Magic in Ithkar 3 Read online

  “Pardon, my lord,” Rune called out clearly, bubbling over with happiness and unable to hold back the secret any longer, “but it’s not son—it’s daughter.”

  She had only a split second to take in the rage on their faces before the first staff descended on her head.

  They flung her into the dust outside the tent, half-senseless, and her smashed instruments beside her. The passersby avoided even looking at her as she tried to get to her feet and fell three times. Her right arm dangled uselessly; it hurt so badly that she was certain it must be broken, but it hadn’t hurt half as badly when they’d cracked it as it had when they’d smashed her fiddle; that had broken her heart. All she wanted to do now was to get to the river and throw herself in. With any luck at all, she’d drown.

  But she couldn’t even manage to stand.

  “Gently, lass.” Firm hands took her and supported her on both sides. “Lady be my witness, if ever I thought they’d have gone this far, I’d never have let you go through with this farce.”

  She turned her head, trying to see through tears of pain, both of heart and body, with eyes that had sparks dancing before them. The man supporting her on her left she didn’t recognize, but the one on the right

  “T-Talaysen?” she faltered.

  “I told you I’d help if you needed it, did I not? I think you have more than a little need at the moment—”

  “Th-they broke my fiddle, Talaysen, And my lute. They broke them, and they broke my arm—”

  “Oh, Rune, lass . . .” There were tears in his eyes, and yet he almost seemed to be laughing as well. “If ever I doubted you’d the makings of a bard, you just dispelled those doubts. First the fiddle, then the lute—and only then do you think of your own hurts. Ah, come away, lass, come where people can care for such a treasure as you—”

  Stumbling through darkness, wrenched with pain, carefully supported and guided on either side, Rune was in no position to judge where or how far they went. After some unknown interval, however, she found herself in a many colored tent, lit with dozens of lanterns, partitioned off with curtains hung on wires that crisscrossed the entire dwelling. Just now most of these were pushed back, and a mixed crowd of men and women greeted their entrance with cries of welcome that turned to dismay at the sight of her condition.

  She was pushed down into an improvised bed of soft wool blankets and huge, fat pillows, while a thin, dark girl dressed like a gypsy bathed her cuts and bruises with something that stung, then numbed them, and a gray-bearded man tsked over her arm, prodded it once or twice, then, without warning, pulled it into alignment. When he did that, the pain was so incredible that Rune nearly fainted.

  By the time the multicolored fire flashing cleared from her eyes, he was binding her arm up tightly with thin strips of wood, while the girl was urging her to drink something that smelled of herbs and wine.

  Before she had a chance to panic, Talaysen reappeared as if conjured at her side.

  “Where—”

  “You’re with the free bards—the real bards, not those pompous pufftoads with the guild,” he said. “Dear child, I thought all that would happen to you was that those inflated bladders of self-importance would give you a tongue-lashing and throw you out on your backside. If I’d had the slightest notion they’d do this to you, I’d have kidnapped you and had you drunk insensible till the trials were over. I may never forgive myself. Now, drink your medicine.”

  “But how—why—who are you?” Rune managed between gulps.

  “ ‘What are you?’ might be the better place to start, I think. Tell her, will you, Erdric?”

  “We’re the free bards,” said the gray-bearded man, “as Master Talaysen told you—he’s the one who banded us together, when he found that there were those who, like himself, had the gift and the talent but were disinclined to put up with the self-aggrandizement and politics and foolish slavishness to form of guild nonsense. We go where we wish and serve—or not serve—who we will, and sing as we damn well please, and no foolishness about who’ll be offended. We also keep a sharp eye out for youngsters like you, with the gift, and with the spirit to fight the guild. We’ve had our eye on you these three years now.”

  “You—but how?”

  “Myself, for one,” said a new voice, and a bony fellow with hair that kept falling into his eyes joined the group around her. “You likely don’t remember me, but I remember you—I heard you fiddle in your tavern when I was passing through Karthar, and I passed the word.”

  “And I’m another.” This one Rune recognized; he was the man who’d sold her her lute, who had seemed to have been a gypsy peddler selling new and used instruments. Unaccountably, he had also stayed long enough to teach her the rudiments of playing it.

  “You see, we keep an eye out for all the likely lads and lasses we’ve marked, knowing that soon or late, they’d come to the trials. Usually, though, they’re not so stubborn as you.” Talaysen smiled.

  “I should hope to live!” agreed the lanky fellow. “They made the same remark my first day about wanting to have me stay a liltin’ soprano the rest of me days. That was enough for me!”

  “And they wouldn’t even give me the same notice they’d have given a flea.” The dark girl laughed. “Though I hadn’t the wit to think of passing myself off as a boy for the trials.”

  “But—why are you—together?” Rune asked, bewildered.

  “We band together to give each other help; a spot of silver to tide you over an empty month, a place to go when you’re hurt or ill, someone to care for you when you’re not as young as you used to be,” said the gray-haired Erdric. “And to teach, and to learn. And we have more and better patronage than you, or even the guild, suspect; not everyone finds the precious style of the guild songsters to their taste, especially the farther you get from the large cities. Out in the countryside, away from the decadence of courts, they like their songs, like their food, substantial and heartening.”

  “But why does the guild let you get away with this, if you’re taking patronage from them?” Rune’s apprehension, given her recent treatment, was real and understandable.

  “Bless you, child, they couldn’t do without us!” Talaysen laughed. “No matter what you think, there isn’t an original, creative master among ‘em! Gwena, my heart, sing her ‘The Unkind Lover’—your version, I mean, the real and original.”

  Gwena, the dark girl, flashed dazzling white teeth in a vulpine grin, plucked a gittern from somewhere behind her, and began.

  Well, it was the same melody Rune had sung, and some of the words—the best phrases—were the same as well. But this was no ice-cold princess taunting her poor knightly admirer with what he’d never touch; no, this was a teasing shepherdess seeing how far she could harass her cowherd lover, and the teasing was kindly meant. And what the cowherd claimed at the end was a good deal more than a “kiss on her cold, quiet hand.” In fact, you might say with justice that the proceedings got downright heated!

  “That ‘Lament’ you did the first day is another song they’ve twisted and tormented; most of the popular ballads the guild touts as their own are ours,” Talaysen told her with a grin.

  “As you should know, seeing as you’ve written at least half of them!” Gwena snorted.

  “But what would you have done if they had accepted me anyway?” Rune wanted to know.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t have lasted long; can a caged thrush sing? Soon or late, you’d have done what I did—escaped your gilded cage—and we’d have been waiting.”

  “Then you were a guild bard?” Somehow she felt she’d known that all along. “But I never heard of one called Talaysen, and if the ‘Lament’ is yours—”

  “Well, I changed my name when I took my freedom. Likely, though, you wouldn’t recognize it—”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t, you think? Or are you playing mock modest with us again?” Gwena shook back her abundant black hair. “I’ll make it known to you that you’re having your bruises tended by Master Bard Merridon
himself.”

  “Merridon?” Rune’s eyes went wide as she stared at the man, who coughed deprecatingly. “But—but—I thought Master Merridon was supposed to have gone into seclusion—”

  “The guild would hardly want it known that their pride had rejected ‘em for a pack of gypsy jongleurs, now would they?” the lanky fellow pointed out.

  “So, can I tempt you to join with us, Rune lass?” the man she’d known as Talaysen asked gently.

  “I’d like—but I can’t,” she replied despairingly. “How could I keep myself? It’ll take months for my arm to heal. And—my instruments are splinters, anyway.” She shook her head, tears in her eyes. “They weren’t much, but they were all I had. I’ll have to go home; they’ll take me in the tavern. I can still turn a spit and fill a glass one-handed.”

  “Ah, lass, didn’t you hear Erdric? We take care of each other—we’ll care for you till you’re whole again.” The old man patted her shoulder, then hastily found her a rag when scanning their faces brought her belief—and tears.

  “As for the instruments”—Talaysen vanished and returned again as her sobs quieted—“I’ll admit to relief at your words. I was half-afraid you’d a real attachment to your poor, departed friends. ‘They’re splinters, and I loved them’ can’t be mended, but ‘They’re splinters, and they were all I had’ is a different tune altogether. What think you of these twain?”

  The fiddle and lute he laid in her lap weren’t new, nor were they the kind of gilded, carved, and ornamented dainties guild musicians boasted, but they held their own kind of quiet beauty, a beauty of mellow wood and clean lines. Rune plucked a string on each, experimentally, and burst into tears again. The tone was lovely, smooth and golden, and these were the kind of instruments she’d never dreamed of touching, much less owning.

  When the tears had been soothed away, the various medicines been applied both internally and externally, and introductions made all around, Rune found herself once again alone with Talaysen—or Merridon, though on reflection, she liked the name she’d first known him by better. The rest had drawn curtains on their wires close in about her little corner, making an alcove of privacy.

  “If you’ll let me join you . . .” she said shyly.

  “Let!” He laughed. “Haven’t we made it plain enough we’ve been trying to lure you like coney catchers? Oh, you’re one of us, Rune lass. You’ll not escape us now!”

  “Then—what am I supposed to do?”

  “You heal, that’s the first thing. The second . . . well, we don’t have formal apprenticeships amongst us. By the Three, there’s no few things you could serve as master in, and no question about it! You could teach most of us a bit about fiddling, for one—”

  “But”—she looked and felt dismayed—“one of the reasons I wanted to join the guild was to learn! I can’t read or write music; there’s so many instruments I can’t play. . . .” Her voice rose to a soft wail. “How am I going to learn if a master won’t take me as an apprentice?”

  “Enough! Enough! No more weeping and wailing, my heart’s oversoft as it is!” he said hastily. “If you’re going to insist on being an apprentice, I suppose there’s nothing for it. Will I do as a master to you?”

  Rune was driven to speechlessness and could only nod.

  “Holy Three, lass, you make a liar out of me, who swore never to take an apprentice! Wait a moment.” He vanished around the curtain, then returned. “Here—” He set down a tiny harp. “This can be played one-handed, and learning the ways of her will keep you too busy to bedew me with any more tears while your arm mends. Treat her gently—she’s my own very first instrument, and she deserves respect.”

  Rune cradled the harp in her good arm, too awe-stricken to reply.

  “We’ll send someone in the morning for your things, wherever it is you’ve cached ‘em. Lean back there—oh, it’s a proper nursemaid I am.” He made her comfortable on her pillows, covering her with blankets and moving her two—no, three—new instruments to a place of safety, but still within sight. He seemed to understand how seeing them made her feel. “We’ll find you clothing and the like as well. That sleepy-juice they gave you should have you nodding shortly. Just remember one thing before you doze off. I’m not going to be an easy master to serve. You won’t be spending your days lazing about, you know! Come morning, I’ll set you your very first task. You’ll teach me”—his eyes lighted with unfeigned eagerness—“that ghost song!”

  The Silverlord

  Morgan Llywelyn

  The booth was always closed—or so it appeared. A limp and dispirited awning sagged over the boarded-up display window; a lock rusty with disuse clamped the splintery door. Yet from time to time a whiff of sulfurous smoke curled out under that door, and a muted tinkle of chimes could be heard by passersby.

  The sign over the booth proclaimed “Fine Leatherwork By a Master” in gilt letters beaten thin by wind and rain, but there were other leatherworkers at the fair who plied their trade much more aggressively. Still, a newcomer to the fair, wandering the far fringes of the area where animal dealers operated, might find himself knocking at the locked door in hopes of getting a bit of harness or having a simple repair done. And occasionally that door opened.

  When it did, as it had on this overcast morning, the face that peered out was like a closed fist. Hard red cheeks, hard black eyes, a predatory slash of a mouth—his was a frightening visage, and he knew it. Appreciating the effect of his ugliness, Melger the master saddler enjoyed seeing people cringe from him.

  But the girl who stood in the roadway before him did not cringe. “I need a set of bridle reins for a racing bridle,” she said in a clear voice.

  “We’re closed. Go away.”

  “You opened the door,” she pointed out. Her eyes were gray, and though her mouth was soft and gentle, she had the square jaw of one not easily discouraged. “I’ve been to the other leathershops, and they’re all too busy to make a special set of reins until at least tomorrow, which will be too late. I must have what I need now.” She spoke in the tones of one accustomed to having orders followed.

  Melger raised his bushy eyebrows. “What family are you?”

  “My father is a nobleman with land on the Bear River,” she said, being careful not to tell the man more of herself than she knew of him. Her father had taught her to be suspicious. “He raises horses as a hobby, and every year we race them at the fair. We have a mare running this afternoon, that’s why I need the reins.”

  Just then she heard the tinkling of the chimes and simultaneously an angry curse, followed by the unmistakable sound of a shod hoof striking wood. The girl’s eyes brightened with curiosity. “You have a horse in there? What are you doing to it?” She tried to peer in past him, but Melger shifted to block her view.

  “Who gives you the right to question me?” he demanded. “Who denies me the right?” she countered. He could tell she spoke the truth about being a nobleman’s daughter. Confidence was bred in her bones. A crafty look stole into his hard black eyes; the girl would require careful handling.

  “A young woman like yourself shouldn’t be alone in this part of the fairgrounds,” he said. “There should be servants with you, and a bodyguard. It gets rough down here.” He wanted her to feel intimidated so she would go away without asking any more questions.

  “I slipped away from my father’s servants because I was tired of being guarded all the time,” the girl told him with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Besides, the mare is mine, a gift from my father, and she is my responsibility. He cannot be here this time to see her run, and I am determined she will win as a tribute to him. Now tell me what’s going on in there.” She had distracted him with the talk about her servants and her horse, but now she darted back to the topic that really interested her, her mind so agile it caught Melger briefly off guard.

  “It’s none of your business,” he started to tell her, just as they both heard the sounds of a scuffle inside and more cursing. There was the thud of
a blow struck to solid flesh. The girl gave Melger one horrified look and then somehow ducked under his arm and was through the doorway before he could stop her.

  Once inside the booth, the girl realized it was larger than it appeared from outside. Leatherworking materials occupied only the front portion, beyond which a ramshackle wooden building stretched into gloomy shadows. Felt hangings covered the walls so no spying eye could peer in through the cracks.

  The girl stopped and stared.

  In the center of the room a pen had been rigged from rope and planks, and inside the pen stood a horse. It was quite the largest horse she had ever seen, and it glimmered like polished silver in the dim light—silver marred only by fresh whip welts across its back. Hypnochimes hanging from the roof beams stirred in the breeze from the open doorway, making sounds calculated to soothe. Fumes emanating from censers were intended to drug the animal into further submission, for otherwise no such shabby shed could have held him. He was a magnificent stallion, rippling fit, and even in his drugged state he arched his neck and snorted at her.

  “Aaahhh,” the girl breathed in admiration.

  The stallion was possessed of such beauty his perfection seemed a reproach to lesser creatures. From the sculptured curve of his ears to the roundness of his mighty haunches he embodied grace.

  “Hello, you,” the girl whispered softly, losing her horse-loving heart to him.

  The stallion snorted a response, flaring his nostrils until she could see the moist, shell-pink flesh high in his nasal passages.

  A human throat was cleared, and human feet shuffled. Looking beyond the penned horse, the girl saw a little gang of men standing in the shadows, watching her with angry faces.

  The stallion was aware of them, too. One ear rotated to listen to the mutter of their voices. But they weren’t saying anything important. They reeked of flesh eating and they inflicted pain, but they never said anything important. Only the girl was interesting. Her breath was sweet, she smelled of the fruit she had eaten that morning. Her voice was low and kind. The stallion stretched his neck toward her so he could focus his drugged eyes on her face.