"I hear you," Jonny whispered-without so much as a hint of a stammer. Out of the corner of his eye, Talaysen saw both Gwyna and Rune start with surprise.
"You will answer my questions. The one you know as Master Wren will also ask you questions, and you must answer him, as well. Do you trust him?" Peregrine's brow furrowed as he waited for an answer.
"I do," Jonny said, his voice a bit stronger.
"Good. You have placed your trust well. He and I will not do anything to harm you; and we will keep you safe from harm. We will be with you, even though you cannot see us. You will believe this."
"I believe this," Jonny affirmed.
Peregrine gestured curtly. "Ask," he said. "You know more of this than I, and you know more of the world that spawns those who hire assassins than any gypsy. I would not know what questions are meaningful and what without meaning."
Talaysen leaned into the tiny circle of light cast on Jonny's face by the lantern Peregrine had used to place him in a trance. "Jonny-Kestrel-do you hear me?"
"Yes," the young man sighed.
"I want you to remember the first day you came to Kingsford, to the Guild Hall. Can you remember that?"
"Yes." Jonny's forehead wrinkled, and his voice took on the petulant quality of a sick child. "I'm cold. My head hurts. My eyes hurt. Master Darian says I'm going to get better but I don't, and I feel awful-"
"He relives this," Peregrine said with a bit of surprise. "This is useful, but it can be dangerous, if he believes himself trapped in his past. Have a care, Master Wren."
Talaysen swallowed, and wet his dry lips. "Jonny, can you remember farther back? Go back in time, go back to before you entered Kingsford. Can you remember before you were sick?"
Abruptly the young man began to scream.
Peregrine moved as quickly as a ferret, clamping his right hand over the young man's forehead, and his left on Jonny's wrist. The screaming stopped, as if cut off.
"Who are you?" Peregrine said, with no inflection in his voice whatsoever.
Who are you? Talaysen thought, bewildered. What kind of a question is that?
"I-I can't-" Jonny bucked and twisted in Peregrine's grip; the mage held fast, and repeated the question, with more force. The young musician wept in terror-Talaysen had heard that sort of weeping before, from the boys that had been ruined by their Guild Masters. . . .
Peregrine had no more pity than they had, but his harshness was for a far better cause. "Who are you?"
''Ah-" Jonny panted, like a frightened bird. "I-I-ah-Sional! I'm Sional! I have to run, please, let me go! Master Darian! Master Darian! They're killing my father! Help me! Ahhhhhhhhh-"
"Sleep-" Peregrine snapped, and abruptly the young man went limp. The mage sat back on the bunk, and wiped sweat from his brow. He looked to Talaysen as if he had been running for a league. He was silent for a moment, staring at the young musician as if he had never seen him before.
"So." Peregrine took a sip of water from the mug safely stored in a holder mounted on the wall just above him. "So, we know this 'Jonny Brede' is nothing of the kind, and that his true name is Sional, and that someone wished his father dead. Do you know of any Sionals? Especially ones who would have run to a Guild Bard for help?"
Talaysen shook his head. Rune and Gwyna both shrugged. Peregrine scratched his head and his eyes unfocused for a moment. "Well, whoever he is, he is important-and long ago, someone killed his father. I think we must find out who and what this father was."
"Are you going to hurt him?" Gwyna asked in a small voice.
Peregrine shook his head. "I can promise nothing. I can only say I will try not to hurt him. The alternative is to find out nothing-and one day there will be nothing to warn him of the assassin in the dark. I think this the lesser of two bad choices."
Gwyna nodded, unhappily. Peregrine touched Jonny's-Sional's-forehead again. "Sional, do you hear me?"
"I-hear you," said a small, young, and very frightened voice. It sounded nothing like Jonny; it sounded like a young child of about twelve.
"How old was he, when he came to you at the Guild?" Peregrine asked Talaysen. The Bard furrowed his brow and tried to remember what the nondescript child had looked like on the few occasions he had seen the boy. The memory was fuzzy, at best, and the child had been quite ordinary.
"Twelve? Thirteen?" He shook his head. "He can't have been much younger than that, or I'd have noticed. Thirteen is just about as young as apprentices are allowed to be in Bardic Guild. Children younger than that are just that-children. They aren't ready for the kind of intensive study we give them. Their bodies and minds aren't suited for sitting in one place for hours at a time."
"Good. That gives me a safer place to start." He raised his voice again. "Sional-you are ten years old. It is your birthday. You are waking up in the morning."
Abruptly all the tenseness poured out of Sional's body, and a happy smile transformed his face.
"Good, a safe time, and a happy one," Peregrine muttered. "Sional, what is to happen today?"
"Today I get my first horse!" Sional's voice really did sound like a ten-year-old's, and Talaysen started in surprise. "It's my birthday present from father, a real horse, not a pony! Victor and I get to go to the Palace stables and pick it out, too! Victor's going to teach me trick riding! Then Master Darian will give me the present from mother that he's been saving for me; it's a harp, a big harp, with lots more strings than my little harp!"
"Why isn't your mother giving it to you?" Peregrine asked, curiosity creeping into his voice.
"She's dead," Sional said, matter-of-factly. "She died when we moved to this place. That was a long time ago, though. I hardly remember her at all. Just the way she sang-" His voice faltered a moment. "She was a wonderful musician and Master Darian says that if she hadn't been a woman and a princess she'd have been a Bard and-"
"Stop." Peregrine glanced over at Talaysen, with one eyebrow raised. Talaysen didn't have to ask what he was thinking.
A princess? Is that real-or just a child's fantasy and an old teacher's flattery?
"Sional, who is your father?" Peregrine asked, slowly and carefully.
"The King." Once again, the voice was completely matter-of-fact. "I have to call him My Lord Father; Master Darian calls him Your Majesty. Everybody else has to call him Your Royal Highness. But I don't see him very often."
"Stop." Peregrine was sweating again. "Sional, where do you live?"
"In the Dowager's Palace."
"No, I mean what land do you live in?"
"Oh, that. Birnam. It's the red place on the map. The green one next to it is Leband, the blue one is Falwane, the yellow one is-"
"Stop." Now Talaysen was sweating.
"Do realize what we have here?" he whispered. "This is the Crown Prince of Birnam-no-the King of Birnam!" He groped for Rune's hand and held it.
"Tell me!" the Gypsy demanded. "Tell me what you know of this!"
"I have to think," Talaysen replied, shivering despite the heat of the wagon. Dear God, what a cockatrice they had hatched! Their foundling was the rightful King of Birnam-and small wonder there were assassins seeking him. The current King was not likely to tolerate any rivals to his power.
"About six years ago, I think it was, the King of Birnam was overthrown by his brother. Mind you, the only reason I know about this is was because I was on the Guild Council at the time, and we were dealing with that entire business of Master Darian. The old man came to us with a boy he called his apprentice, claiming sanctuary with our branch of the Guild because he was supposedly in danger as a supporter of the former King."
"So your understanding is likely to be accurate, if sketchy?" Peregrine asked.
He nodded. "We did do some checking with the Guild in Birnam. The way I heard it, the brother slipped his men into the palace by night, murdered the King and all his supporters, and by dawn there was a new King on the throne and all the bloodstains had been politely cleaned away."
Peregrine snorted. "How-
tidy of them."
Talaysen shrugged. "At that point, I imagine that there was nothing anyone could do. Darian swore to the Guild that he'd escaped death at the hands of the assassins as one of the old King's retainers-and he swore that both the King and his only child were dead. Obviously that wasn't true."
"Obviously," Peregrine said, with heavy irony. "Well, our Kestrel has turned into a most peculiar cuckoo. What are we to do with him? It is plain that his uncle knows that he is alive, and where he is, or we would not have killers at our wagons."
"Can't we hide him?" Gwyna asked, but her voice betrayed her own doubt.
Peregrine confirmed that doubt with a shake of his head. "Not possible," he said. "The amulet I found upon the man my trap took was one of seeking. No matter how or where we hid him in this land, they could find him with another such. He himself has confirmed that there have been attempts to slay him before this."
Talaysen remained silent, as Gwyna and Peregrine discussed other possibilities; concealing the young man with magic, or even asking the elves to take him under one of their Hills. That was chancy; what the elves took, they might not want to give back, once they'd heard young Sional play. He had the glimmering of an idea then-
It had occurred to him that there was too much they didn't know, and the only place to learn that information was in Birnam. So why not go there?
After all, why would the current King ever look for Sional in his own kingdom? The assassins could comb all of Rayden, from border to border-but if the object of their search was in the last place they expected him-
"We don't know nearly enough," he said, into an opportune silence. "We don't know if this is an idea of the King's, or if it's something one of his advisors thought was best. We don't even know if this is something set in motion long ago and forgotten. This King may be a tyrant-there may already be a movement in place to topple him that only lacks a focus. It seems to me that Jonny-I mean, Sional-ought at least to find these things out. Until he does, no matter where he goes or how he runs, he'll be running away from something, not to something."
Peregrine raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. "A good point, my brother," he acknowledged. "And there are things about the young man now that the assassins cannot know. Unless I miss my guess, they have associated him with you, but only at a distance, and as a chance-met set of friends. They would be looking for a group of three men and a woman-not two couples. Rune has been in breeches most of the time, yes?"
Rune shrugged. "It's habit mostly," she said, "But yes. And most men don't look twice at me in breeches, they assume I'm a boy."
"So now you wear skirts, and become most extravagantly feminine. Master Wren, we shall dye your hair as black as mine, but with magery, so that the dye neither grows out, nor washes out." Peregrine grinned. "And if I ever wished to be a rich man, I would sell the working of that spell, eh? It is a pity it only is effective on one who is already a mage."
"So we'll have two young gypsy couples traveling together. Good." Talaysen played that over in his head, and found no flaw with it. "Most wagons look alike to outsiders. Once we're on the road, there'll be no telling us from dozens of others without one of those amulets. Those have to be expensive; I'm sure not every hired killer has one."
"And if you leave by darkness tomorrow, we can make certain you are not followed," Peregrine told him. "Now, what of the Kestrel? Do I wake him with his memories, or no?"
"With them," Gwyna put in quickly. Peregrine turned to stare at her. "If I was in his place, that's what I would want," she said defensively. "While he still thinks he's Jonny Brede, he doesn't know why these people want to kill him. As Sional, he will. It seems to me that makes them less frightening."
Talaysen nodded. "I agree with her. Fear is worse when you don't know what it is you're afraid of. Right now these people are simply faceless, irrational attackers from a nightmare. Once he has his memories and identity as Sional back, they aren't faceless anymore, and they have a reason for what they're doing."
Peregrine nodded slowly. "Very well. Let me see if I can do this. He has built him a very stout wall between himself and those memories. It may take some doing to breech it."
When they showed no sign of moving, he coughed delicately. "I have no need of you now, and this were better done in private."
They took the hint, and left, crawling over the driver's seat and the lurcher-hounds draped over and on top of it, and down to the ground again.
"Now what?" Gwyna asked.
"We go back to our wagon and sleep," Talaysen told her and Rune both. Rune nodded; Gwyna looked rebellious. "Look, we can't help Peregrine and we're all tired. We need sleep. We already know the worst, and nothing we do or don't do in the next few hours is going to change it. So?"
"So we sleep," Gwyna sighed. "Though personally, I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything but stare into the dark."
Gwyna had been wrong, of course; despite their tension, all three of them fell deeply asleep once they reached the safety of their beds. And thanks to their Gypsy friends, their beds were as safe as possible in an open camp. The wagon had been moved from the outer to the inner circle, and a half-dozen fierce lurchers had been tied about it to keep away intruders. The wagon itself was stoutly built enough to withstand a siege once the doors and shutters were closed. Talaysen thought it a pity to shut out the cool night air, but better stuffy air than unexpected knives and arrows.
When he woke, it was near noon by the sun coming through the little smoke-hole over the charcoal stove, and the fourth bunk had a clothed and wakeful occupant.
It was Kestrel-and yet it wasn't Jonny Brede. Talaysen couldn't put his finger on the differences, but they were there; in the way the young man held himself, in the direct way he met Talaysen's gaze.
"Sional?" he said, tentatively.
The young man nodded, solemnly. "B-better stick to K-Kestrel, though," he replied, his stammer improved, but still very much a part of his speech. "Th-that's not a n-name we ought to b-be using much."
"Point taken." He sat up and scrutinized the young man carefully. He looked much older in an indefinable way-now he looked his real age; when he had been "Jonny," he had looked several years younger. Interesting.
"P-Peregrine t-told me what you want to d-do," the young man continued. "I th-think you're r-right; I th-think w-we ought to at l-least f-find out wh-what my uncle th-thinks he's d-doing. Th-there's j-just one thing-he s-said y-you w-were maybe th-thinking of f-finding a r-r-rebellion. W-well m-maybe I'm a p-prince, b-but I don't kn-know anything ab-bout b-being a K-King."
Talaysen's estimation of the young man rose several notches. Whatever Master Darian had taught him-whatever he had learned himself in his years of rootless wandering-this was the wisest conclusion he could possibly have come to. "That's very astute of you, Kestrel," he said. "I'm not being patronizing; you're very right. If there is a movement afoot to depose your uncle, we are going to have to investigate it very carefully. They may only be interested in putting a puppet on the throne."
"And r-right now th-that's all I'd b-be," Kestrel replied without bitterness. "Th-there's some other th-things you should kn-know. My f-father. He w-wasn't a n-nice man. He p-put m-me and m-mother away in the D-Dowager P-Palace, and j-just tr-trotted us out on s-special oc-casions. Th-that's why she d-d-died. Sh-she c-caught s-something, and he d-didn't bother sending a d-doctor until it was t-too l-late."
"So-what are you getting at?" Talaysen asked.
"I d-don't kn-know, really," Kestrel said frankly. "J-just that I d-don't f-feel like g-going after my uncle f-for r-revenge, I g-guess. I hardly ever s-saw my f-father. I m-mean, I kn-knew who h-he w-was, and he g-gave m-me p-presents wh-when it s-suited him, b-but th-that was all. I s-saw him d-die by accident. B-but it w-was j-just s-someone I kn-knew d-dying, n-not m-my father. R-revenge w-would b-be p-pretty s-stupid."
He shrugged, and Talaysen read in that gesture that the young man was confused on any number of subjects, but that on this one he was cer
tain: he was not interested in heroic vendettas.
"Most young men your age with your background would be champing at the bit, hardly able to wait to get their uncle at the point of a sword and give the big speech about 'You, scum, killed my noble, sainted Father! Now you die by the son's blade!' I was all ready to try and calm you down-"
"M-most p-princes h-haven't s-spent th-the last f-four y-years s-sweeping f-floors and t-tending g-goats," Kestrel interrupted, with that disarming matter-of-factness. "I d-don't know, I'm p-pretty c-confused. I j-just w-want t-to s-see what's g-g-going on. And I really w-want p-people t-to stop t-trying t-to k-kill me!"
"Fine," Talaysen replied. "We'll take it from there, and see where it leads."
"Good," Kestrel replied, nodding vigorously.
The young man's reaction gave Talaysen a great deal of food for thought, as they waited for darkness to fall so that they could sneak away. That reaction was, as he had told Sional, not what he had expected. It was a great deal more practical than he had anticipated.
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