Interesting. That was a name Talaysen knew, largely because Master Darian's arrival had caused such a fuss. Master Darian wasn't rightly at Kingsford at all; he was from the Guild in Birnam. He should have gone there to retire, not to our kingdom. Talaysen remembered the minor stir that had caused; Master Darian, half-senile, demanding to be allowed to lodge in the great Guildhall at Kingsford, claiming outrageous things. That his life was in danger, that there were assassins looking for him. How had that ended up? There had been something about a usurper-
Yes, he had it now. There had been a palace uprising, with the King of Birnam deposed by his brother, and a lot of the usual civil unrest that followed such a coup. Darian had been one of the King's Bards-a position that did not normally make one a target for assassins. The Guild had decided that old Master Darian might have seen a thing a two that had proved too much for his mind, and voted to permit him to stay instead of forcing him back to a place where he was afraid to go.
Had there been a boy with him, an apprentice? Talaysen couldn't remember-
Wait, there had been, and the boy had been sick with a marsh-fever. That was it. And that was another reason why the Guild had decided to let the Master stay. By the time they'd reached Kingsford, the boy had been in a bad way. It seemed too cruel even to the normally callous Guild Bards to turn them out for the boy to die on the road.
Hmm. If he'd been at Kingsford, one of the mages might have healed him of it. Ardis would know.
He made a mental note to write to her and ask.
'So, you were ill, and when you finally got well, you were in Kingsford. What then?'
'M-M-Master Darian took care of m-m-me, and when he got sick, I t-t-took care of him.' The chin came up, and the big brown eyes looked defiantly into his. 'Th-th-they said he was m-m-mad. He w-w-wasn't. He j-j-just had trouble remembering.'
Yes, and that was why they had permitted him to keep the 'apprentice' even though the boy probably wasn't learning anything from the old man. He took care of his Master, and that had freed up a servant to run attendance on other Masters. As long as he didn't get in the way, the rest of the members of the Guild ignored him. Talaysen recalled now thinking that he ought to do something about the boy himself; teach him, perhaps. But then other things had gotten in the way, and he'd forgotten all about it by the time he left the Guild in a rage.
'Th-th-they left us alone until M-M-Master died. Th-th-then they said I had t-t-t-to l-l-l-leave.' The stutter got worse as he grew more distressed.
'Why?' Talaysen asked.
'B-b-because I d-d-didn't have a M-M-Master any-
m-m-more,' he said, his eyes dark with anguish. 'And
th-th-they s-s-s-said it w-w-wasn't w-w-worth w-w-wasting
t-t-time on a ha-ha-halfwit.'
Talaysen's fists clenched and he forced himself to relax them. The bastards. The lazy bastards. A stutter is curable-and even if it wasn't, most people don't stutter when they sing, and they knew it! But this poor child had no one to speak for him, and he was a foreigner. So out he went.
'Jonny, you are not a halfwit,' he said quietly, but forcefully. 'Whoever told you that was an idiot. The Guild Masters were too lazy to train you, and too foolish to see your worth, so they got rid of you and told you that to keep you from trying to get your rights.' He thought quickly about all he knew of Guild law. 'You came to Kingsford as an acknowledged apprentice. You had a right to another Master when yours died. You could have gone to any other Guild in Kingsford and gotten help to enforce that right-but the Bardic Guild Masters told you that you were a halfwit to prevent you from claiming that right.'
'Th-th-they did?' Jonny's eyes cleared a little.
'I would bet fair coin on it. It's just the kind of thing they would do.' He kept a tight hold on his temper; this was all in the past. Nothing could be done about it now-except to rectify what the Guild had done himself.
'B-b-but they s-s-said I c-c-couldn't s-s-sing, or wr-wr-write m-m-music-' he objected. 'And I c-c-c- can't.'
'Jonny, when did anyone ever teach you to do those things?' Talaysen asked gently. 'Those are skills, not things that you absorb just by being around Bards. Ask Rune; she'll tell you.'
'Two years,' Rune replied, leaning back into the wagon so she could be heard. 'It took me two years to learn those things, and several different Masters.'
'You see?' Talaysen's lips tightened. 'Now if you really want to know what I think was going on-it's simple. The Bardic Guild is full of lazy, self-centered fools. They saw you had no Master, you weren't important to anyone, and in fact, no one in this country even knew you were here. So they decided you were too much trouble and sent you out the door.'
Jonny nodded, slowly, his own hands clenched at his sides, knotted into tight little white-knuckled fists.
'Then what did you do?' Talaysen prompted. 'After you left?'
'I w-w-worked. At wh-wh-whatever I c-c-could. Wh-wh-when the Faire came, I w-w-worked the Faire. Animals, m-m-mostly. Animals l-l-like me.'
Talaysen could well imagine how the inarticulate lad had sought refuge in caring for creatures who didn't demand speech of him.
'How did you get from Kingsford to the Kardown Faire?' he asked.
'H-h-hiring fairs,' the lad said simply. 'G-g-got j-jobs all over. Had a j-j-job with a herder b-b-brought me here, b-b-but he sold his g-g-goats, and he d-d-didn't need me, and the m-m-man that b-b-bought them had his own h- h-h-herders.'
Hiring fairs. That made sense. Hiring fairs were held in the spring and the fall, mostly for the benefit of farmers looking for hands or servants. Sometimes other folk would come looking for skilled or unskilled laborers-and Talaysen had heard of fairs that even had mercenaries for hire. The problem was, the unskilled labor jobs seldom lasted more than a season, as Jonny had undoubtedly learned. 'So, that got you to the Downs. When?'
'Ab-b-b-bout two w-w-weeks ag-g-go,' he said, sighing heavily. 'Was all right d-d-during Faire, b-b-but there wasn't nothing f-f-for me after.'
Gwyna laughed without humor. 'True, when the Kardown Faire is over, the town pretty much dries up, unless you're an experienced hand with sheep. Shepherd's classed as skilled labor, not unskilled, and the only person that might be trusted to come on without experience is a Gypsy.'
'And I take it you've always applied as unskilled?' Talaysen asked the young man. 'And you've never learned a trade?'
He shook his head dumbly.
'G-g-got n-n-no one,' he whispered. 'And n-n-nothing. N-n-no g-g-good for anything. I w-w-was h-h-hungry, and I s-s-saw you b-b-buying th-th-things. I th-th-thought you w-w-wouldn't m-m-miss a c-c-copper or t-t- two.'
'You play the harp the way you just did, and you say that?' Talaysen replied indignantly. The young man's mouth opened and closed as he tried to say something; Talaysen held up a hand, silencing him.
'You listen to me,' he said fiercely. 'You're among friends now. The Guild Bards may be fools, but the Free Bards aren't. I don't ever want to hear you say that you aren't good for anything. Not ever again. Is that understood?'
The young man had scooted back on the bunk as far as the limited space would permit when Talaysen began the tirade. With wide eyes, he nodded his agreement.
Both Gwyna and Rune had turned around, and their eyes carried a message to him that was child's play to read. Not that he minded, since he'd already made his decision about this young man.
'All right,' Talaysen said, as much to them as to Jonny. 'You're a Free Bard now. We'll undertake to do for you what the Guild should have. You, in turn, will have to abide by our rules. No theft, no troublemaking, no law- breaking. Treat us the way you would treat your family. When we play together, it's share and share alike, no holding anything back for yourself. Abide by those and we'll teach you everything we know, take you with us, with chores and profits shared alike. Will that do?'
For a moment, Talaysen feared the young man might burst into tears. But instead, he pulled himself up, looked each of them straight in the eyes, and said, with only a trace of a stammer, 'Y-yes, sir. That w-will do. Y-you have my w-word on it.'
'He'll need an instrument,' Gwyna said from the front bench, her attention seeming to be entirely on the
