“Come for the trials, lad?” asked a quiet voice in her ear. Rune jumped, nearly knocking her mug over, and snatching at it just in time to save the contents from drenching her shopworn finery (and however would she have gotten it clean again in time for the morrow’s competition?). There hadn’t been a sound or a hint of movement or even the shifting of the bench to warn her, but now there was a man sitting beside her.
He was of middle years, red hair going to gray, smile-wrinkles around his mouth and grey-green eyes, with a candid, triangular face. Well, that said nothing; Rune had known highwaymen with equally friendly and open faces. His dress was similar to her own; leather breeches instead of velvet, good linen instead of worn silk, a vest and a leather hat that could have been twin to hers, knots of ribbon on the sleeves of his shirt—and the neck of a lute peeking over his shoulder. A Minstrel!
Of the Guild? Rune rechecked the ribbons on his sleeves, and was disappointed. Blue and scarlet and green, not the purple and silver of a Guild Minstrel, nor the purple and gold of a Guild Bard. This was only a common songster, a mere street-player. Still, he’d bespoken her kindly enough, and the Three knew not everyone with the music-passion had the skill or the talent to pass the trials—
“Aye, sir,” she replied politely. “I’ve hopes to pass; I think I’ve the talent, and others have said as much.”
His eyes measured her keenly, and she had the disquieting feeling that her boy-ruse was fooling him not at all. “Ah well,” he replied, “There’s a-many before you have thought the same, and failed.”
“That may be—” she answered the challenge in his eyes, “but I’d bet fair coin that none of them fiddled for a murdering ghost, and not only came out by the grace of their skill but were rewarded by that same spirit for amusing him!”
“Oh, so?” a lifted eyebrow was all the indication he gave of being impressed, but somehow that lifted brow conveyed volumes. “You’ve made a song of it, surely?”
“Have I not! It’s to be my entry for the third day of testing.”
“Well then—” He said no more than that, but his wordless attitude of waiting compelled Rune to unsling her fiddlecase, extract her instrument, and tune it without further prompting.
“It’s the fiddle that’s my first instrument,” she said apologetically, “And since ’twas the fiddle that made the tale—”
“Never apologize for a song, child,” he admonished, interrupting her. “Let it speak out for itself. Now let’s hear this ghost-tale.”
It wasn’t easy to sing while fiddling, but Rune had managed the trick of it some time ago. She closed her eyes a half-moment, fixing in her mind the necessary changes she’d made to the lyrics—for unchanged, the song would have given her sex away—and began.
“I sit here on a rock, and curse
my stupid, bragging tongue,
And curse the pride that would not let
me back down from a boast
And wonder where my wits went,
when I took that challenge up
And swore that I would go
and fiddle for the Skull Hill Ghost!”
Oh, aye, that had been a damn fool move—to let those idiots who patronized the tavern where her mother worked goad her into boasting that there wasn’t anyone, living or dead, that she couldn’t cozen with her fiddling. Too much ale, Rune, and too little sense. And too tender a pride, as well, to let them rub salt in the wound of being the tavern wench’s bastard.
“It’s midnight, and there’s not a sound
up here upon Skull Hill
Then comes a wind that chills my blood
and makes the leaves blow wild”
Not a good word choice, but a change that had to be made—that was one of the giveaway verses.
“And rising up in front of me,
a thing like shrouded Death.
A voice says, ‘Give me reason why
I shouldn’t kill you, child.’ ”
Holy Three, that thing had been ghastly; cold and old and totally heartless; it had smelled of Death and the grave, and had shaken her right down to her toenails. She made the fiddle sing about what words alone could never convey, and saw her audience of one actually shiver.
The next verse described Rune’s answer to the spirit, and the fiddle wailed of fear and determination and things that didn’t rightly belong on earth. Then came the description of that night-long, lightless ordeal she’d passed through, and the fiddle shook with the weariness she’d felt, playing the whole night long, and the tune rose with dawning triumph when the thing not only didn’t kill her outright, but began to warm to the music she’d made. Now she had an audience of more than one, though she was only half aware of the fact.
“At last the dawnlight strikes my eyes;
I stop, and see the sun.
The light begins to chase away
the dark and midnight cold—
And then the light strikes something more—
I stare in dumb surprise—
For where the ghost had stood
there is a heap of shining gold!”
The fiddle laughed at Death cheated, thumbed its nose at spirits, and chortled over the revelation that even the dead could be impressed and forced to reward courage and talent.
Rune stopped, and shook back brown locks dark with sweat, and looked about her in astonishment at the applauding patrons of the cooktent. She was even more astonished when they began to toss coppers in her open fiddlecase, and the cooktent’s owner brought her over a full pitcher of juice and a second pie.
“I’d’a brought ye wine, laddie, but Master Talaysen there says ye go to trials and mustna be a-muddled,” she whispered as she hurried back to her counter.
“I hadn’t meant—”
“Surely this isn’t the first time you’ve played for your supper, child?” the minstrel’s eyes were full of amused irony.
“Well, no, but—”
“So take your well-earned reward and don’t go arguing with folk who have a bit of copper to fling at you, and who recognize the Gift when they hear it. No mistake, youngling, you have the Gift. And sit and eat; you’ve more bones than flesh. A good tale, that.”