Vanyel found himself smiling. "Gladly, Rolf." He started to pick his way across the wagon to the door at the rear, but the man stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"Not just yet, laddybuck. As I was startin' to tell you, I got a few pieces I don't put out. Keep 'em for Bards. And I got a few more I don't even show to just any Bard - but bein' as you are who you are - an' since they say you got a right fine hand with an instrument -" He opened up a hatch in the floor of the crowded wagon, and began pulling out instruments packed in beautifully wrought padded leather traveling bags. Two lutes, a harp - and three instruments vaguely gittern-shaped, but-much larger.
Rolf began stripping the cases from his treasures with swift and practiced hands, and Vanyel knew that he had found what he was looking for. The lutes-which were the first cases he opened-bore the same relationship to the instruments on the wall as a printed broadside page bears to an elegant and masterfully calligraphed and ornamented proclamation.
He took the first, of a dark wood that glowed deep red where the light from the open door struck it, tightened a string, and sounded a note, listening to the resonances.
"For you, or for someone else?"
"Someone else," he said, listening to the note gently die away in the heart of the lute.
"High voice or low?"
"High now, but I think he may turn out to be a baritone when his voice changes. He's my nephew; he's Gifted, and he is going to be a fine Bard one day."
"Try the other. That one is fine for a voice that don't need any help, it's loud, as lutes go - and all the harmonics are low. The other's better for a young voice, got harmonics up and down, and a nice, easy action. That one he'd have to grow into. The other'll grow with him."
Vanyel looked up in surprise at the old man.
Rolf gave him a half-smile. "A good craftsman knows how his work fits in the world," he said. "I got no voice, but I got the ear. Truth is, the ear is harder to find than the voice. Though I doubt you'd find a Bard who'd agree."
Vanyel nodded, and picked up the second lute, this one of wood the gold of raival leaves in autumn. He tightened a string and sounded it; the note throbbed through the wagon, achingly true. He tried the action on the neck; easy, but not mushy.
"You were right," he said, holding the chosen instrument out to the luthier. "I'll take it. No haggling." He looked wistfully over at the other. "And if I didn't already have a lute I love like an old friend. ..."
Rolf waggled his bushy eyebrows, and grinned, as he took the golden lute from Vanyel and began carefully replacing it in its bag. "Care to try a friend of a new breed?" He nodded at the gittern-shaped objects.
"Well . . . what are those things?"
"Something new. Been trying gitterns with metal strings, 'stead of gut; you tell me how it came out." He laid the chosen lute carefully down on his bunk, and stripped the case from the first of the gitterns. "I keep 'em tuned; this one is a fair bitch to demonstrate if I don't. Hoping to get to Haven one day, show 'em to the Collegium Bards."
"Great good gods." Vanyel's jaw dropped. “Twelve strings? I should say"
"Fingers like a gittern. That one's like it; the other has six. Use metal harpstrings."
Vanyel took it carefully, and struck a chord -
It rang like a bell, sang like an angel in flight, and hung in the air forever, pulsing to the beat of his heart.
He closed his eyes as it died away, lost in the sound; and when he opened them, he saw Rolf grinning at him like a fiend.
"You," he said, sternly, "are a terrible man, Rolf Dawson."
"Oh, I know," the old man chortled. "It don't hurt that the inside of this wagon's tuned, too. That's one reason why them student lutes sound as good as they do. But that lady'll sound good in a privy."
"Well, I hope you're prepared to work your fingers to the bone," Vanyel replied, snatching up the leather case and carefully encasing his gittern. "Because when I take her back to Haven and Bard Breda hears her, she will send packs of dogs out to find you and bring you there!"
Rolf chuckled even harder. "Why d'you think I pulled her out and had you try her? You're going to do half my work for me, Herald Vanyel. With you t'speak for me, an' that lady, I won't spend three, four fortnights coolin' my heels with the other luthiers, waitin' my turn to see a Collegium Bard"
Vanyel had to chuckle himself. "You are a very terrible man. Now - you might as well tell me the worst."
"Which is?"
He felt a twinge for his once-full purse. Well, what else did he have to spend money on? "How much I owe you."
Vanyel shut the door to his room behind him, and set his back against it, breathing the first easy breath he'd taken since he left his chamber this morning. "Gods!" he gasped. "Sanctuary at last! Hello, Medren. Oh, you brought wine-thank you, I need it badly."
The boy looked up from tuning the new strings on his new lute. Giving it to him had given Vanyel one of the few moments of unsullied joy he'd had lately, a reaction worth ten times what Vanyel had paid.
Medren grinned. "Mother?"
"That was this morning," Vanyel replied, pushing away from the door, heading for the table beside the window seat and the cool flask of wine Medren had brought. "I swear, she chased me all over the keep, with stars in her eyes and the hunt in her blood."
Poor Melenna. Gods. She's driving me insane, but I can't bring myself to hurt her. I've been the cause of so much hurt, I can't bear any more.
"And lust in her -"
"Medren!" Vanyel interrupted. "That's your mother you're slandering!"
"- heart," the boy finished smoothly. "What did you do?"
"I took a bath," Vanyel replied puckishly. "I took a very long bath. When I finally came out, she'd given up."
"So who was chasing you this time, if it wasn't Mother?"
"Lord Withen. On the Great Sheep Debate. Meke wants to keep the sheep on Long Meadow until spring shearing; Father wants yearling cattle back there immediately, if not sooner." Vanyel groaned, and held both hands to his head. "If it wasn't for the fact that once this door is shut they leave me alone-gods, the Border was more peaceful!"
Water droplets beaded the side of the flask and ran down the sides as Vanyel picked it up. "Whoever gets you as protege will bless you for your thoughtfulness, lad." He poured himself a goblet of wine, and took it with him to sip while he stood over Medren at the window seat. No breath of air stirred without or within, and even the birds seemed to have gone into sun-warmed naps. "That instrument still as much to your liking?"
Medren nodded emphatically, if with a somewhat preoccupied expression. He was tuning the last string, a frown of concentration making his young face look adult.
Vanyel warmed inside, as he picked up his own lute.
It takes so little to make the child so happy - and gods, the talent.
"Well, then," he said, laying a hand on the boy's shoulder, "Ready for your les - "
The boy winced away from the light touch on his shoulder. Not in emotional reaction - but in physical pain.
Vanyel snatched his hand away as if it had been a red-hot iron he'd inadvertently set on the bare skin of the boy's back. "Medren! What did I-"
"It's all right," the boy said, and shrugged-which called up another grimace of pain. "Just-old Jervis reckoned we all ought to see how you could trick somebody into dropping his shield and then come in overhand. Guess who got to be the victim." His tone was so bitter Vanyel could taste it in the back of his own mouth. “Like always."
The blur of the blade coming for him, always coming for him; the weight of the shield on his arm getting heavier by the moment. The shock of each blow that he couldn't dodge; shock first and then pain. Breath burning in lungs, side aching with bruises; cramps knotting his calves. Stumbling backward, head reeling, vision clouding.
"Van?"
Cold sweat down his back and the taste of blood in his mouth. Bitter, absolute humiliation. Metallic taste of hate and fear.
"Hey, Vanyel-are you all right?"
>
Vanyel shook his head to clear it, and locked down his own agitation as best he could, but the memories were crowding in on him so vividly he was almost reliving that moment so many years ago when Jervis finally got him in a corner he couldn't escape.
"I'm all right." His left arm began to ache, and he massaged the arm and wrist, reflexively. It still aches, after all these years. I still have numb fingers. Oh, gods, not Medren.
"We could skip the lesson," he began, with carefully suppressed emotion.
"No!" Medren exclaimed, clutching the lute to his chest and jumping to his feet. "No, it's nothing! Really! I'm fine!"
"If you're sure," Vanyel said, wondering how much of that was bravado on the boy's part.
"I'm sure. I got some horse-liniment, I'd have rubbed it on right after, but I didn't want to stink up your room.'' The boy grinned half-heartedly and sat down again, his eyes anxious.
"I've got something better than that - if you aren't afraid I'll seduce you!"
The boy made an impudent face at him. "You had your chance, Vanyel. What's this stuff you got? I don't mind telling you my shoulder hurts like blazes."
"Willow and wormwood in ointment, with mint to make it smell reasonable. I always have some." He put his lute down and leaned over to rummage in the chest at the foot of his bed. "I'm one of those people who bruise just thinking about it. Get your shirt off, would you?"
When he turned around with the little jar in his hand, the boy had stripped to the waist, revealing a nasty bruise the size of his hand spreading all over the left shoulder. It was an ugly thing; purple the next thing to black in the center, blue-gray and red mottled through it.
Crack like lightning striking as the shield split. Sudden darkness, dizziness. Waking to Lissa's anxious face, and a pain in his left arm that sent the blackness to take him again.
"Good gods!"
Medren shrugged with one shoulder. "I bruise that way. Looks worse than it is, I guess. Young Mekeal took one just as hard and you can't hardly see a mark on him." He looked longingly at the pot of salve. "Vanyel, you going to stand there and stare all day, or use that stuff?"
"I'm sorry, Medren." He shook off his shock; got several fingersful of the ointment, and began to massage it as gently as possible into the bruised area, working his way from the edges inward. The boy hissed with pain at first, then gradually relaxed.
Vanyel, on the other hand, was profoundly disturbed, and growing tenser by the moment, his own shoulder muscles knotting up like snarled harpstrings. Gods, what can I do? Damned if I'll let Jervis ruin Medren the way he ruined me - but how? If I force a confrontation, he'll only take it out on Medren. If I take him on myself - gods, I do not trust my temper, not with that old bastard. Not with the hair-trigger I've got right now. He'd make one wrong move, or say something at the wrong time - and I'd kill him before I could stop myself. What can I do? What can I do?
"Lady Bright," the boy sighed. "I feel like I got a shoulder again, instead of a piece of pounded meat."
"Medren, is there any way you can avoid practices until you're safely out of here?" Vanyel asked.
Medren considered a moment. "Now and again," he said, slowly. "Not on a regular basis."
"Are you sure?” Vanyel pursued, urgently. "Isn't there any place you can hide?"
"Not since they opened up the back of the library. Anyplace I go, they'll find me, eventually. Isn't there anything you can do?"
Vanyel shook his head with bitter regret. "I wish there were. I can't think of anything at the moment. I'll work on it; if there's a way out for you, I'll find it. Look, avoid him as much as you can. Try and stay out of his line-of-sight when you can't avoid the practices. If he doesn't actually see you in front of him, sometimes you can manage to keep from becoming his target for the day."
Medren sighed, and shrugged his shirt back on. "All right. If that's all I can do, that's all I can do." He twisted his head around and gave Vanyel a slightly pained grin. "At least you believe me. You even sound like you know what I'm going through."
Vanyel stared at the wall, but what he was seeing was not wood panels, but a thin, undersized boy being used as an object upon which a surly ex - mercenary could vent his spleen. "I do, Medren," he replied slowly, a cold lump settling just under his heart. "Believe me, I do."
Vanyel was more than happy to see his Aunt Savil's serene, beaky face again. And was glad he'd decided to ride out and meet her. It was a lot easier to tell her what had been going on without wondering who was going to overhear.
". . .so that's the state of things," Vanyel concluded, Yfandes matching her pace to Savil's taller Companion. "The only real problems-other than the fact that Lineas and Baires could go for each other's throats any day - is Medren. Melenna I can avoid. The Great Sheep Debate is going to go on until the sheep are gone from Long Meadow. Father seems to have accepted Meke's breeding program, although he's got his agent out looking for an alternative to that awful stud Meke bought. But Medren - Savil, I know what you're thinking, you're thinking I'm overreacting to seeing another lad in the same position I was in. You didn't see that monster bruise he showed up with. He's not getting love-pats. That bruise was the size of my spread hand, finger-tip to thumb-tip, easily."
"Huh," Savil replied, frowning in thought.
"And to make it worse, Meke told me Jervis wants to - I quote-'go a few rounds with me.' To spar." Vanyel snorted. " 'Spar' indeed. It'll be a cold day -"
She nodded. "Probably a damned good idea to avoid him. He'll push you, Van; he'll push you all he can."
"And I've just spent the last year on the Border."
"Exactly. If he pushed you too far - well, you know that better than me. Kellan, can you and 'Fandes kindly wait until you're loose for the chatter and gossip? We're trying to have a serious briefing here."
Vanyel chuckled. :Trading stories about the muscular, young courier - types?:
:Shut up and ride.:
Vanyel caught Savil's eye, and they exchanged a look full of irony. "I can see," she said aloud, "that this is going to be a very-lively-visit."
Six
"The argument had been in full flower since Vanyel had arrived at the stable, and from all that he could tell it had evidently begun (well fertilized with invective) long before then. The stable was a good fifty paces from the keep itself, but the voices reached with unmistakable clarity well beyond the stable. The stablehands were doing their best to pretend they weren't listening, but Vanyel could all but see their ears stretching to catch the next interchange.
Havens, Savil has a strong set of lungs!
"Now listen, you stubborn old goat -"
"Stubborn!" The indignation in Withen's voice was thick enough to plow. "You're calling me stubborn? Savil, that's pot calling kettle if I ever -"
"- and provincial, hidebound, and muddle - headed to boot!"
Vanyel smothered a grin and kept the movement of the brush steady along Yfandes' glossy flank. She sighed with contentment and leaned into each stroke.
:Feel good?:
:Wonderful. All Companions should choose musicians; you have such talented hands. Speaking of which -: She flicked an ear at the open window through which Savil and Withen's argument was coming so very clearly.
:Music to my ears. If he's yelling at Aunt Savil, he can't be yelling at me. You’re looking better. Those hollows behind your withers are gone. And your coat is much healthier.: He paused for a moment to admire the shine.
:I'm recovering faster than you are.: She swung her head around to fix him with a critical blue eye. :Are you getting enough sleep?:
:If I slept any longer, I'd wake up with headaches.: He turned his mental focus up toward that open window, avoiding any more of Yfandes' questions.
The fact was, he didn't know why he was still sleeping so long, and tiring so easily. He always felt hollow, somehow, as if there were an enormous empty place inside him that he couldn't fill. But he had recovered enough that all the problems, major and minor, were starting to
make him feel restless because he couldn't do anything about them.
Other problems were starting to eat at him, too.
Shavri; I like her-too much? Gods. I must think about her and Jisa every night. I loved 'Lendel. I know I loved him. But have I let Shavri get into me deeper than I'd thought? Gods, she's Randi's lifebonded. He must be my best friend in the world next to Savil. She's one of my best friends. How can I even be thinking this? Gods, gods. Am I really even shaych? Or am I something else?
The question ate at him, more than he cared to admit.
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