Lark and Wren

by Mercedes Lackey

It could be the weather; there was more than enough to brood over in the weather. After weeks of dry, sunny days, their streak of good luck had finally broken, drowning the Allendale Faire in three days of dripping, sullen rain.

  But they'd gotten around that; they'd succeeded in finding a cook-tent big enough to give them a bit of performing room, and they'd done reasonably well, monetarily speaking, despite the weather.

  The rain had kept away all the wealthy Guildmasters and the three Sires that lived within riding distance, however. Perhaps that was the problem. They'd made no progress towards finding a wintering-over spot, and she sensed that made Talaysen nervous. At the next several large Faires, he had told her soberly, they could expect to encounter Guild musicians, Journeymen looking for permanent places for themselves. And they could encounter toughs hired by the Guild, either to "teach them a lesson" or to keep them from taking hire with one of the Sires for the winter.

  One thing was certain, and only one; she was just as out-of-sorts as he was, but her mood had nothing to do with the weather or the state of their combined purse. She knew precisely why she was restless and unhappy. Talaysen. If this was love, it was damned uncomfortable. It wasn't lust, or rather, it wasn't lust alone-she was quite familiar with the way that felt.

  The problem was, Talaysen didn't seem inclined to do anything to relieve her problem, despite all the hints she'd thrown out. And she'd thrown plenty, too. The only thing she hadn't tried was to strip stark naked and creep into his bedroll after he fell asleep.

  Drat the man, anyway! Was he made of marble?

  She trudged along behind him, watching his back from under her dripping hat-brim. Why didn't he respond to her?

  It must be me, she finally decided, her mood of frustration turning to one of depression, as the rain cooled her temper and she started thinking of all the logical reasons why he hadn't been responding. Obviously, he could have anyone he wanted. Gwyna, for instance. And she's not like me; she's adorable. Me, I'm too tall, too bony, and I can still pass for a boy any time I choose. He just doesn't have any interest in me at all, and I guess I can't blame him. She sighed. The clouds chose that moment to double the amount of rain they were dropping on the two Bards' heads, so that they were walking in their own road-sized waterfall.

  She tallied up her numerous defects, and compared herself with the flower of the Free Bard feminine contingent, and came to the even more depressing conclusion that she not only wasn't in the running, she wasn't even in the race when it came to attracting her Master in any way other than intellectually. And even then-the Free Bards were anything but stupid. Any of the bright lovelies wearing the brotherhood's ribbons could match witticisms with Talaysen and hold her own.

  I don't have a prayer. I might as well give up.

  Depression turned to despondency; fueled by the miserable weather, she sank deep inside herself and took refuge in composing the lyrics to songs of unrequited love, each one worse and more trite than the one before it. Brother Pell would have had a fit.

  She stayed uncharacteristically silent all morning; when they stopped for a brief, soggy lunch, she couldn't even raise her spirits enough to respond when he finally did venture a comment or two. He must have sensed that it would be better to leave her alone, for that was what he did, addressing her only when it was necessary to actually tell her something, and otherwise leaving her to her own version of brooding.

  On the the fifteenth repeat of rhyming "death" with "breath," she noticed that Talaysen had slowed, and was looking about for something.

  "What's the matter?" she asked dully.

  "We're going to have to stop somewhere for the night," he said, the worry evident in his voice, although she couldn't see his expression under his dripping, drooping hat brim. "I'm trying to find some place with at least a little shelter-however small that may be."

  "Oh." She took herself mentally by the scruff of the neck and shook herself. Being really useful, Rune. Why don't you at least try to contribute something to this effort, hmm? "What did you have in mind?" she asked.

  He shrugged-at least, that was what she guessed the movement under his rain-cape and pack meant. "I'd like a cave, but that's asking for a bit much around here."

  She had to agree with him there. This area was sandy and hilly, rather than rocky and hilly. Not a good area for caves-and if they found one, say, under the roots of a tree, it would probably already have a tenant. She was not interested in debating occupancy with bears, badgers or skunks.

  "Let's just keep walking," she said, finally. "If we don't find anything by the time the light starts to fade, maybe we can make a lean-to against a fallen tree, or something. . . ."

  "Good enough," he replied, sounding just as depressed as she was. "You watch the right-hand side of the track, I'll watch the left."

  They trudged on through the downpour without coming to anything that had any promise for long enough that Rune was just about ready to suggest that they not stop, that they continue on through the night. But it would be easy to get off the track in weather like this, and once tangled in the underbrush, they might not be able to find their way back to the road until daylight. If there was anything worse than spending a night huddled inside a drippy lean-to wrapped in a rain-cape, it was spending it caught in a wild plum thicket while the rain beat down on you unhindered even by leaves.

  Meanwhile, her thoughts ran on in the same depressing circle. Talaysen was tired of her; that was what it was. He was tired of his promise to teach her, tired of her company, and he didn't know how to tell her. He wanted to be rid of her. Not that she blamed him; it would be much easier for him to find that wintering-over place with only himself to worry about. And if that failed, it would be very much harder for him to make the winter circuit with an inexperienced girl in tow.

  He must be bored with her by now, too. She wasn't very entertaining, she wasn't city-bred, she didn't know anything about the Courts that she hadn't picked up from Tonno-and that was precious little.

  And he must be disgusted with her as well. The way she'd been shamelessly throwing herself at him-he was used to ladies, not tavern-wenches. Ill-mannered and coarse, a country peasant despite her learning. Too ugly even to think about, too.

  She felt a lump of self-pity rising in her throat and didn't even try to swallow it down. Too ugly, too tall, too stupid-the litany ran around and around in her thoughts, and made the lump expand until it filled her entire throat and made it hard to swallow. It overflowed into her eyes, and tears joined the rain that was leaking through her hat and running down her face. Her eyes blurred, and she rubbed the back of her cold hand across them. They blurred so much, in fact, that she almost missed the little path and half-ruined gateposts leading away from the road.

  Almost.

  She sniffed and wiped her eyes again hastily. "Master Wren!" she croaked around the lump in her throat. He stopped, turned. "There!" she said, pointing, and hoping he didn't notice her tear-marred face. She was under no illusions about what she looked like when she cried: awful. Blotchy face and swollen eyes; red nose.

  He looked where she pointed. "Huh," he said, sounding surprised. "I don't remember that there before."

  "It looks like there might have been a farmhouse there a while back," she said, inanely stating the obvious. "Maybe you didn't notice it because the last time you were through here you weren't looking for a place to shelter in."

  "If there's a single wall standing, it'll be better than what we have now," he replied, wearily. "If there's two, we can put something over them. If there's even a corner of roof, I'll send Ardis a donation for her charities the next time we reach a village with a Priest."

  He set off towards the forlorn little gate; she followed. As overgrown as that path looked, there wasn't going to be enough room for them to walk in anything other than single file.

  It was worse than it looked; the plants actually seemed to reach out to them, to tangle them, to send out snags to trip them up and thorns to rake across their eyes.<
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  The deeper they went, the worse it got. Finally Rune pulled the knife from her belt, and started to hack at the vegetation with it.

  To her surprise, the going improved after that; evidently there was point of bottleneck, and then the growth wasn't nearly so tangled. The bushes stopped reaching for them; the trees stopped fighting them. Within a few moments, they broke free of the undergrowth, into what was left of the clearing that had surrounded the little house.

  There was actually something left of the house. More than they had hoped, certainly. Although vines crawled in and out of the windows, the door and shutters were gone entirely, and there was a tree growing right through the roof, there were still walls and a good portion of the roof remaining, perhaps because the back of it had been built into the hill behind it.

  They crossed the clearing, stepped over a line of mushrooms ringing the house, and entered. There was enough light coming in for them to see-and hear-that the place was relatively dry, except in the area of the tree. Talaysen got out his tinderbox and made a light with a splinter of wood.

  "Dirt floor-at least it isn't mud." Rune fumbled out a rushlight and handed it to him; he lit it at his splinter. In the brighter flare of illumination, she saw that the floor was covered with a litter of dead leaves and less identifiable objects, including a scattering of small, roundish objects and some white splatters. Talaysen leaned down to poke one, and came up with a mouse-skull.

  He grinned back at Rune, teeth shining whitely from under his hat brim. "At least we won't have to worry about vermin. Provided you don't mind sharing your quarters with an owl."

  "I'd share this place with worse than an owl if it's dry," she replied more sharply than she intended. Then she laughed, in a shaky attempt to cover it. "Let's see what we can do about putting together someplace to sleep. Away from where the owl is. I can do without getting decorated with castings and mutes."

  "Why Rune, we could set a whole new fashion," Talaysen teased, his good humor evidently restored. He stuck the rushlight up on what was left of a rock shelf at the back of the house, and they set about clearing a space to bed down in.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "There," Rune said, setting her makeshift broom of broken branches aside. "That's as clean as it's going to get." She made a face at the piled debris on the other side of the ash tree; there had been too much garbage to simply sweep out the door.

  "That's clean enough," Talaysen told her, from where he knelt just under the window, striking his flint and steel together as he had been the entire time she'd been sweeping. He had a knack for fires that she didn't; making a fire from sparks was a lot harder than village-folk (or especially city-folk) realized. "Now if I can just-there!"

  He blew frantically at the little pile of dry leaves and shavings in front of him, and was rewarded this time with a glow, and then with a tiny flame. Carefully sheltering it from an errant breeze, he fed it with tiny twigs, then branches, then finally built a real fire with wood scavenged from the cottage's interior about his core-blaze. Just as well, as it was definitely getting darker outside. Hopefully the smoke would go out the window, and not decide to fill the cottage. The chimney of this place was choked with birds' nests and other trash.

  Rune took a look around, now that she had more light to see by. This hadn't been a big farmhouse; one room, with a tiny loft just under the roof for sleeping. But the inside looked very odd for a place gone to ruin, and she puzzled over it as Talaysen picked up wood, trying to figure it out.

  Then she had it: the cottage had been abandoned in a hurry. Nothing had been taken, not even the smallest stool. The wood that Talaysen was collecting had come from wrecked furniture. The doors and windows had been forced-but forced out, not in, and the shutters over the windows had been smashed at about the same time. Something got in here, then smashed its way out. But what could have been strong enough to do that-and nasty enough to keep the owner from coming back for his goods? She felt a chill finger of fear trace a line down the back of her neck. . . .

  But then she shrugged and turned her attention to setting up their "camp." Whatever had done this was long gone, and not likely to return; there was no sign that anything had been living here except the owl.

  He handed their nesting cook-pot and kettle to her; she dug out the dried meat and vegetables and the canister of herb tea. It was Talaysen's turn to cook, while she spread out the sleeping rolls and went to get water.

  Well, that wouldn't be hard. There was a lot of water available right now.

  She stuck the kettle, then the pot, out the window, holding them under the stream of water coming off the eaves. After all the rain they'd been having, the roof was surely clean. As clean as most streams, anyway. The presence of the owl probably kept birds from perching on the roof by day, and there wasn't much else that would matter.

  Already it was hard to see across the clearing. She was profoundly grateful that they'd found this bit of shelter when they had. Now they'd be able to have a hot meal, warm and dry their clothing by the fire, check their instruments, maybe even practice a little.

  As if he had followed her thoughts, Talaysen looked up from his cooking. "Get my lute out, will you, Rune? I think it's warm and dry enough in here that it won't come to any harm."

  She nodded, and took the instrument out of its oiled-leather case, inspecting it carefully for any signs that the rain or damp might have gotten to it. Satisfied that it was untouched, she laid it on his unrolled bedding and did the same with her fiddle.

  Like any good musician, she made a detailed examination of both instruments. So detailed, in fact, that by the time she was finished, the food and tea were both ready. She dug into her own portion with a nod of thanks, a little surprised at how hungry she was. The food evaporated from her wooden bowl, and she mopped every last trace of juice up with a piece of tough traveler's bread. The bowl hardly needed to be washed after she was through, and Talaysen's was just as clean.

  Once they had finished eating, Talaysen was not to give her any time to brood over the thoughts that had caused her depression today, either. Instead, he insisted that they rehearse a number of songs she was only vaguely familiar with.

  Odd, she thought, after the first few. He seemed to have chosen them all for subject-matter rather than style-every single one of them was about young women who were married off to old men and disappointed in the result. In a great many of the songs, they cuckolded their husbands with younger lovers; in the rest, they mourned their fates, shackled for life to a man whose prowess was long in the past. Sometimes the songs were comic, sometimes tragic, but in all of them the women were unhappy.

  After about the fifth or sixth of these, she wondered if he was trying to tell her something. After the fifteenth, she was certain of it. And despite the message, she grew more and more cheerful with every chorus.

  He had noticed how she'd been flinging herself at him! And this wasn't the reaction she'd been thinking he'd had to her. Was the message in these ballads that he was attracted, but thought he was too old to make her happy? It surely seemed likely.

  Where did he get an idea like that? He wasn't that much older than she was! Girls in Westhaven got married to men his age all the time-usually after they'd worn out their first wives with work and childbearing, and were ready for a pretty young thing to warm their beds at night. Oh, at thirty-mumble, if he had been a fat merchant, or an even fatter Guild Bard, maybe she'd have been repulsed . . . but it would have been the overstuffed condition of his body that would have come between them, not his age.

  At first she was too startled by what she thought he was trying to tell her to act on it-then, after a moment of reflection, she decided she'd better not do anything until she'd had a chance to plan her course of attack. She held her peace, and played the dutiful apprentice, keeping her thoughts to herself until they were both too tired to play another note. By then, the fire was burning low, and she was glad to creep into her now-warmed blankets.

  But although she
intended to ponder all the possible meanings of the practice session, though she did her best to hold off sleep, it overtook her anyway.

  There. I think I've gotten my message across. Talaysen put his lute back in its case with a feeling of weary, and slightly bitter, satisfaction. Hopefully now his young apprentice would think about what she was doing, and stop making calf's-eyes at him.

  What he was going to do about the way he felt was another matter altogether.

  Suffer, mostly.

  Eventually, though, he figured that he would be able to convince himself that their relationship of friendship was enough. After all, it was enough with all the other Free Bard women he'd known.

  Maybe he could have another brief fling with Nightingale to get the thought of Rune out of his head. Nightingale had yet to find the creature that would capture her heart, but she enjoyed an amorous romp as well as anyone.

  At least he'd given Rune something to think about. And the next time they met up with one of the gypsy caravans or another gathering of Free Bards, she'd start looking around her for someone her age. That should solve the problem entirely. Once he saw her playing the young fool with all the other young fools, his heart would stop aching for her.

  He looked down at her sleeping face for a moment, all soft shadows and fire-kissed angles. Maybe I shouldn't have been so hard on Raven, he thought, dispiritedly. Maybe I should have encouraged him. He was one of her teachers before; he knows her better than I do. They might get on very well together. . . .

  But though the idea of Rune with another was all right in the abstract, once he gave the idea a face, it wrenched his heart so painfully that his breath caught.

  Dear God, I am a fool.

  He slipped inside his own bedroll, certain that he was going to toss and turn for the rest of the night-

  Only to fall asleep so quickly he might have been taken with a spell of slumber.

  It was the sound of a harp being played that woke him; he found himself, not lying in his bedroll in the tiny, earthen-floored cottage, but standing on his feet in the middle of a luxuriously green field. Overhead was not a sky filled with rain clouds-not even a sky at all-but a rocky vault studded with tiny, unwinking lights and a great silver globe that shone softly down on the gathering around him.