The Robin and the Kestrel (14 page)

Then again
—
they probably won't come looking for someone who might be beating the pulp out of two strangers. No one wants to know what these three are doing, I'll bet.

"I
also
think it would be very wise of you to make that apology, like a gentleman, and say nothing more about this," she continued.
"Don't you?"

Frantically, he nodded, his eyes never leaving her face. The bloodthirsty expression there would have terrified a denser man than he.

"Just a few things I want you to think about, before you make that apology," she said harshly. "You might have what you
think
is a clever idea, about claiming how we attacked you, after we drive off." She shook her head, as he broke out in a cold sweat. "That would be a very, very stupid idea. First of all, you'd end up looking like a fool. Why, look how
small
we are! We weigh less than you do, the two of us put together! Think how
brave
you'd look, saying that two
tiny
people attacked you and beat you up, and one of them a girl! You would wind up looking like a weakling as well as a fool, and everyone from here to Kingsford would be laughing at you. What's more, they'd say you can't be any kind of a man if you let a girl beat you up. They'd say you're fey. And they'd start beating
you
up, any time you left home."

The sick look in his eyes told Kestrel that her words had hit home, but she wasn't finished with him.

"There's another reason why that would be a very, very stupid idea," she continued. "We're Gypsies. Do you know just what that means?"

He shook his head, very slightly.

"That means that we have all
kinds
of ways to find out what you've been doing, even when we aren't around. It means we have even
more
ways of getting at you afterwards—and all of them will come when you aren't expecting them." Her eyes widened, and her voice took on a singing quality—

And Kestrel sensed the undercurrent of music in the mind, music that could not be detected by the ears, the music he only heard when someone was using Bardic Magic.

Robin's voice matched that music, turning her sing-song into a real spell, a spell meant to convince this fool that every word she said was nothing less than absolute truth. "We'll come in the night, when you're all alone—catch you on a path and send monsters to chase you until your heart bursts! We'll send invisible things, night-hags, and vampires to your bed, to sit on your chest and
squeeze
the breath from your lungs while you try to scream in pain and can't! We'll come at you from the full moon, and set a fire in your brain, until you run mad, howling like a dog!"

The bully was shaking so hard he could hardly stand now.

"Or—we'll wait—and one night, when you're sitting at your ease—"

Her eyes widened further, and he stared at them, unable to look away.

"—watching the fire—all alone—no one around to help you, or save you—"

He was sweating so hard now that his shirt was soaked.

"—suddenly the fire
will flare]
It will grow! You'll be unable to move as it swells and takes on a form, the form of a two-legged beast with fangs as long as your arm and talons like razors! You'll scream and scream, but no one will hear you! You'll try to escape, but you'll be frozen to your chair! You'll watch the
demon
tear out your heart, watch as it eats your heart still beating, and howl as it takes you down to hell!"

At the word "hell," a burst of flame appeared under his nose, cupped in the hand that was not holding the dagger.

A slow, spreading stain on the front of his pants and a distinctive smell betrayed just how frightened he was. The bully had wet his breeches with fear.

Kestrel let him go in disgust, and the man dropped to the ground, gibbering incoherently. Robin stepped back and smiled at him sweetly.

"Now," she said, "do you apologize for calling me a slut?"

He nodded frantically.

"Do you apologize for calling Rune a slut?"

His head bobbed so hard it practically came off his shoulders.

"Are you going to keep your filthy tongue off Rune and any other Free Bard? Are you going to take your two playmates and go away, and never say
anything
about this again?" She smiled, but it was not sweetly. "Are you going to pretend all this never happened?"

"Yes!" the bully blubbered, through his tears. "Yes! Oh, please—"

"You may go," Robin said, coolly, sheathing her dagger so quickly it must have looked to the man as if she had made it vanish into thin air. He fled.

The other two were just getting to their feet, but they had heard and seen everything Robin had said and done. And they had been affected by her Bardic spell too, just not as profoundly or immediately as the first bully. The one Kestrel had kicked helped the one with the bloodied face to his feet, and the two of them supported each other, getting out of sight as quickly as possible.

Which was precisely what Kestrel had in mind, as well—getting away before some other variety of trouble found them! He jumped into the driver's seat and picked up the reins, giving Robin just enough time to scramble into the passenger's side before turning the mares, and heading out of the village at a brisk trot, thanking whatever deity might be listening for the thickening dusk that hid both them and their erstwhile attackers, and for the emptiness of the village square.

"Wh-why d-did you
d-d-d-do
that?" he asked, as Robin arranged her skirts with a self-satisfied little smile.

"What?" she asked, as if he had astonished her by asking the question. "Why did I use the Bardic Magic? I wanted him to believe me! If I hadn't, he'd have gotten another dozen of his friends and come after us!"

"N-not using th-the B-Bardic M-Magic!" he scolded, guiding the mares around a tricky turn. "M-making th-them th-think w-we w-were evil m-m-mages! R-remember wh-what the Ch-church has b-b-been saying abb-bout m-mages?"

"Oh, that," she replied, indifferently. "What difference does it make? He won't tell anyone
anything
now. He'll be sure that the moment he opens his mouth, a demon will come after him."

"N-now,"
Kestrel retorted. "You kn-know the m-magic w-wears off! H-how l-long b-before he t-tells a P-p-p-priest?"

"So what? We're never coming back." She had something cradled in her skirts; a moment later, he heard the distinctive clink of coins. "Hah!" she said, in the next moment, as the wagon jounced a little. "We actually came out ahead!"

"Wh-what?"
he yelped. He knew exactly what
that
meant; she'd not only beaten and terrified those bullies, she'd
picked their pockets.
"Y-you d-d-d-didn't!"

"Of course I did," she said, calmly, taking the coins and pouring them into her belt-pouch. "Why not? They deserved worse than that! Didn't you hear them? I'll bet those louts absolutely terrified Rune while she lived here! They should be grateful that I was in a good mood! I almost made the three of them eunuchs while I was at it!"

"B-but—" he protested. "Th-that m-makes us n-no b-better th-than th-they are!"

"I don't think so." She folded her arms stubbornly across her chest. "I think we were simply the instrument of proper justice."

"B-but—" He gave up. She would never admit she was wrong, even if he managed to convince her of it—and even if he did, she would only think he was worried about the possible consequences. That wasn't what made him so upset, but how could he make her understand that she had just acted in as immoral and irresponsible a manner as the
Church
claimed Free Bards were?

How could they honestly refute the claims of the street preachers when they actually
did
what the street preachers said they did? Even though they had been provoked—

Never mind.
Right now, the best thing he could do was drive. Maybe this would sort itself out later.

He hoped.

Darkness had fallen by the time they reached the next building on the road. The Hungry Bear inn—distinguished as such by the sign over the door, a crudely painted caricature of an animal that
could
have been a bear—or a brown pig—or a tree-stump with teeth. The sign was much in need of paint. The
inn
was much in need of repair.

Even in the fading twilight and the feeble flame of a torch beside the door, that much was all too obvious. It was clean, superficially at least, but so shabby that Gwyna would have passed it by without a second thought if they were really looking for a night's work.

But they weren't, so when Kestrel pulled the horses to a halt outside the front door—which didn't even have a lantern, only that crude pitch-and-straw torch—she hopped down to see if she could find the innkeeper.

She had barely one foot on the ground before a round blob of a woman dressed in clothing more suited to a coquettish girl came hurrying out to see if they might be customers.

As she came out of the darkness of the tap room and into the flickering light from the torch, Gwyna felt her eyes widen in surprise. Was
this
Rune's mother?

She must be—certainly the lavish use of cosmetics, and the straw-blond hair, the low-cut blouse and the kilted-up skirt matched Rune s descriptions. But if this was Rune's mother—either Rune s memory was horribly at fault, or the woman had doubled, or even tripled her weight, since Rune had left!

"Welcome to the Hungry Bear," the woman said, her eyes taking in their equippage, and probably evaluating it to the List penny. "My name is Stara, and I am the innkeeper's wife—how may I serve you?"

Well, that certainly clinched it. This too.; Rune's mother, and she had evidently managed to wheedle, connive, or blackmail her way into more than Jeoff s bed.

Well, Rune was right about that much. And since I don't .see any other helpers around, I suspect they either can't afford more help anymore, or no one will work for them. So Rune was right there, too, in thinking Stara would have turned her into an unpaid drudge, given half a chance. If Rune had .stayed, she'd have found herself shackled to this shoddy inn for the rest of her life, with music taking second place to whatever her mother wanted her to do.

"We are musicians, Innkeeper," Robin said, in a carefully neutral voice. "We hadn't really expected to And an inn here, but we usually offer our services in return for a room and a meal—"

Not that I'd sleep in any bed you had anything to do with. You probably haven't washed the sheets in months.

The balding and middle-aged innkeeper himself appeared at the door as Robin finished her little speech, but he held back, diffidently saying nothing, quite obviously very much the henpecked husband. Stara looked them over critically, and her eyes sharpened with mingled envy and greed at their prosperity. No one who drove a rig like theirs, new, and well-made, would be an inferior musician or poor . . . .

And given the general air of abandonment, when Rune ran off, most of the business went somewhere else. There should be at least a handful of customers in there, and the tap room is empty. I don't smell anything cooking, either, which means they don't get enough customers of an evening to have a regular supper ready.

So, if they stayed, there'd be an empty tap room, a poor meal and a cold and musty bed. And given what had just happened back in the village

It probably wouldn't be a good idea to stop here. No matter what else I could find out about Stara. I think I've seen enough to tell Rune all she needs to hear. Enough to make her glad that she got out while she could.

"Uh—Stara—" the innkeeper said, timidly. "We don't know these people. We don't know anything about them. Remember what the Priest has been preaching? These people aren't wearing Guild colors. So many of these free musicians sing that licentious music, that music that makes people do sinful things—"

Stara started to wave him to silence, but it appeared that on this subject, at least, he would not be henpecked. He raised his chin and his voice stubbornly. "You know very well how sinful we were when that daughter of yours was playing her music here! And every night the tap room was full of people dancing, singing, taking no thought of their souls—"

"I know," Stara muttered resentfully, no doubt thinking how full the cashbox had been back then.

"Well, what if these people are the same kind?" he asked her, his voice rising with a touch of hysteria. "I'm sure the Sacrificed God has been punishing us for our sin of letting people like that play here while that daughter of yours was here. Worse than that, what if they're magicians? I don't think we should let anyone play here who hasn't been approved by the Church!"

Harperus' words rang at her out of memory. "How long before the signs say 'No one permitted without a Church license'?"

She grimaced, her expression hidden in the shadows of the wagon.
Not that I'd want to play here, with or without a license.

"I would not want to make anyone uncomfortable, much less give them the impression that they were sinning by simply listening to music," Robin said, smoothly. "I personally have never heard of any such nonsense as musicians who were magicians, but since your Priest evidently has, I will take his word that such things exist. And since obviously you don't want us, and no one can prove he isn't a mage, we'll just be on our way. We would never want to play where we were under suspicion, or where our music wasn't wanted. She raised her voice a little more, and pitched it to make certain that it carried. "We are really in no great need of lodging, as you can clearly see, so do not concern yourselves for us on that score."

Not that you would care, but it's a nice little dig isn't it?

Stara looked disgusted and stormed back into the tap room. The innkeeper followed, wearing a look that mingled triumph and apprehension in equal measure. Triumph that he had his way, no doubt—and apprehension for the way that Stara was going to make him pay for getting his way. The door shut behind them.

Kestrel looked over at her, holding the reins quietly. "Interesting," he said.