The Robin And The Kestrel bv-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  So it was no word from "angels" that gave the three Priests "touched by the Hand of God" such detailed information on postulants_it was clever work beforetime by their fellow clergymen.

  It was quite enough to make him sick, to see all these innocent people defrauded. And how could a man who was supposed to be protecting their souls, who was supposed to be giving them good counsel, be preying on them this way?

  He left the Cathedral as disturbed as Robin had been angry the previous day. They returned to their wagon in silence; while she went back to her sales, he took refuge from his confused feelings by taking inventory of the Stars they had left, both the wall-Stars and the miniatures.

  He knew they had been doing well, but when he opened the boxes and trays they were storing the Stars in, he was shocked. It didn't take a mathematical genius to figure out that they had been doing much better than he had thought. There simply wasn't that much left to count! There was no question in his mind; if they were to continue their mission here and maintain their guise as traders, they would have to take a day or two off and make more Stars. For that, they would need more materials.

  Fortunately, just as the noon bells rang, they got a break. The ringing of the bells triggered hunger in the stomachs of those still in the square. Their customers finished their purchases and hurried towards the stalls selling hot pies and drinks, sausages, bread and cheese.

  "W-we n-need supplies," he told Robin in a soft voice, as soon as he was certain they were not being watched. "W-we've got enough f-for t-today, and th-that's all."

  She ran her hand through her hair, looking tired and distracted. "Already? Well, at least it will give us a break. Do you realize that even after our expenses we've doubled what the Ghost gave us? We could make a fortune here!"

  "Unt-t-til someone else s-starts making S-Stars and undercutting our p-p-prices," he said sharply, annoyed that she was thinking only how much money they were making and not what was happening to the poor people Padrik was defrauding.

  Or the people who are the sacrificial victims to bring him to power.

  But Robin only shrugged. "Then we'd better make money while we can," she said, philosophically. "You know what we need, so go get our supplies. You'll find the jeweler I made our bargain with easily enough, it's Master Tomas and his daughter Juli at the sign of the Three Hearts in Silver Street, and they know what you look like. They can tell you where to go to get the yarn and things. I have to stay here, you're supposed to be mute, and it's going to look odd if you start telling people prices and bargaining with them."

  She turned back to her task of hanging yarn Stars on the side of the wagon, leaving him to extract some coins from one of the little hoards in the wagon, and get off on his errand.

  He wasn't sure how to handle Robin's attitude toward all this. She seemed so callous and indifferent. The only thing that really upset her, so far as he could see, was the fact that Gypsies had imparted some of their secrets to an outsider_and not what the outsider was doing with those secrets. He simply couldn't reconcile that with the Gwyna he thought he knew.

  Silver Street, the street on which all jewelers and goldsmiths had their businesses and workshops, was not that far from the Cathedral. He met with the jeweler's daughter Juli, currently in charge of the shop, who did, in fact, remember him, and also remembered her father's promise.

  "Business has been wonderful," she said, smiling. Her smile had already erased some of the little lines of worry he'd noticed on her forehead yesterday. "And it's thanks to your lady. The other smiths haven't figured out how to make proper God-Stars yet; they've been casting them, and they just don't look the same. You might as well try to make lace by cutting holes in cloth. We stayed up all night working, father, me, and his two 'prentices, and this morning, the first thing that happened was that our best patron came to ask if we had any Star Pendants! We sold him one for every member of his family, and he commissioned a chain of them for his wife!"

  It was nice to see someone happy, for a change. And their silver and gold Stars certainly were beautifully made and impressive. The silver Stars they made were easily four times the size of the little ones that Robin turned out_but then, no one showing up at their stall would ever be able to afford a Star that size. Master Tomas' workers made the silver Stars of three different colors of silver wire, created by alloying the pure silver with different metals. The gold Stars were also made of three colors of wire_red gold, yellow gold, and white gold. Really quite beautiful enough to stay in fashion long after Padrik was gone.

  The young woman surprised him then; she and her father were so pleased with the way things had gone this morning, that she had gone out and obtained base-metal wire for Robin as well as the silver that they had promised. And she named him a price for all that was so low he saw no need to bargain. "This is at our cost," she told him, as he carefully pocketed the rolls of wire. "And I dare say that since father and I are well known here, we got you a better bargain on the base-metal than you would have on your own."

  "I m-must agree," Jonny replied; she had, especially compared to the price they'd paid for the same stuff back at that inn in the hills. "Th-thank you v-very much."

  She dimpled at him, and sent him on his way again with directions to the weavers' and lace makers' street, where he could expect to get his thread and yarn.

  While business did seem to be picking up in Silver Street, it was still not what he would call prosperous; and once he got to the area where the seamstresses, hat makers, lace makers and weavers were, the real impact of the new vogue for asceticism was only too obvious. Shops were closed, the windows empty, the doors themselves boarded up. Those remaining showed only the most sober of materials in their windows, and even so, there did not seem to be many folk here buying anything.

  Following his directions, he came to a shop_still thankfully in business_which sold not only yarn and thread, but glass beads and crystals. The woman there looked at him askance when he asked for bright colors and beads, but took him into her storeroom and told him to pick out what he wanted.

  The room was lined on all four sides with drawers; in sizes from the size of his shoe, to the size of a bread-box. One section contained embroidery thread in silk, raime, linen and wool; one contained sewing thread on spools instead of in hanks like the embroidery thread, and one contained wool yarn of varying thicknesses. A tall chest of smaller drawers contained beads, and the rest of the room was filled with racks of fabric.

  Fortunately he was limited by what he could carry, because the temptations in that back room were tremendous_especially a scarlet linen he could easily picture Robin wearing....

  Obviously the woman who owned the shop could not imagine what he was going to do with all those proscribed colors of embroidery thread, the sparkling beads, or the bright yarns, but she was too polite_or too politic_to ask.

  He paid her, and saw her eyes brighten a little as she put the coins in her cashbox. If only there was a way to help the whole city_

  But there wasn't; not short of revealing Padrik for the fraud he was. And they were certainly working on that.

  He headed back to the wagon, wondering how Robin was faring.

  The moment that Kestrel left, the vultures descended, circling in on her when they realized she was alone.

  At least, that was how Robin thought of them. Street preachers began to congregate in the vicinity of her wagon (and no one else's) when it appeared that she was alone. It was then that she noticed that of all the stall-keepers and wagon-vendors within her field of view, she was the only single female.

  And evidently single women were fair game, although they wouldn't trifle with a woman with a male in evidence.

  Some of the preachers confined themselves to looking down their noses at her, or giving her very superior looks, particularly when she made a sale. But the others were not so polite as that. They took it in turn to set up impromptu pulpits and preach, not only at the crowds coming to patronize her stall, but at her specifically.r />
  Now she heard a fourth theme to the sermonizing, a new one so far as she was concerned and one that was so clearly calculated to make her angry that she held her temper just to spite them.

  Women, according to these so-wise philosophers, were by their very nature "primitive, lascivious, and lewd." This was as God had intended, they said. Their function as childbearers made them prone to look no further than the acts that resulted in children; after all, that was what God had created for them to do. Women's bodies were created for one glorious purpose: childbearing. Women were inferior to men in all other counts; in morals, in intelligence, in the ability to reason_just as their smaller, weaker bodies made them inferior physically.

  Women were nearer to the state of the animal than the angel, said the preachers. And again, that was as it should be, God had created them to be dependent on their partners for the things they lacked. It was up to men, with their superior intellect and power of reason, to rule women, to keep their essentially corrupt natures from overcoming them.

  Men should make all decisions for a woman, the preachers proclaimed, pitching their voices to be certain that she heard every word. Men should control their every action. Women were not fit to govern themselves, and would be seduced by any creature with a soft word and a clever tongue.

  They think I'm alone, she decided, as she continued to smile, thank those who purchased, wish them well with their prayers, and outwardly ignore the preachers. They didn't do this when Kestrel was here. That's why there aren't any other women out here alone. I know what happens when one shows up. They ring her and start preaching at her before she can even turn around.

  Her blatant and blithe disregard of their words only made them redouble their efforts. And although she continued to ignore them outwardly, she was becoming very nervous.

  How long, I wonder, will it be before those words become law here? How long before women in Gradford are forbidden to practice trades, hold property, or do anything at all without the consent and guidance of a man? What had happened to the nonhumans could only too readily happen to women, and to increasingly broader types of men.

  It was happening to musicians; it had happened to mages. Once one group was eliminated, Padrik would need another group to focus on as the cause of all troubles. Why not women? There were few enough of them in power, most of whom could be eliminated easily enough.

  Why not, indeed. There was no doubt in her mind whatsoever that although Padrik had said nothing like this in his sermons, these words were his, in the mouths of the street preachers. One step at a time, that's how you get people. First you bombard them with the word from a lower source, until they come to think that it might possibly have a little merit. Then you put it in the mouth of a lower authority, so people become persuaded. Then, last of all, you put it in the mouth of the ultimate authority, and their resistance crumbles.

  In fact, some of her customers were beginning to look at her askance, as the meaning of the background hum of exhortation penetrated. She simply put on her most guileless and innocent smile, and hoped she could convince them that she had no idea that the street preachers meant their sermons for her.

  When Kestrel finally showed up, she greeted him with such enthusiasm that the customers were startled, flying to embrace him, and take some of his burdens from him.

  And as she greeted him with the words, "Husband! You're back! I don't know how I managed without you!" the preacher who had been spewing forth a particularly vehement and vituperative version of the corruption and folly of women who attempted to manage themselves alone, choked off his sermon in mid-word, coughed violently, and vanished into the crowd.

  Well, she thought with satisfaction, as Kestrel returned her enthusiastic kiss with one rather startled, but just as enthusiastic. They won't make that mistake again. I just made them look like fools.

  And they would probably hold that against her, too.

  She dealt with the remaining customers, then, before any new ones could arrive, she put the rest of the Stars away and closed up the wagon, waving off any potential customers with a smile and a cry of "come back tomorrow!" Jonny was already inside, unloading his packages, and she joined him there with a sigh of relief, closing the door behind her and lighting one lantern to relieve the gloom of the interior. The inside of the wagon was warm compared with the wind-swept square.

  Her feet throbbed with pain, and she had been more nervous beneath the steady barrage of the street preachers than she had realized. Her shoulders ached with tension, the corners of her mouth hurt from smiling so much, and she had a headache. Right now all she wanted was a hot bath, a good meal, and bed, the last with Jonny in it.

  Jonny greeted her with a smile and a hug, and went back to his work. She took the materials for the miniature Stars from him, and put them neatly away in the trays they'd used to hold the finished products. He'd managed to get turned dowel-rods for the larger Stars, and toothpicks and thin brass rods for the miniatures. After they stowed the contents of his various packages away in the wagon, they took another accounting of their stock.

  "We don't have enough for tomorrow," she said, reluctantly. "Good gods, and I thought we'd made enough Stars for a week!"

  "B-by t-tomorrow there'll b-be others out here with S-Stars," Jonny pointed out. "P-probably not the j-jewelry ones, though."

  "Which is why you concentrated on jewelry supplies; that was a good idea," she told him, standing on tiptoe to kiss his nose. "Well, I guess we're going to have to make some more stock, which means we take tomorrow off."

  "Except f-for g-going to s-see about that j-j-job," he reminded her, a slight frown on his face. "I'm n-not sure I l-like th-the idea of w-working in a H-House."

  Just what I needed. Being brought up in the Guild Hall must have made him a prude. She was exasperated, but she knew that her temper was probably more than a bit short. She decided not to say anything rather than retorting with a sarcastic comment. Which was rather a new thing for her_

  But after her brief stint as a bird, caused by flinging insults at a lascivious Priest, she had kept a closer curb on her tongue than she had even done before. It only took one painful experience for her to learn her lessons!

  Instead, she told him all about the street preachers who had surrounded her as soon as he'd left, and what they'd had to say.

  "S-sounds to m-me as if th-the next t-targets are w-women," he said when she had finished, quickly coming to the same conclusion she had.

  She nodded. "That was what I thought. And_I'm torn. The money we are making here is amazing. On the other hand, we've already learned almost everything we need_and certainly enough to warn Harperus of what's happened. If we return to him, we can warn the Free Bards and he can warn the other nonhumans. You heard what he said; I really think that given enough warning to get out, the Deliambrens can protect all the other nonhumans who care to accept that protection and themselves. I'm not sure we need to stay here...." She shivered, as the shrill rants of One of the street preachers penetrated the wooden walls of the wagon, and a chill went up her back in reaction. "I don't like it here, love," she said in a small voice. "It was a Priest that caused me all that trouble before. Padrik has all of the Church and the Bishopric here behind him. There's just the two of us. Shouldn't we leave?"

  Kestrel looked down at her, his eyes brooding in the half-light of the wagon. "Y-you w-were th-the one who w-wanted t-to find out wh-what Gypsies were helping him," he reminded her. "W-we still don't kn-know wh-why Padrik is d-doing all this_and I d-don't th-think he's even b-begun t-to fulfill his p-plans. And wh-what about th-those Gypsies? Sh-shouldn't th-they b-be dealt w-with?"

  We have responsibilities, whether you like them or not, his eyes said to her. We have to live up to those responsibilities.

  As soon as he mentioned the presumed renegades, the heat of anger began to chase away the chill of fear. And while she didn't have much use for people who were not Free Bards or Gypsies_well, this affected both those groups, intimately. She flushed, a
nd nodded. "They should," she said, firmly. "In fact, they have to be. First, I can't just report a supposition to the Gypsy Clan Leaders; I have to have proof that I'm not just speculating. And I do have to find out exactly who they are before I can bring punishment down on them. Or rather, before the Clan Leaders do. That's for them to order, not me."

  "Punishment?" Kestrel eyed her inquisitively. "Wh-what kind?"