Lark and Wren

'I've never in all me life had quite such a not-lecture,' he whispered to her, when Talaysen had gone to see about something. 'He takes being your Master right seriously, young Rune. I've just been warned that if I intend to break your heart by flirting with you, your Master there will be most unamused. He seems to think a broken heart would interfere more with your learning than yon broken arm. In fact, he offered to trade me a broken head for a broken heart.'

Rune didn't know whether to gape or giggle; she finally did both. Talaysen found them both laughing, as Rune poked fun at Raven's gallantry, and Raven pretended to be crushed. Talaysen immediately relaxed.

But then he shooed Raven off and sat down beside her himself.

'It's time we had a real lesson,' he said. 'If you're going to insist I act like a Master, I'll give you a Master's lessoning.' He then began a ruthless interrogation, having Rune go over every song she'd ever written. First he had her sing them until he'd picked them up, then he'd critique them, with more skill-and (which surprised her) he criticized them much harder even than Brother Pell had.

Of her comic songs, he said, 'It's all very well to have a set of those for busking during the day, either in cities or at Faires, but there's more to music than parody, and you very well know it. If you're going to be a Bard, you have to live up to the title. You can't confine yourself to something as limited as one style; you can't even be known for just one style. You have to know all of them, and people must be aware that you're versed in all of them.'

Of 'Fiddler Girl,' he approved of the tune, except that-'It's too limited. You need to expand your bridges into a whole new set of tunes. Make the listener feel what it was like to fiddle all night long, with Death waiting if you slipped! In fact, don't ever play it twice the same. Improvise! Match your fiddle-music to the crowd, play scraps of what you played then, so that they recognize you're recreating the experience, you're not just telling someone else's story.'

And of the lyrics, he was a little kinder, but he felt that they were too difficult to sing for most people. 'You and I and most of the Free Bards can manage them-if we're sober, if we aren't having a tongue-tied day-but what about the poor busker in the street? They look as if you just wrote them down with no notion of how hard they'd be to sing.'

When she admitted that was exactly what she'd done, he shook his head at her. 'At least recite them first. Nothing's ever carved in stone, Rune. Be willing to change.'

The rest of her serious songs he dismissed as being 'good for filling in between difficult numbers. Easy songs with ordinary lyrics.' Those were the ones she'd composed according to Brother Pell's rules for his class, and while it hurt a bit to have them dismissed as 'ordinary,' it didn't hurt as much as it might have. She'd chafed more than a bit at those rules; to have the things she'd done right out of her head given some praise, and the ones she'd done according to the 'rules' called 'common' wasn't so bad. . . .

Or at least, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Then he set her a task: write him a song, something about elves. 'They're always popular,' he said. 'Try something-where a ruler makes a bargain with an elf, then breaks it. Make the retribution something original. No thunder and lightning, being turned into a toad, or dragged off to hell. None of that nonsense; it's trite.'

She nodded, and set to it as soon as he left. But she could see that he had not lied to her. He was not going to be an easy Master.

Talaysen left his instruments in the tent, and walked off into the Faire with nothing about him to identify who or what he was. He preferred to leave it that way, given that he was going to visit the cathedral-and that the Bardic Guild tent was pitched right up against the cathedral walls. Of course, there was always the chance that one of his old colleagues would recognize him, but now, at night, that chance was vanishingly slim. They would all be entertaining the high and the wealthy-either their own masters, or someone who had hired them for the night. The few that weren't would be huddled together in self-satisfied smugness-though perhaps that attitude might be marred a little, since he'd begun singing 'Fiddler Girl' about the Faire. The real story of the contest was spreading, through the medium of the Free Bards and the gypsies. In another couple of weeks it should be safe enough for Rune to show her face at this Faire.

He was worried about his young charge, though, because she troubled him. So he was going to talk with an old friend, one who had known him for most of his life, to see if she could help him to sort his thoughts out.

He skirted the bounds of the Guild tent carefully, even though a confrontation was unlikely. His bones were much older than the last time he'd been beaten, and they didn't heal as quickly anymore. But the tent was dark; no one holding revels in there, not at the moment. Just as well, really.

He sought out a special gate in the cathedral wall, and opened it with a key he took from his belt-pouch, locking the gate behind him again once he'd entered. The well-oiled mechanism made hardly a sound, but something alerted the guardian of that gate, who came out of the building to see who had entered the little odd- shaped courtyard.

'I'd like to see Lady Ardis,' Talaysen told the black-clad guard, who nodded soberly, but said nothing. 'Could you see if she is available to a visitor?'

The guard turned and left, still without a word; Talaysen waited patiently in the tiny courtyard, thinking that a musician has many opportunities to learn patience in a lifetime. It seems as if I am always waiting for something. . . .

This was, at least, a pleasant place to wait. Unlike the courtyards of most Church buildings, this one, though paved, boasted greenery in the form of plants spilling from tiers of wooden boxes, and trees growing from huge ceramic pots. Lanterns hanging from the wall of the cloister provided soft yellow light. Against the wall of the courtyard, a tiny waterfall trickled down a set of stacked rocks, providing a breath of moisture and the restful sounds of falling water.

At least, it did when the Faire wasn't camped on the other side of the wall. Music, crowd-noise, and laughter spilled over the walls, ruffling the serenity of the place.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned. A tall, scarlet-clad woman whose close- cropped blond hair held about the same amount of gray as his, held out her hands to him. 'Gwydain!' she exclaimed. 'I wondered when you'd get around to visiting me!'

He strode towards her, and clasped both her hands in his. 'I was busy, and so were you, my dear cousin. I truly intended to pay my respects when the trials were over. Then my latest little songbird got herself into a brawl with the Guild, and I had to extract her from the mess my lack of foresight put her in.'