Lark and Wren

the mug in a single gulp. 'There's been a lot of rumor around the Faire about the boy-or girl, the rumors differ-who won the trials yesterday, and yet has vanished quite out of ken. No one is talking, and no one is telling the truth.' His expression grew just a little angrier. 'The Guild judges presented the winners today, and they had their exhibition-and they all looked so damned smug I wanted to break their instruments over their heads. I intend the Guild to know you're with us and if they touch you, there'll be equal retribution.'

'Equal retribution?' Rune asked, swallowing a lump that had appeared in her throat when he'd mentioned broken instruments.

'When Master Wren came to us, the Guild didn't like it,' Gwyna said, bringing Talaysen a slice of bread and cheese. ' 'Twas at this very Faire that he first began to play with us in public. He wasn't calling himself Gwydain, but the Guildsmen knew him anyway. They set on him-they didn't break his arm, but they almost broke his head. We Gypsies went after every Guild Bard we caught alone the next day.'

Talaysen shook his head. 'It was all I could do to keep them from setting on the Guildsmen with knives instead of fists.'

Erdric laughed, but it wasn't a laugh of humor. 'If they'd hurt you more than bruises, you wouldn't have. They didn't dare walk the Faire without a guard-even when they wandered about in twos and threes, they're so soft 'twas no great task to beat them all black and blue. When we reckoned they'd gotten the point and when they started hiring great guards to go about with 'em, we left them alone. They haven't touched one of us since, any place there're are Gypsies about.'

'But elsewhere?' Rune winced as her head throbbed. 'Gypsies and Free Bards can't be everywhere.'

'Quite true, but I doubt that's occurred to them,' Talaysen said. 'At any rate'-he flicked a drop of water at her from his mug-'there. You're Rune no more. Rune is gone; Lark stands-or rather, sits-in her place. The quarrel the Bardic Guild has is with Rune, and I don't know anyone by that name.'

'As you say, Master,' she replied, mock-meekly.

He saw through the seeming, and grinned. 'I'm for a bath. Then the song; I'll see it sung all over the Faire tomorrow, and they'll know you're ours. When you come out with the rest of us in a week or two, they'll know better than to touch you.'

'Come out? In two weeks?' she exclaimed. 'But my arm-'

'Hasn't hurt your voice any,' Talaysen replied. 'You can come with me and sing the female parts; teach me the rest of your songs, and I'll play while you sing.' He fixed her with a fierce glare. 'You're a Free Bard, aren't you?'

She nodded, slowly.

'Then you stand up to the Guild, to the Faire, to everyone; you stand up to them, and you let them know that nothing keeps a Free Bard from her music!' He looked around at the rest of the Free Bards gathered in the tent; so did Rune, and she saw every head nodding in agreement.

'Yes, sir!' she replied, with more bravery than she felt. She was afraid of the Guild; of the bullies that the Guild could hire, of the connection the Guild seemed to have with the Church. And the Church was everywhere. If the Church took a mind to get involved, no silly renaming would make her safe.

She hadn't been so shaken since Westhaven, when those boys had tried to rape her.

Talaysen seemed to sense her fear. He reached forward and took her good hand in his. 'Believe in us, Lady Lark,' he said, his voice trembling with intensity. 'Believe in us-and believe in yourself. Together we can do anything, so long as we believe it. I know. Trust me.'

She looked into his green eyes, deep as the sea, and as restless, hiding as many things beneath their surface, and revealing some of them to her. There was passion there, that he probably didn't display very often. She found herself smiling, tremulously.

And nodded, because she couldn't speak.

He took that at face value; released her hand, and pulled himself up to his feet. 'I'll be back,' he said gravely, but with a twinkle. 'And the apprentice had better be ready to teach when I return.' He left the tent with a remarkably light step, and her eyes followed him.

When she pulled her eyes back to the rest, Rune didn't miss the significant glance that Erdric and Gwyna exchanged, but somehow she didn't resent it. Talaysen, though, might. She remembered all the questions that Sparrow had asked, and the tone of them, and decided to keep her observations to herself. It was more than enough that the greatest living Bard had taken her as his apprentice. Anything else would either happen or not happen.

A week later, it was Talaysen's turn to mind the tent, that duty shared by Rune's old friend Raven.

Raven had appeared the previous evening, to be greeted by all of his kin with loud and enthusiastic cries, and then underwent a series of kisses and backslapping greetings with each of the Free Bards.

Then he was brought to Rune's corner of the tent; she hadn't seen who had come in and had been dying of curiosity to see who it was. Raven was loudly pleased to see her, dismayed to see the fading marks of her beating, and angered by what had happened. It was all Talaysen and the others could do to keep him from charging out then and there, and beating up a few of the Guild Bards in retaliation. The judges in particular; he had the same notion as Talaysen, to break their instruments over their heads.

They managed to calm him, but after due thought, he judged that it was best he not go playing in the 'streets' for a while, so he took his tent-duty early. He played mock- court to Rune, who blushed to think that she'd ever thought he might want to be her lover.

I didn't know anything then, she realized, as he bowed over her hand, but kept a sharp watch for Nightingale. She knew that once Nightingale appeared, he'd leave her side in a moment. She was not his type; not even in the Gypsy-garb she'd taken to wearing, finding skirts and loose blouses much more suited to handling one-handed than breeches and vests. All of his gallantry was in fun, and designed to keep her distracted and in good humor.

Oddly enough, Talaysen seemed to take Raven's mock-courtship seriously. He watched them with a faint frown on his face most of the morning. After lunch, he took the younger man aside and had a long talk with him. What they said, Rune had no idea, until Raven returned with a face full of suppressed merriment and his hands full of her lunch and her medicines.