Castle of Deception
Bard’s Tale, Book 4
Mercedes Lackey and Josepha Sherman
‘Roong.’
The lute string snapped, whipping across Kevin’s hand. He yelped, just barely managing not to drop the lute. Instead, he placed the instrument gently down on his cot, then brought his stinging hand to his mouth. Blast it all, that had hurt! Of course it had. He knew better by now than to try tightening a string too far. After all, he’d been a bardling, an apprentice Bard, for what seemed like all his nearly sixteen years.
The welt finally stopped smarting. Kevin got to his feet with an impatient sigh. He didn’t really mind practicing; it was something every musician had to do every day, even his Master. He didn’t even mind being stuck in his cramped little room. Or at least he wouldn’t mind practicing and being cooped up in this stupid room in this stupid inn if only he knew this was all leading somewhere!
If something doesn’t happen soon, something exciting ...
Picking his way across the piles of clothes and music scrolls uttering the floor, the bardling stared out the one window, down to the Blue Swan’s cobblestone courtyard. A merchant was climbing onto his fine bay horse, his traveling robes rich purple in the springtime sunlight. With him rode his bodyguard, two men and a woman in plain leather armor, straight-backed and alert as falcons, hands never straying too far from the swords at their sides. Kevin sighed in envy. They were probably nothing more heroic than common mercenaries, and the journey they were taking was probably nothing more exciting than a ride to the next town, but at least they were going— somewhere, they were doing something! While he—
“Blast it!” the bardling swore under his breath.
He couldn’t stand being stuck here a moment longer. Clattering down the inn’s wooden staircase, Kevin hurried across the common room—empty at this early hour—and headed out into the courtyard. But then he stopped short on the cobblestones. What was he hoping to see? The merchant and his party were already out of sight, riding down the old North Road that ran just outside the inn’s gateway, and there probably weren’t going to be any more travelers today. Discouraged, the bardling turned and went back through the inn to the back entrance, stepping out into town.
Ha. Some town.
Bracklin was little more than a collection of a dozen small, thatched-roof houses clustered behind the inn. A neat, pretty, orderly place, one where nothing different had ever happened and nothing ever would.
And people here actually like it that—way!
Kevin leaned back against the inn’s half-timbered side, the wall chilly on his back, the sun warm on his face. There had never been a day he could remember when he hadn’t dreamed of being a Bard, of singing wonderful songs and traveling to wonderful places, maybe even working the rare, powerful Bardic Magic, healing people with his music or even banishing demons. How could those dreams have turned into something so unbearably dull?
“Morning, Kevin,” a woman’s cheerful voice called from across the unpaved street—
The bardling started. “Uh, good morning, Ada.”
“That’s just like you bard-folk, always off in a world all your own.”
Ada was a round, chubby, middle-aged hen of a woman. Right now her brown hair was tucked up out of her way in an untidy bun, and the sleeves other plain white blouse were pushed back above the elbows as she filled a washtub full of soapy water. “Come for Master Aidan’s clothes, have you? Told you they couldn’t be ready till this afternoon. Had to spend all day yesterday washing the travel dust off the robes of His Nibs.” Ada’s jerk of the head took in the departed merchant and his party. “Eh, won’t bad-mouth the fellow; paid me down to the last coin, with extra added.” Her bright black eyes studied Kevin. “What’s with you, lad?”
—Nothing.”
“Oh, don’t give me ‘nothing.’ What is it?”
Kevin sighed. “Ada, you remember when I first came here.”
