"Now," breathed Robin, as the bully's eyes bulged with fear and the edge of her blade made a thin, painful cut across his throat, "I think you owe us an apology. Don't you?"
Kestrel jerked the bully's arms so that they wrenched upwards in their sockets. He gasped, and nodded, his eyes filling with tears of pain. Now the very fact that nothing of this confrontation could be seen from the square or the houses around it worked in their favor. So long as no one missed these fools and came looking for them, if things went well.
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 ab-b-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!"