Bard's Oath (20 page)

The servants nodded. But before she could go off to find him, another servant approached. He held out a sealed note to her.

“This just came for you, bard.”

She took it and studied the beeswax seal. Just a blob of wax, no sigil impressed in it—so whom was it from? Frowning, she broke it open and read. “Oh, no!” she gasped.

*   *   *

Kella stared at the flame burning down through yet another mark on the banded candle. She twitched impatiently, wanting to be done with this and off to her music lesson. Another twitch, and a pin jabbed her. “Ouch!”

“Hold still, girl, and it won’t happen again,” said Mistress Colwe pleasantly. “And we’ll be done that much faster.”

When Mistress Colwe was finally done, Kella raced outside as fast as she could. She ran through the mazelike garden, grumbling mightily. While she was thrilled to have new gowns, she’d missed the music lesson. Why, oh why had the duchess ordered so many gowns for her? And Mistress Colwe was so fussy and kept her there for three whole candlemarks making certain the fabrics fell just
so
! This was all her fault.

She tripped and fell hard, sliding in the grass. It was a moment before she got her breath back. “Ouch!” She clambered to her feet and ruefully inspected the grass stains on the knees of her skirt and the front of her tunic. And still so far to go! She’d better use the shortcut. She ducked through a spot in the hedge into the next path.

A thread of music came to her ears, a bare whisper of notes on the breeze. To her surprise, it came from her left and sounded quite close by.

Oh, good—they’re not in the Queen’s Retreat after all! Maybe I’ll still have time to get a cake or two at least.

She turned and trotted off in search of the music that still floated on the air. It took longer than she’d thought it would, but a few twists and turns later she came upon a harp sitting by itself on one of the marble benches scattered throughout the gardens.

It wasn’t a full-sized harp, but a small traveling harp. And it was exquisite. Kella stared and stared, enchanted beyond words.

Whose is it?
she wondered. Then she clapped her hands. “It must be Daera’s new one finally come.”

She ran up and studied it. She thought she’d never seen anything so beautiful; the sweep of the neck was perfect. And what was that carved into the shoulder of the harp? Some kind of bird?

The strings seemed to be calling her; she stretched out her hand.
Daera won’t mind,
Kella told herself.
She’s already promised I could play it.…

So caught up in her enchantment with the harp, Kella never wondered where Daera was and why she was in the garden alone after class was over. Her hand crept closer. She knew she should wait for renewed permission, but it was so beautiful!

Kella screamed as a man’s hand viciously slapped hers aside. She jumped back, her eyes watering in pain.

“How dare you try to touch my harp!” roared a man wearing the red tunic of a bard as he towered over her. “I ought to have you whipped!”

Kella stared up at him in shock. Hot tears slid down her cheeks. She clutched her stinging hand to her chest. “I—I’m sorry, bard, I thought it was Daera’s new one finally come—”

“
Bard
Daera, you guttersnipe! You, a mere servant girl—and a slattern of a servant at that,” he said, his voice heavy with disgust as he looked at her grass-stained clothes. “How dare you address a bard so familiarly!” His hand rose once more.

Kella stumbled back to avoid the blow. To her relief and everlasting gratitude, she heard Daera call out from behind her. “Bard Leet!
No!
”

Bard Leet glared past her at Daera. Kella scurried to stand by the younger bard.

“She’s not a servant, sir,” Daera said quietly. “This is Kella Vanadin, the daughter of merchants from Casna. She’s one of my best students in the royal classes. She’s also—”

Bard Leet stared at her in patent disbelief. “A
merchant’s
daughter? They allow a
merchant’s
daughter to take lessons in the royal classes? No matter, how dare she try to touch my harp!”

Kella took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know it was yours. I never would touch a bard’s harp without permission. I thought it was Da—Bard Daera’s new one and she’d already said I could play it when it came.”

“I did,” Daera said. “It was an honest mistake, sir, she thought it was mine. And I should tell—”

“Never mind your excuses. You’ve noble students here—I hope you haven’t been shorting them to give this common brat lessons. We’ll speak of this later, Daera.”

With that, Bard Leet caught up his harp and strode angrily off.

Kella wiped away her tears. She looked up at Daera. To her surprise, the young bard’s eyes were red. Yet as she looked after her superior, her lips curved in an odd little smile.

“I
tried
to warn him,” she said to the air. Then, shaking her head, she looked down at Kella. “I’m sorry about this, Kella. How’s your hand? And look at those stains! Did you fall as well, sweetling?”

Nodding, Kella held out her hand. It was still an angry red and she knew there would be a bruise. “It doesn’t hurt now,” she lied. “Daera,
why
was he like that? Otter’s never acted as if he’s better than the rest of us.”

“He’s noble-born, sweetling, so it makes him proud.”

“Like Lady Willena and some of the others?”

“Just so. And since he’s one of my guild’s elders, he’s a Master Bard as well. But still…” After a moment, Daera said, “Shall we have Simpler Quirel look at your poor hand? He can put a poultice on it.”

Kella shook her head; she wanted as few people as possible to know about what had happened. It was too humiliating. There were only a couple of people she’d trust with this news. And then …

She’d find a way to get back at him, she would. She’d show Master Stuck-Up Bard Leet he couldn’t treat a Dragonlord’s kin that way!

“No, I’d just like to go to Rann’s quarters, please.”

*   *   *

“He
hit
you?” Rosie asked in outrage. She and Rann bent over the hand that Kella held out. It was red and Kella knew that by tomorrow morning a bruise would show. “But you never even touched his stupid harp!”

Rann scowled. “I’ll ask Uncle Beren to send him away. We don’t need him. We have Daera to sing for us.”

“But we won’t. While she was walking me here, she told me she had to go away. She said she got a message but didn’t say what it was about, just that she was going to ask permission to go home. She looked awfully upset.”

“Oh, no!” Rann said after a moment. “Do you think we’ll have to take lessons from
him
?”

“I won’t,” Kella said firmly. “He’ll refuse to teach me. He was awful mad at Daera for teaching a ‘common brat.’”

Rosie giggled. “‘Common brat’? He doesn’t know about your cousin the Dragonlord, does he?”

“No,” Kella answered, thinking. She
could
tell Maurynna or even Linden when next she saw them that the bard had hit her. But … “No. I don’t want to tell her. Or anyone. Promise me you won’t tell anyone about this.”

The other children placed their hands over their hearts and solemnly swore, Rann grumbling all the while.

“And don’t let on to Bard Leet that you know what he did to me, either. Promise that, too?”

Once more, hands went to hearts.

“Thank you.”

Rann said, “I wish you would let me tell my uncle, though. He’d know how to pay back Bard Leet without him knowing it.”

Kella shook her head. “I want to get back at Bard Leet myself.”

“How?” Rosalea asked.

“I don’t know,” Kella said. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. “But I will. I will.”

*   *   *

Bard Leet hefted the flask of wine he’d ordered a servant to bring to his chamber upon his return from the gardens. It was nearly gone. But even that much wine had hardly steadied his nerves from the fright that brat had given him.

Gods above! If the girl had touched that harp, no telling what might have happened.

Likely nothing,
he told himself.
So many of these brats are taking lessons only because it’s expected. They’ve as much talent as a fly.

Relief flooded him; everything would have been just fine, she would never have felt a thing.…

A memory clawed its way to the front of his mind:
She’s one of my best students.

Daera wouldn’t say that lightly—especially not in front of a student. A sudden rush of fear froze the very marrow in his bones. Leet caught himself reaching for the flask again and stopped. No; he’d had enough. It wouldn’t do to make this a habit.

But his hands now were shaking worse than ever. A little more wouldn’t hurt.…

Twenty-one

The next morning Raven left
Stormwind at the camp. “Arisyn and I will be going into the Gold Quarter,” he told the Llysanyin as he brushed him. “And horses aren’t allowed there, I’m told.”

Stormwind snorted in disbelief—or disgust; Raven wasn’t sure which.

“’Deed they’re not,” Woodbine, Yarrow’s oldest groom, agreed as he tipped a bucket of water into a nearby trough. “And good reason for it.”

“Oh? Why? This is a horse fair, after all.”

“Thieves,” said the old man with a smack of his lips. “I were just a younker then, a mere bit of a lad, and I saw it happen.”

“Saw what? A robbery?”

“No, not the robbery itself. I was there with Mistress Yarrow’s da and we saw those murdering scum ride down five innocent people who had the ill luck to be in their way. They’d killed the goldsmith they was robbin’ and knew they had to get out of there in a hurry or be caught and hanged. So they just rode over whoever was in their way. Three people died, two was crippled for life, and nigh a score was hurt jumpin’ out o’ their cursed way. Damned bastards was never caught. Too much of a head start, they had.

“So ever since, no horses are allowed in the Gold Quarter where all the big gold- and silversmiths have their wares. Iffen you plan to rob someone there now, you’d best be the fastest runner in the Five Kingdoms—for once the hue and cry is raised, everyone and his cousin’ll be after you!”

Raven nodded. It made sense now that he knew the reason. He finished and slapped Stormwind on the rump before putting the brushes away in their painted leather case. “Sorry, lad, but you’ll have to stay. Arisyn wants to look there for a pin for his mother.”

Once again Stormwind snorted as if to say
he
was no mere horse,
he
was a Llysanyin. Then he ambled off to stick his head in the main tent to see if there were any treats for him—as there usually were.

Laughing, Raven went off to meet Arisyn in front of the saddler’s where they usually met. When the young noble arrived, he had a huge grin on his face.

“You’re in a good mood,” Raven said.

“I am! I think my foster father will give me permission to sleep in Lord and Lady Pearrin’s encampment soon! Coryn, Marus, and Javriel have had permission for ages already. I think he was just about to say ‘Yes’ when Lord Huryn, the fair’s High Marshal, came in.”

“That will be something.” The young Lord and Lady Pearrin of Cassori, he’d heard, were favorites with the younger nobles and an invitation to their encampment was a sought-after favor. They were famous for engaging the best puppet shows, mummers, and acrobats for each night’s entertainment. “You’ll have to tell me about it when you do go.” He suspected that he’d not be welcome at the encampment himself. Perhaps one day, as Stormwind’s get proved themselves, but not yet.

“I will,” Arisyn promised. “Shall we head for the Gold Quarter now?”

“Lead on,” Raven said cheerfully. “I haven’t been to that part of the fair yet.” He fell in alongside Arisyn as they set off.

It was a long way to the Gold Quarter, made longer by frequent stops to look at this or that. Raven and Arisyn ambled on, talking horses as they went. They had just worked their way single-file through a crowd gathered to watch a juggler when Arisyn stopped so abruptly that Raven almost ran into him.

“What are you doing here, Tirael? You were sent to Pelnar!”

Alert for trouble, Raven came up alongside the young lord. A glance at Arisyn told him a quarrel wasn’t far off.

Gone was the affable youth he’d come to know. Arisyn stood with his fists clenched and face white with fury, glaring at the man standing in front of a pie man’s booth, sharing a wineskin with Coryn and Dunric and sampling the small, crispy pies.

Tirael, Tirael … Why is that name familiar?
Raven racked his brains but couldn’t place it. Still, he had the feeling he wouldn’t be pleased when he did remember.

Javiel and Marus, standing by them, started guiltily before scrunching down as if they could make themselves disappear. They stared down at their feet, at the booth, at the pile of firewood by it—anywhere where they didn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes for more than a moment or two. They were the very picture of two schoolboys caught with stolen sweets: half guilty, half defiant, and embarrassed down to the bone. The other youths about the booth just looked at one another.

But not one chose to leave. And when the man pressed a hand theatrically to his chest and said, “Oh dear, oh dear, Coryn—Ari doesn’t like me,” there were smiles of bravado and outright smirks. It was clear whose side they were on.

The cause of the discord took another long, lazy pull on the wineskin before passing it on. He stared a challenge into the very teeth of Arisyn’s anger, a tiny, supercilious smile playing about his lips. One hand gestured as if brushing away an importunate insect; Raven could almost hear the drawled
Spare me
.

So, it was clear, could Arisyn. He shook with rage; Raven had a sudden mental image of a young war hound held back by a single thread. With one wrong word, the tenuous restraint would snap and the hound would leap for his enemy’s throat. Arisyn took a step, fists raised.

Raven caught him by the shoulder. “Don’t be stupid,” he whispered in the boy’s ear. “He’s much bigger than you. Not to mention it’ll be at least six of them to the two of us—if we’re lucky. Look at them, Ari. They’re his.”