had suffered terribly from it-

But then his father had also shamelessly overindulged himself in rich food and wine, and seldom stirred from his study and office. That might have had something to do with it.

"There's another way," he said suddenly, as the image of a Gypsy wagon did, indeed, float into his mind. "We could join a caravan of Gypsy families; get our own wagon, travel with them, and raise children with theirs. If there are older children, adolescents, they watch the younger ones, and if there aren't there's always someone with a task that can be done at the encampment that minds the children for everyone else."

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Mind you, this is all nasty tale-telling from evil-mouthed, small-minded villagers, but-I've never heard anything about Gypsy parents except that they were terrible. Selling their children, forcing them to work, maiming them and putting them out to beg-"

"Have you ever actually seen any of that with your own eyes?" he asked. She shook her head, carefully. "It's not true, any of it. They know how to prevent having children, so they never have more than they can feed-if something does happen to one or both parents, every family in the caravan is willing to take on an extra mouth. The children are tended carefully, the encampment is always guarded by dogs that would take on a wolf-pack for their sakes, and the children loved by everyone in the caravan. They grow up to be pretty wonderful adults. Well, look at Gwyna, Raven and Erdric."

She gave a dry chuckle. "Sounds too good to be true."

"Oh, there're exceptions," he admitted. "There are families other Gypsies refuse to travel with-there are families that are hard on their children and a general nuisance to the rest of the adults. Any child that doesn't learn how to get out of the way of a drunk or a serious situation is going to be on the receiving end of a cuff. You must admit, though, that can happen anywhere. Mostly, Gypsy children are the healthiest and happiest I've ever seen. The drawback is that they won't learn reading, writing, or the Holy Book-the Gypsies don't hold with any of the three."

"Reading and writing we can teach them ourselves," Rune countered. "And the Holy Book-they should read it when they're old enough to understand that what they're reading is as much what the Church wants you to believe as it is Holy Words." She thought that proposition over for a long moment. "That would work," she concluded, finally. "Having a wagon to live in eliminates one of the biggest expenses of living in a town or city, too."

"What, the rent?" He grinned. She'd already told him about her job at Amber's, and he knew very well they could always find something comparable if they ever cared to settle in one place for long.

"No," she countered. "The damned tithe and tax. If they can't catch you, they can't collect it. And if you leave before they catch you-"

"Point taken," he admitted. "Though, I'll warn you, I do pay tax; I've been paying both our shares. If you want decent government, you have to be prepared to pay for it."

He saw a shadow of something-some remembered pain-pass across her face. "Point taken," she said, quietly. "Tonno-felt the same way as you, and lectured me about it often enough. But the tithe serves no damned purpose at all. If it got into the hands of Priests like your cousin, that would be different. Most of the time, though, it ends up in the hands of men that are no better than thieves."

He snorted, and tried not to think too hard about most of his dealings with the Church-those that hadn't involved Ardis seeking out someone specific for him to speak to. "I've known thieves with more honor-and Ardis would be the first to agree with you. But we weren't talking about Ardis."

"No, we weren't." She leaned forward, intently. "Talaysen, what do you intend to do with the Free Bards?"

"Do?" Was she really asking what he thought she was asking? "What exactly do you mean?"

"What I said," she replied. "What are you going to do with them? Oh, it was enough to form them, to keep the Bardic Guild from getting rid of them when there were only a handful of you, I'm sure. But there are nearly fifty of you now-not counting the ones that didn't come to the Midsummer Faire. And there are more joining every year! They think of you not only as the founder, but as the leader-now what are you going to lead them to? Or is this just going to be a kind of Gypsy Clan with no other purpose than to live and play music?"

Of all of the Free Bards, Rune was the only one that had asked him that question, the question he had been asking himself for about three years.

"There are a lot of things I would like to do," he said, slowly, "but all of them involve having more power than we do now. That's why I've gotten the rest involved in trying to ingratiate ourselves with the Sires and Guildmasters outside the big cities."

"So that when you come to demand a change, there will be someone backing you." She nodded enthusiastically. "What's the change?"

"Mostly, we-I-want to see some of the privileges and monopolies taken away from the Bardic Guild," he replied. "I want them put on a completely equal footing with us. I don't want to set up the Free Bards in place of the Guild, but I want any musician to be free to take any place that's been offered him. I want the Sires able to hire and fire members of the Guild the same way they can hire and fire Free Bards and traveling minstrels. And there are some abuses of power within the Guild that I want looked into."

She sat back on her heels, and smiled. "That'll do," she replied. "That's enough for anyone's lifetime. Let your successor worry about the next step."

"Are you going to marry me now?" he asked, trying to sound plaintive, and actually sounding testy. She laughed.

"Since you ask me so romantically, I think so," she said, tossing a shirt at him that he had forgotten. "But don't think that you can go back to being aloof until the bonds are set." She bared her teeth at him, in a playful little snarl that was oddly erotic. He restrained himself from doing what he would have liked to do. For one thing, he wanted a more comfortable bed than the boulders of the stream-bank, sun-warmed though they were. . . .

"I don't know why I shouldn't," he replied provokingly. "After all, you've been hurt, your head probably aches and I'm sure you couldn't possibly be interested in-"

She pounced on him, and proved that she could, most definitely be interested in-

And he found that the rocks weren't as bad as he had thought.

Rune would have laughed at her lover, if she hadn't been so certain that she would badly hurt his feelings by doing so. Now that they were lovers, she was perfectly content. But he was heading them into Brughten, despite the fact that there was no Faire there and the pickings would be slim, because he wanted to find a Priest to marry them. Immediately. Incredible.

Well, there was a Priest and a Church, and the town was at least on the road. It wasn't the road they had left; this one they'd struck after following the stream for a couple of days rather than backtrack over the elven-king's territory. And they might be able to get lodging and food at one of the town's two inns. . . .

Talaysen left her at the marketplace in the center of the town, and she was grateful for a chance to find some fresh supplies. The storm had washed away or ruined most of their food, and they had been living off the land thanks to the fish in the stream and her scant knowledge of forest edibles. That had been mostly limited to the fact that cattail roots could be eaten raw, knowing what watercress looked like, and recognition of some bramble-bushes with fruit on them.

Their money hadn't washed away, but it was hard to get a squirrel to part with a load of nuts in exchange for a copper penny.

She had just about completed her final purchase, when she turned and caught sight of Talaysen striding towards her through the light crowd. Most people wouldn't have noticed, and he was being quite carefully courteous to the other shoppers as he made his way past and around them-but she saw the set jaw, and the stiff way that he held his head, and knew he was furious.

"What's wrong?" she whispered, as he reached her side. He shook his head.

"Not here," he said quietly, and she heard the anger in his voice. "Are you done?"

"Just a moment." She turned back to the old farm-wife and quickly counted out the money for another bag of traveler's bread without stopping to bargain any further. The old woman blinked in surprise, but took the coins-it wasn't that much in excess of what the real price should have been-and gave her the coarse string bag full of rounds of bread in exchange.

"All right," she said, tying the bread to her belt until she got a chance to put it in her pack. "Let's go."

He led her straight out of town, setting a pace that was so fast she had to really stretch her legs to keep up with him, until he finally slowed when they were well out of sight of the last of the buildings. She tugged at his arm, forcing him to slow still further. "All right!" she exclaimed, catching sight of the rage on his face, now that he was no longer having to wear a polite mask. "What happened?"

"I was told by the Priest," he said, tightly, "that we were vagabonds and tramps. He told me that trash such as you and I weren't fit to even set foot on sacred ground, much less participate in the sacrament of marriage. He further told me that if we didn't want him to call the Sire's watch to have us both pilloried, even though you weren't even there, that we'd better take ourselves out of town." He took a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh. "There was a great deal more that he said, and I won't repeat it."

The look on his face alarmed her. "You didn't do anything to him-"

"Oh, I wanted to throw him into the duck pond on the green," Talaysen replied, and the rage slowly eased out of him. "But I didn't. I did something that was a lot worse." He began to smile, then, and the more he thought about whatever it was that he'd done, the more he smiled.

She had a horrified feeling that he had done something that really would get them pilloried, and her face must have reflected that, because he tossed back his head and laughed.

"Oh, don't worry. I didn't do anything physical. But it will be a very long time before he insults another traveling musician." He waited, the smile still on his face, for her to ask the obvious question.

"Well, what did you do?" she asked impatiently, obliging him.

"I informed him that he had just insulted Master Bard Gwydain-and I proved who I was with this." He reached into his pocket and extracted the medallion of Guild membership that she had only seen on satin ribbons about the necks of the Guild Masters at the trials. This medallion was tarnished, and it no longer hung from a bright, purple satin ribbon, but there was no mistaking it for the genuine article.

A Master's medallion. The Priest must have been just about ready to have a cat.

He handed it to her; she turned it over, and there was his name engraved on it. She gave it back to him without a word.

"I don't think it ever occurred to him to question the fact that I had this," Talaysen continued, with satisfaction. "I mean, I could have stolen it-but the fact that I had puffed myself up like the proud, young, foolish peacock I used to be probably convinced him that it, and I, were genuine. He started gaping like a stranded fish. Then he went quite purple and tried to apologize."

"And?" she prompted.

"Well, I was so angry I didn't even want to be in the same town with him," Talaysen said, with a glance of apology to her. "I informed him that if he heard a song one day about a Priest so vain and so full of pride that he fell into a manure-pit because he wouldn't listen to a poor man's warning, he would be sure and recognize the description of the Priest if he looked into a mirror. Then I told him that I wouldn't be wedded by him or in his chapel if the High King himself commanded it, I shoved him away, and I left him on the floor, flapping his sleeves at me and still babbling some sort of incoherent nonsense."

"I wouldn't be wedded by a toad like that if it meant I'd never be wedded," she said firmly. "And if that's the attitude of their Priest, we'd better tell the rest of the Free Bards that Brughten is probably not a good place to stop. The Priest generally sets the tone for the whole village, and if this one hates minstrels, he could make a lot of trouble for our folk."

"I'm sorry, though-" he said, still looking guilty. "I never meant to deprive you of your wedding."

"Our wedding. And I really don't care, my love-" It gave her such a thrill to be able to say the words "my love," that she beamed at him, and he relaxed a bit. "I told you before. Amber showed me a lot of things; one of them was that there are plenty of people who have the 'proper' appearance who aren't fit to clean a stable, and more who that fat Priest would pillory, who have the best, truest hearts in the world." She touched his hand, and he caught hers in his. A delightful shiver ran down her back. "I don't care. You love me, I love you, and if a ceremony means that much to you, we'll get one of your Gypsy friends to wed us. It will be just as valid and binding, and more meaningful than anything that fat lout could have done."

She looked up at his green, green eyes, now shadowed, and started to say something more-when a dark cloud behind his head, just at the tree line, caught her eye. And instead of continuing her reassurance, she said, "What's more, we have a bit more to worry about than one stupid Priest. Look there-"

She freed her hand to point, and he turned. And swore. The cloud crept a little more into view.

"How long have we got until that storm hits us?" she asked, motioning to him to turn his back to her so she could free his rain-cape from the back of his pack, then doing the same so he could get hers and stow the bread away so it wouldn't get soaked.

"As quickly as that blew up?" He handed her the cape with a shake of his head. "I don't know. A couple of hours, perhaps? Would you rather turn back?"

"Not for a moment," she declared. "I'd rather have rain. I'd rather be soaked than take shelter in a place that has people in it like that Priest. Let's see how far we can get before it hits us. If we spot a place to take shelter along the way-"

"No deserted farmhouses!" he exclaimed.

She laughed. After all, if it hadn't been for that farmhouse, he'd still be avoiding me like a skittish virgin mare! "No," she promised. "No deserted farmhouses. Only ones with farmers, wives, and a dozen children to plague us and make us wish we were back with the elves!"

Just as the storm was close enough for them to feel the cold breath of it on their backs, Talaysen spotted a wooden shrine by the roadside. Those shrines usually marked the dwelling of a hedge-Priest or a hermit; a member of one of the religious Orders that called for a great deal of solitary meditation and prayer. Rune had seen it too, but after Talaysen's earlier experience, she hadn't been certain she ought to mention it.

But Talaysen headed right up the tiny path from the shrine into the deeper woods, and she followed. This time, at least, the trees weren't reaching out to snag them. In fact, the path was quite neatly kept, if relatively untraveled. Thunder growled-to their right, now, rather than behind them-and lightning flickered above and to the right of them as the woods darkened and the clouds rolled in overhead.

She caught a glimpse of the black, rain-swollen bellies of the clouds, and a breath of cold wind snaked through the trees. This is going to be another bad one-

Talaysen had gotten a bit ahead of her, but abruptly stopped. She just about ran into him; she peeked around him to see what had made him halt, and stared straight into the face of one of the biggest mastiffs she had ever seen in her life. The dog was absolutely enormous; a huge brindle, with a black mask and ears-and more teeth than she really wanted to see at such a close range.

She froze. Talaysen had already gone absolutely still.

There was another dog behind the first, this one tawny-and-black; if anything, it looked even bigger. The first dog sniffed Talaysen over carefully while the second stood guard; when it got to his boots, Rune quietly slipped his knife from the sheathe and pressed it into his hand, then drew her own. Knives weren't much against a dog the size of a small pony, but if the creature took it into its head to attack, knives were better than bare hands.

The dog raised its head, turned, and barked three times, as its companion watched them to make certain they didn't move. It waited a moment, then barked again, the same pattern, but this time there was no denying the impatience in its voice.

"All right, all right, I'm coming!" a voice from the path beyond the dogs called, sounding a little out of breath. "What on Earth can you two have-oh."

A brown-robed man, gray-brown hair cut in the bowl-shaped style favored by some of the Orders, and a few years older than Talaysen, came around the turning in the path that had blocked him from their view. He stared at them for a moment, as if he hadn't expected to see anything like them, and stopped at the second dog's rump. "You great loon!" he scolded affectionately, and the first mastiff lowered its head and wagged his tail. "It's just a couple of musicians! I would have thought you'd cornered an entire pack of bandits from all the noise you were making!"

The dog wagged its tail and panted, grinning. Talaysen relaxed, marginally.

"Oh, come off, you louts!" the robed man said, hauling at the second dog's tail until it turned around, and repeating the process with the first one. "Go on, be off with you! Back home! Idiots!"

The dogs whuffed and licked his hands, then obediently padded up the path out of sight. The robed man turned to them, and held out his hand (after first wiping it on his robe) to Talaysen. "I'm Father Bened," he said, shaking the hand that Talaysen offered in turn vigorously. "We'll save other introductions for the cottage-" He looked up as a particularly spectacular bolt of lightning arced over their heads. "If you'll just follow me, I think we might just out-race the rain!" Without any further ado, he picked up the skirts of his robes and ran in the same direction the dogs had taken without any regard for dignity. Talaysen wasn't far behind him, and Rune was right at Talaysen's heels. They all made the shelter of the cottage barely in time; just as they reached the door, the first, fat drops began falling. By the time Rune got inside and got her pack and gear off, the storm was sending down sheets of water and thumb-sized hailstones into the bargain. She pushed forward into the room so that the Priest could get at the door, but things seemed to be a confusion of firelight, shadows, and human and canine bodies.

"There!" Father Bened slammed the door shut on the storm outside and took Rune's pack away from her, stowing it in a little closet next to the door, beside Talaysen's. "Now, do come in, push those ill-mannered hounds over, and find yourself a bit of room. I'm afraid they take up most of the space until they lie down. Down, you overgrown curs!" The last was to the dogs, who paid no attention to him whatsoever, being much too interested in sniffing the newcomers over for a second time, in case they had missed some nuance on the first round of sniffs.

After a great deal of tugging on the dogs' collars and exasperated commands which the beasts largely ignored, Father Bened got the mastiffs lying down in what was evidently their proper place; curled up in the chimney corner on one side of the hearth. Together they took up about as much space as a bed, so it wasn't too surprising that the Father didn't have much in the way of furniture, at least in this room. Just three chairs and a table, and cupboards built into the wall.

Father Bened busied himself at one of those cupboards, bringing out a large cheese, half a loaf of bread, and a knife. He followed that with three plates and knives, and a basket of pears. Very plainly he was setting out supper for all three of them.

Talaysen coughed, and Father Bened looked over at him, startled. "Excuse, Father," the Bard said, "but you don't-"

"But I do, son," the Priest said, with a look of reproach. "Indeed I do! You've arrived on my doorstep, on the wings of a storm-what am I to do, sit here and eat my dinner and offer you nothing? I am not so poor a son of the Church as all that! Or so niggardly a host, either!"

While he was speaking, he was still bringing things down out of the cupboards; a couple of bottles of good cider, three mugs, and in a bowl, a beautiful comb of honey that was so rich and golden it made Rune's mouth water just to look at it.

"There!" he said in satisfaction. "Not at all bad, I don't think. The bread and honey are mine, the cheese is local-I trade honey for it. I can trade the honey for nearly everything that my local friends don't give me. Here, let me toast you some cheese-there is only one toasting-fork. I fear. I'm not much used to getting visitors-"

There didn't seem to be anything they could do to stop him, so Rune made herself useful by pouring cider, while Talaysen cut the bread and cheese. The dogs looked up hopefully at the proceedings, and Rune finally asked if they needed to be fed as well.

"The greedy louts would gladly eat anything that hits the floor, and look for more," Father Bened said, as he laid a second slab of toasted cheese, just beginning to melt, on a slice of bread. "I've fed them, but they'll try to convince you otherwise. I could feed them a dozen times a day, until their eyes were popping out, and they'd still try to tell you they were starving."

"What on Earth do you feed them?" Talaysen asked, staring at the dogs as if fascinated. "And where did you get them? They're stag-hounds, aren't they? I thought only Sires raised stag-hounds."

Father Bened ducked his head a little, and looked guilty. "Well-the truth is, they aren't mine, really. They belong to a-ah-a friend. I-ah-keep them for him. He comes by every few days with meat and bones for them; the rest of the time I feed them fish or whatever rabbits I can-ah-that happen to die."

Rune began to get a glimmering of what was going on. It was a good thing no one had ever questioned the good Father; he was a terrible liar. "And if the meat your friend brings them is deer, it's just really lucky that he found the dead carcass before it was too gone to be of use, hmm?" she said. Father Bened flushed even redder.

"Father Bened," she said with amusement, "I do believe that you're a poacher! And so is this 'friend' of yours!"

"A poacher? Well, now I wouldn't go that far-" he said indignantly. "Sire Thessalay claims more forest land hereabouts than he has any right to! I've petitioned the Sires and the barons through the Church I don't know how many times to have someone come out and have a look, but no one ever seems to read my letters. My friend and I are simply-doing the work of the Church. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked-"

"With venison, cony, and buckskin and fur," Talaysen supplied. "I take it that a lot of the small-holders out here go hungry in the winter, else?"

The Father nodded soberly. "When the Sire claimed the forest lands, he also laid claim to lands that had been used for grazing and for pig-herding. Many of the small-holders lost half their means of support. You're Free Bards, aren't you?" At Talaysen's nod, he continued. "I thought you might be. A year ago last winter one of your lot stayed with me for a bit. A good man; called himself 'Starling' if I mind me right. I told him a little about our problem; he went out with my friend a few times to augment food supplies."

"I know him," Talaysen replied. "From a small-holder family himself."

"I thought as much." Father Bened shrugged, and laid out the third slice of cheese, then wasted no time in digging into his portion. Rune picked up the bread and nibbled gingerly; the cheese was still quite hot, and would burn her mouth if she wasn't careful. It tasted like goat-cheese; it was easier to raise goats on marginal land than cattle, especially if your grazing lands had been taken from you.

"I'm city-bred, myself," the Father continued. "When I was a youngster, the Church was very special to me, and I grew up with this vision of what it must be like-full of men and women who'd gotten rid of what was bad in them, and had their hearts set on God. Always felt as if the Church was calling me; went straight into Orders as soon as I could."

He sighed. Talaysen nodded sympathetically. "I think the same thing happened to you that happened to my cousin Ardis."

"If she had a crisis of conscience, yes," Father Bened replied sadly. "That was when I found out that the Church was just like anyplace else; just as many bad folk as good, and plenty that were indifferent. Since I hadn't declared for an Order yet, I traveled a little to see if it was simply that I'd encountered an unusual situation. I came to the conclusion that I hadn't, and I almost left the Church."

"Ardis decided to fight from within," Talaysen told him. "She got assigned to the Justiciars."

"I decided the same, but to work from below, not above," Father Bened replied. "There were more of the bad and indifferent kind when you were in the city, in the big cloisters attached to the cathedrals, or so it seemed to me. So I got myself assigned to the Order of Saint Clive; it's a mendicant order that tends to wayside shrines. I thought that once I was out in the country, I'd be able to do more good."

"Why?" Rune asked. "It seems to me if you were city-bred you'd have a hard time of it out in the wilds. You must have spent all your time trying to keep yourself fed and out of the weather-"

"I didn't think of that," he admitted, and laughed. "And it was a good thing for me that God takes care of innocent fools. My Prior took pity on me and assigned me here; this cottage was already built, and my predecessor had been well taken care of by the locals. I simply settled in and took up where he'd left off."

"What do you think of the Priest in Brughten?" Talaysen asked carefully. Father Bened's face darkened.

"Father Bened can only say that his Brother in the Church could be a little more charitable," he replied carefully. "But I am told that there is a poacher of rabbits who roams these woods that has called him a thief who preys on widows and orphans, a liar, and a toady to anyone with a title or a fat purse. And the poacher has heard that he goes so far as to deny the sacraments to those he feels are too lowly to afford much of an offering."

"I'd say the poacher is very perceptive," Talaysen replied, then described his encounter with the Brughten Priest, though not the part where he revealed himself to be Gwydain. Father Bened listened sympathetically, and shook his head at the end.

"I can only say that such behavior is what I have come to expect of him," the Priest said. "But at least I can offer a remedy to your problem. Friends, if all you wanted was to be wed-well, I have the authority. I don't have even a chapel, but if this room will suit you-"

"A marsh would suit me better than a cathedral right now," Rune said firmly. "And that fat fool in Brughten may have joy of his. This room will be fine."

Father Bened beamed at her, at Talaysen, and even at the dogs, who thumped their tails on the floor, looked hopefully for a morsel of cheese, and panted.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Do you know, you'll be my first wedding? How exciting! Here, finish your dinner, and let me hunt up my book of offices-" He crammed the last of his bread and cheese into his mouth, and jumped up from his chair to rummage through one of the cupboards until he came to a little leather-covered book. "I should have some contracts in here, too, if the beetles haven't gotten to them-" he mumbled, mostly to himself, it seemed. "Ah! Here they are!"

He emerged with a handful of papers, looked them over, and found the one he wanted. It had been nibbled around the edges, but was otherwise intact. He placed it on the table next to the cider, and leafed through the book.

"Here it is. Wedding." He looked up. "I'm supposed to give you a great long lecture at this point about the sanctity of marriage, and the commitment it means to each of you, but you both strike me as very sensible people. I don't think you need a lecture from me, who doesn't know a thing about women. And I don't expect you're doing this because you don't have anything else to do tonight. So, we'll skip the lecture, shall we, and go right into the business?"

"Certainly," Talaysen said, and took Rune's hand. She nodded and smiled at Father Bened, who smiled back, and began.

* * *

"Well, did that suit you?" Talaysen asked, as they spread their blankets in Father Bened's hardly used spare room. There was no furniture, the light was from one of their own candles, and the only sounds were the snores of Father Bened's mastiffs in the other room and the spattering of rain on the roof.

"Practical, short, to the point, and yes, it suited me," Rune replied, carefully spreading their blankets to make one larger bed. It practically filled the entire room. "There's a duly signed sheet of parchment in your pack that says we're married, and the next town we go through, we'll drop the Church copy off at the clerk's office." She stood up and surveyed her work. "Now, are you happy?"

Talaysen sighed. "If I told you how happy I was, you probably wouldn't believe it-"

Rune turned, smiled, and moved closer to him, until there was less than the width of a hair between them. "So why don't you show me?" she breathed.

He did.

It was a long time before they slept.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"I cannot believe this!" Talaysen fumed, testing the bonds about his wrists and giving the effort up after a few moments. A good thing, too; since they were roped together at the wrists, his efforts had been wrenching Rune's shoulders out of their sockets. "First the damn Guild gets all free-lance musicians barred from the last three Faires-and now this-"

Rune didn't say anything, which was just as well. There wasn't much she could say-and certainly none of it would have made their guards vanish, eased his temper, or gotten them free of their bonds.

There were three major Faires up here in the north of the kingdom, all within a week of each other: the Wool Faire at Naneford, the Cattle Faire at Overton, and the Faire of Saint Jewel at Hyne's Crossing. Talaysen had planned to make all of them, for all three of them were good places to make contacts for wintering-over.

All three were held within the cathedral grounds inside each city-and at all three, when Talaysen and Rune had tried to gain entrance, they had been turned back by guards at the gates. Church guards, even though the Faires were supposed to be secular undertakings.

Each guard looked down his nose at them as he explained why they had been barred. There were to be no musicians allowed within except those with Guild badges. That was the beginning and the end of it. The Guild had petitioned the City Council and the Church, and they had so ruled; the Council on the grounds that licensing money was being lost, the Church on the grounds that musicians encouraged revelry and revelry encouraged licentiousness. If Rune and Talaysen wished to play in the streets of the city, or within one of the inns, they could purchase a busking permit and do so, but only Guild musicians and their apprentices would be playing inside the Faire. They found out later that there was no "free" entertainment in the Faires this year; anyone who wished to hear music could pay up a copper to listen to apprentices perform within a Guild tent, or a silver to hear Journeymen. That was the entertainment by day-anyone who sought music after dark could part with three silvers to listen to a single Master at night. There were no dancers in the "streets" or otherwise. In fact, there was nothing within the Faire grounds but commerce and Church rituals. Rune would not have been overly surprised to learn that the Guild had even succeeded in banning shepherds from playing to their herds within the Faire bounds.

It was Rune's private opinion that there would be so many complaints that this particular experiment would be doomed after this year, and Talaysen agreed-but that didn't help them now.

Talaysen had been angry at the first Faire, furious at the second, and incoherent with rage at the third. Rune had actually thought that he might brain the third gate-guard-who besides his Church-hireling uniform had worn Guild colors and had been particularly nasty-with his own two hands. But he had managed to get control of his temper, and had walked away without doing the man any damage.

But by then, of course, their coin-reserve was seriously low, and their efforts to find an inn that did not already have a resident musician had been completely without result. So rather than risk a worse depletion of their reserves, they headed out into the countryside, where, with judicious use of fish-hook and rabbit snare, they could at least extend their supplies.

In a few days they had gotten as far as Sire Brador Jofferey's lands. And that was where they ran into a trouble they had never anticipated.

Sire Brador, it seemed, was involved in a border dispute with his neighbor, Sire Harlan Dettol. By the time they entered Sire Brador's lands, the dispute had devolved into warfare. Under the circumstances, strangers were automatically suspect. A company of Sire Brador's men-at-arms had surrounded them as they camped-and Rune thanked God that they had not put out any rabbit snares!-and took them prisoner with hardly more than a dozen words exchanged.

A thin and nervous-looking man guarded them now, as they sat, wrists bound behind their backs and feet hobbled, in the shade of an enormous oak. At least they gave us that much, Rune thought wearily; they could have been left in the full sun easily enough. The Sire's men were not very happy about the way things were going; she had picked that up from listening to some of the conversations going on around them. Exchanging of insults and stealing or wrecking anything on the disputed land was one thing-but so far six men had been killed in this little enterprise, and the common soldiers were, Rune thought, justifiably upset. They had signed on with the Sire to be guards and deal with bandits-and to harass their neighboring Sire now and again. No one had told them they were going to go to war over a silly piece of land.

Another man-at-arms approached on heavy feet, walking towards them like a clumsy young bull, and the nervous fellow perked up. Rune reckoned that their captivity was at an end-or that, at least, they were going somewhere else.

Good. There's pebbles digging into my behind.

"The cap'n 'll see the prisoners now," the burly fellow told their guard, who heaved a visible sigh of relief and wandered off without any warning at all. That left the burly man to stare at them doubtfully, as if he wasn't quite certain what to do with them.

"You got t' get t'yer feet," he said, tentatively. "You got t' come with me."

Talaysen heaved a sigh of pure exasperation. "That's going to be a bit difficult on both counts," he replied angrily. "We can't get to our feet, because you've got us tied back to back. And we can't walk because you've got us hobbled like a couple of horses. Now unless you're going to do something about that, we're going to be sitting right here until Harvest."

The man scratched his beard and looked even more uncertain. "I don't got no authority to do nothin' about that," he said. "I just was told I gotta bring you t' the cap'n. So you gotta get t'yer feet."

Talaysen groaned. Rune sighed. This would be funny if it weren't so stupid. And if they weren't trussed up like a couple pigs on the way to market. It might get distinctly unfunny, if their guard decided that the application of his boot to their bodies would get them standing up . . . she contemplated her knees, rather than antagonize him by staring at him.

She looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching; yet another man-at-arms neared, this one in a tunic and breeches that were of slightly better quality and showing less wear than the other man's.

"Never mind, Hollis," said the newcomer. "I decided to come have a look at them myself." He surveyed them with an air of vacant boredom. "Well, what do you spies have to say for yourselves?"

"Spies?" Talaysen barked in sheer outrage. "Spies? Where in God's Sacred Name did you get that idea?"

Rune fixed the "captain," if that was what he was, with an icy glare. "Since when do spies camp openly beside a road, and carry musical instruments?" she growled. "Dear God, the only weapons we have are a couple of dull knives! What were we supposed to do with those, dig our way into your castle? That would only take ten or twenty years, I'm sure!"

The captain looked surprised, as if he hadn't expected either of them to talk back to him. If all he's caught so far are poor, frightened farmers, I suppose no one has.

He blinked at them doubtfully. "Well," he said at last, "if you aren't spies, then you're conscripts." As Talaysen stared at him in complete silence, he continued, looking them over as if they were a pair of sheep. "You-with the gray hair-you're a bit long in the tooth, but the boy there-"

"I'm not a boy," Rune replied crisply. "I'm a woman, and I'm his wife. And you can go ahead and conscript me, if you want, but having me around isn't going to make your men any easier to handle. And they're going to be even harder to handle after I castrate the first man who lays a hand on me."

The captain blanched, but recovered. "Well, if you're in disguise as a boy, then you're obviously a spy after all-"

"It's not a disguise," Talaysen said between clenched teeth. "It's simply easier for my wife to travel in breeches. It's not her fault you can't tell a woman in breeches from a boy. I'm sure you'll find half the women in this area working the fields in breeches. Are you going to arrest them for spying, too?" The captain bit his lip. "You must be spies," he continued stubbornly. "Otherwise why were you out there on the road? You're not peddlers, and the Faires are over. Nobody travels that road this time of year."

"We're musicians," Rune said, as if she was speaking to a very simple child. "We are carrying musical instruments. We play and sing. We were going to Kardown Faire and your road was the only way to get there-"

"How do I know you're really musicians?" he said, suspiciously. "Spies could be carrying musical instruments, too." He smiled at his own cleverness.

Talaysen cursed under his breath; Rune caught several references to the fact that brothers and sisters should not marry, and more to the inadvisability of intercourse with sheep, for this man was surely the lamentable offspring of such an encounter.

"Why don't you untie us and give us our instruments, and we'll prove we're musicians?" she said. "Spies wouldn't know how to play, now, would they?"

"I-suppose not," the captain replied, obviously groping after an objection to her logic, and unable to find one. "But I don't know-"

Obviously, she thought; but she smiled charmingly. "Just think, you'll get a free show, as well. We're really quite good. We've played before Dukes and Barons. If you don't trust both of us, just cut me loose and let me play."

Not quite a lie. I'm sure there were plenty of Dukes and Barons who were passing by at Kingsford when we were playing.

"What are you up to?" Talaysen hissed, as she continued to keep her mouth stretched in that ingenuous smile.

"I have an idea," she muttered back out of the corner of her mouth. And as the captain continued to ponder, she laughed. "Oh come now, you aren't afraid of one little woman, are you?"

That did it. He drew his dagger and cut first the hobbles at her ankles, then the bonds at her wrists. She got up slowly, her backside aching, her shoulders screaming, her hands tingling with unpleasant pins-and-needles sensations.

She did have an idea. If she could work some of the same magic on this stupid lout that she'd worked on the elves, she might be able to get him to turn them loose. She'd noticed lately that when they really needed money, she'd been able to coax it from normally unresponsive crowds-as long as she followed that strange little inner melody she'd heard when she had played for the elven-king. It was always a variation on whatever she happened to be playing; one just a little different from the original. The moment she matched with it, whatever she needed to have happen would occur. She was slowly evolving a theory about it; how it wasn't so much that the melody itself was important, it was that the melody was how she "heard" and controlled magic. Somehow she was tapping magic through music.

But she couldn't explain that to Talaysen. Or rather, she couldn't explain it right now. Later, maybe. If this really worked.

The captain poked their packs with his toe as she stood there rubbing her wrists. "Which one is yours?" he asked, without any real interest.

"That one, there," she told him. "Why don't you hand me that fiddle-that's right, that one. A spy would never be able to learn to play this, it takes years-"

"A spy could learn to play a couple of tunes on it," the captain said, in a sudden burst of completely unexpected thought. "That's all a spy would need."

He looked at her triumphantly. She sighed, took the instrument from him before he dropped it, and took it out of its case to tune it. "A spy could learn a couple of tunes," she agreed. "But a spy wouldn't know them all. Pick one. Pick anything. I couldn't possibly know what you were going to pick to learn to play it in advance, so if I know it, then I'm not a spy. All right?"

She saw Talaysen wince out of the corner of her eye, and she didn't blame him. No fiddler could know every tune; she was taking a terrible risk with this-

But it was a calculated risk, taken out of experience. If he'd been a bright man, she wouldn't have tried this; he might purposefully pick something really obscure, hoping to baffle her.

But he wasn't bright; he was, in fact, the very opposite. So he did what any stupid man would do; he blurted the first thing that came into his mind. Which was, as she had gambled, "Shepherd's Hey"; one of the half-dozen fiddle-tunes every fiddler wishes he would never have to play again, and which someone in every audience asks for.

She played it, thinking very hard about getting him to release them, and listening with that inner ear for the first notes of the magic. . . .

He started tapping his toe halfway through the first repetition; a good sign, but not quite what she was looking for. But his eyes unfocused a bit, which meant she might be getting through to him-

Or that he was so dense he could be entranced, like a sheep, by perfectly ordinary music.

Three times through. Three times was what had worked with the elves; three times had coaxed pennies from otherwise tight fists.

Two repetitions-into the third-and-

There. Just an echo, a faint sigh of melody, but it was there. She was afraid to play the tune again, though; repeating it a fourth time might break the magic.

"Pick something else," she called out to him, breaking into his reverie.

He stared at her with his mouth hanging open for a moment, then stammered, " 'Foxhunter.' "

Another one of the tunes she had learned to hate while she was still at the Hungry Bear. She sighed; if her feelings got in the way of the music, this might turn out to be a bad idea instead of a good one. But the magic was still with her, and stronger as she brought the "Hey" around into the first notes of "Foxhunter." His eyes glazed over again, and she began to get the sense of the inner melody, stronger, and just a little off the variant she played. She strove to bring them closer, but hadn't quite-not before she'd played "Foxhunter" three times as well.

But this was a subtle, slippery magic that she was trying to work. She had to get inside him somehow, and control the way he thought about them; this called for something quieter. Maybe that was why she hadn't quite managed to touch the magic-tune yet. . . .

This time she didn't ask him to pick something. She slowed the final bars of "Foxhunter," dragged them out and sent the tune into a minor key, and turned the lively jig into something else entirely different; a mournful rendition of "Captive Heart."

That did it! The hidden melody strengthened suddenly; grew so clear, in fact, that she glanced at Talaysen and was unsurprised to see a look of concentration on his face, as if he could hear it too.

Once, twice-and on the third repetition, something dropped into place, and her tune and the magic one united, just as the sun touched the horizon.

She played it to the end, then took her bow from the strings and waited to see what, if anything, the result of her playing was going to be.

The captain shook himself, as if he was waking from a long sleep. "I must-how-I think-" He shook himself again, then drew his knife and cut Talaysen's bonds, offering him a hand to pull the Master to his feet. "I don't know what I was thinking of," the captain said, vaguely. "Thinking two minstrels like you were spies. Stupid, of course. These past couple of weeks, they've been hard on us. We're looking for spies behind every bush, it seems."

"No harm done, captain," Talaysen said heartily, as Rune put up her fiddle as quickly as she could, and slung her pack on her back. She dragged his over to his feet, and he followed her example, still talking. "No harm done at all. Good thinking, really, after all, how could you know? I'm sure your Sire is very pleased to have a captain like you."

When Talaysen stopped for a moment to get his pack in place, Rune took over, pulling on his elbow to get him moving towards the edge of camp and the road. "Of course, how could you know? But we obviously are musicians and you don't need to detain us, now, do you? Of course not. We'll just be on our way. Thank you. No, you needn't send anyone after us, we'll be fine-we know exactly where we need to go, we'll be off your Sire's land before you know it-"

She got Talaysen moving and waved good-bye; Talaysen let her take the lead and wisely kept quiet. The other men-at-arms, seeing that their captain was letting the former captives go, were content to leave things the way they were. One or two of them even waved back as Rune and Talaysen made all the speed they could without (hopefully) seeming to do so.

It wasn't until they were on the open road again that Rune heaved a sigh of relief, and slowed her pace.

"All right, confess," Talaysen said, moving up beside her and speaking quietly out of the corner of his mouth. "I saw what happened, and I thought I heard something-"

"How much do you know about magic?" Rune asked, interrupting him, and gazing anxiously at the darkening sky.

"Not much, only the little Ardis tells me, and what's in songs, of course." He hitched his pack a little higher on his shoulders. "You're telling me that you're a mage?"

She shook her head slightly, then realized he might not be able to see the gesture in the gathering gloom. "I'm not-I mean, I don't know if I am or not. I know what happened with the elves, but I thought that was just because the elves were easier to affect with music than humans. Now-I don't know. I hear something when I'm doing-whatever it is. And this time I think you heard it too."

"Ardis told me every mage has his own way of sensing magic," Talaysen said thoughtfully. "Some see it as a web of light, some as color-patterns, some feel it, some taste or smell it. Maybe a mage who was also a musician would hear it as music-"

He faltered, and she added what she thought he was going to say. "But you heard it too. Didn't you? You heard what I was trying to follow."

"I heard something," he replied, carefully. "Whether it was the same thing you heard or not, I don't know."

"Well, whatever is going on-when I really need something to happen, I think about it, hard, and listen inside for a melody at the same time. When I find it, I try to match it, but since it's a variation on what I've playing, it takes a little bit of time to do that, to figure out what the pattern is going to be. And it seems like I have to play things in repeats of three to get it to work. It's the moment that I match with that variation that I seem to be able to influence people."

"But what about with the elves?" he asked. "You weren't doing any variations then-"

"I don't know, I'm only guessing," she replied, looking to the west through the trees, and wondering how long they had before the sun set. "But what I was playing was all Gypsy music or music already associated with the elves, like the 'Faerie Reel.' Maybe they're more susceptible to music, or maybe the music itself was already the right tune to be magic. Next Midsummer Faire we are going to have to talk to your cousin about all this-I don't like doing things and not knowing how or why they work. Or what they might do if they don't work the way I think they will."

She was looking at him now, peering through the blue twilight, and not at the road, so she missed spotting the trouble ahead. Her first inkling of a problem was when Talaysen's head snapped up, and he cursed under his breath.

"We'll do that. If we're not languishing in a dungeon," Talaysen groaned. "If this isn't the worst run of luck I've ever had-if I hadn't already been expecting the worst-"

She turned her head-and echoed his groan of disgust. Just ahead of them was a roadblock. Manned by armed soldiers with a banner flapping above them in Sire Harlan's black-and-white stripes.

"Well, there's no point in trying to avoid them; they'll only chase us," Talaysen sighed, as the soldiers stirred, proving that they'd been sighted too. "God help us. Here we go again."

"This time, let's see if we can't get them to let us prove we're minstrels right off," Rune said, thinking quickly. "I'll try and work magic on them again. And since you heard what I was trying to follow, you join me on this one. Maybe with both of us working on them, we can do better than just get them to let us go."

"All right," Talaysen replied quietly, for they were just close enough to the barricade that a sharp-eared man might hear what they were saying. "Follow my lead."

He raised his arm and waved, smiling. "Ho there!" he called. "We are certainly glad to see you!"

Looks of astonishment on every face told Rune that he'd certainly managed to confuse them.

"You-sir, are you the captain?" he continued, pointing at one of the men who seemed to be in charge. At the other's wary nod, Talaysen's smile broadened. "Thank goodness! We have a lot to tell you about. . . ."

"Ten pennies and quite a little stock of provisions, and an escort to the border," Talaysen said in satisfaction, patting the pouch at his belt. "Not bad, for what started out a disaster. Maybe our luck is turning."

"Maybe we're turning it ourselves," Rune countered, but lazily. She was not going to argue about results, however they came about.

A good night's sleep in the Sire's camp had helped matters. They'd done so well that they'd become honored guests by the time they were through playing, instead of captives. And while Sire Harlan was not interested in taking on a musician until his little feud with his neighbor had been settled, he did know about the banning of non-Guild minstrels from the previous three Faires. When they had played for him personally, he spent quite some time talking with them afterwards, over a cup of wine. He had assured them that a similar attempt at Kardown had been blocked.

"Did you hear the rest of the story about the Faires?" Talaysen asked. "I asked Captain Nours about it, and got an earful."

She shook her head. "No, I wasn't close enough to listen, and that terribly earnest cousin of the Sire was pouring his life-story into my ear."

"That's what you get for being sympathetic," he chuckled, and kicked at a rock to keep from stepping on it. "It wasn't just the Bardic Guild. All the Guilds got together and barred non-Guild participants. Sire Harlan's captain is also a wood-carver, and he's heard that if they try the same again next year, the non-Guild crafts-people have threatened to hold their own Faires-outside the gates, and just off the road. Which means no Church tax or city tax on sellers, as well as an open Faire."

She widened her eyes. "Can they do that?" she asked.

"I don't know why not," he replied. "One of the farmers has agreed to let them use his fallow fields for free for the first year. That may be how the Kingsford Faire started; I seem to recall something like that-the Church putting a ban on entertainment or levying an extra use-tax. I can tell you that most common folk would rather go to an open Faire, given a choice. Anyway, he asked me to spread that bit of news as well, so that the small crafters are ready, come next year."

She nodded, stowing the information away in her memory. That was another thing the Free Bards did that she hadn't known; they passed news wherever they went. Often it was news that those in power would prefer others didn't know. Ordinary minstrels might or might not impart news as the whim and the generosity of their audience moved them; Bardic Guild musicians never did.

So in a way we are spies, she reflected. Only not in a way that sheep-brained captain would ever recognize.

"Aren't we going to meet Gwyna at Kardown?" she asked, suddenly, squinting into the sunlight, and taking off her hat to fan herself with it.

"That was the plan," he replied. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing-" she replied vaguely. She hadn't thought about the coming encounter, until the association of "news" brought it to mind.

She and Talaysen were news, so far as the Free Bards were concerned. When they had parted from the Free Bards, she and Talaysen had been Master and Apprentice. Now their relationship was something altogether different. Gwyna planned a course of travel that put her in and out of contact with a good half of the Free Bards over the year, not to mention all the gypsy Clans. She would be the one telling everyone she met of Master Wren's change of status, and if she didn't approve . . .

Rune realized then that she wanted not only Gwyna to approve, but all the rest of the Free Bards, including people she didn't even know yet. And not just for her own sake. If there was divisiveness in the Free Bards, trouble with Talaysen's leadership, the things she and Talaysen had talked about would never come to pass. The group might even fall apart.

We will never make a difference if that happens, she thought worriedly, and then realized with a start that for the first time in her life she was thinking of herself as a part of a group. Worrying about "we," where "we" meant people she'd never met as well as those she knew and liked.

It was a curious feeling, having been a loner most of her life, to suddenly find herself a part of something.

If Gwyna didn't approve of what had happened between her and Talaysen-

Then she mentally took herself by the scruff of the neck and shook herself. Of course she'll approve, she scolded. She was practically throwing us into bed together before we all broke up. I'm running from shadows that aren't even there. The fact that we're married shouldn't make any kind of a difference to her. She told me herself that Talaysen spent too much time alone.

She noticed that Talaysen was watching her with a concerned frown, and smiled at him. "It's all right, no disasters. Just thinking things through," she said cheerfully. "Tell me something, do you think we were working magic last night, or not?"

He hesitated a moment, taking the time to wipe some of the dust from his face with his scarf. "I never thought of myself as a mage, or anything like one," he said, finally. "Even though everything I've ever really wanted I've gotten. Now that I think about it, that is rather odd; I don't know of anyone who always gets what he wants or needs. I always thought it was plain fool luck, but maybe it wasn't just extraordinary good luck. Maybe it was magic all along."

"Your cousin's a mage," she pointed out. "I'd always been told that sort of thing runs in families. That's the way it is in ballads, anyway."

"That might explain it." He paused a moment, and Rune had an idea that he was gathering his thoughts. "Last night I told you that I heard the melody you were trying to match the first time we were caught. You wanted me to see if I could actually match it myself when we were wooing Sire Harlan's men, and I said I'd try, and we didn't have a chance to talk about what I did in private. Well, I heard the melody, just like before, and I tried to match it. Easier on a lute than a fiddle, by the way."

She nodded. "And you did it; I felt you snap into the melody at the end of the first time through, and the tune got stronger as we played it. Which was probably why they asked us to stay and play for them, why the men gave us supplies, and why the Sire gave us money and an escort."

"I think it's also why the Sire talked to us personally," he said. She raised an eyebrow in surprise, and he nodded. "When we played for his men, he was listening just beyond the fire. I didn't see him, but somehow I knew he was there, and I knew we needed his goodwill. I saw you were doing all right with the men, so I turned my attention to him. I hoped I could get him to help us out; the captain was pretty reluctant to exceed his authority." He frowned, as if thinking of something unpleasant.

"I'd say it worked," she replied, wondering why he was frowning.

"That's the trouble, it did, and too well." His frown deepened, and he tucked his scarf around his neck again. "He talked to us very like equals, he gave us money and an escort. He shouldn't have done any of those things, it's just not in the character of most Sires to welcome strangers into their camps and treat them like old friends. What I did somehow made him act completely differently-"

"Maybe not," she countered. "He was camped out there with his men, after all, and he's obviously liked as well as respected. Maybe he would have done all that anyway. Maybe he's used to treating underlings well; maybe he just likes music."

"Maybe, but it's not likely." He shook his head. "But that's not the point. The problem here isn't what he did, it's that I made him do it. I made him do those things just as surely as if I'd held a knife to his throat and ordered him to tell us the same things. Even though it kept us out of trouble, I don't like the implications. Being able to change the way people think and react is-well, it's frightening."

She started to object, then shut her mouth, thinking about it. It was frightening, and she found many reasons why what she was doing was wrong. "Can Ardis do that?" she asked.

He nodded. "That, and other things. Healing, for one. Mostly she doesn't use her magic. I think she told me that she uses it only when-after very careful consideration-she thinks it's just and fair to do so, and not simply convenient."

How would I feel about somebody coming in and changing my thinking around? she wondered. "Was it just and fair of us to keep those men-at-arms from throwing us in a dungeon, or conscripting us?" she countered. "I certainly think it was! They wouldn't listen to reason or logic, and I was running out of patience."

He grinned. "I'd have to say yes and you know it," he mocked. "That's a cheating question."

"Would it have been just and fair to get that Priest to marry us?" she continued.

"Now that is a good question." He mulled that over for a bit. "I would have to say no. Even though he was being an officious, uncharitable, vain and foolish man."

"Why not?" she asked, wanting to hear his reasoning.

"It would not have been just and fair to change his mind, because we were only inconvenienced. On the other hand, if those men-at-arms had jailed or conscripted us, we would undoubtedly have been harmed." He smiled feebly. "I don't do well in damp dungeons. And I wouldn't know one end of a sword from the other. In the former, I'd probably become ill rather quickly, and as a conscript I'd probably become dead just as quickly."

"Obviously the same goes for the elven-king," she replied, thoughtfully.

He nodded. "Elves aren't predictable. He might have kept us a while, or killed us when he tired of us. Now, whether or not we should have used this power of ours to change the minds of people at those Faires to let us in-I don't know."

"It's not worth debating," she told him, as a jay overhead called raucous agreement. "We couldn't have done anything to help ourselves or others at the last three Faires because the people we needed to influence directly were not going to come out to listen to us."

"True, but we could have started a riot," he said, so soberly that she knew he was not joking. "All we'd have needed to do would be stand outside the Church gates and sing rabble-rousing songs with that power behind them. People were annoyed enough already, especially the ones being turned away. We could quite easily have started a riot without anyone suspecting we were to blame."

The morning seemed suddenly cold, and she shivered. She'd never seen a riot. She didn't want to see one. People could be killed in riots; children often were trampled and either killed outright or maimed for life. "We don't do that," she said forcefully. "We don't ever do that."

"I agree," he replied, just as forcefully. "It would have to be something worlds away more serious than what we encountered to make starting a riot justified."

She paused to collect her thoughts. "You do realize that we're talking about this as if it's real, and not the product of some really good luck and our imaginations, don't you?"

"I don't have any doubt that it's real," he told her. "We've managed to change things three times with this-whatever it is. When something happens three times, it's not a coincidence, it's real."

It's more times than that, she thought wryly, remembering how she had coaxed money from unresponsive audiences. And then she sobered, thinking about what she'd done in a new light.

Had that been "fair and just"? After all, she hadn't done anything important to them, had she? They wouldn't have parted with their coins if they hadn't had them to spend. Would they?

Yes, but- She had still changed their thoughts, the most private thing a person could have. The poorest person in the world, the man accused of heresy and thrown into the Church's dungeons, a cripple who couldn't move arms or legs-they could still claim their thoughts as their own, and in that much they were wealthy and free.

But what she and Talaysen did could change that. Not in any large way, but it was still a change. And for what? Convenience, again. The convenience, perhaps, of not working quite so hard. . . .

Never mind that finding that elusive thread of magic-song and matching it was harder work than simply playing well. She had to assume that one day it might become easy. What then? Wouldn't it be a temptation to simply sit back and play indifferently, knowing that she would be well-paid no matter how she played?

She thought of all the cold days in the winter, busking on a corner in Nolton, and had to admit that it would have been more than a temptation. If she'd known about this, she'd have done it. And she'd have probably teased her audiences into buying hot cider and sausage rolls from her vendor friends as well, whether the listeners were hungry or not.

No. That was wrong. Absolutely wrong. It was a cheat, and it made her music into a lie.

"We don't use it to make audiences like us, either," she said into the silence, with more force than she intended. "They either appreciate us on their own or not at all."

He raised an eyebrow at her outburst but agreed immediately. "What do we have, then? Not for the sake of convenience, not when there are other ways to deal with a situation, only when it's fair and just?"

She nodded and sighed. "You know, I hate to admit this, but it sounds as if we're saying we can't use it to help ourselves at all."

He laughed. "Oh, partially. We can't use it unless we're really being threatened, shall we say? Or it's for something that truly needs to be done."

"That sounds good." She glanced at him, and couldn't help grinning. "Now, does threat of hunger count?"

"I don't-"

"Or how about if I wait until you're hungry to ask that question?" she said, and chuckled.

He only shook his head. "Women," he said, as if that explained everything, and then changed the subject.

Just like a man, she thought with amusement, and let him.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Kardown Faire lasted only three days; it wasn't a very large Faire, but because it was a wool-market Faire, it tended to be a wealthy one. They found Gwyna waiting for them at the bare excuse for a gate in the sketchy fence surrounding the Faire on the town common; she had already found a good camping site, screened on three sides by bushes and trees, and claimed it for all three of them. Rune was happy to see her; a real friendly face, a known face, was a luxury she'd missed without realizing it.

Three days were just enough time for them to recoup some of their losses-and barely time for Gwyna to finish telling them the news of her adventures, and those of the other Free Bards she'd met with. Rune noticed something a little odd about Gwyna's behavior from the first, though it was nothing having to do with either her or Talaysen. Gwyna would keep glancing about nervously when she thought she was alone, and no longer bantered with strangers. And whenever she saw someone in a long robe, she became very, very quiet.

They had stayed together as a trio during the entire Faire; Gwyna had been delighted to hear of the wedding (much to Rune's relief). But that wasn't why they stayed as a group; their primary consideration was that Gwyna no longer seemed quite so fearlessly self-reliant, which accounted for the odd behavior Rune had noticed. Her misadventure with the mage-Priest had shaken her more than she would admit to anyone, even Rune. But Rune saw it in the way she constantly looked over her shoulder for trouble, even when there was no reason to, and in her troubled dreams at night. Gypsy Robin had gotten a bad shock, and she hadn't recovered from it yet.

She'd parted with Master Stork about a week after the Midsummer Faire, and it looked to Rune as if she hadn't had a steady night of sleep since. Talaysen told her he thought Gwyna must be sleeping with one eye open, and Rune figured he was probably right.

Gwyna played at being lighthearted, still, but her jesting often fell flat, her spirits were dampened, and she seemed to be certain that there was danger lurking just out of sight, especially at night. Not that Rune blamed her. But she was carrying more knives now, and openly; something that had the potential for serious problems if she felt herself threatened. If someone propositioned her in a way she thought was dangerous, in her state of heightened nerves, she might well draw on him-and use what she drew.

At the end of the third day, Gwyna went off to bring back water for their little camp, leaving Rune cleaning vegetables and Talaysen setting the fire, alone together for the first time that day. She decided to broach what had been on her mind since she'd seen the state Gwyna was in.

"Is it going to be any harder to find a wintering-over spot for a trio than it is for a duet?" she asked.

He looked up from the fire. "No, I don't think so," he said. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Rune nodded. "We can't let her go out there by herself until she gets over her nerves. She'll either wear herself out, or hurt someone."

"Or herself." He sat back on his heels. "I hadn't wanted to ask you, because it means-well-" He blushed. "We won't have our privacy."

"Lecher," she said, and grinned. "Oh, we can have our privacy. We just ask her to take a long walk. Seriously, though, we ought to invite her."

"You ought to invite her to what?" Gwyna asked lightly, as she rounded the corner of the half-shelter they'd erected, coming into their little protective circle of trees.

"We thought you ought to come with us for a while," Talaysen said. "We'd like your company. We've missed you."

"And?" Gwyna replied, setting down the canvas bucket in the hole they'd dug to hold it. "You're not inviting me because of my sparkling conversation, and you two have got quite enough companionship on your own, thanks."

"You look awful," Rune said frankly. "I told Wren that I thought it was because you're trying to stay up all night on guard. And we could use a third to split the watches with. It's hard enough sleeping at night with two; you never get a full night's sleep going watch-on-watch, and if you both fall asleep, well, you take your chances. Three can keep watches and still have time for a decent night's sleep."

"True," Gwyna replied thoughtfully, twining a strand of her hair around one finger. "There's a lot of unrest out in the countryside. I know there's been more feuds lately. They say it's because the High King is getting old and he's not keeping the Twenty Kings in line."

"What difference does that-" Rune began, then made the connection herself. "Oh. The Twenty Kings are busy trying to compete to be High King and ignoring the Barons and Dukes. And they're playing their own power games, and ignoring the Sires."

"Who are now free to take up their feuds again," Talaysen finished. "It all comes down to the bottom, eventually. That means us, who end up having to deal with bandits on the road; bandits who are there because the Sires aren't hunting them down." He grimaced. "The Church should be taking a hand here, but they won't."

"Other things come down to the common folk, too," Gwyna said. "I haven't seen any more bandits, but that's because I don't travel the main roads. Some of the others have run into trouble, though, and it seems to me to be more this year than last." She sat in thought for a while, her skirts spread in a colorful puddle around her. "I'll tell you what; I'll stick with you until the first snow. If you haven't found a wintering-up place for all three of us by then, we'll go thirds on a wagon and join one of my Family caravans. Will that suit you?"

Talaysen nodded and Rune heaved a silent sigh of relief. Gwyna could be so touchy when she thought someone was trying to protect her, but this time she needed protection. She was a lot younger than she looked, sounded, or acted. Gypsy children tended to grow up very quickly, but that didn't mean she was as mature as she appeared. A shock like she'd gotten could unseat the reason of someone Talaysen's age. Gwyna needed time to find her balance again.

"That solves our problem pretty neatly," Rune offered with absolute truth. "After getting shut out of three Faires, we were wondering if we were going to have even a chance at finding a winter position. So, if we don't"- she shrugged-"then we don't and we've got an alternate plan."

"Well good, then," Gwyna replied, relaxing. "Glad to be able to help. And don't worry about my getting underfoot too much. I'll find lots of reasons to take long walks, and some of them may even be genuine!" She winked, and Rune blushed, glad that the sunset color hid the red flush of her cheeks. "Are we leaving tomorrow morning early or late?"

"Late," Talaysen said. "All the heavy wagons and the herds are moving out at dawn, and I'd rather wait until they're well on their way. It's easier for us to pass them on the road than it is to get around the tangle when they leave." He grimaced. "And the drivers are a little less-"

The unusual sound of the clopping of hooves coming towards their campsite made him look up from his fire. "Who or what could that be?"

Rune shrugged, and looked over to Gwyna, who also shrugged. Odd. It's plainly someone with beasts. What can he want with us?

A weathered old man, a horse-trader by the harness-bits attached to his jacket, came around the corner of the half-shelter. He led a pair of sturdy pony-mules of the kind that the Gypsies used to pull their wagons and carry their goods, and stopped just as he reached conversational distance. The beasts stopped obediently behind him, and one nuzzled him and blew into his hair.

"Be you a minstrel called Rune?" he asked, looking directly at her.

Rune nodded in surprise.

"Can ye name me yer ma and yer village?" the old man continued.

"My mother is Stara, who last worked in the Hungry Bear Inn; that's in my old village of Westhaven," she replied politely. This had the sound of someone trying to identify her for some reason. Possibly a letter from Amber? But why send it via a horse-trader?

"An' who would ye say's yer best friend there?" the man persisted, though just as politely as she.

"That's an easy one," she said. "I only had one good friend when I left: Jib, the horse-boy."

"Then ye be the Rune I be lookin' fer." The man doffed his hat, and grinned. "Yon Jib's the lad I took on as m'partner this spring, an' damn if he ain't done better nor any on' us had reason t' think. He sen's ye these liddle lads, by way'o thanks, he says." He proffered the lead-reins, and Rune rose to take them, stunned with surprise. "He says ye's a right 'nuff lass, an' ye know how t' take care of a beast-I mind ye got a gyppo there by ye, though-" he nodded towards Gwyna, who nodded back. "There ain't none born can take care 'f a horse like a gyppo, so's ye make sure'n lissen t' the lady, eh?"

"I'll do that," Rune promised solemnly, too stunned to say anything else. "These are Vargians, right?"

"Aye," the man replied. "An' good lads, too. I wouldna let 'em go t' none but a gyppo or a friend or friend a'the lad. He's a good lad, Jib is."

"That he is," Rune replied faintly. This was a little too much to take in all at once. "One of the best in the world."

"Aye, well, I seen ye an' yer man an' yer fren' here at Faire, an' ye got all th' right friends," the man told her, so serious in his frankness that she couldn't even think of him as being rude. "Free Bards, eh? Free Bards an' gyppos, ye're the best folks on th' road. So, I'll tell Jib I caught up wi' ye, an' give his presents, an' I'll tell 'im ye're doin' right well. He'll be happy fer ye."

He turned to go, and Rune stopped him for a moment with one hand on his leather sleeve. "How is he, really?" she asked anxiously. "Is he all right? Is he happy?"

The man smiled, slowly, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. "I reckon," he chuckled. "Oh, I reckon he'd say he's all right, though since he's set on weddin' m' girl an' I know her temper, I dunno how all right he'll stay! Still-they'll be settlin' down, I 'spect. Her mam had same temper, an' we never kilt each other enough so's ye'd notice. Like as not ye'll catch 'em both at Midsummer next year."

And with that, he put his hat carefully back on his head, and walked back down the road in the darkness, leaving Rune staring after him with the mules' reins still in her hands.

"Well, that solves one big problem," Gwyna said, breaking the silence. "And I know where we can get a wagon cheap, if you're willing to stay over a day while we get it refitted. I know I've got a third share's worth of coin. How about you two?"

"Oh, we have it," Talaysen replied, as Rune broke out of her stunned state, and came over to the fire for a couple pieces of wood for tethers and some rope for hobbles. "And draft beasts are always the expensive part of fitting up a wagon, am I right?"

Gwyna nodded, then rose and came over to look at the new acquisitions. She patted them down expertly, running her hands over their legs, checking their feet, then opening their mouths to have as good a look as she could with only firelight to aid her.

"A little old for a horse-mule, but middle-aged for ones out of a pony," she said, giving them both a final pat, and turning to help Rune stake them out to graze. "Especially for this breed; just like Rune said, they're Vargians. They'll live thirty useful years and probably die in harness, and they can eat very nearly anything a goat can eat. Hard to tell without pushing them, but their wind seems sound; I know their legs are, and he hasn't been doctoring them to make them look good." The same one that had blown into the old man's hair nuzzled her. "They're gentle enough even for you to handle, Master Wren!" She laughed, as if at some private joke, and Talaysen flushed.

"Here, let me see what they're called." She nudged the mule's head around so she could read the letters stamped on his halter in the flickering firelight. "This lad is Socks, evidently. And"-she squinted at the second halter-"the other is Tam. Good, short names, easy to yell." She left the mules, who applied themselves to grass with stolid single-mindedness. "I like your choice of friends, Lady Lark," she concluded. "It's nice to have friends who know when you might need a mule!"

The mules were a gift that impinged perilously on "too good to be true," and Talaysen pummeled his brain ceaselessly to reassure himself that neither he nor Rune had worked any of their "magic" to get them.

Finally, he slept, conscience appeased. They had not been anywhere near the animal-sellers. There had been no way that the old man could have heard them sing and been inadvertently magicked into giving them a pair of beasts. The mules were, therefore, exactly what they appeared to be: repayment of Rune's generosity to her old friend. When Rune had explained what she'd done, Gwyna had questioned her about the amount of money she'd sent the boy, and Gwyna had nodded knowingly.

"That's the right-size return on a gift like that," she had pronounced, when Rune worried aloud that she had bankrupted the boy. "Truly. He didn't send you horses, nor young mules; he didn't include any harness but the halters. If his year's been as good as the old man says, that's about right, and he'll still have profit."

Rune had been even more concerned how the old man had found them, since there was no way-she had thought-for Jib to find out where she was. She'd been afraid the gift might have been some machination of the Guild in disguise. But Gwyna and Talaysen had both been able to put her mind at ease on that score.

It was the Gypsies, of course. Rune had sent her gift with them; they, in turn, knew all the news of the Free Bards and would have known as soon as Rune had joined them. When Jib wanted to find her, he would likely have turned to the Gypsies who had brought him the money in the first place. Sooner or later he would have found someone who'd been at Midsummer, and who would have known the general direction of the Free Bards' travels, and by extension, what Faires Rune and Talaysen were planning on going to. Then it was just a matter for the old man of planning his selling trip to try intercepting them at one or more of those Faires.

With everyone's fears eased, all three of them slept soundly. In fact, it was the rattle of the mules' halters the next morning that awoke them, as the beasts tried in vain to reach grass outside the circles they'd eaten bare.

Rune took them down to the well to water them, while Talaysen and Gwyna set off in search of a wagon.

Many Gypsies settled in Kardown, for it was on the edge of the treeless, rolling plains of the Arden Downs. The soil was thin and rocky; too hard to farm, but it made excellent pasturage, and most of the folk hereabouts depended on the sheep that were grazed out there. Most households had a little flock, and the most prosperous had herds of several hundred. There was always work for someone good with animals, and when Gypsies chose to settle, they often became hired shepherds. Such a life enabled them to assuage their urge to wander in the summer, but gave them a snug little home to retire to when the winter winds roared and the sheep were brought back into the fold.

Because of that, there were often Gypsy wagons for sale here. Gwyna, obviously a Gypsy and fluent in their secret language, was able to make contact with one of the resident families as soon as they reached the marketplace.

From there it was a matter of tracking down who had wagons for sale, who had wagons they were keeping but might be induced to part with, and where they were.

They had looked at three, so far. The first two were much too small; fit only for two, or one and a fair amount of trade goods. The third was a little too old and rickety; Gwyna clucked her tongue over it and told its owner that he'd waited a bit long to sell it; he'd have to spend a lot of time fixing it up now, before it was road-worthy again. The owner agreed, and said with a sigh that he'd not been truly certain he wanted to settle until this summer. . . .

They traded road stories for a bit, then moved on to the fourth and last.

"This lad will take a bit of persuading, I think," Gwyna said as they approached the cottage. "He came off the road because his wife wanted to settle a bit, though he didn't. That means the wife will be on our side; if she can get him to part with the wagon, it means she'll not have to fret about him taking the bit in his teeth, packing them all up, and rolling out without so much as a 'do you think we should,' or a word of warning."

Thus armed, Talaysen set about charming the lady of the house while Gwyna tackled the man. He was very young to have come off the road; a half-dozen children playing in the yard told Talaysen why the wife had wanted to settle. Two children in a wagon weren't bad, but a mob like this would strain the seams of even the largest wagons he'd seen.

He couldn't hear what Gwyna was telling the man, a very handsome Gypsy with long, immaculately kept black locks and a drooping mustache of which he seemed very proud. He didn't make much of an effort to overhear, either. She was giving the young man some advice from a woman's point of view, he thought. The Gypsies believed in the right of a woman to make her own decisions, and she was probably telling him that if he decided to pack up and take to the road again, he might well find himself doing so alone.

Whatever it was she told him, it had the desired effect. He agreed-reluctantly, but agreed-to show them the wagon and sell it if it was what they wanted.

He kept it in a shed in the rear of his cottage, and unlike the wagon that had been kept out in the garden, it was easy to see that the owner of this rig had been serious about his desire to return to the road one day. The bright red and yellow paint was fresh and shiny; every bit of bright-work, from the twin lamps at the front to the single lamp over the window at the rear, was polished until it gleamed like gold. The leather of the seat had been kept oiled, and the wheels were in perfect repair, not a spoke missing.

Right away, Talaysen knew that it was the kind of wagon they needed; this was a two-beast rig, and provided the pony-mules could pull it, they would have the strength of both at their service. With a one-beast rig, the mule not in harness would have to be tethered to the rear. It was possible to switch them off to keep them fresh, but a dreadful nuisance to harness and unharness in the middle of the day.

But when the young man pushed the rig out, Talaysen knew that without a shadow of a doubt-if the mules were up to it-this was exactly what they'd been looking for.

It slept four; two in one bed at the rear, and two in narrow single bunks along the sides that doubled as seating. There was ample storage for twice what they carried; the harness was coiled neatly in the box built beneath the right-hand bunk. There was even a tiny "kitchen" arrangement that could be used in foul weather, and a charcoal stove to keep it warm in the winter.

"Can the little mules pull it?" he asked Gwyna and her fellow Gypsy. She looked over at the man. "Vargians," she said.

He nodded. "No problem. It's built light, lighter than it looks." He showed them, by pushing it forward by himself. "I had Vargians. The harness is already rigged for them." Then he sighed and made mournful eyes at his wife, who did her best to hide her smile of triumph. "Looks like the Lady meant this rig for you. I'd best resign myself to being off the road till the little ones are marriage-high."

Gwyna then began some spirited bargaining, that ended with them shaking hands and most of Talaysen's money joining hers. The wife looked even happier at that, which made him guess that she had some plans for the unexpected windfall.

"Bring the mules here, and I'll harness her and you can drive her over," the man said, looking less resigned and more content by the moment. That eased Talaysen's mind quite a bit; he would never have willingly deprived someone of a cherished dream, however impractical it was.

They returned to camp and Gwyna took charge of the mules, leaving Talaysen and Rune to divide the chores of breaking camp. There wasn't much to do, since they'd be reloading everything into the wagon; and shortly after they were finished, burying the little garbage they'd produced in the fire-pit, covering it with the ashes, and putting the frame of the half-shelter over it all, Gwyna appeared, driving the wagon up the road, with the mules moving briskly and looking altogether content to be in harness.

It was a matter of moments to load the wagon and stow everything. Talaysen was amazed at how pleased and proprietary he felt. "Now what?" he asked Gwyna.

"Now we drive back to town, leave the wagon at a stable for safe-keeping, and go up to the market to buy what we need. Oil for cooking, oil for the lamps, harness-mending kit, salt and fodder for the mules-" She looked over at Rune.

"Hmm. Flour, salt, honey; some vegetables that keep well. Spices. A couple of pots and a frying pan." Rune's brow wrinkled as she thought. "Featherbeds, if we're going to winter over in there. Charcoal for the stove. A bit of milk. Cider. Oh, a fresh-water keg, there doesn't seem to be one. Currycomb, brush and hoof-pick. I think that's it."

"That sounds about right," Gwyna agreed. "If I can get some eggs, I'd like to."

Talaysen grinned, completely at sea in this barrage of domesticity, and perfectly content-

"A chicken," he said, suddenly. "Bacon. The bacon will keep fairly well. Sausage and cheese." He tried to remember what the family horses had needed. "Oh, blankets for both mules; they'll need them in the winter."

"Good." Gwyna nodded. "Now, the big question; have we enough money for all that?"

They put their heads and their resources together, and decided that they did-if they skipped the bacon and chicken, and bargained well.

"Split up?" Rune asked.

Gwyna shook her head. "Better stay together. Master Wren, try and look pinch-pursed and disapproving, as if everything we're buying is a luxury."

He set his face obediently in a scowl, and she chuckled. "That'll do. Rune, we'll take turns. When we get into a sticky spot, the other one will jump in and say 'He's cheating you,' or something like that."

"Good, and look like the vendor's a thief."

"Exactly." Gwyna surveyed the marketplace. "Well, shall we attack?"

The market wasn't as large as some, but it was held every day, rather than just one day a week. Talaysen found his part altogether easy, and watched the women bargain with the stall-keepers like a couple of seasoned housewives. At the vegetable stall, Rune leaned over and pointed out the discolored places caused by insects that might hide soft-spots or larvae, and gave the poor man a glare as if he'd put them there himself. He capitulated immediately. The cheese-maker was a fellow Gypsy, and so came in only for some good-natured bantering. The miller was condescending, and the women bent their entire attention on him, and to both his and Talaysen's amazement, actually caught him cheating, with sacks with gravel weighting the bottom. When they threatened to expose him there and then, he gave them their flour. They then went back to the cheese-maker and betrayed his secret. Gwyna grinned nastily as they went on to the charcoal-maker.

"He won't be able to get away with that anymore," she said. "I suspect the only reason he's gotten by this long is because he only pulls that trick on strangers. But short measure's against the law, and he knows it. He could be pilloried for that." She looked well content. "Once we get the charcoal, we'll have everything we need, I think."

It was at just that moment that Talaysen felt ghostly fingers on his pouch. He reached back, quick as a striking snake, and caught a wrist. A bony wrist; he pulled on it, hauling the owner forward before he could bolt.

The owner made not a sound as Talaysen dragged him-for it was a "he"-around to the front of them.

"What-?" Rune said in surprise, then nodded. "So. Someone who didn't do well at the Faire, hmm?"

"Caught a light-fingers?" Gwyna asked mildly. She crossed her arms and stared at the boy, who dropped his gaze to his bare, dirty feet. "You should know better than to try that game with a Gypsy, sirrah. We invented that game."

The thief was a lot older than Talaysen had expected; roughly Rune's or Gwyna's age. Undersized, though, for his age; he didn't top Gwyna by more than an inch. The bones under Talaysen's hand were sharp; the bones of the face prominent. Three-quarters starved and filthy, with an expression of sullen resignation, he made no effort whatsoever to escape.

Talaysen shook him a little. "Have you anything to say for yourself before I turn you over to the constables?" he asked. There was a flash of fear in the boy's face as he looked up, but then he dropped his eyes again and simply shook his head.

"He doesn't look much like a thief, does he?" Rune mused. "At least, not a good thief. I thought they tended to look a bit more prosperous."

Gwyna tilted her head to one side, and considered the boy. "You're right, he doesn't. He looks to me like someone who's desperate enough to try anything, including picking a pocket, but he doesn't look much like a real thief."

Talaysen thought privately that what the boy looked like was bad-blood and bone. But he held his peace; though no stranger would know it, Gwyna had already warmed to this rag-man.

"I don't think you should turn him over to anyone," Rune continued. The boy looked up, quickly, surprise then apprehension flashing over his face, before he dropped his eyes again. Talaysen sighed.

"I don't think we should turn him over to anyone, either," Gwyna put in. She reached over and shook the boy's shoulder. "Here, you-if we feed you and give you a chance to clean up, will you promise not to run off until we've talked to you?"

He looked up again, and the expression of bewildered gratitude made Talaysen abruptly revise his opinion. That was not the expression of a bad youngster-it was more along the lines of a beaten dog who has just been patted instead of whipped. Maybe there was something worth looking into with this boy after all.

The boy nodded violently, and Talaysen released the hold he had on the boy's wrist. The youngster rubbed it a little, but made no move to escape, even though he probably could have gotten away in the crowd.

"Here," Gwyna said, shoving her load of packages at him. He took them, automatically, his eyes widening with surprise as he staggered beneath the weight. "Make yourself useful and carry these for me. Come along."

The boy followed her with complete docility. Or perhaps he was just stunned. If he was about Gwyna's age, he might not be too eager to run away at this point. Older men than he had been stunned by Gwyna on a fairly regular basis.

Talaysen smiled a little; there was a method to Gwyna's seeming foolishness. With that much burdening him, he couldn't run-unless he dropped the entire load, he was effectively hobbled. And if he dropped the packages, they'd know he was going to run.

They finished their purchases and returned to the wagon. The youngster handed his packages up to Rune to be stowed away, and looked-longingly, Talaysen thought-at the pony-mules.

Gwyna looked the boy up and down, critically. "You'll never fit Master Wren's clothes, nor mine," she said. "Rune, do you have a pair of breeches and a shirt I can borrow? His clothing won't be fit to wear without a lot of cleaning, and maybe not then."

"If you don't mind that they're not that far from the rag-bin themselves," Rune replied, doubtfully.

Gwyna snorted. "It's better than what he's wearing now."

Talaysen thought he detected a flush-of embarrassment?-under the layer of dirt coating the young man's face.

He still hasn't spoken a word . . . I wonder why?

With clean clothes in one hand and the boy in the other, Gwyna marched him off to the stream that had been serving for their bathing pool. He'd either bathe, or Gwyna would hold him down and wash him herself. Talaysen knew that look. He wouldn't have bet on the Master of the Bardic Guild against Gwyna when she wore that look.

And maybe this young man will give her something to think about besides her fear. For a little while, anyway.

Despite Gwyna's determination, Talaysen wasn't entirely certain that they'd see the lad again. On the other hand, he hadn't been acting as if he was going to run off. So Talaysen led the horses and wagon to their old campsite and waited for Gwyna to reappear, with her charge, or without him.

She returned with him-and cleaned up, he looked a great deal better than Talaysen had expected. Some of the sullenness proved to be nothing more than dirt.

"Here, lad," the Bard said. "We've got time to eat before we go, I think." He cut the boy a chunk of bread and cheese, and poured him a mug of water, presenting him with both as soon as the pair reached the wagon.

The boy didn't snatch at the food as Talaysen would have expected from his starved appearance. Instead he took it politely, with a little bow, and ate it slowly and carefully rather than bolting it. Which was something of a relief; in Talaysen's experience, food bolted by someone in the boy's condition tended to come right back up again.

"All right," Talaysen said, as the young man finished the last crumb of his meal. "The ladies here seem to have taken a liking to you. I suspect they want me to invite you to come along with us for a bit. On the other hand, you did try to lift my purse. So what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I'm s-s-s-sorry, s-s-s-sir," the young man stammered. "I was s-s-s-starving. I d-d-d-didn't kn-kn-know wh-wh-what else t-t-t-t-to d-d-do."

The stutter, severe as it was, seemed to be something habitual rather than feigned or out of fear. The youngster was obviously forcing the words out, and having a hard time of it. He was red with effort and embarrassment by the time he'd completed the simple sentence.

Talaysen wanted to ask him more, but he was at a loss of how to get any information from the youngster without a similar struggle. Then he noticed that the lad's attention wasn't on him, but on something in the wagon.

He turned to see what it was-but the only thing in sight was Gwyna's three-octave harp, the one she could only play while seated. She rarely took it out unless they were somewhere that it wouldn't be moved much. She'd been about to cover it for the trip in its oiled-canvas case, but during the packing it had been wedged between the side bunk and their packs for safekeeping.

"Do you play, lad?" Talaysen asked. The young man nodded vigorously. Without prompting, Gwyna climbed up into the wagon and handed the harp down.

He sat right down on a stone with it cradled in his arms; placed it reverently on the ground, and began to play.

Talaysen had heard many Masters play in his time, but this young man was as good on the harp as Rune was on her fiddle. And this was an original composition; it had to be. Talaysen knew most of the harp repertory, and this piece wasn't in it.

So, the boy could compose as well as play. . . .

The young man's face relaxed as he lost himself in the music, and his expression took on the other-worldly quality seen in statues of angels. In repose he was as gently attractive as he had been sullenly unattractive when Talaysen caught him.

Talaysen felt something else, as well; the undercurrent of melody he associated with magic. The young man made no effort to match it, but it harmonized with what he was playing, and Talaysen found himself being lulled into a meditative trance. Perhaps he hasn't learned to match it because he doesn't know he can-but the power is there, and so is the heart.

Oh yes, the power was there indeed. He shook off the lulling effect of the music to glance over at Rune-just in time to intercept her glance at him. He inclined his head toward the young man; she nodded.

She hears it too.

Insofar as music went, this boy was a Bard in everything but name.

Now who is he, where is he from, and how in heaven's name did he get that way?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Talaysen reflected that it was a good thing that the wagon slept four. They looked to have acquired a second "apprentice."

After hearing the young man play, there was no way that Talaysen was going to let him wander off on his own again. Even if he hadn't been determined in that direction, the ladies were. So they packed everything down for travel, and he and the boy went into the back while Gwyna handled the reins and Rune watched and learned.

"Remember, speak slowly," he told the lad-no, not "the lad." The youngster had a name. Jonny Brede. He was going to have to remember that. A personable lad; thin and wiry, with a heart-shaped face and an unruly tangle of wavy brown hair. His eyes were the most attractive feature he had, probably because he tried to do most of his speaking with them rather than expose himself to ridicule. That stutter-the youngster must have gotten a lot of cruel teasing over it. "Speak very slowly. Take your time. I'm in no hurry, and neither are you, so take all the time you need."

Strange, lying here at ease on a bed, instead of trudging down the dusty road. Very strange, but obviously much more comfortable. Though he knew why he hadn't done this long ago, and it had nothing to do with money. He knew very little about the care of horses and nothing about harnessing or driving-all of his knowledge was of riding and hunting. That didn't serve to tell him what to do with these stout little draft-beasts. How often should they be rested, for instance? And how on Earth did one manage two sets of reins? What did one do if they didn't want to get between the shafts of the wagon?

Rune and Gwyna took up the bench seat in front, with their backs to the interior, although they could hear everything he and Jonny said. Rune evidently knew enough about mules from her days at the inn that she was a logical candidate for secondary driver. He and Jonny took their ease back in the wagon itself.

"Tell me the earliest thing you remember," he said, staring at the bottom of a cupboard just over his head. Like the rest of the interior of the wagon, it was of brown wood polished to a high gloss.

Jonny shook his head, his hands knotting and un-knotting in his lap.

"Don't you remember being very small?" Talaysen prompted. "Do you recall schoolmates? Siblings? Tutors or Priests? A birthday party, perhaps?"

Jonny shook his head even harder. "N-n-no," he replied. "N-n-nothing like that. Jus-just being sick, for a long, l-long time, and m-m-my M-M-Master."

"Start with that, then," Talaysen told him. "Slowly. Don't force the words out. Think of speech as a song; you wouldn't rush the cadence."

"I was r-r-real sick," Jonny said thoughtfully. "Fever; I w-w-was hot all the time. I was seeing things t-t-too. Men f-f-f-fighting, buildings b-b-burning. P-p-people yelling." He bit his lip. "Th-th-then I was at K-K-Kingsford, and M-M-Master was taking care of me."

"Master who?"

"M-M-Master D-D-Darian," the young man replied promptly.

Interesting. That was a name Talaysen knew, largely because Master Darian's arrival had caused such a fuss. Master Darian wasn't rightly at Kingsford at all; he was from the Guild in Birnam. He should have gone there to retire, not to our kingdom. Talaysen remembered the minor stir that had caused; Master Darian, half-senile, demanding to be allowed to lodge in the great Guildhall at Kingsford, claiming outrageous things. That his life was in danger, that there were assassins looking for him. How had that ended up? There had been something about a usurper-

Yes, he had it now. There had been a palace uprising, with the King of Birnam deposed by his brother, and a lot of the usual civil unrest that followed such a coup. Darian had been one of the King's Bards-a position that did not normally make one a target for assassins. The Guild had decided that old Master Darian might have seen a thing a two that had proved too much for his mind, and voted to permit him to stay instead of forcing him back to a place where he was afraid to go.

Had there been a boy with him, an apprentice? Talaysen couldn't remember-

Wait, there had been, and the boy had been sick with a marsh-fever. That was it. And that was another reason why the Guild had decided to let the Master stay. By the time they'd reached Kingsford, the boy had been in a bad way. It seemed too cruel even to the normally callous Guild Bards to turn them out for the boy to die on the road.

Hmm. If he'd been at Kingsford, one of the mages might have healed him of it. Ardis would know.

He made a mental note to write to her and ask.

"So, you were ill, and when you finally got well, you were in Kingsford. What then?"

"M-M-Master Darian took care of m-m-me, and when he got sick, I t-t-took care of him." The chin came up, and the big brown eyes looked defiantly into his. "Th-th-they said he was m-m-mad. He w-w-wasn't. He j-j-just had trouble remembering."

Yes, and that was why they had permitted him to keep the "apprentice" even though the boy probably wasn't learning anything from the old man. He took care of his Master, and that had freed up a servant to run attendance on other Masters. As long as he didn't get in the way, the rest of the members of the Guild ignored him. Talaysen recalled now thinking that he ought to do something about the boy himself; teach him, perhaps. But then other things had gotten in the way, and he'd forgotten all about it by the time he left the Guild in a rage.

"Th-th-they left us alone until M-M-Master died. Th-th-then they said I had t-t-t-to l-l-l-leave." The stutter got worse as he grew more distressed.

"Why?" Talaysen asked.

"B-b-because I d-d-didn't have a M-M-Master any-

m-m-more," he said, his eyes dark with anguish. "And

th-th-they s-s-s-said it w-w-wasn't w-w-worth w-w-wasting

t-t-time on a ha-ha-halfwit."

Talaysen's fists clenched and he forced himself to relax them. The bastards. The lazy bastards. A stutter is curable-and even if it wasn't, most people don't stutter when they sing, and they knew it! But this poor child had no one to speak for him, and he was a foreigner. So out he went.

"Jonny, you are not a halfwit," he said quietly, but forcefully. "Whoever told you that was an idiot. The Guild Masters were too lazy to train you, and too foolish to see your worth, so they got rid of you and told you that to keep you from trying to get your rights." He thought quickly about all he knew of Guild law. "You came to Kingsford as an acknowledged apprentice. You had a right to another Master when yours died. You could have gone to any other Guild in Kingsford and gotten help to enforce that right-but the Bardic Guild Masters told you that you were a halfwit to prevent you from claiming that right."