'I didn't even try to enter the Guild, because I have no real talent for music,' he said. 'I have a knack for picking up the basics, but there my abilities end. I'm very good at
Rune felt inexplicably saddened by his words. She couldn't imagine not pursuing music, at least, not now. Yet to offer sympathy seemed rude at the least. She kept her own counsel and held her tongue, unsure of what she could say safely.
'So,' Tonno said, breaking the awkward silence, 'It's time for your other lessons. What do you think you'd like to read? Histories? Collected poems and ballads? Old tales?'
Reading! She'd forgotten that was to be part of her lessoning. Her head swam at the idea of something more to learn.
'Is there anything easy?' she asked desperately. 'I can't read very well, just enough to spell things out in the Holy Book.'
Tonno got up, and walked over to the laden shelves without answering, scrutinizing some of the books stacked there for a moment.
'Easy, hmm?' he said, after a moment or two. 'Yes, I think we can manage that. Here-'
He pulled a book out from between two more, and blew the dust from its well-worn cover. 'This should suit you,' he told her, bringing the book back to where she sat with her lute case in her lap. 'It's a book of songs and ballads, and I'm sure you'll recognize at least half of them. That should give you familiar ground to steady you as you plunge into the new material. Here-' He thrust it at her, so that she was forced to take it before he dropped it on her lute. 'Bring it back when you've finished, and I'll give you something new to read. Once you're reading easily, I'll start picking other books for you. It isn't possible for a minstrel to be too widely read.'
'Yes, sir,' she said hastily. 'I mean, no, sir.'
'Now, run along back to Amber's,' he said, making a shooing motion with his hands. 'I'm sure you'll have to do something with those new clothes of yours to make them fit to wear. I'll see you tomorrow.'
How he had known that, she had no idea, but she was grateful to be let off. Right now her fingers stung, and she wanted a chance to rest them before the evening-and she did, indeed, have quite a bit of mending and trimming to do before her garments were fit for Amber's common room.
The first evening-bell rang, marking the time when most shops shut their doors and the farmer's market was officially closed. She hurried back through the quiet streets, empty of most traffic in this quarter, reaching Amber's and Flower Street in good time.
None of the houses on the court were open except Amber's, and Rune had the feeling that it was only the 'downstairs' portion that was truly ready for business. There were a handful of men, and even one woman sitting in the common room, enjoying a meal. As Rune entered the common room, her stomach reminded her sharply that it would be no bad thing to perform with a good meal inside her. As she hesitated in the stairway, one of the serving-girls, the cheerful one who had smiled at her last night, stopped on her way to a table.
'If you'd like your meal in your room,' she said, quietly, 'go to the end of the corridor, just beyond the bathroom. There's a little staircase in a closet there that leads straight down into the kitchen. You can get a tray there and take it up, or you can eat in the kitchen-but Lana is usually awfully busy, so it's hard to find a quiet corner to eat in. This time of night, she's got every flat space filled up with things she's cooking.'
'Thanks,' Rune whispered back; the girl grinned in a conspiratorial manner, and hurried on to her table.
Rune followed her instructions and shortly was ensconced in her own room with a steaming plate of chicken and noodles, a basket of bread and sliced cheese, and a winter apple still sound, though wrinkled from storage. Although she was no seamstress, she made a fairly quick job of mending the vest and trimming the light shirt, taking a stitch between each couple of bites of her supper. The food was gone long before the mending was done, of course; she was working by the light of her candle when a tap at her door made her jump with startlement.
'Y-yes?' she stuttered, trying to get her heart down out of her throat.
'It's Maddie,' said a muffled voice. 'Lana sent me after your dishes.'
'Oh-come in,' she said, standing up in confusion, as the door opened, revealing the serving-girl who'd told her the way to the kitchen. With her neat brown skirt and bodice and apron over all, she looked as tidy as Rune felt untidy. Rune flushed. 'I'm sorry, I meant to take them down-I didn't mean to be any trouble-'
The girl laughed, and shook her head until her light brown hair started to come loose from the knot at the back of her neck. 'It's no bother,' she replied. 'Really. There's hardly anyone downstairs yet, and I wanted a chance to give you a proper hello. You're Rune, right? The new musician? Carly thought you were a boy-she is going to be so mad!'
Rune nodded apprehensively. The girl seemed friendly enough-she had a wonderful smile and a host of freckles sprinkled across her nose that made her look like a freckled kitten. She looked as if she could have been one of the village girls from home.
Which was the root of Rune's apprehension. Those girls from home hadn't ever been exactly friendly. And now this girl had been put out of her way to come get the dishes, and had informed her that the other serving-girl was going to be annoyed when she discovered the musician wasn't the male she had thought.
'Well, I'm Maddie,' the girl said comfortably, picking up the tray, but seeming in no great hurry to leave with it. 'I expect we'll probably be pretty good friends-and I expect that Carly will probably hate you. She's the other server, the blond, the one as has the sharp eyes and nose. She hates everyone-every girl, anyway. But she's Parro's daughter, so Lady Amber puts up with her.'
'What's Carly's problem?' Rune asked, putting her sewing down.
'She wants to work upstairs,' Maddie said with a twist of her mouth. 'And there's no way. She's not nowhere good enough. Or nice enough.' Maddie shrugged, at least as much as the tray in her arms permitted. 'She'll probably either marry some fool and nag him to death, or end up down the street at the Stallion or the Velvet Rope. There's men enough around that'll pay to be punished that she'd be right at home.'
Rune found her mouth sagging open at Maddie's matter-of-fact assessment of the situation. And at what she'd hinted. Back at home-
Well, she wasn't back at home.
