The Lark and the Wren - Chapter Eight

[kalinara]

So last time, Rune got her job performing music at the brothel and met one of the ladies who work there. She got a fairly gentle life lesson that people aren't always what you expect them to be based on arbitrary surface traits.



So it's the mid-morning, and Rune's found herself back on the street, between the drink stall and the sausage stall again. They're happy to see her and even offer to leave the space open for her if she intends to keep showing up. They'll even spot her a free lunch, if she keeps bringing in customers. Rune thinks they're being a bit stingy about it, emphasizing that she has to bring in enough customers to cover the cost of her lunch, but it seems fair to me.

It seems fair to Rune too, after a bit of thought. For one, she'll get to trade the pins she gets for money that the church will actually take. The location is pretty decent, sheltered from most of the elements (except rain). And she's got a lot of future expenses to think about: it's summer now, but when winter comes, she's going to have difficulty. And she doesn't have any suitable clothes for winter. (Not to mention, she's supposed to get some new clothes now.)

The drink owner, Jak, sweetens the pot by offering to let her come into his cart with him when it rains. (He makes a point to say that the sausage farmer, Lars, would offer as well, but they're not sure how good the hot fat he keeps back there would be for Rune's fiddle. I think that's really nice actually. I'm absurdly glad these two shopkeepers are friends rather than adversaries.) AND, she's invited to come inside as she needs to in the winter time. This is a really valuable offer, Rune thinks, because it means she'll be able to stay out to play as long as possible before she ducks inside, and she can be out just as quickly. And having a shelter to duck into for the winter means that she'll be able to busk more, which is definitely good for her wallet.

She acknowledges that while both shopkeepers might be "miserly" about the food and drink, they're offering her a lot that others might not.

When she leaves her busking corner, she goes to pay her tax and tithe. She has some fun by playing dumb and counting it in small change. Finally, she turns over the ten copper pennies for her permit fee, one at a time, very slowly. This apparently amuses some of the other buskers in line. Rune finishes it off by innocently asking the churchman for a blessing, which he had to give.

I approve of malicious compliance, as long as the other people in line don't mind, so this was amusing.

The next step is to find some nicer clothes. She recognizes that while Amber was nice about the request, it was definitely a command. Rune definitely wants to keep her job, with the nice lodgings, and she acknowledges that she does need new clothes no matter what.

She goes to Tonno's shop first, waits for him to complete his business with a customer, and asks for his help. He stores her fiddle and lute, and gives her directions to "Patch Street", which is where the second hand clothes merchants gather. She's sad that he can't come along, since she figures he probably knows how to help her find bargains that she can't get alone.

So she makes it to Patch Street, which has a very evocative description:

It was a good thing that she'd started out with a couple of hours to spend before her first lesson. Patch Street was not that far away, but the number of vendors squeezed into a two-block area was nothing less than astonishing. The street itself was thick with buyers and sellers, all shouting their wares or arguing price at the tops of their lungs. The cacophony deafened her, and she began to feel a little short of breath from the press of people the moment she entered the affray. The sun beat down between the buildings on all of them impartially, and she was soon limp with heat as well as pummeled by noise and prodded by elbows.

She now was grateful she had left Lady Rose with Tonno; there was scarcely room on this street to squeeze by. She tried to keep her mind on what she needed-good, servicable clothing, not too worn-but there were thousands of distractions. The woman in her yearned for some of the bright silks and velvets, worn and obviously second-hand as most of them were, and the showman for some of the gaudier costumes, like the ones the [Roma] had worn-huge multicolored skirts, bright scarlet sashes, embroidered vests and bodices-

Rune disciplines herself, and decides to look for practical things instead. And sadly, nothing too feminine, because she's still trying to be fairly inconspicuous.

She's able to find underthings easily enough, rather nice ones too that she thinks might have come from a pleasure-house. Most have tears in places, but she'll be able to mend them, and the material is nicer than she's used to. Things take a slightly darker tone when she notices that a lot of the garments have split at the seams, as though they were torn off. And Rune realizes that the implications to that are not terribly pleasant.

She has more trouble finding shirts though. Some are rags, while the nicer ones have been very obviously picked clean of embroidery or ornamentation. Rune is worried she'll have to dig into her savings to by new shirts, when someone gets her attention:

" 'Scuse me, dearie." A hand on her arm and a rich, alto voice interrupted her fruitless search. Rune looked up into the eyes of a middle-aged, red-haired woman; a lady with a busking-permit pinned to the front of her bodice, and a look of understanding in her warm green-brown eyes. "I think mebbe I c'n help ye."

I'm highlighting this first, because I like this lady's description. Second, to wince at the phonetic accent. Ouch.

Anyway, the lady, who mistakes Rune for a boy, picks out two of the nicer shirts and tells her to buy them, and then go to a nearby ribbon stand, where she can buy some plain ribbon that can be sewn on over the picked out spots. She herself is wearing similar ribbons, and Rune thinks it looks pretty nice. She also points out that while one of the shirts has a stain, it's one that could easily be covered by a vest.

Rune thanks the woman, who cheerfully tells her that her niece is the ribbon seller and scampers off. So Rune now has a few nice shirts. Trousers end up being much easier, since she's tall and thin. She gets a few more wardrobe items and is quite happy about it. Then it's time for her lesson.

Sadly, we don't see the lesson, but we get Rune at her aftermath, feeling exhausted. Her head hurts and her hands hurt. Music is hard, and learning a brand new instrument and all the new techniques is even harder. Especially since, unlike the fiddle, the lute requires her to use both hands in complex fingering and picking patterns.

She's also learning to read music at the same time, which is also really hard. She's starting to get the hang of simple melodies, but she knows she's not ready for the stuff with multiple notes at the same time.

She thinks Tonno is definitely earning his fee, and he's gently encouraging, pointing out that she's basically learning two new languages. She's impressed by the fact that Tonno can play all of the instruments in his shop (there's a list, and it's a lot!).

Tonno gives some backstory as to his ability: he basically learned to play so that he and his father (who originally owned the shop) could tell if the second hand instruments were any good. Tonno didn't go into the Guild though, because he doesn't really have a talent for music itself. He's a master of the basics, and is very good at teaching the basics, but his ability stops there.

Rune finds that sad, but she knows better than to try to offer sympathy. Tonno moves her onto the next part of her lesson: reading normal books. He asks her what she's interested in, and Rune desperately asks for something easy, since she can barely spell things out in the Holy book.

Happily, Tonno gets her a book of songs and ballads. Since she'll recognize some of them, it'll give her a familiar place to start. Tonno then sends her off to Amber's, so she can fix up her new clothes in time to play tonight.

So Rune goes back to Amber's, where one of the serving girls tells her how to take her meal to her rooms:

It sounds like a pretty nice meal: chicken and noodles, a basket of bread, sliced cheese, and a winter apple. She fixes up her clothes, and ends up interrupted by the serving girl, who comes to get the dishes.

The serving girl, Maddie, is very friendly and she's decided it's time to say hi, since she lives and works here too. Rune notes her "wonderful smile" and the "host of freckles sprinkled across her nose that made her look like a freckled kitten".

Maddie's grown up on Flower Street, so she knows a lot about brothels and how they work. And she's very frank, especially when she talks about the other serving girl, Carly. (She thinks Carly will not like Rune, because Rune isn't a boy. Apparently Carly doesn't like much of anyone though, since she wants to work upstairs and hasn't made the cut.)

Maddie also makes an offer to Rune: when Rune needs her clothes washed, Maddie will take them as well as certain of the other employees's, to her mother, who's a laundress. (Apparently Maddie's mother has a deal with the cook, Lana, who gives her leftovers, since Amber doesn't allow leftovers to be served to customers.) There's a bit of an ulterior motive, since Rune will then be expected to help carry everything over, but Maddie's cheerfully honest about it and Rune doesn't mind.

It also comes out that Maddie's rather sweet on Shawm, a boy who works downstairs as well. This is the only part of the conversation that doesn't quite work for me. It's not that I don't think Maddie and Rune would discuss boys together. But they just met!

Anyway, Rune has thought of a way to thank Maddie for her advice and friendliness: she asks if Maddie has any favorite songs, and tells her if there's anything she'd want to hear, she can ask. If Rune doesn't know it, she can learn it from Tonno.

So our chapter ends with Rune having had a productive day of work, lessons, and even having made a friend. Yay!

Now I haven't compared this book to Dragonsinger in a while, mostly because Lark and the Wren actually has a plot, but this is one of those chapters where the comparison comes back to me. As I said early on, I really like that Rune knows only one instrument at the start of the story, because we get to feel her progression with her as she learns more of her skills.

The story isn't going to harp on each and every lesson that Rune has. In fact, I'm pretty sure we're going to get a bit of a time skip soon, after which Rune will be quite good on both instruments. But it's enough that we saw the initial struggle. A lute IS different from a fiddle. Moreover, Rune has a lot of technical skills left to learn. And we're watching her learn it.

Now obviously Menolly would have had to work hard too, in order to learn her instruments and skills. Given that she's a musician herself, I'm sure Ms. McCaffrey knows that. But we didn't get to see it. We met Menolly when her skills are already near perfect, and even the skills where she's weak: for example, her singing, she seems to master in a matter of days. It's hard not to feel like Menolly gets things handed to her when we don't see her work for it.

I find Rune's triumphs more satisfying because I feel like she's earned it more. And I feel like she's earned it more because I watched her do it.

I feel like Tonno is a specific answer to Petiron, because he knows how to do pretty much everything, so he's a one-stop skill provider. And he recognizes that he's training a girl to face a truly mind-bogglingly difficult task, given that the Guild Bards are all men (this will come up more later). There's another similarity that I won't talk about yet, but we'll get there. Hopefully I'll remember and comment on it.

The difference is that we actually get to SEE Tonno and Rune's lessons. And Tonno is honest and frank with Rune the whole time. I am far more invested in Tonno as a teacher than I am as Petiron. And I roll my eyes less at the idea that Rune learns basically everything she needs to know from Tonno, than Menolly learning everything from Petiron, because I see it.

Also, there is a point where Rune's skill WILL surpass Tonno, and he does send her off to learn skills like music composition from other people. That helps too. And it makes me very happy that Tonno is making Rune learn things other than just music. He wants her to be well-read and educated, because that will make her a better musician.

Finally, this is a small thing, but I'm really glad that we're seeing Rune interact with GIRLS. The friendship between Mirrim and Menolly was such an important part of Dragonsong, but it was utterly forgotten in Dragonsinger. The replacement friendship with Audiva was almost non-existent until the end. The bulk of the story was a big "I'm not like other girls" mess.

Rune starts off with no female friends, but here, we're seeing her make friends with Maddie and Sapphire. Sadly, those characters will not be in the story once Rune moves on from Nolton, but there will be other friends later on. And none of them negate what came before. Unlike Menolly, I don't think Rune actually sets herself up as different from other girls, at least not being what is normal for a gifted young teenager who's a little caught up in her own drama. She LIKES the other girls. And, for all that she dresses like a boy out of necessity and caution, Rune likes feminine things too. There's no implication that anyone is somehow wrong or lesser for liking pretty dresses.

Carly seems like she's being set up as the alpha bitch, but Lackey is mitigating that by giving us Maddie and Sapphire first, and I appreciate that.