Bard's Oath (58 page)

Boards a handspan or so wide and perhaps a thumb width thick filled some of them; those were meant, he knew, for the sides and backs. Other bins held thicker lengths for the pillars and necks of the harps. He saw cherry and maple and walnut, even purpleheart from Assantik, and many woods that he didn’t recognize.

A few of the wall bins held the spruce for the soundboards. There were even logs of willow for the most tradition-bound; Linden remembered his earliest harps, made at a time when the entire soundbox save the back was carved from a single willow log. Personally, he thought the newer method of joined boards an improvement. He liked the variety of voices the different woods gave the harps. But all the woods he saw as he gazed down the aisle were beautiful, each in their own way, and all held the promise of song in their hearts.

The bards had added on to the building; it was bigger than he remembered. He’d picked out the wood for an earlier harp from here only—

Hmm … Almost eighty years would be considered a long time ago to truehumans. There were no bards alive now who remembered the building he’d known. Even Otter was much too young.

He walked down the aisle, past the tall, thick wooden posts that lined it like trees along a path in the woods. Sawdust and shavings covered the floor and muffled his footsteps.

He called, “Hello—anyone about?”

“Back here,” a muffled voice replied, followed by a series of little thumping noises.

Linden followed the sounds. In the far corner he found a young woman and a boy of perhaps fourteen years in the process of emptying out one of the large wall bins. Judging by the pile of mixed woods at their feet, this was where all the odds and ends of years past had been consigned. Near them sat a girl about the same age as the boy; she had a tally board on her lap.

Both the boy and the girl wore the grey tunics and red armbands of apprentice bards. The woman, although her own tunic matched theirs, also wore the red belt of a journeywoman.

“You’re Rose of Littleford?” Linden asked the woman.

She straightened and dusted her hands on the seat of her breeches as she studied him covertly; Linden surmised she was trying to guess his possible rank and how to address him.

It seemed she decided to play it safe, for she answered, “I am, my lord.” Her head tilted in inquiry.

“I’m a friend of Otter’s,” Linden said, pleased to see the younger two faces brighten at the bard’s name. Rose, though, suddenly looked as if something niggled at the back of her mind. Linden could guess what it was and went on to distract her. “I wonder—while I’m sorry to disturb your work, Journeywoman Rose, may I speak with you alone? I’ve come on private business from Otter.”

She frowned a little at that, then seemed to decide that if he’d gotten this far into the grounds of the School, he had legitimate business. She waved a hand at the two apprentices. “Off with you both. It’s nearly time for your lessons, anyway.”

They didn’t have to be told twice. Like apprentices anywhere, these two were glad of a little free time to themselves. The girl set down her slate and jumped up, sprinting after the boy, who was already halfway down the aisle.

“Thank you!” they chorused as they disappeared through the door.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” Linden said in apology as Rose frowned at the boards still in the bin.

“No, no. Just sorting through odds and ends. My master—” Her voice caught. “My … late master had a bad habit of stowing away boards that didn’t meet his standards even for teaching the ’prentices how to work wood. I used to tease him that they weren’t wine to improve with age. But he couldn’t stand to part with any wood that came his way—the stuff fascinated him. He always said he might find a use for it someday.” Her eyes, now bright with unshed tears, seemed to say,
But that day never came.…

Blinking quickly, Rose waved her hand at the wood. “As you can see, they’re not very useful.”

Linden leaned closer to look. No, those boards with the big knots wouldn’t be good for making instruments; that one to the right might make a good boat, it was so cupped, and the rest of the stuff seemed little better. Good for rough carpentry, perhaps, or to carve into toys, but not for fine instruments.

“And what will
you
do with it?” he asked, knowing from Otter that Rose had the same “little magic” of curing wood as the late Sether.

Her mouth turned up in a half-wry, half-sad smile. “Likely stuff it back in there once I know what’s what. Maybe I’ll even find that elusive use for it one day. I had thought at first that this was what went into that bonfire, but—”

She tossed her head as if shaking off sad memories and ran her fingers through her mousy brown hair. “Now, my lord, what are these questions?” she asked, all brisk practicality now.

“I spoke with Otter before I came here. He told me that something had been bothering your late master for some time. Is that so?”

She hesitated for so long that Linden thought she would refuse to answer. Then she nodded, the barest jerk of her head, so quick that if Linden hadn’t been watching her closely, he might have missed it.

“Do you know what it was?” he continued.

She suddenly looked uncomfortable. Was she reluctant to be thought speaking ill of poor Sether? Or, as a mere journeywoman, was she afraid to bring up a certain name?

Linden was not. “Let’s see if this helps: Some time ago, Bard Leet came back from the second of two journeys he’d made, didn’t he? Journeys that I’ve been told were unusual for him—especially the first. I’ve also been told that he then went to see Sether, and it was shortly afterwards that Sether became … upset, shall we say?”

She stared at him, blank-faced, but made no sound or gesture of agreement or denial. Then her expression shifted to anger. “Who are you to ask me such questions?” she demanded, fists clenched. “And
why
do you ask them?”

“My name is Linden Rathan.”

Her face paled and she steadied herself with a hand on the edge of the wall bin. “Oh gods, I should have guessed…,” she muttered. “A friend of Otter’s with a birthmark—I should have been able to figure it out, I’ve heard talk…” She bobbed a rough courtesy. “Your Grace, forgive me, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.” She babbled on in apology.

Linden held up a hand to stop her. “Journeywoman, I certainly don’t fault you for your anger. Even as a Dragonlord, those questions would be impertinent if I didn’t have a very good reason for asking them.”

“May I ask that reason, Your Grace?”

“A man’s life. A man I—and others—believe to be innocent at heart. A friend.”

Rose stared at the floor; Linden waited, watching her silent struggle as she weighed what she should do—and what she dared do. Would she be named “traitor” by the others in the Bards’ Guild? And if she dared speak—she, no master, only a mere journeywoman—might it recoil upon her if Leet found out who’d set the hounds on his trail? That is, if Leet was innocent …

Almost to herself, she whispered. “I’ve no proof.…”

He all but heard the unspoken,
But I have suspicions.
Her eyes begged him for something.

But what? He gazed at her, puzzled; she stared back with frightening intensity. Then, all at once, he knew.

Linden smiled. Clever girl; if this all came to naught, and anyone found out who’d told tales and made trouble for her, she could blame him. “Dragonlord’s orders,” he said with a wink.

A flash of a smile told him he’d guessed correctly. “Since you give me no choice, Dragonlord,” she said, looking as innocent as a newborn lamb, “I must—”

She hesitated; for a moment he thought she would burst into tears. Then the words gushed forth like a dam breaking. “I’ll tell you what I know, and may it help you and your friend. At least one life’s wasted already; I won’t have another one taken.

“Now mind you, I don’t know where Leet went for the first journey,” Rose began.

“Dragonskeep,” Linden supplied.

The look she gave him was full of speculation. “Did he now? I wonder why. We all knew he wouldn’t go there because Otter did so frequently. We used to laugh about it, how it must have galled him not to play before such an audience.”

“I know part of why he went,” Linden said, remembering seeing Leet in the library at Dragonskeep. “But not all. Go on, please.”

“When he came back, I know he spoke to Sether at least once. I went to talk to my master one evening; we had a shipment of spruce for soundboards from Megara that was late and I wanted to know if he wanted me to ride out there and find out what had happened. But when I got to his office—”

Rose gestured to the back of the building; looking, Linden could make out a door in the thick shadows.

“—I heard voices. I recognized Sether’s right away, of course, but it was a moment or two before I recognized Leet’s, he spoke so softly. I almost went in anyway, because I didn’t like Leet’s tone, but … I stopped. I just knew something was very wrong.”

She studied her boot toes for a moment, then looked up at Linden in appeal. “You know how sometimes you can tell—not from the words, because you can’t really hear them, but from the voices themselves—that you’d best not interrupt? Or that it’s something you’d just rather not know about? I felt that, that night, standing there in the darkness outside the office, listening to those voices murmuring like a distant stream. What I heard in Leet’s voice scared me.”

Linden nodded. He could well imagine how Rose had felt. Many times over the years that they’d been friends, he’d heard the power in Otter’s voice; it was part of the magic that made a true Bard. Leet would have it as well.

And if you were only a journeywoman, and the two you’d interrupt were your master and a bard known for his hot temper and sharp tongue … He didn’t blame Rose one bit.

“I don’t mind saying that I turned and slunk off nice and quiet-like. I like my head on my shoulders. Almost forgot about it all, too, because late the next day that wood we’d been waiting for came in. At first it seemed the same as any other shipment.”

She paused, frowning, lost in her memories. After a time, Linden said, “And what was different that time?”

Rose jumped a little. “I almost didn’t see it, you know, or them. They waited until dusk was falling to unload that particular wagon. But by chance I looked around just as Leet, my master, and another man that I’m certain I recognized unloaded a good-sized wooden box from the wagon and hurried off with it.”

“Did you ever see what was in it?”

Shaking her head, Rose said, “No. Nor did Master Sether ever mention it. Indeed, I never saw it again after that night; I suspect it was taken away straight off. And there was another puzzle on that wagon: boards of rowan wood that I never saw again, either. I think they went wherever the box went.”

Rowan?
Now that was odd. Linden rubbed his chin, thinking. He’d never heard of rowan used for a harp, but then he was certainly no expert; he liked walnut or cherry for an instrument himself and had never considered anything else. But someone else certainly might have.

But when he put the question to Rose, she shook her head. “I’ve never heard of anyone having a harp made from it, either. I’m not certain if it would work well.”

So what
does
one use rowan
—

Linden swore aloud. What was rowan used for? Protection against magic. Or, to turn it around, to shield magic from leaking. Mages often kept magical items such as amulets in boxes of rowan, he knew.

But what on earth would a bard need with something like that? Or was— “How big were those boards? Only enough for a small box or big enough for, say, a chest?”

Rose’s eyes went wide and she raked her fingers through her hair. “They were narrow boards—rowan’s not a large tree like maple or oak. But there were a lot of them. More than enough for a small box—more like something the size of a case for a small harp.” She smiled wryly. “My apologies. That’s how I think. Everything is about harps.”

An idea began to niggle at the back of Linden’s mind, nebulous as a wisp of fog. “A small harp … As, say, a traveling harp?”

Rose nodded. “Just so, Your Grace.”

Linden stood silent, mulling over all that Rose had told him. Nothing that he could point to and say, “This! This proves Raven’s innocence.” All he had were hints.

But hints of exactly
what
? He needed hard, solid
proof.
And where the hell he was supposed to find that, he didn’t know.

At last he said, “You’ve given me much to think about, Journeywoman Rose. I thank you.”

She made him another courtesy. “May what I’ve told you help save that poor man’s life.”

Linden smiled a little ruefully. “I don’t have enough yet. I need more, but I don’t know where I might find it.” With that, he left her to finish her work.

But when he was halfway to the door, the young woman called out, “Dragonlord!”

“Yes?”

“The third man who helped unload the wagon … He’s a luthier, a well-known one, named Thomelin. He trained here. He’s made harps for a number of the bards.”

“I thank you again, Mistress Rose. And where might I find this luthier named Thomelin?”

“In the artisans’ quarter here in Bylith, my lord—it’s a large house and workshop on Carver’s Lane. He makes wonderful instruments; he can make wood sing.”

He can make wood sing
.… Even as he wondered where else he’d heard that of Thomelin the luthier, an image answered it:
Leet standing in the encampment, the flickering torchlight dancing over the harp cradled in his arms.

What else can this Thomelin make wood do? Linden wondered grimly.

*   *   *

After asking directions a few times, Linden finally found the luthier’s dwelling. When the hell had Pig Lane disappeared and that big embroiderers’ guild house taken its place? He’d had to go a way he didn’t know and gotten lost.

At least Nightsong had agreed to bear him. He left her by the low fence that separated the shop and home from the street, and let himself in through the gate.

Thomelin does well for himself,
Linden thought as he studied the luthier’s home. The combination house and workshop was large and airy, with the lower floor devoted to the luthery and the living quarters above.