Bard's Oath (Dragonlord)

by Joanne Bertin

  “And a bard can’t inherit a title.” Raven remembered his great-uncle Otter telling him that when he was young. At the time, Raven hadn’t thought it was fair. But his great-uncle had reminded him that a bard had to be neutral, it was part of the oath they took—and you couldn’t be neutral if you were tied to a manor or farm or whatever. It made sense to him now.

  “Just so. Old Rade married again—he had to or the title would’ve gone to a cousin he detested. He married a girl from the weaver hall he founded in one of the villages on his lands. Everyone thought him a foolish, besotted old man whose head was turned by a beautiful girl.”

  The Beast Healer fell silent. Raven waited, wondering if there was more.

  After a time, Gunnis went on, “Agon and his sister, Romissa, were the children of Rade’s old age. One of the older servants once told me that the old man was fair tickled that he sired a son and daughter so late in life. He doted on them, the boy in particular. Then something happened, I don’t know what, and he threatened to disown them. But he died before he could do so. Perhaps this is how Agon is repaying him for trying to cast him and his sister aside. His father must be weeping in his grave over those horses.” Gunnis shook his head. “Sad—very sad.”

  A pall settled over Raven’s good mood, but lifted at the Beast Healer’s next words.

  “Still, I think he’d rather the horses be with someone who’ll treasure them as I know your aunt will. Some things are worth more than gold,” Gunnis said.

  “Don’t worry—my aunt already treasures them above the Hoard of Lanresh,” Raven said, naming a greedy, long-ago Kelnethi king whose lost treasure hoard was the stuff of legend.

  “I know. That will ease the old man’s heart wherever he is in the Summerlands. That, and knowing they’ll be bred to this fellow,” Gunnis said, tilting his head at Stormwind. “The old lord probably would’ve sold every one of his own offspring for such a chance!” he finished with a chuckle.

  Stormwind tossed his head, sending his heavy grey mane flying. He arched his neck and pranced. Bouncer barked gaily at him, wagging his tail.

  Raven laughed at the dog. “So tell me—are there any Beast Healers with horses for brothers-in-fur?” he asked, imagining a Llysanyin as one. That’s what he’d have wanted if he’d been a Beast Healer. “I’ve only seen a dog or a cat as a familiar.”

  “Oh, yes, there are a few. There are also various birds, rabbits, ferrets, a fox or two—all kinds of animals. At my chapterhouse there’s even a girl with a woods dog—what you northern Yerrins call a ghulon—for her brother-in-fur.”

  Raven gaped at him. A ghulon? The shy, badgerlike creatures were known for their fierce tempers and incredible strength; even a bear would think twice, thrice, and many times more before stealing a ghulon’s meal. “Good gods!”

  “That,” replied Gunnis dryly, “was what a number of us said, too. When it wasn’t something much worse, that is. Come to think of it, it was your friend, Dragonlord Linden Rathan, and one of our Beast Healers, Conor, that gave her the name Pod—”

  He broke off at the sight that greeted them as they rounded a bend. A fair distance down the road a group of riders circled two small figures huddled in the dust. Raven could hear faint weeping. Now and again one of the riders would dart in and turn aside just short of riding down the youngsters. Jeers greeted each terrified shriek.

  Raven’s first thought was bandits toying with their victims; he half-drew his sword. Then he saw that they were too well dressed and well mounted. Young nobles bored and looking for amusement at someone else’s expense, the sods.

  “Bloody little—” Raven snarled in frustration as he slammed his sword back into its sheath. If only they’d been bandits.…

  “That’s Teasel and Speedwell!” Gunnis gasped. “Reed’s fosterlings!”

  Even as he spoke, a gap opened in the circle. Teasel grabbed her little brother’s hand, hauled him to his feet, and dashed toward the opening and safety in the gorse bushes beyond the edge of the road.

  But a scarlet-and-blue-clad rider was suddenly before them, cutting them off. One booted foot kicked out and Teasel fell to the ground on top of her brother.

  With a scream of rage the Llysanyin broke into a run even before Raven’s signal. As they raced down the road, Raven shouted at the attackers. He heard a yelling Gunnis following as fast as his horse could run. But no ordinary horse could keep up with a Llysanyin; the Beast Healer and his baying familiar were soon left behind.

  But it seemed the attackers had heard Bouncer. The one who had knocked Teasel down reined his horse around in a tight circle and called to his friends. They lined up across the road, facing the oncoming Raven.

  “Such a hero, plowboy!” the scarlet-and-blue-clad man called mockingly through cupped hands. “Are you going to spank us?”

  But well before he reached them, one of the men pointed past Raven and cried out. The line broke and they raced off, heading for the crossroads and the road south that led to Kelneth.

  Of course; they’d seen the Beast Healer’s tunic of brown and green. No, they wouldn’t want a witness such as Gunnis testifying against them, the cowards.

  Swearing in frustration, Raven pulled Stormwind to a stop by the two children. “Are you hurt?” he asked as he jumped down from the saddle. “Let me see.”

  Teasel, a thin trickle of blood running down her cheek, shook her head. “Never mind! Get them! Get them before they get into Kelneth!”

  Gunnis rode up. “That was Lord Tirael, wasn’t it?” he asked in the tired voice of one who already knew the answer.

  “It was,” Speedwell sniffled as Bouncer nosed him, whining anxiously. “He’s a rotter, he is.”

  Raven turned to Gunnis. “You know him?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Tirael Barans, son of Lord Portis of Cassori and a cousin of Lord Lenslee from just over the border. And he is, as young Speedwell says, a rotter,” said Gunnis as he dismounted. “As are his friends.”

  “They scared off our ponies,” Speedwell added as if this was the ultimate proof of villainy.

  Raven thought Gunnis was about to say more, but with a look at the shaken children, the Beast Healer pressed his lips together. He knelt in the dusty road before Teasel.

  “This,” he scolded as he examined the thin cut on Teasel’s face, “is what happens when you give your tutors the slip and go riding by yourselves.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said with downcast eyes; Speedwell asked, “How did you know?”

  “Hmph!” was the Beast Healer’s only answer. He opened his scrip of medicines. Taking a clean cloth and a small flask of herbal wash, he bathed Teasel’s cheek. She grimaced against the sting but held still.

  When he was done tending to the children, Raven beckoned him aside. “Will Reed seek justice, do you think? I got a fairly good look at most of them. I think I’d be able to recognize them if they were brought before the Shire Mote.”

  Gunnis shook his head. “They’ll be long over the border before anything can be done—they’re all Kelnethi or Cassorin. Reed may be the shire reeve but his arm doesn’t stretch beyond Yerrih’s border.

  “Yet if that bunch have half the wits of a sausage amongst the lot of ’em, they’ll find somewhere else to play their foul little games for a good long while. Reed won’t forget—or forgive—this.”

  Raven rubbed the back of his neck. “Hmm, yes. Reed has a long memory. But even he can’t keep up that kind of watch forever.”

  “And in time the outrage will fade like Teasel’s bruises because it was no worse than that,” Gunnis said with a heavy sigh. “Thank the gods,” he hastened to add.

  Raven didn’t want to think about what might have happened if he and Gunnis hadn’t come along. “So they’ve done something like this before?”

  “Gods, yes! And worse. How do you think I know so much about them? A bunch of bullies—and pretty Lord Tirael is the worst of ’em all.”

  And nothing could be done about it. That rankled. Raven caught up Storm
wind’s reins. “I’ll go round up the ponies.”

  He stood a moment before mounting, looking down the road, remembering the blood trickling down Teasel’s cheek. Done this before, have you? May I be there the day this all catches up with you. Then he swung back into the saddle and set off pony hunting.

  * * *

  Dunric of Appington urged his horse up alongside Tirael’s. “Do you think there’ll be trouble over this, Tir?”

  “From who?” Tirael scoffed, brushing the hair back from his brow. “Who’d take the word of two brats against ours?”

  “What about the Beast Healer? Think he got a good enough look at us?” Dunric persisted uneasily.

  Tirael shook his head. “I doubt it; I think that Ulris saw him in time. Besides, the plowboy was between him and us. Stop worrying, Dun.”

  Dunric tugged at his ear, frowning. “The plow—? Oh, him. Why do you say he was a plowboy? I don’t think that horse was—”

  “Oh dear gods! Can’t you tell a plow horse when you see one, you ignorant oaf? Didn’t you see the feathers on its legs? That was just a Shamreen draft horse some fool was riding.” Tirael laughed in derision, then drawled, “If you’re going to be a nervous granny, Dunric, go somewhere else so you don’t bore me.”

  Dunric fell back, feeling his face burn. “Still,” he muttered under his breath, “that ‘plow horse’ was damned fast.”

  One

  The following spring in Pelnar

  The Dragonlords came to the inn after a miserable day of riding in the rain. Water pooled among the cobblestones of the yard between inn and stable; the earth was so sodden it had nowhere to go.

  Linden swung down from Shan and stepped right into a puddle. Brown water lapped over his boot toes. He sighed in resignation; it wasn’t as if his boots—and Maurynna’s and Shima’s—weren’t already soaked through, but still … He heard Maurynna’s disgusted “Feh!” and knew she’d done the same.

  “Gods, but I’m sick of this rain,” she said. “If we don’t dry out soon, we’re going to turn into fishes.”

  Shima pushed back the hood of his cloak a little. “I don’t think I’ve seen as much rain in my entire life as we’ve had in the last tenday. I’m glad we’re stopping so early in the day.” He looked up at the leaden sky and grimaced. “If this keeps up, I’m going back to my desert in Nisayeh!”

  Even the Llysanyins looked disgusted as the little party waited for the grooms. The three stallions stood morosely, water dripping from the ends of their noses.

  “Hopefully it will end in the next day or so and we can wait out the rain here,” Linden said, eyeing the inn.

  It was a large one, and—to him—new, being only about fifty years or so old. Though he’d never had occasion to travel this particular route since the first timbers had gone up for the Gyrfalcon’s Nest, other Dragonlords had. “Damned fine ale,” Brock Hatussin, another Yerrin like Linden, had reported. “Even better wine and cider. Good food and plenty of it. And best of all, not only are the beds clean, they’re long enough for a Yerrin or a Thalnian.”

  For which I will thank the gods, Linden thought. Both he and Maurynna were fed up. The last few inns where they’d stopped, they’d had to sleep curled up like hedgehogs to keep their feet from hanging over the ends of the beds.

  Thinking that the grooms might not have realized that more travelers had arrived, he led the way toward the stable. “I’d really like to get inside and dry out as quickly as possible,” he said to his Llysanyin, Shan. “Will you go with the grooms when they come? Brock said that they know their business.”

  Shan snapped at a raindrop. Linden knew the stallion was as annoyed as he was with the turn the weather had taken a tenday ago. Before that, their journey from the College of Healers’ Gift in Pelnar had been pure pleasure. Up in the crispness of dawn, a leisurely ride in the morning coolness, then a long midday halt to avoid the worst of the summer heat, followed by another easy ride and a stop at an inn or a night spent under the stars: a traveler’s delight. Everyone had enjoyed it—until the cursed rain started.

  As they neared the stable door, it opened and a man bustled out, followed by two smaller figures so swaddled in their cloaks it was impossible to tell their age or sex.

  “Sorry, m’lords and lady,” the man said cheerfully, peering nearsightedly at them through the curtain of rain. “But a large party arrived a bit ahead of you and we’ve just finished with their animals. Luckily we’ve enough room left for your horses.” He beamed at each of them in turn.

  One potential disaster averted, thank the gods; Linden knew if Shan had to spend another night outdoors, he’d make sure Linden would be in for a bad time the next morning. He tossed the reins to the nearest groom. “Behave yourself,” he whispered to Shan.

  Shan slapped him with his tail as he passed, then danced out of reach and calmly followed the groom. Boreal and Je’nihahn snorted in amusement as they followed.

  “One of these days,” Linden muttered as he turned toward the inn. “One of these days…”

  “Let’s get inside and dry off,” Maurynna said. “Then I want something hot to eat and drink. I’m starving and I swear the wet has gotten into my bones. Heat spells just aren’t enough anymore.”

  “I just hope this town we’re going to is worth it,” Shima grumbled.

  “Hmm—I’m not so certain the town is worth it, but the horse fair certainly is,” Linden said.

  “Isn’t that where the fair is?”

  “No. It’s close to it, though. There’s the Balyaranna Fair outside the royal town of Balyaranna, where Balyaranna Castle sits. The grounds that the fair is held on belong to Lord Sevrynel and are part of his holding, the Honor of Rockfall.”

  “So why isn’t this the Rockfall Fair?” Shima wanted to know.

  “Because it takes its name from Balyaranna Spring in the Honor of Rockfall,” Linden said with a grin.

  Shima threw his hands up in mock exasperation as they turned the corner to the front of the timbered building. Linden pushed open the heavy oaken door.

  A swell of warmth and rich, savory aromas washed over them as they paused on the threshold. Linden’s stomach growled in anticipation. Stepping inside, his first impression was of wall-to-wall people and a constellation’s worth of rushlights. Maurynna and Shima followed, the latter turning to close the door behind them.

  Linden took a few steps into the common room and pushed back the hood of his cloak, as did Maurynna. He surveyed the scene before them.

  There weren’t quite as many people as he’d first thought, but the inn was certainly crowded; there was barely room to turn around. Many looked to be merchants, dressed well but not richly. They sat with their heads close together in conversation. Their clerks sat nearby, some jotting figures on tally boards, most playing dice or other games, a few looking bored unto death. One and all, the well-to-do merchants and their assistants ignored their lesser brethren, the peddlers, as the latter moved among the other patrons.

  These were peasants dressed in homespun. Some of them sat in a corner with a peddler as they pored over wares spread upon a cloth on the floor. There was even a red-and-yellow-clad minstrel at one table, listening intently to two men and a woman dressed in hunting leathers. A group of peasant women sat off to one side; judging by the gales of laughter and the knowing looks, Linden guessed their husbands and lovers might not be pleased with the tales making the rounds. A few of the women looked him up and down and smiled a welcome. Then their gazes went to Maurynna standing by him. Next came a good-humored, resigned shrug and they turned back to their friends.

  But merchant, peasant, peddler, farmer, or the gods only knew what, they all had one thing in common: All talked at the top of their lungs. The noise in the common room was well-nigh deafening.

  Shima joined them now. He still wore his hood pulled low over his face and kept his hands hidden inside his cloak, thank all the gods. Linden and Maurynna had found it was no use trying to pass as truehumans when Shima was with th
em. One look at his dark, honey-colored skin and long, arrow-straight black hair, and anyone with half his wits knew he wasn’t of the Five Kingdoms or even from Assantik. Worse yet, too many folk also knew by now that there was only one such man in the Five Kingdoms—and they well knew that he was a Dragonlord, one of the great weredragons that held a rank equal with any king or queen.

  Linden sighed. If only Otter hadn’t written that song about our mission to Jehanglan.…

  Shima muttered, “Is there a quieter room we can go to? It’s too hot to stay bundled up like this, but you know what will happen if I drop my hood.”

  Linden nodded. They knew all too well: instant, uncomfortable silence. But the serving girls were too busy to notice them and he couldn’t tell where the two doorways at the far end of the room led; the last place they wanted to wander into was a busy kitchen.

  Then the right-hand door swung open; before it shut again, Linden caught a glimpse of the kitchen as a portly woman sailed through. Weaving a path through the crowd, she came up to them.

  “Good day, Dragonlords, and welcome to the Gyrfalcon’s Nest,” she said quietly. “I’m Elidiane Tunly, one of the owners of this inn, and at your service. I’m sure that you’d prefer a bit of privacy, so please follow me if you will.” She turned and started off.

  Linden blinked. A quick glance told him that Shima was still hidden within the folds of his cloak. He caught up to her. “How did—?”

  “My husband. Watkin, my lord. You met him outside.” She looked back at them, her brown eyes alight with amusement. “We’ve had Dragonlords here before, Your Graces, so Wat knows what a Llysanyin looks like. That there were no bits on the bridles clinched it. He sent our son to warn me.”

  She led them through the other door and into a quiet hallway. As soon as the door closed behind them, Shima tossed back his hood with a sigh of relief. “That’s better. I hate the smell of damp wool—too much like having a wet dog in your face.”

  Four more doors lined this hall, two on each side, and the murmur of voices and muted laughter could be heard behind them. These were the private rooms where travelers who did not care for the hubbub of the common room—and could afford it—might dine and take their ease.