Lark and Wren

him, either, though Carly went to the service he preached at as faithfully as the bells rang.

From the little she saw outside the walls, the cloister was twice as forbidding as the cathedral, because it had none of the cathedral's ornamentation. Now that she was inside the walls, it was worse, much worse. The place looked like a prison. The buildings were carved of the same dark stone, with tiny slits for windows. It looked as if it was a place designed to keep people from escaping; Rune hoped she'd never have occasion to discover that her impression was true.

The Brother at the gate, anonymous in his dark gray robe, directed her to go past the building immediately in front of her and take the first door she saw after that. She walked slowly across the silent, paved courtyard; nothing behind her but the wall with its small postern gate, nothing on either side of her or before her but tall, oblong buildings with tiny passages between them. Nothing green or growing anywhere, not even a weed springing up between the cobblestones. It seemed unnatural. A few robed figures crossed the courtyard ahead of her; none looked at her, no one spoke. In their dark, androgynous robes, she couldn't even tell if they were men or women.

Once past the first building, she felt even more hemmed in and confined. How can anyone bear to live like this? she wondered. No need to look for a reason why Brother Pell was so sour; if she had to live here, she'd be just as bitter as he was.

There was another Brother at the door of the building, sitting behind a tiny desk; once again, she showed her pass, and was directed to a second-floor room. She looked back over her shoulder for a moment as she climbed the stair; the Brother was watching her-to be certain she went where she was told? Possibly. That might be simple courtesy on the part of the Brothers. It might be something else. There was no point in speculating; she was just here for composition lessons, not anything sinister. She didn't want to stay here a moment longer than she had to. Let the Brother watch; he'd see only a young boy obeying, doing exactly what he was told.

She opened the designated doorway and went inside. There was no one there, and nothing but one large desk and six smaller ones. She discovered that she was the first to arrive of a class of six, including her. The classroom was a tiny cubicle, narrow, with enough space for their six desks arranged two by two, with Brother Pell's large desk facing them, and behind that, a wall covered in slate.

Brother Pell appeared last, a perfectly average man, balding slightly, with his hands tucked into the sleeves of his gray robe and a frown so firmly a part of his face that Rune could not imagine what he would look like if he ever smiled. If he had been anything other than a Brother, she would have guessed at Scholar or clerk; he had that kind of tight-lipped look.

There was a nagging sense of familiarity about him; after a moment, she knew what it was. She had seen this man often, out on the street, ever since the ordinance against pseudo-buskers had been passed. Presumably he was one of the inspectors. And now that she thought about it, she realized that there were a great many more Brothers and Sisters out on the street since the ordinance had been passed. Interesting; she had never thought of them as being inspectors, but it made sense. The inspectors were being paid very little, about the same as a lamp-lighter or a dung-sweeper. Unless you had no other job, it wasn't one you'd think of taking. A few of the real buskers had become inspectors by day, and did their busking at night. But Church clerics- well, it wouldn't matter to them how small the fee was. It was very probable that, since everyone in the Church took a vow to own nothing, their fees as inspectors went to the Church itself.

Very interesting, and not very comforting, that the Church who had backed the law should send its people out into the streets as an army of enforcers of that law. She'd have to tell Tonno about her suspicion and see what he said.

Brother Pell did not seem to recognize her, however, although she recognized him; his eyes flitted over her as they did the other five boys in the class without a flicker of recognition. He consulted a list in his hand.

'Terr Capston of Nolton,' he said, and looked up. His voice, at least, was pleasant, although cold. A good, strong trained tenor.

'Here, sir,' said a sturdy brown-haired boy, who looked back at the Brother quite fearlessly. Of all of them, he seemed the most used to being in the tutelage of Brothers.

'And why are you here, Terr Capston?' Brother Pell asked, without any expression at all.

Terr seemed to have been ready for this question. 'Brother Rylan wants me to find out if I have Bardic material in me,' the boy said. 'I'm for the Church either way, but Brother wants to know if it will be as just a player or-'

'Stop right there, boy,' Brother Pell said fiercely, and his cold face wore a forbidding frown. 'There is no such thing as 'just' a player, and Brother Rylan is sadly to blame if that's the way he's taught you. Or is that your notion?'

The boy hung his head, and Brother Pell grimaced. 'I thought so. I should send you back to him until you learn humility. Consider yourself on probation. Lenerd Cattlan of Nolton.'

'Here-sir.' The timid dark-haired boy right in front of Rune raised his hand.

'And why are you here?' the Brother asked, glaring at him with hawk-fierce eyes. The boy shrank into his seat and shook his head.

'You don't know?' Pell said, biting off each word. He cast his eyes upward. 'Lord, give me patience. Rune of Westhaven.'

'Sir,' she said, nodding, and matching his stare with a stare of her own. You don't frighten me one bit. And I'm not going to back down to you, either.

She had expected the same question, but he surprised her. 'No last name? Why not?'

That was rude at the very least-but she had a notion that Brother Pell was never terribly polite. She decided to see if she could startle or discomfort him with the truth. 'I don't know who my father is,' she replied levely. 'And I judged it better than to claim something I have no right to.'

One of the other boys snickered, and Pell turned a look on him that left Rune wondering if she scented scorched flesh in its wake. The boy shrank in his seat, and gulped. 'You're an honest boy,' he barked, turning back to Rune, 'and there's no shame in being born a bastard. The shame is on your mother who had no moral sense, not on you. You did not ask to be born; that was God's will. You are doing well to repudiate your mother's weak morals with strong ones of your own. God favors the honest. Perhaps your mother will see your success one day, and repent of her ways.'

If Rune hadn't agreed with him totally about her mother's lack of sense, moral or otherwise, she might have