To someone like Valdir, this stranger meant danger of another sort. The man could be looking to eliminate a rival, or intending to bully him - or worse.
Valdir backed up a pace, letting his uncertainty show on his face.
A tired horse pulled a slops-wagon down the center of the street, and the stranger stepped deliberately toward him once it had passed.
'Ah, ease up, boy, I'm not about to pummel you,' the minstrel said, a faint hint of disgust twisting his lips. Valdir continued to step back, until the minstrel had him trapped in a corner where a fence met the inn wall. Valdir froze, his hands pressed against the unsanded wood behind him, and the minstrel reached for his face, grabbing his chin in a hand rough with chording-calluses. He turned Valdir's cheek into the light, and examined the slowly purpling bruise.
'Got you a good one, did she?' He touched the edge of the bruise without hurting his captive. 'Huhn. Not as bad as it could be.'
The minstrel let him go and backed up a few steps. Valdir huddled where he was, watching him fearfully. The stranger scratched his chin thoughtfully. 'Heard you last night when I went on break. You aren't bad.'
'Thank you,' Valdir replied timidly.
'You're also going to get your hands broken if you stay with Bel for very long,' the other continued. 'That's what she did to the one before the one that ran off with her girl.'
Valdir did not reply.
'Well? Aren't you going to say anything?'
'Why are you telling me all this?' Valdir asked, letting his suspicion show. He stood up a little straighter, and rubbed his sweaty palms on his patched and faded linen tunic in a conscious echoing of an unconscious gesture of nervousness.
'Because the one before the one that ran off with her girl was a good lad,' the older man said, impatience getting the better of him. 'He was pretty, like you, and he was fey, like I bet you are, and I don't want it happening to another one. All right?' He turned on his heel and started to walk away.
'Wait!' Valdir cried after him. 'Please, I - I didn't mean -'
A bit of breeze blew dry leaves up the street. The minstrel halted, turned slowly. Valdir walked toward him, holding out his hand. 'I'm Valdir,' he said shyly. 'I've been - north. Baires.' The other showed his surprise with a hissing intake of breath. 'I made a bit of a mistake, and I had to make a run for it.' He looked down at his feet, then back up again. 'It hasn't been easy; not while I was there, and not getting across the border to here. They got me out of the habit of looking for friends up there, and into the habit of looking for enemies.'
'Renfry,' said the older minstrel, clasping his hand, with a slow smile that showed a good set of even, white teeth. 'Not many real musicians on the Row. I s'ppose I should be treating you as a rival - but - hell, a man gets tired of hearing and singing the same damn things over and over. Bel had Jonny for a long while before she ruined him, and he trained here.'
'What happened to him? After, I mean.'
'We clubbed together and sent him off to a Healer the very next day, ended up having to send him across the Border. Uppity palace Healer didn't want to 'waste his time on tavern scum.' Never heard anything after that.' He shrugged. 'If the poor lad ended up not being able to play again, I don't imagine he'd want anyone to know.'
Valdir shuddered; genuinely.
'Ol' Bel don't believe in letting the help sample the goods. She got drunk and thought Jonny had his eye on one of the girls.' He snorted in contempt. 'Not bloody likely.'
'She must have slipped up once -' Valdir ventured. 'I mean - the one that romanced her girl, like you said.'
Renfry laughed, and started up the dusty, near-empty street with Valdir following. The thin autumn sunlight stretched their shadows out ahead of them. 'She did, because she was bedding the fellow herself. She never figured him for having the stamina to be double-dipping!
Truth to tell, I hope he was good in bed, because he surely had a voice like a crow in mating season, and maybe four whole chords to his name.'
