Lark and Wren

by Mercedes Lackey

  I didn't know she was so strong, Rune thought dazedly. She must be stronger than most men. Or-maybe I've just gotten really light- She felt that way, as if she would flutter off like a leaf on the slightest wind.

  "No-" Amber forestalled her, as Topaz started for the staircase. "No, I don't think her room is going to be warm enough, and besides, I don't want her alone. We'll put her on the couch in my rooms."

  "Ah," was all that Topaz said; Amber led the way into her office, then did-something-with the wall, or an ornament on the wall. Whatever, a panel in the wall opened, and Topaz carried her into a small parlor, like Rose had in the private quarters back at the Hungry Bear. But this was nothing like Rose's parlor-it was lit with many lanterns, the air was sweet with the smell of dried herbs, the honey-scent of beeswax, and a faint hint of incense.

  But that was when things stopped making sense, for Topaz turned into Boony, and the couch she was put on was on the top of Skull Hill, and she was going to have to play for the Ghost, only Tonno was in the Ghost's robes-she tried to explain that she'd done her best to help him, but he only glared at her and motioned for her to play. She picked up her fiddle and tried to play for him, but her fingers wouldn't work, and she started to cry; the wind blew leaves into her face so she couldn't see, and she couldn't hear, either-

  And she was so very, very cold.

  She began to cry, and couldn't stop.

  Someone was singing, very near at hand. She opened gritty, sore eyes in an aching head to see who it was, for the song was so strange, less like a song than a chant, and yet it held elements of both. It was nothing she recognized, and yet she thought she heard something familiar in the wailing cadences.

  There was a tall, strong-looking old woman sitting beside her, a woman wearing what could only be a Gypsy costume, but far more elaborate than anything Rune had ever seen the Gypsies wear. Besides her voluminous, multicolored skirts and bright blouse, the woman had a shawl embroidered with figures that seemed to move and dance every time she breathed, and a vast set of necklaces loaded with charms carved of every conceivable substance. They all seemed to represent animals and birds; Rune saw mother-of-pearl sparrows, obsidian bears, carnelian fish, turquoise foxes, all strung on row after row of tiny shell beads. The woman looked down at her and nodded, but did not stop her chanting for a moment.

  Everything hurt; head, joints, throat-she was alternately freezing and burning. She closed her eyes to rest them, and opened them again when she felt a cold hand on her forehead. Amber was looking down at her with an expression of deep concern on her face. She tried to say something, but she couldn't get her mouth to work, and the mere effort was exhausting. She closed her eyes again.

  She felt herself floating, away from the pain, and she let it happen. When her aching body was just a distant memory, she opened her eyes, to find that she was somewhere up above her body, looking down at it.

  Amber was gone, but the strange Gypsy woman was back again, sitting in the corner, chanting quietly. Rune realized then that she felt the chanting; the song wove a kind of net about her that kept her from floating off somewhere. As she watched, with an oddly dispassionate detachment, Pearl and Diamond entered the room; Pearl carrying a large bowl of something that steamed which she set down on the hearth, Diamond with a tray of food she set down beside the Gypsy.

  Diamond kept glancing at the Gypsy out of the corner of her eye. "That's not one of the Guild Herb-women," she said finally to Pearl, as she moved a little away.

  "No," Pearl confirmed. "No, this is someone Amber knows. How?" Pearl shrugged expressively. "Amber has many friends. Often strange. Look at us!"

  Diamond didn't echo Pearl's little chuckle. "Ruby says she's elf-touched," the young woman said with a shiver. "Ruby says she's a witch, and elf-touched."

  Pearl shook her head. "She may be, for all I know. The Gypsies, the musicians, they know many strange creatures."

  "Not like this," Diamond objected. "Not elf-touched! That's perilous close to heresy where I come from." She shuddered. "Have you ever seen what the Church does to heretics, and those who shelter them? I have. And I don't ever want to see it again."

  Pearl cocked her head to one side, as if amused by Diamond's fear. "We-my people-we have old women and old men like her; they serve the villages in many ways, as healers of the sick, as speakers-to-the-Others, and as magicians to keep away the dark things that swim to the surface of the sea at the full moon. She deserves respect, I would say, but not fear."

  "If you say so," Diamond said dubiously. "Is she-I mean, is Rune-" She cast a glance at the couch where Rune lay wrapped in a cocoon of blankets, her face as pale as the snow outside, with the same fever-spots of bright red that Tonno had on his cheeks.

  "Yes," Pearl replied with absolute certainty. "She has told Amber that the girl will live, and if she makes such a pledge, she will keep it. Such as she is cannot lie-"

  Rune would have liked to listen to more-in fact, she would have liked to see if she couldn't float off into another room and see what was going on there-but at that moment the old woman seemed to notice that she was up there. The tone of her chant took on a new sharpness, and the words changed, and Rune found herself being pulled back down into the body on the couch. She tried resisting, but it was no use.

  Once back in her body, all she could think of was Tonno, and once again she began crying, feebly, for all the things she had not done.

  Her head hurt, horribly, and her joints still ached, but she wasn't so awfully cold, and she didn't feel as if she was floating around anymore. She felt very solidly anchored inside her body, actually. She opened her eyes experimentally.

  Maddie was sitting in the chair where the old woman had been sitting, working on her mending. Rune coughed; Maddie looked up, and grinned when she saw that Rune was awake.

  "Well! Are you back with us again?" the girl said cheerfully.

  Rune tested her throat, found it still sore, and just nodded.

  "Hang on a moment," Maddie told her, and put her mending away. She went over to the hearth, where there was a kettle on the hob beside the steaming bowl of herbs-herbs that smelled very like the ones Brother Anders had used for Tonno. That-it seemed as if it had happened years ago-

  Something had happened to her grief while she slept. It was still with her, but no longer so sharp.

  Maddie picked up the kettle and poured a mug of something, bringing it over to the couch. Rune managed to free an arm from her wrappings to take it. Her hand shook, and the mug felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds, but she managed to drink the contents without spilling much.

  It was some kind of herb tea, heavily dosed with honey, and it eased the soreness in her throat wonderfully.

  "What happened?" she said, grateful beyond words to hear her voice come out as a whispered version of her own, and not a fever-scorched croak.

  "Well," Maddie said, sitting herself down in the chair again. "You made a very dramatic entrance, that's for certain. Nighthawk said that she thinks you got pneumonia-Nighthawk's the Gypsy-witch Amber knows that treats us all for things the Guild Herb-women can't. Anyway, Nighthawk says you got pneumonia, but that your voice is going to be all right, so don't worry. It's just that you're going to be all winter recovering, so don't think you can go jumping out of bed to sing."

  "Oh," Rune said vaguely. "What-what am I doing here?" She gestured at Amber's neat little parlor, in which she was the only discordant note.

  "Amber says you're staying here where we can all keep an eye on you until you stop having fevers," Maddie said fiercely-and something in her voice told Rune that her recovery hadn't been nearly as matter-of-fact as Maddie made it out to be. "Then you can go back to your room, but you're going to stay in bed most of the time until spring. That's orders from Amber."

  "But-" Rune began.

  "That's orders from Amber," Maddie repeated. And the tone of her voice said that it was no use protesting or arguing. "And she says you're not to worry about what all this is costing. Or ab
out the fact that you're not playing in the common room for your keep. You've been part of Amber's for more than a year, and Amber takes care of her people."

  Rune nodded, meekly, but when Maddie finally left, she lay back among her pillows and tried to figure out exactly why Amber was doing all this for her. It wasn't as if this was the same set of circumstances as when she'd nursed Tonno-

  -or was it?

  She fell asleep trying to puzzle it all out, without much success.

  She dreamed of Jib; dreamed of the Hungry Bear. Like her, he was two years older-but unlike her, he was still doing exactly the same things as he'd been two years ago. Still playing stable-hand and general dogsbody. His life hadn't altered in the slightest from when she'd left, and she was struck with the gloomy certainty that it never would, unless fate took an unexpected hand.

  She woke again to near-darkness; the only light was from the banked fire. There was another full mug on a little table beside her, this time with doctored apple cider in it. She sipped it and stared into the coals for a long time, wondering how much of her dream was reality and how much was her fever-dreams.

  What was going to happen to Jib? He'd been her friend, her only friend, and she'd run off without even a good-bye. She hadn't ever worried about what was going to happen to him with her gone. Was he all right? Had the bullies found something better to do, or were they still making his life a torment?

  Was he satisfied? How could he be? How could anyone be satisfied in the position he held? It was all right for a boy, but no job for a man. But unless something changed for him, that was what he'd be all his life. Someone's flunky.

  Now she remembered what he'd wanted to do, back in the long-ago days when they'd traded dreams. He'd wanted to be a horse-trader; a modest enough ambition, and one he could probably do well at if he stuck to the kind of horses he had experience with. Farm-stock, donkeys, rough cobs-sturdy beasts, not highly bred, but what farmers and simple traders needed. Jib knew beasts like that; could tell a good one from a bad one, a bargain from a doctored beast that was about to break down.

  She tried to tell herself that what happened to him wasn't her responsibility, but if that was true, then it was also true that what happened to her was not Amber's responsibility. Yet Amber was caring for her.

  Jib was old enough to take care of himself.

  Well, that was true-but Jib had no way to get himself out of the rut he was in. He had no talent at all, except that of working well with animals. If he went somewhere else, he'd only be doing the same work in a different place. Would that be better or not? And would he even think of doing so? She knew from her own experience how hard it was to break ties and go, when things where you were at the moment were only uncomfortable, not unbearable. It was easy to tell yourself that they'd get better, eventually.

  She fell asleep again, feeling vaguely bothered by yet more guilt. If only there was something she could have done to help him. . . .

  Weak, early-spring sunshine reflected off the wall of the House across from her window, and she had the window open a crack just for the sake of the fresh air. She'd been allowed out of bed, finally, two weeks ago; she still spent a lot of time in her room, reading. Even a simple trip down to the common room tended to make her legs wobbly. But she persisted; whether she was ready or not, she would have to make Midsummer Faire this year, and the trials. For her own sake, and for the sake of Tonno's memory.

  If only she didn't owe Amber so much. . . . Her indebtedness troubled her, as it did not seem to trouble Amber. But at the least, before she left, Rune had determined to walk the length and breadth of Nolton, listening to buskers and talking to them, to find Amber a replacement musician for the common room. That wouldn't cancel the debt, but it would ease it, a little.

  "Rune?" Maddie tapped on the half-open door to her room; Rune looked up from the book she was reading. It was one of Tonno's, but she'd never seen fit to inform the Church that she had it, and no one had ever come asking after it. She had a number of books here that had been Tonno's, and she wasn't going to give them back until someone came for them. She reasoned that she could always use her illness as an excuse to cover why she had never done so.

  She smiled at Maddie, who returned it a little nervously. "There's a visitor below," she said, and the tone of her voice made Rune sit up a little straighter. "It's a Priest. He wants to see you. He was with Amber for a while and she said it was all right for him to talk to you-but if you don't want to, Rune-"

  She sighed, exasperated. "Oh, it's probably just about the books I have from the shop. The greedy pigs probably want them back." She tugged at her hair and brushed down her shabby breeches and shirt. "Do I look like a boy, or a girl?"

  Maddie put her head to one side and considered. "More like a girl, actually."

  "Damn. Oh well, it can't be helped. You might as well bring him up." She gritted her teeth together. He would show up now, when she was just getting strong enough to enjoy reading.

  Maddie vanished, and a few moments later, heavy footsteps following her light ones up the kitchen stairs heralded the arrival of her visitor.

  Rune came very near to chuckling at the disgruntled look on the Priest's face. Bad enough to have to come to a brothel to collect part of an estate-worse that he was taken up the back stairs to do so, like a servant.

  That's one for you, Tonno, she thought, keeping the smile off her lips somehow. A small one, but there it is.

  "Are you Rune of Westhaven?" the balding, thin Priest asked crossly. He was another sort like Brother Pell, but he didn't even have the Brother's love of music to leaven his bitterness. Rune nodded. She waited for him to demand the books; she was going to make him find them all, pick them up, and carry them out himself. Hopefully, down the back stairs again.

  But his next words were a complete shock.

  "Tonno Alendor left a will, filed as was proper, with the Church, and appointing Brother Bryan as executor of the estate," the Priest continued, as if every word hurt him. "In it, everything except the tithe of death-duties and death-taxes was left to you. The shop, the contents, everything."

  He glared at her, as if he wanted badly to know what she had done to "make" the old man name her as his heir. For her part, she just stared at him, gaping in surprise, unable to speak. Finally the Priest continued in an aggrieved tone.

  "Brother Bryan has found a buyer for the shop and contents, with the sole exception being a few books that Tonno mentions specifically that he wanted you to keep. Here's the list-"

  He handed it to her with the tips of his fingers, as if touching her or it might somehow contaminate him. She took it, hands shaking as she opened it. As she had expected, they were all the books Tonno had insisted she keep here, at her room.

  "If you have no objections," the Priest finished, his teeth gritted, "Brother Bryan will complete the purchase. The Church will receive ten percent as death-tithe. He, as executor, will receive another ten percent. City death-taxes are a remaining ten percent. You will receive the bulk of the moneys from the sale. It won't be much," he finished, taking an acid delight in imparting that bad news. "The shop is in a bad location, and the contents are a jumble of used merchandise, mostly curiosities, and hard to dispose of. But Brother Bryan will have your moneys delivered here at the conclusion of the sale, and take care of the death-duties himself. Unless you have something else from the shop you would like to keep as a memorial-piece." Again he pursed his lips sourly. "The value of that piece, will, of course, be pro-rated against your share."

  She thought quickly, then shook her head. There was nothing there that she wanted. Everything in the shop would be forever tainted with the horrid memories of Tonno's sickness and unnecessary death. Let someone else take it, someone for whom the place would have no such memories. Not even the instruments would be of any use; she could only play fiddle and lute, and Tonno had sold the last of those months ago, during the height of summer.

  The Priest took himself out, leaving her still dazed.
<
br />   She didn't know what to think. How much money was "not very much"? Assuming that Brother Bryan only got a fraction of what the contents of the shop were worth-and she did not doubt that he would drive a very hard bargain indeed, both for her sake, and the Church's-that was still more money than she had ever had in her life. What was she to do with it? It beggared the pouch full of silver she'd gotten from the Ghost. . . .

  She fell asleep, still trying to comprehend it.

  This time, her dreams about Jib were troubled. He was plainly unhappy; scorned by the villagers, abused by Stara, ordered about by everyone. And yet, he had nowhere to go. He had no money saved, no prospects-

  The village toughs still bullied him, and without Rune to protect him, he often sported bruises or a black eye. They laughed at him for being a coward, but what was he to do? If he fought them, they'd only hurt him further or complain that he had picked the fight, not they. They never came at him by ones or twos, only in a gang.

  He'd had an offer from a horse-trader a month ago, an honest man who had been stopping at the Bear for as long as Jib could recall-if he had some money, the man would let him buy into the string and learn the business, eventually to take it over when the trader settled down to breeding. That was the answer to his prayers-but he had no money. The trader would keep the offer open as long as he could, but how long would he wait? A year? More? No matter how long he waited, Jib would still never have it. He got no pay; he'd get no pay for as long as Stara was holding the purse-strings. If he went elsewhere, he might earn pay in addition to his keep, but only if he could produce a good reference, and Stara would never let Jeoff give him one if he left.

  He worked his endless round of chores with despair his constant companion. . . .

  Rune woke with a start. And she knew at that moment exactly what she was going to do.