Lark and Wren bv-1

by Mercedes Lackey

"Something to be said for being insignificant," she commented sardonically.

  He nodded. "At any rate, I'm quite confident that you'll be in no danger whatsoever, if you want to take these lessons. Brother Bryan told me that Brother Pell is-well, 'rather difficult to get along with,' is the way he put it. I pressed him for details, but he couldn't tell me much; I gather he has a bad temper and a sour disposition. He doesn't like much of anybody, and even someone as even-tempered as Bryan has a hard time finding good things to say about him."

  "Sounds like taking lessons from Carly," she said, with a wry twist to her mouth.

  "Perhaps," Tonno replied thoughtfully. "But there is this; Bryan said that by all reports, even of those who don't like him at all, Pell is the best composition teacher in all of Nolton."

  "Huh," Rune said thoughtfully. "I'd be willing to take lessons even from Carly if she was that good. Am I supposed to be a boy or a girl?"

  "Boy," Tonno told her firmly. "Women have very little power in the Church, at least here in Nolton, and I gather that Pell in particular despises the sex. Go as a girl, and he'll probably refuse to teach you on the grounds that you'll just go off and get married and waste his teaching." He gave her a long, level look, as he realized exactly what she'd said. "I take it that you want the lessons, then?"

  "I said I'd even take lessons from Carly if she had anything worth learning," Rune replied firmly. "When can I start?"

  She didn't feel quite so bold a few days later, as she meekly showed her pass to the Brother on watch at the cloister gate. In the year she'd been here, she'd never once been inside the huge cathedral in the center of Nolton, big enough to hold several thousand worshipers at once. In fact, she avoided it as much as possible. That wasn't too difficult, since there was no use in busking anywhere near it; the Priests and Brothers made a busker feel so uncomfortable by simply standing and staring with disapproval that it was easier to find somewhere else to play.

  It was an imposing, forbidding edifice, carved of dark stone, with thousands of sculptures all over its surface; there wasn't a single square inch that didn't hold a carving of something. Down near the base, it was ordinary people doing Good Works, and the temptations of the Evil One trying to waylay them. Farther up, there were carvings of the lives of the saints and all the temptations that they had overcome. The next level held the bliss of Paradise. The uppermost level was carved with all the varied kinds of angels, from the finger-length Etherials, to the Archangels that were three times the height of a man.

  There was a sky-piercing tower in the middle of it, carved with abstract water and cloud shapes, that held the bells that signaled the changes of the hours for everyone in the city. Inside, she had been told, it was different; not dark and foreboding at all, full of light and space-those carved walls held hundreds of tiny windows filled with glass, and most of the ones near the ground were of precious colored glass. Every saint's shrine, every statue inside had been gilded or silvered; places where the light couldn't reach were covered with banks of prayer candles. When the sun shone, or so Tonno claimed, the eye was dazzled. Even when it didn't, there were lights and reflective surfaces enough to make the interior bright as day in an open meadow.

  She hadn't cared enough to want to see it, although it was quite an attraction for visitors just to come and gawk at. Behind the cathedral was the cloister; a complex of buildings including convents for men and for women, a school, and the Church administrative offices. All that was held behind a high wall pierced with tiny gates, each guarded day and night by a Brother. Rune had never been inside those walls, and didn't know anyone who had.

  Plenty of people had been inside the cathedral though. The High Priest of Nolton was said to be a marvelous speaker, although, again, Rune couldn't have said one way or another. She hadn't cared to see him, either, though Carly went to the service he preached at as faithfully as the bells rang.

  From the little she saw outside the walls, the cloister was twice as forbidding as the cathedral, because it had none of the cathedral's ornamentation. Now that she was inside the walls, it was worse, much worse. The place looked like a prison. The buildings were carved of the same dark stone, with tiny slits for windows. It looked as if it was a place designed to keep people from escaping; Rune hoped she'd never have occasion to discover that her impression was true.

  The Brother at the gate, anonymous in his dark gray robe, directed her to go past the building immediately in front of her and take the first door she saw after that. She walked slowly across the silent, paved courtyard; nothing behind her but the wall with its small postern gate, nothing on either side of her or before her but tall, oblong buildings with tiny passages between them. Nothing green or growing anywhere, not even a weed springing up between the cobblestones. It seemed unnatural. A few robed figures crossed the courtyard ahead of her; none looked at her, no one spoke. In their dark, androgynous robes, she couldn't even tell if they were men or women.

  Once past the first building, she felt even more hemmed in and confined. How can anyone bear to live like this? she wondered. No need to look for a reason why Brother Pell was so sour; if she had to live here, she'd be just as bitter as he was.

  There was another Brother at the door of the building, sitting behind a tiny desk; once again, she showed her pass, and was directed to a second-floor room. She looked back over her shoulder for a moment as she climbed the stair; the Brother was watching her-to be certain she went where she was told? Possibly. That might be simple courtesy on the part of the Brothers. It might be something else. There was no point in speculating; she was just here for composition lessons, not anything sinister. She didn't want to stay here a moment longer than she had to. Let the Brother watch; he'd see only a young boy obeying, doing exactly what he was told.

  She opened the designated doorway and went inside. There was no one there, and nothing but one large desk and six smaller ones. She discovered that she was the first to arrive of a class of six, including her. The classroom was a tiny cubicle, narrow, with enough space for their six desks arranged two by two, with Brother Pell's large desk facing them, and behind that, a wall covered in slate.

  Brother Pell appeared last, a perfectly average man, balding slightly, with his hands tucked into the sleeves of his gray robe and a frown so firmly a part of his face that Rune could not imagine what he would look like if he ever smiled. If he had been anything other than a Brother, she would have guessed at Scholar or clerk; he had that kind of tight-lipped look.

  There was a nagging sense of familiarity about him; after a moment, she knew what it was. She had seen this man often, out on the street, ever since the ordinance against pseudo-buskers had been passed. Presumably he was one of the inspectors. And now that she thought about it, she realized that there were a great many more Brothers and Sisters out on the street since the ordinance had been passed. Interesting; she had never thought of them as being inspectors, but it made sense. The inspectors were being paid very little, about the same as a lamp-lighter or a dung-sweeper. Unless you had no other job, it wasn't one you'd think of taking. A few of the real buskers had become inspectors by day, and did their busking at night. But Church clerics-well, it wouldn't matter to them how small the fee was. It was very probable that, since everyone in the Church took a vow to own nothing, their fees as inspectors went to the Church itself.

  Very interesting, and not very comforting, that the Church who had backed the law should send its people out into the streets as an army of enforcers of that law. She'd have to tell Tonno about her suspicion and see what he said.

  Brother Pell did not seem to recognize her, however, although she recognized him; his eyes flitted over her as they did the other five boys in the class without a flicker of recognition. He consulted a list in his hand.

  "Terr Capston of Nolton," he said, and looked up. His voice, at least, was pleasant, although cold. A good, strong trained tenor.

  "Here, sir," said a sturdy brown-haired boy, who looked back at the Brother quite fea
rlessly. Of all of them, he seemed the most used to being in the tutelage of Brothers.

  "And why are you here, Terr Capston?" Brother Pell asked, without any expression at all.

  Terr seemed to have been ready for this question. "Brother Rylan wants me to find out if I have Bardic material in me," the boy said. "I'm for the Church either way, but Brother wants to know if it will be as just a player or-"

  "Stop right there, boy," Brother Pell said fiercely, and his cold face wore a forbidding frown. "There is no such thing as 'just' a player, and Brother Rylan is sadly to blame if that's the way he's taught you. Or is that your notion?"

  The boy hung his head, and Brother Pell grimaced. "I thought so. I should send you back to him until you learn humility. Consider yourself on probation. Lenerd Cattlan of Nolton."

  "Here-sir." The timid dark-haired boy right in front of Rune raised his hand.

  "And why are you here?" the Brother asked, glaring at him with hawk-fierce eyes. The boy shrank into his seat and shook his head.

  "You don't know?" Pell said, biting off each word. He cast his eyes upward. "Lord, give me patience. Rune of Westhaven."

  "Sir," she said, nodding, and matching his stare with a stare of her own. You don't frighten me one bit. And I'm not going to back down to you, either.

  She had expected the same question, but he surprised her. "No last name? Why not?"

  That was rude at the very least-but she had a notion that Brother Pell was never terribly polite. She decided to see if she could startle or discomfort him with the truth. "I don't know who my father is," she replied levely. "And I judged it better than to claim something I have no right to."

  One of the other boys snickered, and Pell turned a look on him that left Rune wondering if she scented scorched flesh in its wake. The boy shrank in his seat, and gulped. "You're an honest boy," he barked, turning back to Rune, "and there's no shame in being born a bastard. The shame is on your mother who had no moral sense, not on you. You did not ask to be born; that was God's will. You are doing well to repudiate your mother's weak morals with strong ones of your own. God favors the honest. Perhaps your mother will see your success one day, and repent of her ways."

  If Rune hadn't agreed with him totally about her mother's lack of sense, moral or otherwise, she might have resented that remark. As it was, she nodded, cautiously.

  "Why are you here, Rune?" Now came the question she expected.

  "Because there is music in my head, and I don't know how to write it down the way I hear it," she replied promptly. "I can find harmonies and counter-melodies when I sing, but I don't know how to get them down, either, and sometimes I lose things before I even manage to work them out properly." He looked a little interested, so she continued. "Brother Bryan heard me on the street and told my first teacher that he'd get me a recommendation into this class if I wanted it. I wanted it. I want to be more than a street busker, if it's in me. And if it's God's will," she added, circumspectly.

  Pell barked a laugh. "Good answer. Axen Troud of Nolton."

  Brother Pell continued the litany until he had covered all six of them, and Rune realized after she watched him listening to their answers that he had formed a fairly quick impression of each of them from both their words, and the way they answered. And as he began the first session and she bent all of her attention to his words and the things he was writing down on the slate behind him, she also realized that unlike Tonno, Brother Pell was not going to help anyone. He would never explain things twice. If you fell behind, that was too bad. You would keep up with him in this class, or you would not stay in it.

  She had a fairly good idea that the timid boy would not be able to keep up. Nor would one of the boys who had answered after her; a stolid, unimaginative sort who was more interested in the mathematics of music than the music itself. And they might lose the first boy, who was plainly used to being cosseted by his teacher.

  At the end of that first lesson, she felt as drained and exhausted as she had been at the end of her first lute lesson. If this had been the first time she'd ever felt that way, she likely would have given up right there-which was what the first boy looked ready to do.

  But as she gathered up her notes under Pell's indifferent eye and filed out with the rest, she knew that if nothing else, she was going to get her money's worth out of this class. Pell was a good teacher.

  And I've been hungry, cold, nearly penniless. I fiddled for the Skull Hill Ghost and won. If the Ghost didn't stop me, neither will Brother Pell.

  No one will. Not ever.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rune rang the bell outside the Church postern gate again, though she had no expectation of being answered this time, either. When after several minutes there was no sound of feet on stone, she beat her benumbed, mittened hands together and continued pacing up and down the little stretch of pavement outside the Gate. Her heart pounded in her chest at the audacity of what she was about to do, but she wasn't going to let fear stop her. Not now. Not when the stakes were this high.

  She told her heart to be still, and the lump in her throat to go away. Neither obeyed her.

  Tonno had taken a chill when he'd been caught between the market and his shop three weeks ago, on the day of the great blizzard, and it had taken him hours to stumble back home. The blizzard had piled some of the city streets so deeply with snow that people were coming and going from the second-floor windows of some places, although that was not the case with Amber's or with Tonno's shop. Rune had been busy with helping to shovel once the storm was over, and it had taken her two days to get to him. By then, the damage was done. He was sick, and getting sicker.

  She had gone out every day to the Church since then, to the Priests who sent out Doctors to those who had none of their own. Each day she had been turned away by the Priest in charge, who had consulted a list, told her brusquely that there were those with more need than Tonno, and then ignored her further protests. Finally, today, one of the other women in line had explained this cryptic statement to her.

  "Your master's old, boy," the woman had whispered. "He's old, he's never been one for making more than the tithe to the Church, no doubt, and he's got no kin to inherit. And likely, he's not rich enough to be worth much of a thanks-gift if a Doctor came out and made him well. They figure, if he dies, the Church gets at least half his goods, if not all-and if he lives, it's God's will."

  That had infuriated and frightened her; it was obvious that she was never going to get any help for Tonno-and when she'd arrived today, he'd been half delirious with a fever. She'd sent a boy to get Maddie to come watch him while she went after a Doctor-again. And this time, by all that was holy, she was not going to return without one.

  She had been in and out of the cloister enough to know who came and went by all the little gates; one lesson the Brothers had never expected her to learn, doubtless. She knew where the Doctors' Gate was, and she was going to wait by it until she spotted one of the physician-Brothers. They were easy enough to pick out, by the black robe they wore instead of gray, and by the box of medicines they always carried. When she saw a Doctor, or could get one to answer the bell, she was going to take him to Tonno-by force, if need be.

  Her throat constricted again, and she fought a stinging in her eyes. Crying was not going to help him. Only a Doctor could do that, and a Doctor was what she was waiting for. She tried not to think about what he'd looked like when she left him; transparent, thin, and old-so frail, as if a thought would blow him away.

  She stopped her pacing along enough to cough; like everyone else, it seemed, she'd picked up a cold in the past two weeks. She hadn't paid it much attention. Beside Tonno's illness, it was hardly more serious than a splinter. As she straightened up, she heard the sound of feet approaching; hard soles slapping wearily on the stonework. The Church certainly didn't lack hands to see that the streets about the cathedral and the cloisters were shoveled clean. . . .

  She turned; approaching from a side street to her left was a man in
the black robe of a Church Doctor, laden with one of those black-leather-covered boxes. He walked with his head down so that she couldn't see his face, watching his step on the icy cobbles.

  She hurried to intercept him, her heart right up in her throat and pounding so loudly she could hardly hear herself speak.

  "Excuse me, sir," she said, trotting along beside him, then putting herself squarely in his path when he wouldn't stop. She held out her empty, mittened hands to him, and tried to put all the terror and pleading she felt into her face and voice. "Excuse me-my master's sick, he's got a fever, a dry fever and a dry cough that won't stop, he's been sick ever since the blizzard and I've been here every day but the Priest won't send anybody, he says there's people with greater need, but my master's an old man and he's having hallucinations-" She was gabbling it all out as fast as she could, hoping to get him to listen to her before he brushed her aside. He frowned at her when she made him stop, and frowned even harder when she began to talk-he put out a hand to move her away from his path-

  But then he blinked, as if what she had said had finally penetrated his preoccupation, and stayed his hand. "A fever? With visions, you say?" She nodded. "And a dry, racking cough that won't stop?" She nodded again, harder. If he recognized the symptoms, sure, surely he knew the cure!