The Robin and the Kestrel

by Mercedes Lackey

  Once again she lit the tiny charcoal stove, and waited for the place to warm up. The interior of the caravan was well-planned as far as usable space went. Their bed was in the front, just behind the driver's seat, and the door there slid sideways rather than swinging open, so that someone could lie on the bed and talk to the driver while the wagon moved down the road. And on warm nights, a curtain could be pulled across the opened door, giving privacy and fresh air. A second curtain could be pulled across the other side of the bed, giving privacy from the rest of the wagon. It was possible to sleep four, in a pinch; an ingenious table and bench arrangement on the right-hand wall under the side window could be made into a bed just wide enough for two. But the arrangement would not be good for long periods, unless the people in that bed were children.

  There was storage for their clothing under the bed, more storage above it. The stove was bolted away from the wall in the rear beside the rear door, and had a cooking surface on the top of it. Storage for food was nearby and their pans and utensils hung from the ceiling above it. There were small windows surrounded by shallow storage cabinets on either wall, where they kept everything else they needed, from instruments to harness-repair kits. The table and benches, bolted to the wall and floor, were beneath the right-hand window, and a built-in basin above a huge jar for fresh water with a spigot on the bottom, were beneath the left-hand window. The basin could be removed from its holder, to be emptied out the window or filled from the jar.

  Harperus' suggestion of hot food was a good one. How long had it been since they'd eaten? Certainly not since noon.

  Still shivering, she made the simplest possible hot meal, toasting thick slices of bread and melting cheese over the top of them—and putting a kettle for tea on top of the stove. The activity kept her from feeling too cold, and by the time Kestrel returned, the wagon had begun to warm.

  "I—got the h-horses—put up," Kestrel told her, as she stripped his sodden clothing from him and wrapped him in a thick robe made from the same material as their blankets. "And f-fed."

  "Good—here, eat this, you'll feel better." She put a slice of toast-and-cheese in his left hand and a mug of tea well-sweetened with honey in his right. With a smile of gratitude, he started on both. "And next time, I can put the horses up and you can make dinner."

  "D-done," he agreed, as he joined her on the bed.

  "Thank goodness Harperus came along," she sighed. "We'd still be out there if he hadn't."

  Jonny nodded. "I've n-never seen a D-Deliambren before. Are th-they all like h-him? So c-courteous?"

  "Most of them." She sipped her tea, carefully; it was not that far from being scalding. "All of them would stop to help someone they knew, and most would stop to help a stranger. They can afford to. With their magic, there aren't too many people who would be a threat to them."

  "Ah." He shifted a little more, and tucked his feet in under his robe. "I w-was w-wondering if they all are so—so—d-d-detached."

  "As if Harperus is always observing the rest of the world without really being part of it?" she asked in reply, and at his nod, she pursed her lips. "They really are pretty much all like that," she told him. "All the Deliambrens I've met, anyway. They just don't understand our emotions, but they're completely fascinated by them. I think that's why they enjoy being around the Free Bards and the Gypsies. They like to hear the songs that we sing that are full of very powerful emotions, and they like to watch the emotional reactions of our listeners. It seems to be a never-ending source of entertainment for them."

  Kestrel made a face of distaste. "L-like we're s-some kind of b-bug."

  "No, not at all," she hastened to tell him. "No, it's something like the fascination I have for watching someone blow glass. I can't do it, I don't understand it, but I love to watch. This fascination of theirs gets them in trouble too—they are very apt to go running off into a bad situation just because it looks interesting. Wren had to pull Harperus out of a mob once, for instance, and another Deliambren we know nearly got disemboweled for asking one too many questions about a particular Sire's lady." She hoped Harperus had more sense than that. "It's not that they don't feel things, they just don't express them the way we do. Harperus has a very good sense of humor and tells excellent jokes—but he can't always tell when things have turned serious, and he can't always anticipate when serious things have turned deadly. They seem on the surface to be very shallow people, and I've heard some Churchmen call them 'soul-less' because of that."

  Kestrel's expression grew thoughtful. "Th-the things the Church is s-saying, about th-the n-nonhumans? H-having no souls? And b-being d-damned?"

  "Could be very, very dangerous for the Deliambrens," she said, catching his meaning. "And they don't even realize it. They have no idea how very emotional people can be when it comes to religion, and how irrational that can make them."

  Kestrel finished his bread, took the last sip of his tea, and put the mug down on one of the little shelves built above the foot of the bed. "M-maybe. And m-maybe he d-d-does. He asked you t-to listen for r-rumors."

  She licked her lips thoughtfully, then nodded, as a sudden flash of lightning illuminated the cracks around the doors and the shutters. The thunder followed immediately, deafening them both for a moment.

  "You might be right," she admitted. "If so, it may be the first time he's been able to figure out when he's treading on dangerous emotional ground! But—"

  "It c-can wait unt-til tomorrow," Kestrel said firmly, and took her mug away from her. He put it down beside his own, and then took her in his arms. "I m-may be t-tired, b-but I h-have other p-plans."

  And he proceeded to show her what those plans were.

  Afterwards, they were so exhausted that not even the pounding rain, the thunder, or the brilliant lightning could keep them awake.

  Jonny woke first, as usual; he poked his nose out from under the blankets and took an experimental sniff of the chill air.

  Clear, clean air, but one without a lot of moisture in it. Maybe the rain had cleared off?

  He opened up one eye, and pulled back the curtain over the door by the bed. Sunlight poured through the crack, and as he freed his head from the bedclothes, he heard a bird singing madly. Probably a foolish jay, with no notion that it should have gone south by now. He smiled, let the curtain fall, and closed his eyes again.

  In a few more minutes, Robin stirred, right on schedule. She cracked her eye open, muttered something unintelligible about the birds, and slowly, painfully, opened her eyes completely. Jonny grinned and stretched. Another day had begun.

  He crawled past Robin, who muttered and curled up in the blankets. She was never able to wake up properly, so he was the one who made breakfast; he got the stove going and made sausage, tea, and batter-cakes, while she slowly unwound from the blankets. He ate first, then cleaned himself and the tiny kitchen up while she ate. And about the time her breakfast was finished, Robin was capable of speaking coherently. About the time she finished her second mug of tea, the cartwright arrived.

  Kestrel left her to clean herself up, and joined the cartwright in the clear and rain-washed morning.

  There was no sign of life in Harperus' wagon, but it was entirely possible that the Deliambren and his guest were up and about long ago; there was enough room in there for six or eight people to set up full-time housekeeping. Certainly it was possible for Harperus to be doing anything up to and including carpentry in that behemoth without any trace of activity to an outside watcher.

  The cartwright was a taciturn individual, although not sullen; he seemed simply to be unwilling to part with too many words. Clearly another Gypsy by his dark hair and olive skin, his scarlet shirt and leather breeches, he nodded a friendly greeting as Jonny waved to him. "Free Bard Kestrel?" he asked, then crawled under the wagon without anything more than waiting for Kestrel's affirmative reply. He had brought a number of small tools with him; he took off the protective enclosure on the offending axle while Kestrel watched with interest. He studied the
situation, with no comment or expression on his dark face, then replaced the cover and crawled back out.

  "Right," he said then. "Cracked axle. Not bad. Start now, done by nightfall. Fifty silver; good axle is thirty, ten each for me and Crackle."

  Robin poked her head out of the wagon as he finished, and Kestrel blanched at the price of the repair. They had it; had it, and a nice nest-egg to spare, but all the years of abject poverty made Kestrel extremely reluctant to part with any money, much less this much. He looked to Robin for advice. Was this fair, or was the man gouging them?

  Robin shrugged. "It's a fair price," she said. "An axle has to be made of lathe-turned, kiln-dried oronwood, and the nearest oronwood stand that I know of is on the other side of Kingsford."

  The cartwright (whose name Kestrel still did not know) nodded, respect in his eyes, presumably that Robin was so well-informed. Kestrel sighed, but only to himself. There would be no bargaining here.

  "G-go ahead," he said, trying not to let the words choke him.

  The cartwright nodded and strode briskly off down the lane towards the cluster of buildings at the front of the Waymeet, presumably to get his partner, tools, and the new axle.

  "D-do we s-stay here?" he asked Robin. "Are w-we s-supposed to help?"

  "Not at that price," she replied, jumping down out of the wagon. "I heard him out here, so I locked everything up, figuring if he could start immediately, we could go wander around the Waymeet for a while, and see if there's anyone I know here. We can't do anything in the wagon while he has it up on blocks, changing out the axle."

  She reached up and locked the back door, then slipped the key in her pocket. The bird in the tree above them, who had been silent while the cartwright was prodding the wagon, burst into song, and she looked up and smiled at it.

  That smile lit up his heart and brought a smile to his lips. He reached for her hand, and she slipped it into his. "Th-there's lots of n-news t-to tell, and m-more t-to hear. L-let's at least g-go tell Gypsies and F-Free B-Bards ab-bout Wren and L-L-Lark. And th-the w-welcome to Free B-Bards in B-Birnam. Th-that's g-good news."

  "Surely," she agreed. "And we'll see if there's anything of interest to us in what the other folk here have to tell us in the way of news."

  To Robin's delight, the first people they encountered, cooking up a breakfast of sausage around their fire, were people she knew very well. It was a trio of Free Bards: Linnet, Gannet, and Blackbird. Blackbird jumped up, nearly stepping into the fire, when he spotted Robin, and rushed to hug her.

  Linnet was a tiny thing, with long, coppery-brown hair that reached almost to her ankles when she let it down. Gannet's hair was as red as flame, his milky face speckled with freckles; Blackbird's red-gold hair was lighter and wavy rather than curly, like Gannet's. All three had sparkling green eyes, and slight builds. They made a striking group, whether they were dressed for the road or in their performance costumes.

  She made the introductions hastily; none of the trio had ever seen Jonny or even heard of him, so far as she knew.

  "Linnet is flute, Gannet is drum, and Blackbird is a mandolin player," she told him, concluding the introduction. "Kestrel is a harpist, and he's learning lute—"

  "Well, if Master Wren declared he's one of us, that's good enough for me," Blackbird declared. "No other qualifications needed. Now, we heard there was some kind of to-do over in Birnam—but how did you end up mixed in it, and how did you end up wedded?"

  She glanced over at Kestrel, who shrugged, and settled down on one of the logs arranged as seats around the open fire. "Finish your meal and we'll see if we can't get it all sorted out for you," she said, following his example. "We've already eaten, so go right ahead."

  Jonny didn't say a great deal, but he did interject a word or phrase now and again; enough that it didn't look as if she was doing all the talking. Linnet and her two partners kept mostly quiet, although by their eyes, they were intensely excited by the whole story. They passed sausages and bread to each other, and filled tea-mugs, without their gazes ever leaving the faces of the two tale-tellers.

  "—and then, well, it was just a matter of getting wedded," Robin concluded.

  Kestrel grinned wryly. "And s-so p-p-publicly that K-King R-Rolend c-couldn't th-think I w-was g-going to b-back out of my p-p-pledge. S-s-so here w-we are."

  "Lark and Wren are still in Birnam, and King Rolend made Wren his Bard Laurel, so he said to pass the word that Free Bards are welcome in any place in Birnam," Robin added. "That's the biggest news, really. Apparently the Bardic Guild in Birnam was one of the biggest benefactors of the old King's spendthrift ways, and they are not happy with Rolend."

  "And th-the f-f-feeling is m-mutual," Jonny pointed out. "Th-things th-that Wren w-wants, he's h-happy t-to g-give. P-politely th-thumbing his n-nose at the G-G-Guild."

  "Like the right for any musician to work anywhere, and take anyone's pay, at least in Birnam." Gwyna made no secret of her satisfaction, and the other three looked so satisfied that Robin wondered if they had been having trouble finding a wintering-over spot.

  "Well, that's the best news I've had since the Kingsford Faire!" Linnet exclaimed. She glanced over at her two partners, who nodded. "I think the situation in Birnam is well worth crossing those damned fens, even at this late in the year. We haven't found a single wintering-over job, and we've been looking since the first Harvest Faire."

  Robin blinked in surprise at that, as Gannet carefully poured the last of the tea-water over the fire, putting it out. Steam hissed up from the coals and blew away in the light breeze. "That's odd," she said carefully.

  "Odd? It's a disaster!" Blackbird never had been one to mince words. "No one will take us. There's Guild musicians in every one of the taverns we've wintered over in before. The innkeepers just shrug and wish us well—elsewhere. They won't tell us why they hired Guild when they couldn't afford Guild before, and they won't tell us why they don't want us, when the Guild musicians aren't as good as we are."

  But Gannet looked up with shadows in his dark eyes. "Got a guess," he offered. "Just now put it together—been a lot of Priests around, preaching on morality. We're a trio."

  Robin shook her head, baffled, but Linnet put her hand to her mouth. "Oh!" she exclaimed, looking stricken. "I never thought of that! We're—" she blushed, a startling crimson. "We've always shared a room, you see—"

  Robin grimaced. "If the Church Priests are going around the inns, threatening to cause trouble if there are 'immoral people' there, you three would be right at the top of their list, wouldn't you?"

  "I never thought it necessary to announce that we're siblings every time we ask for a job," Blackbird said, with icy anger. "It doesn't exactly have anything to do with music."

  "Well, maybe it does now," Gannet said, his jaw clenched. "Church's poking its nose into our lives, time we went on the defensive, maybe—"

  "Or time we went into Birnam, where we don't have to make excuses, just music," Linnet said firmly. "No, I don't like running away any more than anyone else, but the Church scares me. It's too big to fight, and too big to hide from."

  She stood up and shook out her skirts decisively. "If they decide not to believe that we're siblings, we have no way of proving that we are!" she continued. "And for that matter, a nasty-minded Churchman can make nasty assumptions even if they accept our word! Call me a coward, but there it is."

  Gannet rose, nodding, as Robin and Kestrel got to their feet, leaving only Blackbird sitting. He stared up at them, stubbornly, for a long moment. Then he finally sighed and rose to his feet as well.

  "We're too good a trio to break up," he said, with an unhappy shake of his head. "I think you're overreacting, but if it makes the two of you happy to head for Birnam, then that's where we'll go."

  Robin let out the breath she had been holding. "I think you're being wise," she said. "It's just a feeling I have, but—well, incest is punishable, too, and the punishments are pretty horrible. It might be worse for Church Priests to know you
are related, and sharing a room."

  "Better to be safe," Linnet said, with a twitch of her skirts that told Robin that she was not just nervous, she was actually a little afraid, and had been the moment that Gannet mentioned the Church.

  And that was not like Linnet.

  Not at all.

  Something had frightened her, something she hadn't even told her brothers. Threats from some representative of the Church?

  Or some Priest deciding he liked her looks and promising trouble if she wouldn't become his mistress. It had happened to Robin, and the trouble had come. Small wonder Linnet would rather leave the country than come under Church scrutiny again. Robin would make the same choice, in her place.

  She and Kestrel found several more Gypsies, and two more Free Bards, besides a round dozen wandering players who were not associated with either the Guild or the Free Bards. To all of them she passed the news that any musician was welcome to play wherever he could find work in the Kingdom of Birnam. Some of the ordinary musicians were interested, most were not—but they were folk who had a regular circuit of tiny inns, local dances and festivals, and very small Faires. They had places to play that no Guild musician would touch with a barge-pole, and while the living that they eked out was bare by her standards, it was enough for them.

  The Free Bards were, like Linnet, very interested in her news, and had similar tales of finding Guild musicians—or, at least, musicians in Guild badges—playing in the venues where no Guildsman had ever played before.

  But it was not until they found another musician who was Doth a Gypsy and a Free Bard that they had anything like an answer to the question of why this was happening.

  The ethereal strains of a harp drew Kestrel across the clearing and into the deeper forest beyond the immediate confines of the Waymeet. Dead leaves crackled underfoot, and the scent of tannin rose at his every step. This was no simple song; this was the kind of wild, strange, dream-haunted melody that some of the Gypsies played—though Robin never would, claiming she had no talent for what she called adastera music. She said it was as much magic as music, and told him it was reputed to have the power to control spirits and souls, to raise ghosts and set them to rest again.