Jonny started, and shrank back-but as Peregrine stared at him, he shook his head, slowly.
'And it will not be the last. Two of the men got away. They will return.' Rune didn't know why Peregrine was so certain of that, but it didn't seem wise to argue with him.
'So-young Kestrel. It comes down to you. You are the target of men who are very expensive to hire. And you say that you do not know the reason.' Peregrine rubbed his upper lip thoughtfully. 'Yet there must be one, and before we can decide what to do about this, we must discover it.'
Gwyna obviously could stand no more of this. 'Well?' she demanded, waspishly. 'Are you going to stop playing the great mage and tell us how we're going to do this?'
Peregrine turned his luminous black eyes on her, and she shrank back. 'I am,' he said slowly. 'But it is a path that will require courage and cooperation from one who has no reason to trust me.'
He turned his gaze back to Jonny. 'That one is you,' he said. 'Are you willing to place your mind and soul in my hands? Tell me, Kestrel, are you as brave as your namesake? Are you willing to face your past-a past so fearful that you no longer remember it?'
Jonny stared at him, and Rune wondered if Peregrine had snapped that last link he had with a sane world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Talaysen touched Jonny's forehead, and his closed eyelids didn't even flutter. He held the young man's wrist for a moment, and found a pulse; slow, but steady. He had seen Ardis work this spell before, but never for this effect; for her, the sleep-trance was an end, not a means. He wondered if Ardis knew of this application: to search the patient's memory, even finding things he had forced himself to forget. 'I think he's ready,' he said to Peregrine. 'As ready as he's ever likely to be.'
'Oh, he is ready,' the Gypsy replied. 'What he may not be prepared for is his own fear. I hope in the days you have been with him that you have taught him trust to go with that fear, else all is lost.' Peregrine leaned forward and tapped the young man's forehead three times, right between the eyes. 'Kestrel,' he rumbled, 'do you hear me?'
'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.'
