Bard's Oath (30 page)

Whoops! Bard Leet had finished whatever business he’d had in the great hall and was heading back to the one place he shouldn’t go—not yet. Rann leaped into action, dodging around a countess and between two arguing lords, almost tripping over Bramble as the wolfhound cut in front of him.

“Bard Leet!”

As the lean figure of the master bard turned, Rann trotted up to him. He made himself smile at the man. “I wonder if you could help me.”

Bard Leet bowed and looked pleased as a cat. “Yes, Your Highness?”

Rann launched into his appeal. “Shima Ilyathan sang a song from Jehanglan for Ke—”
Oh dear,
Rann thought,
I can’t mention Kella and I don’t want to lie and say Shima Ilyathan sang it just to me, it was really for Kella, oh dear.
…

He swallowed hard and rattled on. “Er, ah … It’s a lullaby called ‘Blanket of Stars’ and it’s very pretty. I’d like to play it for my great-aunt, Duchess Alinya, when we go back to Casna, because I think she’d like it, but I’m not good enough yet to figure it out by myself”—here he patted his harp and gave it a mournful look—“and Shima Ilyathan doesn’t play, because they don’t have harps in Jehanglan. And Bard Daera’s gone to her family because her mother’s so ill.…”

I hope her mother gets better. I don’t want anyone else to lose their mother.
…

Rann took a deep breath and gazed up at the bard, giving him the full treatment of what Healer Tasha called his “poor little lost puppy dog” look. Few adults could resist it, he’d found. “Could you help me? Please?”

“Why, of course, Your Highness. I’d be delighted to.”

“Thank you!” Rann said brightly. “I’d be ever so grateful.”

He thought the bard would purr. Rann, young as he was, had learned that many people thought mostly of the benefit to themselves when they did him any favor, even if that benefit was as intangible as prestige. Rann didn’t care if Bard Leet asked for gold—not that he would, at least not openly—as long as he kept the man as far away from his chamber as possible. Switching from snowcat to sheepdog, Rann started for the gardens, knowing that Leet would follow. Which he did; but then—

“Hmm—a moment, Your Highness. It would be easiest with two harps, I think. As I learn the song, I’ll begin teaching it to you. I’ll get my harp, meet you here, and we’ll go together to find Dragonlord Shima—”

Rann nearly dropped his own harp. His heart felt as if it hammered in his throat; it was hard to force words past it. “Oh, ah—no! No! You can’t— You mustn’t—”

At Leet’s surprised look, Rann babbled, “When we—uh, I mean when I was in my room a little while ago, I saw Shima Ilyathan in the garden—”
Surrounded by all those silly girls.
“—but it looked like he might be leaving soon. If we hurry, I think we can get there before he goes.…”
Not that they’re likely to let him get away.

“Then let us go,” Bard Leet said, “before he does leave. I’d like very much to hear this song.” He held out his hands in an unspoken offer to carry the harp.

Rann handed it to him gladly. Kella was right; one of these days, Bramble was going to succeed in tripping him while he was carrying it, and that would be the end of the poor harp. Rann did
not
want it to be this day.

*   *   *

As he and the bard walked deeper into the fragrant heat of the gardens, Rann barely noticed various young noblewomen drifting past them in groups of two or three. Some pouted. Most had their heads together, whispering and giggling behind their hands, even as they made him quick courtesies.

Rann shook his head in disgust. The young women sounded like a flock of particularly foolish birds, all twitter, twitter, twitter.
Sillies, all of them—and Lady Niathea looks like she swallowed a wor
—

Niathea? Panic seized Rann. The last time he’d seen Lady Niathea, she’d been in the group surrounding Shima Ilyathan. He spun around, looking more closely at the young women already past him.

They had also been in the group around the newest Dragonlord.

Oh,no! Don’t tell me
— He broke into a run, leaving the sputtering bard behind. If Shima Ilyathan was gone, Rann had no reason to keep the bard by him—and away from his room.

Rann couldn’t let that happen. He wasn’t certain how long Kella needed, but he couldn’t let her get caught.

He came around a bank of moss roses like a hound after a fox and stopped so short he nearly fell over. Thank all the gods, Shima Ilyathan
was
still there!

Though he was not alone. He sat with Lady Karelinn of Kelneth on one of the white marble benches near the fountain.

Oops.
Rann had run in unannounced enough times on his uncle Beren and his aunt Beryl both before and right after they were married to know when his presence was, well, not as welcome as it might be another time. In embarrassment, he would take himself somewhere else as quickly as possible.

But not this time. He didn’t care if Shima Ilyathan and Lady Karelinn were making calf-eyes at each other the way Uncle Beren and Aunt Beryl still did sometimes. He didn’t care if they were
kissing
. Not even that would drive him away—not this time. He had Shima Ilyathan where he wanted him, and that would keep Bard Leet where he wanted
him
. Rann heaved a sigh of relief.

As he heard the bard come puffing around the bank of moss roses, Rann launched into his request, eyes as wide and appealing as he could make them. When he was done, Lady Karelinn smiled and gracefully withdrew. From the looks she and Shima Ilyathan exchanged, Rann knew that they meant to meet again later.

If he had anything to do with it, it would be much, much later. He flopped down in the grass as bard and Dragonlord greeted each other.

Conspiracies were hard work!

*   *   *

It was working. Despite his initial annoyance, Shima Ilyathan unbent under the bard’s genuine interest and appreciation of his people’s music. He sang the lullaby that Rann liked.

“I see why you like it, Your Highness,” Leet said absently as he concentrated on teasing the melody out of the harp. “A lovely tune, simple, but sometimes those are the prettiest.”

He played a phrase, at first tentatively, then with confidence. “There! I have it. I’ll set that to parchment for you, Prince Rann, so that you may learn it later with Daera when she returns.” Turning to Shima, he asked, “Could I impose upon you for more, Your Grace? The harmonic modes your people use are fascinating.”

Shima Ilyathan smiled, all traces of irritation gone now. “I’d be happy to. This is a wedding song; the two parts are sung back and forth between the women and the men. It tells of the joy and wonder of beginning a life together, and calls the blessings of the Lady of Spirits upon the new couple. This is the men’s part.”

As Shima sang it, Rann sighed with pure happiness. This had been a good plan, a wonderful plan. Kella would have plenty of time.…

Then the first part of the song ended, and before Shima could begin the women’s part, Bard Leet got to his feet, saying, “What a beautiful melody! I must ask your indulgence, Dragonlord. If you would be kind enough to wait, I’d like to get my music case for some parchment to write this out as you sing it. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

Shima Ilyathan nodded, and the bard was on his way at a respectable trot before a horrified Rann could say anything. All he could do was stare at Leet’s back as the man disappeared around the moss roses.

“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, no.” There was nothing he could do but wait—and pray.

“Prince Rann, is something wrong?” Shima Ilyathan asked.

Rann jumped, making Bramble yip in surprise, and dragged his attention back from his watch for Bard Leet. “Wh—what do you mean?” He looked everywhere but at the newest Dragonlord.

“You’re squirming as much as my little brother Tefira did when he sat on an anthill for all twenty-five verses of the Planting Song.” Shima Ilyathan shook his head, smiling, a faraway look in his eyes. “I still can’t believe he took that dare, the little ass.” Then, coming back from his memories, he asked crisply, “
Is
something wrong? And is there anything I can do, Your Highness?”

Yes—you can run after Bard Leet and drag him back here,
Rann wanted to say. He wished he could tell Shima Ilyathan what was afoot; he liked him almost as much as he liked Linden Rathan.

But could he trust him? He didn’t dare. Shima Ilyathan was a Dragonlord. Rann couldn’t take the chance that his sympathies might be with Bard Leet. Why, what if the Dragonlord considered this some kind of, of …
sacrilege
? Being a prince wouldn’t help him escape punishment if a Dragonlord denounced him. It would only lessen the severity of that punishment.

But Kella had no rank of her own to protect her, just his friendship and her kinship to Maurynna. And she was the one actually trespassing in a senior bard’s chamber; everyone’s wrath would fall upon her. At the least she’d be banned from the castle. He’d never see her again.

Was it beginning already? Surely Bard Leet had been gone too long just to retrieve a music case. Rann’s imagination presented image after horrible image: Leet catching Kella playing his harp; Leet hitting her, dragging her out into the hallway as he yelled for the guards; Kella being dragged away by the soldiers. Worst of all, a weeping Kella lying on the filthy straw in a dungeon cell, to remain there until she died.

Despite the sunshine, Rann turned cold at the thought of the last image. But he didn’t dare let any of his fears show.

“No, Dragonlord,” he told Shima. “Nothing’s amiss. Nothing at all.” He pulled up a handful of grass and concentrated on the blades drifting through his fingers back to the earth so that he wouldn’t have to meet Shima Ilyathan’s worried gaze.

Twenty-nine

Against her will and despite
the stiffness in her hand, Kella’s fingers danced unerringly through the unknown song. Not once did she damp the wire strings; they rang on and on. Yet the sound never muddied as it should have. Instead each new note added its voice to the others, added another layer to wrap her in darkness. To catch and keep her.…

Her heart pounded; whatever was in the harp wanted to devour her. She
knew
it. She was terrified as she’d never been in all her eight years, yet could do no more than stare in horror as her fingers darted like mad swallows. Why hadn’t Otter or Daera ever mentioned that there was a curse on a bard’s harp to punish someone playing without permission?

She had to stop—she had to! Or else whatever was in the harp would eat her very soul. But her hands, burning with the unholy cold emanating from the strings, would not obey her. She played on and on.

Finally, in pure desperation, Kella swung her head sharply, smashing her cheek into the top edge of the soundbox. The instrument slewed in her arms, turning the run of notes into musical gibberish. Her cheek throbbed as if she’d been clubbed, but she was free. She clapped her hands together from either side of the harp, trapping some of the strings between her tight-pressed palms, silencing their deadly ringing. She slid her hands down the rest of the strings. Note by note, the sweet, poisonous sound died away.

Silence had never been so welcome. Kella’s hands dropped heavily to her sides; they felt like lead weights—if lead weights could burn with cold. With an effort almost beyond her, she held them up before her face.
They way they feel, they should be bleeding or blistered,
she thought hazily. She felt strangely detached from the pain in her hands and what had just happened; her thoughts blundered through a fog, impossible to catch and shake into order. She fancied she could almost hear them whimpering like blind puppies lost from their mother.

Then the last sound she wanted to hear brought her back to herself: the rattling of the latch.

She was caught! For a moment that lasted beyond forever, she stood frozen with panic, listening to whoever was on the other side struggle with the stiff catch. Then, with a swift movement, Kella threw the heavy silk covering back over the harp. The next instant she dove under the bed—and smacked her head on the corner of something already there. Blinking back tears of pain, Kella squirmed around it, pushing aside a sack full of something that rustled and smelled faintly sweet, rather like honey. She settled herself so that she could peek into the room, but well back so that she couldn’t be seen. It severely limited her range of vision, but she didn’t dare risk moving closer to the edge of the bed.

It was only as the door swung open that Kella remembered the ewer and towel on the little table. Kella prayed as hard as she could that whoever it was wouldn’t notice them beside the basin.

He—for the boots that were all she could see were definitely those of a man—didn’t seem to, thank all the gods. Whoever he was walked across the floor, breathing heavily as if he’d been running.

Kella held her breath, staring at those boots. They were of too good quality for a servant. This was Bard Leet himself. Would he notice the cloth over the harp had been moved? Would he notice the ewer? Would he find
her
?

The boots crossed to the bed and turned. The bed ropes above Kella creaked as the mattress pushed down against them. She pressed herself against the floor. One foot disappeared from sight. She heard a soft grunt.

Kella stared in horror at the stockinged foot that reappeared within her range of vision. What was the bard doing?

“Gods—I haven’t run that far in ages. Whew!”

She listened to him catch his breath. Then a horrible thought flashed into her mind.
Oh gods—what if he lies down for a nap
?

She nearly yelped from sheer nerves when a tiny pebble hit the floor and
tik-tik-tikked
across the tiles to rest bare inches from her nose. Kella pressed her hand over her mouth.

“Ah, that’s better.”

She remembered to breathe.
It was just a stone in his boot,
she thought. But her relief was short-lived.