Changes

split skirt, a belted tunic and shirt tailored like those that the Heralds wore, and at the moment, both were made of very lightweight, breezy material, so she looked just a bit gypsylike. There were ink stains on her writing hand, and the only sign that she was the Head of the Bardic Circle was the Seal of her office in the form of a ring on that hand.

But Mags had seen her perform, and he knew that the moment she put her hand to the strings of one of her favored instruments, you would forget everything about her, and be caught up completely in whatever story she was telling you. Afterward, if someone were to ask you what she looked like, you would probably use words like “goddess,” and “regal” and “queenly.”

Mags chuckled, not taking offense in the least, and put the Dean’s basket on the least cluttered corner of her desk. “Lena,” he said, simply.

The Dean rolled her eyes. “That girl... how Marchand threw such a child, I will never know. He lives to please himself, she lives to please everyone but. On the other hand, I could wish all my students gave me the sorts of problems she does. I tell you, it is far from comfortable presiding over a Collegium where by rights we should count double enrollment.”

Mags had been about to say something about Lena, but the comment caught him off guard. “Ah, what, ma’am? Double enrollment?”

“My Trainees and their egos,” she said, making a face. “All right, what can I do to help you?”

“Twa thin’s,” he said. “Fust one, git some’un t’drag ’er outa ’er room so’s I kin feed ’er and talk to ’er.”

Lena nodded. “And?”

“Second one, I dunno whut ’tis, but ye gotta hev some way uv showin’ ’er ye figger she’s as good nor better’n Marchand’s new pet,” he pointed out. “Ye know Lena. Ye know thet boy is gonna make ’er feel like ’er pa’s wrote ’er off as a failure. Tellin’ ’er ain’t gonna talk to ’er gut. Ye gotta show ’er.”

“Oh, bother,” the Dean said, torn between exasperation and amusement. “You would say something like that. I’m a Bard, young man, we’re all about words, not deeds.”

He dared to raise an eyebrow at her.

She raised one right back at him, trading him look for look.

“I can keep this up all day, you know,” she said conversationally. “I am the past mistress of the admonishing brow. You cannot hope to beat me. Besides, I agree with you. But I am not going to coax and cosset her. That was all very well when she first came here and was terrified, lonely, and shy. She’s older now, and I am not going to allow her to fall into the trap of being weak and bleating like a little lost lamb because she wants attention. It’s not attractive, it’s not appropriate, and it’s not Bardic.”

“Yes’m,” he said obediently, resuming his normal expression.

“Unnatural child,” she complained. “You have the looks of someone barely old enough to be admitted and the mind of an old man. A conniving, calculating, scheming, plotting old man.”

“Yes’m,” he admitted. “Schemin’ kept me breathin’ i’ the’ mine.”

She made a wry face. “I imagine it did. All right, I’ll tuck your second demand in the back of my poor overworked, enfeebled brain and let it simmer. Perchance the Goddess or the Angel of Music will take pity on me and stick an answer in there for me, before my mind melts of the heat. And I’ll summon a Lena-extractor now—no, wait. I’ll get her myself. I haven’t been out of this chair in candlemarks. You wait here.”

Suiting actions to words, the Dean got up and left him standing there, basket handle in his hands. The Dean’s office was on the same floor and corridor as the rooms for the female Bardic Trainees—for reasons that would have been obvious to anyone with the least knowledge of restless young men and women, all of them very far away from the parental eye. In no time at all, she was back, with Lena in tow.

He was relieved to see that Lena didn’t look too bad. She’d been getting some sleep, since her eyes weren’t red or dark-circled. She did have that slightly distracted air she usually had when she’d been working too hard, though.

“There, now. You see? Even the wretched Cook is worried enough about you missing meals he sent one of your friends over with a basket. You should be ashamed of yourself, Lena,” the Dean scolded, gesturing at Mags as they came in. “What is the very first thing we tell you youngsters when you get here? Hmm?”

“Your body is your instrument,” she said without thinking.

“And what would I do if you neglected your instrument, let it get shamefully out of tune, didn’t keep the wood oiled and polished, allowed the strings to break?” the Dean asked sharply, with a fearsome frown on her face.

Mags stilled his feelings of alarm. The Dean was acting as she had said she would, and he couldn’t fault her. She had been teaching Bardic Students for a very long time indeed. He had to believe she knew how to handle someone like Lena.

He waited for Dallen to say something, but Dallen remained silent. So... he hazarded that this meant Dallen agreed with the Bard.

“Take it away from me until I deserved it again,” Lena whispered, her head hanging.

“Well, I can’t exactly take your body, can I?” The Dean sniffed. “But I can take you out of that room and tell you that if you don’t stop driving yourself into the ground, I am going to suspend you from all classes and assign you to the stables for a moon. No music. Plain ordinary labor. Nothing that would harm your hands, of course, but other than that, subject to the orders of the Stablemaster.”

Lena looked up sharply, her mouth agape with shock. “You’d—what?” A faint flush of outrage passed over her pretty face. Mags felt encouraged to see it. The Bard might be right. It might be that what Lena needed to make her stronger was a bit of opposition, not support.

The Dean crossed her arms over her chest. “I am responsible for you, for your health, for your well-being. If you refuse to take care of yourself, I will give you no choice in the matter. A month of good healthy work carrying water and feed and shoveling manure should undo all the nasty things you’ve been doing to yourself. When you see your meals, you’ll devour them because work made you hungry. And you’ll be so tired at the end of the day that you’ll fall asleep whether you want to or not. It’s not as if you have anything to fear in your studies; you’re so far