She smiled to think of him. Oh, he was a villainous-looking lad, with a patch over one eye, and all in gypsy- colors, half a brigand by his looks. But he had played like an angel, he had. And he'd stayed several days the first time he'd stopped at the Bear-because of the bad weather for traveling, so he'd said, and indeed, it had been raining heavily during all that time. But he'd had a horse-a pony, rather-a sturdy beast that was probably quite capable of taking him through rain and snow and anything else he might ask of it. It wasn't weather that had kept him, but his own will.
The rains pounded the area for a week, providing him ample excuse. So he stayed, and enlivened the tavern by night, bringing folks in from all over, despite the weather. And he'd schooled Rune by day.
Quite properly, despite her early fears as to his behavior. Fears-well, that wasn't quite true, it was half hope, actually, for despite his rascally appearance, or even because of it, she'd wondered if he'd pay court to her. . . .
She certainly knew at thirteen what went on between man and maid, male and female. She had taken some thought to it, though she wasn't certain what it was she wanted. The ballads were full of sweet courtings, wild ones, and no courtings at all-
But he was as correct with her as he had been bawdy with the men in the tavern the night before. He'd stopped her on her way to some trivial errand, as he was eating his luncheon in the otherwise empty common room.
'I hear you play the fiddle, young Rune,' he'd said. She had nodded, suddenly shy, feeling as awkward as a young calf.
'Well?' he'd said then, a twinkle in the one eye not covered with a patch. 'Are you going to go fetch it, or must I beg you?'
She had run to fetch it, and he'd begun her lesson, the first of four, and he had made her work, too. She worked as hard at her fiddling under his critical eye as she'd ever worked at any task in the tavern.
He saved the love songs until the last day-'A reward,' he'd said, 'for being a good student'-for they were the easiest of the lot.
If he'd introduced them at the beginning of the lessons, she might have suspected them of being a kind of overture. But he'd waited until the last day of his stay, when he'd already told her that he was leaving the following morning. So the songs came instead as a kind of gift from a friend, for a friend was what Raven had come to be. And she treasured them as completely as she would have treasured any material gift.
He'd returned over the winter, and again the next summer, and this winter again. That was when he had taught her this melody, 'Fortune, My Foe.' He should be coming through again, once the weather warmed. She was looking forward to seeing him again, and learning more things from him. Not just songs-though courting was not on her mind, either. There was so much she needed to learn, about music, about reading it and writing it. There were songs in her head, words as well as music, but she couldn't begin to get them out. She didn't know how to write the tunes down, and she didn't have enough reading and writing of words to get her own down properly so that another could read them. She had barely enough of writing to puzzle out bits of the Holy Book, just like every other child of the village, and there was no learned Scholar-Priest here to teach her more. There must be more . . . there must be a way to write music the way words were written, and there must be more words than she knew. She needed all of that, needed to learn it, and if anyone would know the way of such things, Raven would, she sensed it in her bones.
Raven was weeks away, though. And she would have to be patient and wait, as the Holy Book said women must be patient.
Even though she was almighty tired of being patient.
Oh, enough of such lazy tunes.
The trill of an early songbird woke another melody in her fingers, and that led to many more. All reels this time, and all learned from a rough-faced, bearded piper just a few weeks ago. He'd come to play for the wedding of some distant relations, and though he had not made any formal attempt at giving her lessons, when he watched her frowning and following his music silently, he'd played everything at least three times over until she smiled and nodded by way of a signal that she'd got the tune straight in her head.
He'd gone before nightfall, not staying-he couldn't have played at the tavern anyway; the pipes were not an instrument for indoors.
But this winter, after her fiddler had come and gone, there had been a harper who had stayed for nearly two weeks. He was a Guild Minstrel, and was taking a position at the court of the Sire. He was ahead of time, having come much faster than anyone would have ever expected because of a break in the weather, and had taken the opportunity to rest a bit before taking the last leg of the journey.
He was an old man, his hair half silver, and he had been very kind to her. He'd taught her many of the songs popular at the courts, and she had painstakingly adapted them for fiddle. He hadn't had much patience, but fortunately the melodies were all simple ones, easy to remember, and easy to follow.
But from those simple songs, her fingers slowed, and strayed into a series of laments, learned from another harpist, a real Gypsy, who would not come into the village at all. Rune had found her with her fellows, camped beyond the bridge as she had returned from an errand. Unaccountably, eerily, the girl had known who she was, and what instrument she played. It still gave Rune a chill to think of her, and wonder how it was the other musician had known all about her.
She'd stopped Rune as the girl lingered, watching the Gypsies with burning curiosity. 'I am Nightingale. Bring your fiddle,' she'd said abruptly, with no preamble. 'I shall teach you songs such as you have never heard before.'
With a thrill of awe and a little fear, Rune had obeyed. It had been uncanny then, and it was uncanny now. How had Nightingale known who she was, and what she did? No one in the village would have told her-surely.
And indeed, Nightingale had taught her music the like of which she had never heard before. The strange, compelling dance music was too complicated to learn in a single afternoon-but the laments stuck in her mind, and seemed to make her fingers move of their own accord. . . .
'Rune!'
She started, and opened her eyes. Stara had a mug in one hand, and most of the rest up on their pegs, above the beer barrels, and she had turned to stare at Rune with a strange, uneasy expression on her face. Rune got ready for a tongue-lashing; whenever Stara was unhappy or uneasy, she took it out on someone. And Maeve wasn't within reach right now.
'Haven't you practiced enough for one day?' Stara snapped crossly. 'You give me the chills with that Gypsy howling. It sounds like lost souls, wailing for the dead.'
Well, that was what it was supposed to sound like-
'-or cats in heat,' Stara concluded, crudely. 'Haven't you got anything better to do than to torture our ears with that?'
'I-' she began.
A cough interrupted her, and she glanced over at the door to the kitchen. Jeoff stood there, with a keg of the dark ale on one shoulder.
'We're going to be working in here for a while, Rune,' he said. 'I don't want to sound mean, but-that music bothers me. It's like you're calling something I'd rather not see.'
Meaning he's feeling superstitious, Rune thought cynically.
'Don't you think Jib could use your help in the stables?' he said-but it sounded like an order.
'Yes, sir,' she said, trying not to sound surly. Just when I was really getting warmed up. It figures. 'I'll see to it, Master Jeoff.'
But as she put her fiddle away, she couldn't help watching Jeoff and her mother out of the corner of her eye. There was something going on there, and it had nothing to do with the music.
It looked like Stara's ploys were working.
The only question was-where did that leave Rune?
CHAPTER TWO
With her fiddle safely stowed away, Rune made her reluctant way to the stable-yard-such as it was. This little road wasn't used by too many people, certainly not the kind of people who would be riding high-bred horses that required expensive stabling. When the Sire traveled, he took the roads patrolled and guarded by the Duke's Men. And when someone was sent to collect taxes and take the man-count, it was never anyone important, just a
