Lark and Wren

through the dark and blowing snow.

And by midnight, she'd forgotten it all entirely.

But her dreams were haunted by things she could not recall clearly in the morning. Only-the lingering odor of incense.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rune sailed in the door of Tonno's shop singing at the top of her lungs, with a smile as wide and sunny as the day outside, and a bulging belt-pouch.

'Well!' Tonno greeted her, answering her smile with one of his own. 'What's all this?'

She leaned over the counter and kissed him soundly on the cheek. He actually blushed, but could only repeat, 'Well! Welladay!'

She laughed, pulled her pouch off her belt, and spread her day's takings out on the countertop for him to see. 'Look at that! Just look at it! Why, that's almost ten whole silver pennies, and a handful of copper! Can you believe it?'

'What did you do, rob someone?' Tonno asked, teasingly.

'No indeed,' she said happily. 'Do you remember that city ordinance that was passed at Spring Equinox session? The one that was basically about female buskers?'

He sobered, quickly. 'I do, indeed,' he replied. The ordinance had troubled him a great deal; he had fretted about it incessantly until it was passed, and he had warned Rune not to go out on the streets as a musician in female garb once it was passed. Not that she ever did, at least, not to busk. The ordinance had been aimed squarely at those females who were using busking to cover their other business; it licensed inspectors who were to watch street and tavern musicians to be certain that their income was derived entirely from music. A similar ordinance, aimed at dancers, had also passed. Rune, of course, had either not come under scrutiny-at least that she was aware of-because of her habit of taking on boy-disguise, or she had passed the scrutiny easily. For some reason it never occurred to the inspectors or to those who had passed the ordinance that males might be operating the same deceptions. But the ordinance had pretty much cleared the streets of those women who had bought cheaper busking licenses and were using them to cover their other activities. The ordinance directed that any such woman be made to tender up not one, but two years' dues in the Whore's Guild, and buy a free-lancer's license as well. The Whore's Guild and the Bardic Guild had backed it; the Whore's Guild since it obviously cut down on women who were practicing outside the rules and restrictions of the Guild, which set prices and ensured the health of its members. Amber hadn't said much, but Rune suspected that she both approved and worried.

She partially approved of it, obviously, because she felt the same way about those women who were abusing the busker's licenses as Rune felt about amateur musicians who thought they could set up with an instrument they hardly knew how to play and a repertoire of half a dozen songs and call themselves professionals. But Rune knew that Amber and Tonno both worried about this law because the Church had also been behind it-and they feared it might be the opening move in a campaign to end the Whore's Guild altogether, and make the Houses themselves illegal.

It had been hard for Rune to feel much concern about that, when the immediate result had been to free up half the corners in Nolton to honest musicians and dancers, and to send even more clients to Amber's than there had been before. Amber had been forced to add a fifth and sixth lady; both of whom had passed their trial periods with highest marks-which had made Carly even more sour than before. Carly now stalked the hall of the private wing with a copy of the Holy Book poking ostentatiously out of her pocket. And she spent most of her time off at the Church, at interminable 'Women's Prayer Meetings.' She had even tried to drag the boys off to a 'Group Prayer Meeting,' but both of them had told her to her face that they'd rather scrub chamber pots.

The two new ladies, Amethyst and Diamond, got along perfectly well with the other four; Rune liked them both very much, especially Diamond, who had the most abrasive and caustic sense of humor she'd ever encountered. It was Diamond who had suggested her current project.

Diamond was an incredibly slender woman with pure white hair-naturally white, claimed Maddie, who often helped Diamond with the elaborate, though revealing, costumes she favored. Diamond had been in the common room one night (dressed-so to speak-mostly in strings of tiny glass beads made into a semblance of a dress) when Rune had played a common song called 'Two Fair Maids' at a client's request. Diamond had politely waited until that client had gone upstairs before she said anything, but then she had them all in stitches.

'Just once-' she'd said vehemently, 'just once I'd like to hear a song about that situation that makes some sense!'

One of the gentlemen with her, who Rune had suspected for some time really was nobly born, had said, ingenuously, 'What situation?' That had pretty much confirmed Rune's suspicions, since it would have been hard to be a commoner and not have heard 'Two Fair Maids' often enough to know every word of every variant.

Diamond, however, had simply explained it to him without betraying that. 'It's about two sisters in love with the same man,' she told him. 'He's been sleeping with the older one, who thinks he's going to have to marry her-but he proposes to the younger one, who accepts. When the older one finds out, she shoves the younger one in the river.' She turned to Rune, then, and included her in the conversation. 'Rune, what are all the various versions of it after that?'

'Well,' Rune had answered, thinking, 'There's three variations on how she dies. One, the older girl holds her under; two, she gets carried off by the current and pulled under the millrace; three, that the miller sees her, wants her gold ring, and drowns her. But in all of the versions, a wandering harpist-Bard finds her-or rather, what's left of her after the fish get done-and makes a harp of her bones and strings it with her long, gold hair.'

'Dear God!' the gentleman exclaimed. 'That's certainly gruesome!'

'And pretty stupid,' Rune added, to Diamond's great delight. 'I can't imagine why any musician would go making an instrument out of human bone when there are perfectly good pieces of wood around that are much better suited to the purpose! And I can't imagine why anyone would want to play such a thing!' She shivered. 'I should think you'd drive customers into the next kingdom the first time they caught sight of it! But anyway, that's what this fool does, and he takes it to court and plays it for the Sire. And, of course, the moment the older sister shows up, the harp begins to play by itself, and sing about how the little idiot got herself drowned. And of course, the sister is burned, and the miller is hung, and the bastard that started it in the first place by