Bard's Oath (59 page)

Linden entered a side door that had been left open to catch the fresh air and light. A few boys darted to and fro. Two were hanging up tools; another placed parchment seals over jars and deftly tied them down. Yet another swept the floor with a besom, gathering the long, curled shavings that littered the floor into a pile that he then scooped up and put into a large wooden bucket. All worked under the supervision of a big, rough-looking man; evidently the luthier and his apprentices were finishing for the day.

Or so Linden thought. “You are Thomelin?” he asked.

His answer was a growled, “No. I’m his journeyman, Cotler. What do you want? Can’t you see we’re closing up?”

Linden raised his eyebrows at the unnecessary rudeness but held his temper. “Then where might I find Master Thomelin?”

“He’s away.”

Linden swore to himself, then asked, “And when do you expect him back?”

“A tenday, maybe more,” came the snarled reply. “What’s it to you?”

“Then perhaps you could answer some questions for me.”

“And perhaps I won’t. Who d’you think you are, coming around like this? I don’t have to answer—”

Just then the boy with the besom stopped his sweeping to stare at Linden. A big smile spread across his face and he stepped closer, his hand outstretched. A look at the boy’s face and Linden knew he was simple.

With a curse, Cotler turned. “Get back to work, Brin, you lazy lackwit.” His fist came up.

Without his even thinking about it, Linden’s hand shot out and caught the man’s wrist. He stared hard into the journeyman’s surprised eyes. It must have been a shock to the man, big as he was, that someone could hold him immobile.

“Don’t” was all Linden said at last. Then he released the man.

All the apprentices but Brin hastened to put one of the worktables between themselves and the two men. The young simpleton just stood looking from one man to the other, his brown eyes filled with confusion and dismay.

Cotler rubbed his wrist, his lips pressed together. Linden watched the fury building in his face. He didn’t need a map to tell him where this was going.

He held up a hand. “Don’t even think about hitting me,” he said pleasantly. “You don’t want to know what would happen.”

A sly smile crept across Cotler’s face and the look in his eyes went from angry to crafty. The boys sniggered together. That told Linden that the journeyman was either such a skilled fighter that the boys expected him to best someone larger than himself—or else he was one hell of a dirty fighter.

Linden wasn’t interested in finding out which Cotler was. Sighing, he pulled his torc of rank from beneath the neck of his tunic just as the journeyman’s weight shifted to his back foot.

Dirty fighter,
Linden thought contemptuously. He’d recognized the start of a kick to the groin.

One of the boys squeaked in surprise. The sight of the torc with its ruby-eyed dragons’ heads seemed to paralyze Cotler. He teetered for a moment before falling back a step to catch his balance. His face went fish-belly white and the watching boys went very still.

Only Brin moved. Smiling again now that the tension was past, the boy came to Linden and leaned against him, puppylike, the besom dangling forgotten from one hand. Cotler’s hand jerked as if to knock the boy away, then fell to his side.

Linden rested a hand on the child’s hair. “I trust there will be no problem with answering my questions now.” It was statement, not question.

“N-not at all, Your G-Grace,” Cotler stammered.

“I’m pleased to hear that, Cotler. Now—shall we step into that corner and talk?”

*   *   *

Once he’d had the fear of the gods and of Dragonlords put into him, Cotler couldn’t answer Linden’s questions fast enough. Indeed, at times the answers came so quickly it was almost impossible to make sense of the words spilling forth like a waterfall.

In a short time Linden found out from Cotler that yes, his master had taken a journey almost two years ago; that a journey wasn’t unusual, but from something Thomelin had let slip, he’d gone back to his old village and that was odd. Why odd, my lord? He used to go there often, but he since he’d brought Brin back with him from the village a few years back, he’d never gone back until that trip two years ago. Cotler had gone in his place all the other times and glad to do it even though Little Coppice is the back of nowhere.

Your Grace wishes to know if he brought anything back with him that time? Just the usual spruce for soundboards. Everyone knows the best spruce comes from Megara near Little— Wait! There was also a good-sized box on the wagon and boards of rowan wood. Anything unusual about the box—why, yes. It was also of rowan.

Linden paused to think again, Why rowan? From Rose’s description, and now Cotler’s confirmation, the box was much too large to hold an amulet. So what
was
in it that needed rowan?

The sharp rustle of cloth behind him cut Linden off before he could ask. He half turned to find a woman flanked by two boys somewhat older than Brin and a younger girl. The children were well dressed; they watched with mild curiosity. Their mother—for the kinship was plain to see in their cleft chins—frowned.

“What is the meaning of all this?” the woman asked imperiously. Despite her short stature, she somehow managed to look down her nose at Linden. But her next words were to the journeyman: “Cotler, you know better than to stand about gossiping. If the boys don’t eat now there won’t be time for them to do so before the service. And I’ll not have them go to the temple hungry; they squirm and don’t pay attention. Priest Amas was quite sharp about it a few days ago. He said it was but a small step from inattention to outright evil and I agree.”

No doubt this was why Cotler was so glad to travel in his master’s place. He saw the small gold talisman hanging from a chain from the woman’s neck: a pair of crossed flails, the symbol of the god Sarushun. But even before he’d seen it, Linden guessed what god she’d followed. Only Sarushun demanded daily devotion at his temple; every other god he knew of seemed content to wait for whatever holy days they had. If their followers had a small altar at home, well and good. If not, come to the temple when you could, and get on with living other times.

Sarushun, on the other hand, dictated every instant of his devotees’ lives. His was not a worship that attracted Linden; to him it saw wickedness in everyone and everything, while displaying precious little tolerance or forgiveness for all-too-human weaknesses.

Still, this woman had the right to worship where and how she chose, and to order her household as she saw fit. For he was certain this was her household; her manner and her fine clothes proclaimed her Thomelin’s wife.

“Mistress—?” he began, belatedly realizing he didn’t know Thomelin’s second name, or if the man even used one.

“
Lady
Romissa,” she quickly corrected, her nose inching even higher.

Ah, a noblewoman from an impoverished family, no doubt, forced by circumstances to marry a well-off artisan—and resenting the hell out of it. That explained much in her manner, and perhaps even her choice of religion.

Before Linden could speak, Cotler said, “I was merely answering some questions—”

Lady Romissa turned her dark eyes on Linden and demanded, “Questions? How dare you! You will tell me the meaning of this impertinence. Questions indeed!”

“I’m afraid that I may not reveal my reasons, Lady Romissa,” he said as pleasantly as he could bring himself to do. Though as a Dragonlord he was pledged to honor anyone’s choice of god or goddess—indeed, it had always been his natural inclination, anyway—he had little patience for the haughty attitude many of Sarushun’s votaries displayed. And the Lady Romissa seemed worse than most.

He forestalled an outburst of self-righteous indignation by turning to fully face her, his fingers touching one of the silver dragons’ heads of his torc. “I am Dragonlord Linden Rathan, my lady. May I continue? I promise I’ll not keep Cotler any longer than necessary.”

She recovered quickly from her surprise at finding one of the great weredragons of Dragonskeep in her little domain. Oh, she wanted to order him out; he could see it in the way her lips worked, the quiver in her delicately cleft chin, in her suddenly rigid stance. But she did not have quite enough nerve for it, did the good Lady Romissa.

“Boys, come with me,” she snapped. “Else we shall be late for the service.”

Linden guessed it was not by choice they went to the temple of Sarushun, but by Lady Romissa’s edict; he’d rarely seen such sullen expressions. The apprentices slouched from behind the table and passed Lady Romissa single-file. More than one shot a look of pure venom at her back as they gathered by the workroom door.

Linden suddenly remembered a comment of Lleld’s about Sarushun: “Such a sanctimonious prig, it’s a wonder his fellow gods and goddesses don’t dunk him in a rain barrel.” He barely kept the grin from his face at the sudden memory.

Brin, the simpleton, dropped the broom and started to follow. Lady Romissa rounded on him.

“Not you!” she snapped. “You’re not fit to stand before Sarushun, you who are but a badge of your mother’s disgrace!”

The boy retreated in hurt confusion. Furious, Linden beckoned him; Brin ran to the shelter of his arm and buried his face against Linden’s tunic.

“That will be all, Lady Romissa,” Linden said coldly.

She spared him a look of pure hatred, then gathered up her children and the apprentices, pointedly herding them from the pollution of his presence.

When they were gone, Cotler sighed and said, “You had more questions, Your Grace?”

“Just one. That box of rowan—what became of it?”

“I don’t know—truly, Dragonlord, I don’t. I don’t know what was in it, either. My master never told me, and it wasn’t my place to ask.” The journeyman hesitated a moment, then asked, “Is that all you wish to know, my lord? If it is, I’d best get to the temple.”

“You’re also a follower of Sarushun?” It surprised Linden; Cotler had the look of a roisterer about him.

The journeyman made a sour face. “No, my lord, none of us are, not even my master. We go because we’re made to. At least when he’s here we only have to go to the morning service, not the later ones. Plays hell with getting anything useful done in a day. Might I go now? The later I am, the more I’ll hear about it—and she’s already in a rare high dudgeon even for her.”

“My apologies for that—I’m afraid that’s because of me. Go, then.” He looked down at Brin and ruffled the boy’s hair. “I must go now, lad.” To Cotler, he said, “Will the boy be safe on his own?”

“Cook watches after him while we’re all away, Dragonlord; she and Master Thomelin are the only ones Lady Romissa’s not been able to force her will upon. Master refuses to and Cook threatens to go elsewhere.”

So Lady Romissa’s efforts at conversion had their practical limits. Linden had to hide a smile; a good cook was hard to come by. “Very well,” he said.

But when Linden made to follow Cotler out the door, Brin caught the hem of his tunic and held him back. The boy pointed urgently at a line of baskets under one of the worktables.

“He wants to show you his carvings, Your Grace,” Cotler said. “I’ll take him to Cook—”

“No, go on. I’ll have a look at these carvings and then bring him to the kitchen myself,” Linden said.

Cotler looked half grateful, half as if he would argue, then hurried away. As soon as they were alone, Brin scuttled under the table like a crab and began shoving the baskets out to slide along the wooden floor. Linden crouched down and raised the lid of the first one. But instead of the carvings he expected to see, this was filled with packets of hide glue. So was the next he looked into; the third contained boxes whose labels declared them to be dried pigments.

Puzzled, he turned to Brin. “Where are your carvings, lad?”

Brin pointed to yet another basket. But when Linden put out a hand for it, Brin caught his wrist for a moment and tugged, then pointed to the floor.

It looked like any other plank floor Linden had ever seen. Guessing, he asked, “You want me to crawl under the table with you?” The thought was not appealing; it wouldn’t be easy to fit his height under the worktable.

Brin beamed and nodded. Then he pointed to the floor near one end of the table and caught Linden’s wrist again, trying to guide his hand there. Then he made a strange gesture with his hands.

Like a dog dig
—

Realization came like a thunderclap. With growing excitement, Linden tried to push the table aside, but it was bolted to the floor. So down he went on all fours to join Brin beneath the table after all.

The boy’s fingers brushed aside a coating of sawdust and tiny wood chips and shavings, revealing a knot—or, at least, what looked like a knot at first glance. There was something not quite right about it. Linden twisted his hand in the air and brought forth a ball of coldfire.

At that, Brin made the first sound Linden had yet heard, a soft, startled grunt. His eyes were huge as he shrank back from the glowing ball.

“Don’t worry, Brin,” Linden said. “It won’t hurt you. Though it looks like fire, it’s cold. Touch it if you like.”

After a long, long look deep into Linden’s eyes, Brin stretched out a trembling forefinger and gingerly poked the coldfire. Finding that Linden’s words were true, he cooed in delight and caught the coldfire, turning it over and over in his hands. Linden conjured another ball up and held it so that its light bathed the “knot.”

Someone—Thomelin?—had removed the original knot and replaced it with one of blackened iron. It had been cleverly wrought; even if the worktable was moved, it looked so real that a casual glance would never see it. Linden wondered if the table was bolted to the floor to help insure it remained concealed.

Now Brin held out one hand, thumb down. Next he made a motion as if pressing something down. Linden held his breath, and, his own thumb resting on the false knot, mimicked the boy’s action.

The knot sank slowly under his finger. Brin nodded and made a twisting motion. Linden did the same. As he turned the knot, something clicked. He removed his thumb; the knot remained depressed. Linden hooked his forefinger into the hole and lifted. A section of floor three boards wide and a little more than an ell long came up. He set it carefully to one side.