Chapter IV
Minstrels
“Pacing back and forth within a confined space seems an odd means of relieving tension to me.”
Lydia stopped short at D’Krikas’ quiet words, turning to glare at the seneschal where the Arachnia sat neatly folded behind his desk. It was often difficult to tell from that dry, clipped voice whether or not D’Krikas was being sarcastic, but those insectlike eyes were blinking in what was very obviously false innocence. “Where are they?” she snarled.
“To whom do you refer?” D’Krikas asked with infuriatingly precise Arachnia logic. “Do you mean Count Kevin and the elven Bard?”
Lydia just barely kept from spitting out a sarcastic, No, I mean the Two Lost Kings of the Western Empire. “Of course I mean Kevin and Naitachal, blast it! Where are they?”
The Arachnia paused to choose a sugar cube from the small bowl on his desk and pop it into his beaked mouth. Lydia knew his kind needed to eat frequently, but that didn’t make waiting for him to finish his deliberate munching any easier. At last D’Krikas swallowed, wiped his beak delicately with a scrap of cloth, and said, “We have their note.”
“Yeah, sure. ‘We’ve gone off into the forest to practice our Bardic Art.’ That tells us a lot, doesn’t it?”
“It tells us everything.” D’Krikas paused again, folding his segmented arms precisely across his chitinous chest. “The creative mind is an odd thing; particularly, it would seem, in a human. Such a mind cannot thrive under close confinement. And it is quite true that Count Kevin has had scant time to be what he primarily is: a Bard.”
“And you aren’t even a little bit worried?”
“Why, no. He is not in enemy territory, after all, nor is he alone.”
“Sure,” Lydia said flatly. “He has Naitachal with him. Now that really fills me with confidence!”
D’Krikas cocked his head to one side in the sharp Arachnia fashion that meant surprise but always reminded Lydia of a predatory insect about to pounce. As she schooled herself not to flinch, the seneschal asked in what sounded like genuine confusion, “Why should it not? The elf is no longer a Necromancer.”
“That’s exactly my point! At least while he was practicing that cursed death magic, he kept himself rigidly under control. Maybe you couldn’t quite trust him not to work Necromantic spells, but at least he acted like a responsible adult! Now that he’s turned into a Bard, he’s gotten just as unpredictable as Kevin.”
“Ah. No. You misunderstand. The elf is acting like one newly released from prison, drunk with freedom. It is a temporary condition and does not make him untrustworthy. And at any rate,” D’Krikas added severely, “Count Kevin is no longer a child in need of care.”
“Why, that’s ridiculous. He’s still just a kid.”
“He is nineteen. In human society, that makes him quite legally responsible for his actions, does it not?”
Lydia hesitated, then sighed. “You know it does,” she admitted reluctantly, brushing a straying black curl back from her face with an impatient hand. “And yeah, I guess you’re right. He doesn’t really need watching over, not anymore. He and Naitachal are probably off in some nice, pretty grove playing nice, pretty music together.”
“Exactly. They will surely be back in a short while. And then,” D’Krikas added with the slightest edge to his voice, “it will be time for worry, for then we shall have to listen to whatever new songs they have composed.”
Lydia, who had heard in her travels some of the atonal dronings the Arachnia considered the only proper music, barely managed to bite back a laugh. “You got it,” she said.
But for all her amusement, for all D’Krikas’ inhuman calm, a shadow of worry remained to haunt her.
###
Kevin craned his head back and back again, looking up at the grim grey walls towering over him on the equally grey rocks. “Now that,” he said, “is most definitely a war castle.”
“Oh, indeed,” Naitachal agreed. “Count Trahern’s ancestors must have led some interesting lives. But times are far more peaceable these days, the lost, unlamented Princess Carlotta notwithstanding. Are we still going to keep up this ridiculous pretense?”
Kevin shot a glance Naitachal’s way. The Dark Elf was completely shrouded in his cloak, only the harp slung across his back breaking the somber, anonymous mass. “We are, indeed. Unless, of course, you’d rather not continue with me?”
“What, and give up the entertainment business?”
Ignoring Naitachal’s sarcasm, Kevin kicked his horse forward and started up the twisting road to Count Trahern’s castle.
And, he thought uneasily, to Gwenlyn.
Now, where were minstrels supposed to enter? At his own court, he gave wandering musicians a friendly greeting, being a Bard himself. But who knew how Count Trahern felt about such folk? For want of an answer, Kevin rode right up to the main gate, a massive thing of heavy oak beams and heavier iron grating. Beside him sat Naitachal. The Dark Elf had slipped into the role of a hunched-over, submissive nobody with the ease, Kevin thought bemusedly, of someone who’d once managed to fool an entire squadron of guards into thinking him no more than a harmless dancing girl.
Two great watchtowers loomed over the gate, and the young count glanced up, suddenly very much aware of watching eyes. So. Here we go. “Ho, the castle!” he yelled.
“Who calls?”
“Two minstrels,” Kevin began, “who—”
But before he could get any further, the unseen guard’s voice cut in flatly. “Servants’ entrance is around back that way. Use it.”
Kevin sat gape-mouthed, taken aback by the unexpected rudeness. Beside him, Naitachal murmured, “This was your idea.” Such amusement hinted in the elven Bard’s voice that Kevin said shortly, “It’s all right. A little humility isn’t going to hurt us.”
“Oh, indeed.”
But as they rode along the curve of the castle towers, Kevin couldn’t quite quench a hot little flame of anger, remembering all too clearly another time when he’d ridden just as boldly up to a castle, only to be humbled just as thoroughly. Ah yes, but back then he’d been truly naive, those four incredible years ago, back when becoming a Bard was only a dream and he’d never imagined such folk as warrior women or Dark Elf allies could exist. He’d been plain Kevin in those days, a lowly bardling sent on what he’d thought was a boring errand to copy out a musty old music text.
Ha! Boring was the last thing that errand turned out to be. What with sorcery and undead and—
“Kevin.”
“Ah.” Lost in memory, he had almost ridden right past the servants’ gate. Standing in the stirrups, the count rapped sharply on the thick oaken door. “Anyone within?”
“Who’s there?” The voice sounded thoroughly bored, as though, Kevin thought uneasily, its owner might bar strangers from entry just for the sake of something to do.
I don’t need this. I just want to meet Gwenlyn and get it over with. I don’t need anyone playing games with me. “Two minstrels,” Kevin answered as pleasantly as he could, “come to entertain Count Trahern and his folk.”
“Why?”
That was the last thing he’d expected. “I…uh…I…”
Was that a chuckle from Naitachal? The Dark Elf wasn’t making the slightest move to help him at all, so Kevin said defensively, “Why, because we’re good at what we do! We are—we are fine musicians and talented entertainers. And I assure you, Count Trahern will enjoy meeting us.”
“True enough, that last,” Naitachal murmured wryly, so softly Kevin almost couldn’t hear him. “Even if it’s for different reasons than you claim.”
“We’ve had musicians here in plenty,” the voice continued from the other side of the door, “some good, some not. Lady Gwenlyn loves music, and so does her noble father.”
Well now, that sounded hopeful enough. But before Kevin could reply to that, the voice added scornfully, “So why do we need you?”
Oh, this is ridiculous! “Because, curse it all, we’re not like other minstrels—”
“Clowns, are you?”
“No!” Naitachal was definitely chuckling now, and Kevin only just kept from childishly kicking the door—or the Dark Elf. “We,” he said with great restraint, “are true musicians, not mountebanks, not street corner entertainers, and as such are covered by the Laws of Hospitality.” Kevin was aware he was bluffing wildly now, but hopefully the guard on the other side of the door knew even less than he about archaic points of law. “If you wish to examine us, fine. If you wish to hold our weapons for security, fine. Just let us enter!”
There was a long pause. Then the door slowly groaned open. “Enter,” the bored voice said as though doing them a favor. Kevin bit back a sharp retort, knowing all too well why the unseen guard had let them in. It hadn’t been because Kevin had convinced him of anything, but simply because the guard had gotten tired of his game.
Never mind, never mind. We’re inside, and that’s all that matters.
Kevin glanced quickly about the castle courtyard, trying to orient himself. The yard, like that of his own castle, was full of people, stablehands, farriers, merchants, servants rushing here and there on mysterious errands. Not all were human; Kevin spotted two Arachnia traders chirring and clicking to each other in their native tongue as they strolled along.
Huh. Bet they didn’t have any trouble getting in.
At the far end of the courtyard rose the massive keep, square-sided and several stories high, topped by lead sheathing. This building would surely hold the audience chamber and Count Trahern’s private living quarters. And those of Gwenlyn…
“That’s what we want,” Kevin told Naitachal and dismounted, tossing the reins to a stable lad. Suddenly overwhelmed by the need for this whole business to be over, he strode fiercely forward—
“Hey! Watch it!” a woman’s voice snapped. Kevin, caught off balance, staggered on one foot for a moment, struggling not to fall. “Look out, you clumsy oaf!” the woman shrilled. “You’re stepping all over them!”
With a wild, graceless lunge, he finally recovered his footing and glanced down to find himself standing in the middle of an herb garden, some of the tender green sprouts crushed under his boots. A young woman in the worn, plain, comfortable clothes of a gardener was kneeling to one side, trowel in hand. She was no great beauty: her face was red from work and sun and streaked with dirt, unkempt strands of hair were straggling out from beneath the faded blue scarf covering her head—
And she was glaring up at him with undisguised rage. Embarrassed, Kevin began, “I’m sorry—”
“You should be sorry, you lout!”
It was bad enough to lose dignity in a fight with a gatekeeper. He was not going to let a—a common gardener yell at him like this. “It was an accident,” Kevin said carefully. “Besides, these are just plants, and—”
“Hmph.” Studiously ignoring him, she tried to straighten the seedlings he’d crushed. To his surprise, Kevin found himself staring at her hands. These weren’t the elegant white fingers of a lady who’d never done a stitch of work in her life, but underneath all the dirt they were charmingly graceful and amazingly gentle—
Far gentler than her tongue. “ ‘Just plants,’ ” she muttered. “Say they’re ‘just plants’ when you’ve got a wound that won’t heal and there isn’t any comfrey to soothe it because some stupid idiot of a—” She glanced sharply up at him again, blatantly disapproving of his travel-stained, rumpled self—“Of a whatever you are—”
“A minstrel.”
“Good for you. It took me weeks to get some of these seedlings started, and here you come along and—”
“For the last time,” Kevin snapped, “it was an accident. If you’d put a fence around the whole thing, this wouldn’t have happened!”
“Hah! You’d probably have fallen over it!” Her eyes were the most astonishing shade, the exact indigo he’d seen in summer thunderclouds. Gwenlyn’s eyes were blue, too, at least according to the stylized miniature that had started this mess, but they couldn’t possibly be this wild, this fierce…
“What are you staring at?” the young woman snarled, and her eyes lost all their appeal for him. “Go on, get out of here!”
“Gladly!” Gods, what sort of place was this? Were all the servants in the castle this obnoxious? And if so, what oh what could the count and his daughter be like?
“If you’ve finished arguing with the help,” Naitachal murmured smoothly, suddenly at his side, “follow me. I’ve arranged lodging for us. Tonight we are to sing before the count and his court.”
“Wonderful,” Kevin muttered.
“There’s still time to give up this masquerade.”
“No!”
###
The dining hall was as crowded as his own, lined with rows of trestle tables covered with white linen and set with bowls and ewers of dully gleaming pewter and brighter silver. Not ostentatiously wealthy, Kevin thought, but wealthy. Fresh rushes rustled underfoot, giving off a clean, herbal scent as he and Naitachal, the elven Bard still so shrouded in his cloak and long-sleeved tunic none of his telltale dark skin could be seen, wormed their way through to a place at one of the lower tables. Sharing the table with them was a mixed lot of servants, merchants and entertainers, one of whom kept nervously juggling whatever bits of bread came his way and dropping most of them.
“I hope no one lets him too near any knives,” Naitachal murmured wryly.
Kevin hardly noticed. He was too intent on staring at the two blue-canopied chairs there at the far end of the hall. “Where are they?” he asked uneasily.
“Where’s who?” a red-bearded servant sitting to his left asked without much interest. “Ah, you mean Count Trahern and his daughter! They’ll be here shortly, never fear.” He looked Kevin up and down. “You a minstrel, huh? Don’t worry. You’ll get fed proper before you have to perform.” A blare of trumpets broke into the last of his words, and the servant glanced casually up, adding, “See? Here they come now.”
Kevin looked, looked again, and nearly shot to his feet in shock. Only Naitachal’s hand clamping firmly about his wrist kept him in his seat, staring wildly at the two elegant figures who’d entered. Count Trahern was a tall, lean, handsome man in his richly blue, gold-embroidered robes, his glossy black hair and beard dramatically touched by grey. He looked every bit the sort of man about whom ballads should be sung.
But Kevin gave him only one cursory glance. For at the count’s side sat a slender, dark-haired young woman, her sleek, silky gown as deeply blue as the count’s robes, a woman with the most incredible indigo eyes, visible even at this distance, a woman who—
“Dear gods,” Kevin breathed.
Naitachal glanced his way. “What’s wrong?”
But Kevin could do nothing but shake his head in silent, dazed disbelief. Though her clean-scrubbed face no longer showed the slightest streak of dirt, though her black hair now flowed smoothly down her back, that finely dressed young woman was none other than the sharp-tongued, shrewish gardener with whom he’d fought.
“No, oh no…”
With a groan, Kevin hid his head in his hands.