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i_read_what2020-08-10 01:37 am
kalinara) wrote in i_read_what2020-08-10 01:37 am
The Lark and the Wren - Chapter Fourteen
So last time, Rune won her trials, lost her place when the Guild reacted badly to the reveal of her gender, and found herself among a bunch of bird themed weirdos. Fortunately said weirdos are also known as "the Free Bards". Which means that Rune's career aspirations aren't necessarily defeated, only redirected.
So apparently the Faire runs for eight weeks. There are major events that take place each week, and minor events that take place each day. The Bardic Trials were in week two. (Apparently week one was horse races. Next week will be livestock judging.)
Rune is a little nervous though, because apparently the LAST week of the Faire is when people seek justice. She's worried that the Guild may try to bring some sort of charges against her.
The next day, Rune wakes up to hear a boy singing and fumbling a harp at the same time. She's greeted by Gwyna, who she'd met last chapter. Gwyna explains that everyone else has gone busking, and it's their turn to mind the tent and make sure they don't get robbed.
Gwyna is a pretty congenial host. She offers Rune some clothing, though first she makes sure that Rune's okay with wearing skirts. Rune is. Her boy disguise was a matter of convenience, not identity. But I like that Gwyna asked. And actually I'm a little impressed. This book was written in 1992 after all, and trans issues were not discussed as openly as they are now.
No one says the word "transgender", but the way that Gwyna asks if she's okay with wearing skirts indicates that she's open to the possibility that Rune may be living as a boy on purpose. And there's no judgment about that.
Okay, so anyway, one of Rune's new friends (a child named Alain, or Sparrow) goes off to get her belongings from her little hideaway, while Gwyna takes her to the bathing area. We get a description of the campsite and bathing area, and it sounds pretty swanky.
The Free Bards were camped outside the Faire palings, alongside of another little stream that fed the great river, on much hillier, rockier ground than Rune had crossed in her explorations of the river. It was an ingenious campsite; the huge tent lay athwart the entrance to a little hollow beside the stream. That gave them their own little park, free from prying eyes, screened by thick underbrush and trees that grew right up to the very edge of the bank on the other side. This was a wilder watercourse than the one Rune had crossed, upstream. It had a little waterfall at the top of the hollow, and was full of flat sheets of rock and water-smoothed boulders below the falls.
A hollow log carried water from the falls to a place where someone had cemented river-stones on the sides of a natural depression in one of those huge sheets of rock. There was a little board set into the rocks at the lower end like a dam, to let the water out again, and a fire on the flat part of the rock beside the rough bath-tub. The rock-built tub was already full.
Nice. Apparently the Free Bards have been coming here for a long time, and they always make sure to be among the first, so they always get this spot. They keep the tent with a local merchant.
So anyway, Gwyna helps Rune bathe. She's very matter of fact about the whole thing, and at one point, she comes bearing vile tasting medicine. And with the bath and the promised clothing as well as her own underthings, she feels a lot better.
Rune asks what she should do to help. She doesn't want to get in the way or be a burden, but Gwyna briskly sends her off to bed. She points out that there's plenty that Rune can do from there: particularly, she can teach her comic songs to someone named Erdric.
Rune has no idea how they'd even heard her music, but as it turns out, the Roma girl that danced for Rune on the street corner was named Thrush, she passed the info along.
Rune is rather understandably aggravated at this point, wondering if every single busker in the world was a Free Bard and if she was the only person to not know about this. Gwyna laughs at her, which annoys Rune further, but Rune reins in her temper realizing that she probably would not be so cranky if she weren't feeling so miserable.
Gwyna explains that it's more of a Roma thing in this case. Roma people are used to passing messages back and forth, and they tend to keep an eye on stuff that interests the Free Bards.
Gwyna gives us a bit of an explanation as to how the Roma and Free Bards work:
"Quite a bit," Gwyna said, sobering. "You see, Master Wren came to us when he first ran away from the Guild, and it was being with us that gave him the idea for the Free Bards. He liked the kind of group we are. He says we're 'supportive without being restrictive,' whatever that means."
And now basically, all of the Roma who are musically inclined are Free Bards. Apparently there are a lot of really talented Roma men who would probably have made it into the Guild, but they're not really interested in what Gwyna calls "the caged-life" Meanwhile, for non-Roma, Gwyna estimates that one in ten of the street musicians are probably Free Bards. Most of the others aren't good enough. Rune was, so they watched her.
Apparently there aren't any Free Bards in Nolton, but the Roma were still keeping an eye on her.
After the bath, Rune meets the child, Sparrow, who had fetched her belongings. And like all children, he's got questions:
"Did it hurt?" he asked, bright-eyed, as innocent and callous as only a child could be.
"Yes, it did," she told him. "A lot. I was very stupid, though nobody knew how stupid I was being. Don't ever put yourself in the position where someone can beat you. Run away if you can, but don't ever be as stupid as I was."
"All right," he said brightly. "I won't."
"Thank you for getting my things," she said, when it occurred to her that she hadn't thanked him herself. "I really appreciate it. There isn't anything special in my pack, but it's all I've got."
"You're welcome," he told her, serious and proper. Then, as if her politeness opened up a floodgate, the questions came pouring out. "Are you staying with the Free Bards? Are you partnering with Master Wren? Are you going to be his lover? He needs a lover. Robin says so all the time. Do you want to be his lover? Lots of girls want to be his lover, and he won't be. Do you like him? He likes you, I can tell."
This makes me laugh, because kids are annoying like that.
That said, this is mostly here as a clumsy way to introduce the idea of the love story. And it's awkward. Rune hasn't been in any condition to really appreciate Talaysen as a man. And he hasn't yet shown any romantic interest in Rune. So this really does feel like it's out of the blue.
Anyway, Gwyna scolds Sparrow. This does serve one useful purpose though, as an introduction to the Free Bard naming system. You may have noticed that every one of Rune's early teachers had a bird name. That's deliberate. It comes from a Roma custom. Roma in this book don't like strangers to know their real names, so they take craft names that are associated with this occupation. Musicians then take bird names.
Gwyna's is Robin. Which is kind of funny, because Rune did list a "Robin" among her early teachers in Chapter One. I don't think it's the same girl though, because Gwyna seems to be only a few years older Rune herself. And she'd have said something. The Free Bards probably end up recycling names. There are only so many birds.
Gwyna ends up rattling off everyone's real name and bird name. It's not terribly interesting, though for trivia purposes, it's kind of nice to have actual names for Raven (Reshan), Heron (Daran), and Nightingale (Aysah.) Gwyna notes that they need a name for Rune, but that "Master Wren" (Talaysen) has already tagged her with the one that will stick: Lark or Lady Lark.
So now, we know the meaning behind the title. It's not deep. It's still kind of funny that it takes about 250 pages before we meet the Wren part of the equation.
So after that, Erdric (or Owl) comes by to see her. Erdric had been dude who took charge of her medical treatment. As mentioned, he wants to learn her comic songs. His logic seems to be pretty sound: he's aging, and his voice is going on the top and the bottom, so he can't really sing the stuff he used to. He writes love songs, but well, he's old. And people don't generally pay old people to sing love songs. So he gives his songs to younger performers and learns the comic stuff instead.
I kind of love this. We get to really appreciate the egalitarian and cooperative nature of Free Bard society. The master is the student is the master. And that's pretty cool.
Eventually, the other Bards show up and go out again, in fancier garb this time. Rune gets to appreciate that "watching the tent" is actually a pretty involved job. They make sure that there's fresh food available, water, and that the lanterns and torches are lit, and that the fires are burning outside of the entrance.
Eventually Talaysen returns, looking tired and angry. He fills them in on the fact that there are a lot rumors about the boy or girl who won the trials and then vanished. No one's telling the truth, and the guild has presented their winners, looking smug. Talaysen wants the Guild to know that Rune is under their protection, and there will be "equal retribution" if they go after them.
We get some backstory for this: Apparently after Talaysen left the guild, he came to the fair to play. He was recognized, despite the fact that he was already using an alias, and they almost broke his head. The Roma were offended and took that out on the Guild Bards that they could find. Not lethally: but the Guild Bards were freaked out enough that they wouldn't walk the Faire without a guard. They haven't gone after a free bard since. Not when there were Roma about anyway.
Talaysen's plan is simple: he's going to learn the Ghost song and make sure it's sung all over the Faire. The Guild will know that she's under their protection when she goes out in public in a week or two. Rune is startled, because her arm won't have healed yet. Talaysen points out that she can sing. Basically, they'll go out together: he'll play, they'll sing.
Rune is understandably a bit freaked out by this. She compares it to her almost rape in Westhaven. She's really afraid.
Talaysen seemed to sense her fear. He reached forward and took her good hand in his. "Believe in us, Lady Lark," he said, his voice trembling with intensity. "Believe in us-and believe in yourself. Together we can do anything, so long as we believe it. I know. Trust me."
She looked into his green eyes, deep as the sea, and as restless, hiding as many things beneath their surface, and revealing some of them to her. There was passion there, that he probably didn't display very often. She found herself smiling, tremulously.
And nodded, because she couldn't speak.
...okay, so maybe there's a bit of chemistry here. Something which is clearly noticed by Erdric and Gwyna's exchanged glances. Rune catches that too, and thinks about what Sparrow had said: she decides to keep her observations to herself: It was more than enough that the greatest living Bard had taken her as his apprentice. Anything else would either happen or not happen.
But things do get interesting.
About a week in, the oft-mentioned, but never seen, Raven, arrives in camp. He's very pleased to see Rune and very pissed off about what happened. The others calm him down and he wisely decides it's better that he not go out to play on the streets for a while. He flirts jokingly with Rune, who realizes that she's not really his type. But Talaysen seems to take it quite seriously:
"I've never in all me life had quite such a not-lecture," he whispered to her, when Talaysen had gone to see about something. "He takes being your Master right seriously, young Rune. I've just been warned that if I intend to break your heart by flirting with you, your Master there will be most unamused. He seems to think a broken heart would interfere more with your learning than yon broken arm. In fact, he offered to trade me a broken head for a broken heart."
Oh dear. Well, both Raven and Rune are pretty amused, and they joke around enough that Talaysen is reassured. He decides it's time to give Rune a real lesson, since she insists he act like a Master. He has her sing every song that she's ever written, until he can pick them up, then he critiques them. And surprisingly, he's a pretty harsh critic.
He likes the comic songs, but warns that there's more to music than parody, and she's got to be careful not to be known for just one style. She has to make sure people are aware that she's versed in everything.
For Fiddler Girl/Skull Hill Ghost, he likes the tune, but thinks it's limited. He wants her to expand her bridges into a whole set of mini tunes, so that the audience gets a sense of what it's like to fiddle all night long. He wants her to improvise and recreate the experience. His main critique of the lyrics is that they're too difficult for most people. He and Rune, and most of the other Free Bards can manage them - if sober, and not tongue tied, but the average street busker will have a tough time. Basically it looks like she wrote them without thinking about how hard they'd be to sing.
Which is true. He advises her to recite them first, and be willing to change.
He ends up dismissing the serious songs that she wrote with Brother Pell as "ordinary", which hurts a bit, but she had felt constrained by the rules and is a bit gratified that he's given her independent stuff more praise.
Then he gives her an assignment: write a song about elves, maybe with a broken bargain and an original retribution.
I know I've said that we've basically reached the end of the Dragonsinger comparisons, and this I think is the last one. I love this bit, genuinely, because I think it really gets into what was missing in Dragonsinger: which is a sense that Menolly was LEARNING anything.
That's not Menolly's fault by the way. Part of the issue was that the book took place over such a short amount of time. The other part is that Robinton sucks at actually teaching her anything.
Both Menolly and Rune have signature songs that were written before they started their true Bardic/Harper education. They are both explicitly flawed songs, but that show a lot of promise, and people genuinely love them.
In Menolly's case, we're told that Robinton made some fixes to the song. It's still recognizably Menolly's, but the fixes are enough that Menolly doesn't feel like it's HER song anymore. Now we're never told what those fixes are. We don't really know what Menolly's weaknesses are as a performer or composer. We know she's not the greatest singer, and that her music tends to be simpler and in a range she can perform easily, but that's not a flaw. That's just a description.
Meanwhile, there's no indication that Robinton ever bothered to explain to her WHY he made the changes that he made. When Menolly writes Brekke's song, there's no indication that she is thinking about any advice or lessons that she was given.
It's hard to get the sense that Menolly has learned anything. And that's not her fault.
Rune on the other hand, well, she actually has some explicit flaws. She's young and inexperienced. Her serious work is a bit too conventional. Her comic work is a bit too restrictive. And the Skull Hill Ghost song, while very enjoyable, could incorporate some fancier tricks musically, and has lyrics that are too complex for an average singer.
Because of this, I feel like I have a better sense of Rune's progression as a musician. I can feel confident that, even if we're not shown subsequent lessons, Rune will take this advice to heart. I suspect that Rune's next songs will be more adventurous musically and simpler lyrically, because that's the specific criticism, and she's taking it seriously.
I also like that Rune gets to take the criticism with respect and dignity. She doesn't accuse Talaysen of being out to get her, nor does she feel crushed or hurt by it. She's disappointed because she wants to do better, that's all.
In the final section of the chapter, we actually switch viewpoint characters! We follow Talaysen, our eponymous Wren, as he makes a little trip. He's being rather clandestine about it: leaving his instruments and anything identifiable back at the tent. This is because he's going to the Cathedral, which is right next to the Bardic Tent. He doesn't THINK he'll be recognized after all this time (especially since the more respectable colleagues who might remember him are probably entertaining the wealthy elite), but he doesn't particularly want to be beaten. His bones are older now and won't heal as quickly.
Now this is interesting: Talaysen makes his way to a special gate in the Cathedral wall, one that he opens with a key. A black clad guard comes forward, and Talaysen says that he's looking to see Lady Ardis.
Lady Ardis, as it turns out, is both a Church mage and the cousin of Talaysen...or Gwydain, as she greets him. (I'd wondered if both names were pseudonyms, but this implies that Gwydain was his actual birth name.)
Ardis has heard some of the rumors of what happened to Rune, and when she learns about Rune's condition, she offers to treat her, if Talaysen can bring her to the Cathedral. Talaysen asks if it will cause Ardis problems, but Ardis is fine. She is both a mage and a Justicar, and she's of high enough status that no one's going to tell her she can't arbitrarily decide to heal some street performer if she wants to.
She does have a price though: She thinks there's a dark mage among the Brotherhood. She wants Talaysen to keep an ear out for any rumors of a Priest gone bad, who's abusing power. Apparently people tend to tell Bards everything, so he's got a decent shot of finding the guy. Ardis would especially love if Talaysen could bring the guy before her when she's acting in official capacity.
That out of the way, they move onto more personal concerns:
"So, what else do you need of me, cousin?" she asked, a look of shrewd speculation creeping over her even features. "It has to do with this little songster, doesn't it?"
"Not so little," he replied, with a bit of embarrassment. "She's quite old enough to be wedded with children, by country standards. She's very attractive, Ardis. And that's the problem. I promised to give her a Master's teaching to an apprentice, and I find her very attractive."
"So?" A lifted shoulder told him Ardis didn't think that was much of a problem.
"So that's not ethical, dammit!" he snapped. "This girl is my student; if I took advantage of that situation, I'd be-dishonorable. And besides, I'm twice her age, easily."
...she's sixteen. At some point by the end of the book, she'll be eighteen. It's not entirely clear how the time passes, but we're going to go with anything that makes this a bit less creepy.
I think I mentioned this before, but Talaysen's own age is one of those murky inconsistent things. Based on what Tonno said, Talaysen should be forty. I think eventually the book settles somewhere around 35-37. Which is still a pretty big age gap.
But I do appreciate that Talaysen is at least cognizant of the issue.
Ardis thinks he's making a big deal about nothing, but recommends that he just keep his attraction hidden under "a mask of fatherly regard" and if he keeps pushing her away, she'll probably get bored and move on. She does note that the age difference isn't that significant. She, apparently, had been betrothed to a man three times her age when she was twelve. But it was more convenient to send her to the Church instead.
So Talaysen leaves to mull things over. Apparently the Roma and Freebards really do know each other, because Talaysen thinks that if a Roma like Nighthawk had been available, he'd have sent Rune to her rather than his cousin. (Nighthawk had been the lady hired by Amber to help with Rune's fever.) But he's appreciative, even if it does mean there's a new task on his plate.
He's disappointed that Ardis didn't back up his own assertions that "the child" is much too young. So am I dude. I'm going to forgive your use of "the child" here, because you're trying to be a mature adult. Still though.
Talaysen basically decides that he's just going to continue acting in a fatherly manner so she won't guess his feelings, and then "in the way of the young" would move onto someone like "Young Heron" or "Swift".
I am amused that Raven is not named there.
We're back to Rune's point of view, as Talaysen urges her to the Cathedral. She's understandably terrified, but he guides her in. Fortunately, Ardis appears to put her at ease. She gets the introduction and explanation: Ardis is a Priest who also practices magic, and she wants to cast a healing spell on Rune, but to do so, she needs Rune's consent.
I like when mages ask for consent. (Except in Shapechangers, but that's just because if you spend a whole "book" violating the poor girl's consent, you don't get to suddenly turn around and play the noble card.)
So the healing goes well, though she notes that Talaysen is acting a little odd. She decides to distract him by asking if all priest mages wear red. No, mages have no one color. Ardis wears red because she's a Justiciar. He starts explaining the Brotherhood, but Rune's not listening.
Instead, Rune is suddenly realizing that Talaysen is pretty hot. Actually, Rune comes across as pretty bi here:
He continued on about the various Brotherhoods in the Church, but she wasn't really listening. She had just realized as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, what an extraordinarily handsome man he was. She hadn't thought of that until she'd seen his cousin, and noticed how striking she was.
How odd that she hadn't noticed it before.
. . . .possibly because he was acting as if he was my father. . .
You know, it occurs to me that Rune is generally a lot more observant about women's looks than men's. Sapphire and Amber got a far more thorough description than Shawm or Jib. I think she paid more attention to Gwyna's looks than any of the men at the Free Bard camp.
And now, she's noticing Talaysen but only AFTER meeting his equally hot lady cousin. It seems like Rune swings both ways, but notices women first.
She does not however seem to have a Daddy kink.
The Chapter ends with Rune smiling "unconsciously" and considering the possibilities of something happening after the Faire. She definitely likes that idea.
So this was an eventful chapter: we got our last Dragonsinger comparison, which I won't rehash now. We got the introduction of the romance element. I still think Sparrow's babbling was unnecessary and the Chapter would have worked just as well without it. We also get a bit more nuance: the Church may be evil, or at least corrupt, but not every priest or mage or even Justiciar is. And that's good to see.
So apparently the Faire runs for eight weeks. There are major events that take place each week, and minor events that take place each day. The Bardic Trials were in week two. (Apparently week one was horse races. Next week will be livestock judging.)
Rune is a little nervous though, because apparently the LAST week of the Faire is when people seek justice. She's worried that the Guild may try to bring some sort of charges against her.
The next day, Rune wakes up to hear a boy singing and fumbling a harp at the same time. She's greeted by Gwyna, who she'd met last chapter. Gwyna explains that everyone else has gone busking, and it's their turn to mind the tent and make sure they don't get robbed.
Gwyna is a pretty congenial host. She offers Rune some clothing, though first she makes sure that Rune's okay with wearing skirts. Rune is. Her boy disguise was a matter of convenience, not identity. But I like that Gwyna asked. And actually I'm a little impressed. This book was written in 1992 after all, and trans issues were not discussed as openly as they are now.
No one says the word "transgender", but the way that Gwyna asks if she's okay with wearing skirts indicates that she's open to the possibility that Rune may be living as a boy on purpose. And there's no judgment about that.
Okay, so anyway, one of Rune's new friends (a child named Alain, or Sparrow) goes off to get her belongings from her little hideaway, while Gwyna takes her to the bathing area. We get a description of the campsite and bathing area, and it sounds pretty swanky.
The Free Bards were camped outside the Faire palings, alongside of another little stream that fed the great river, on much hillier, rockier ground than Rune had crossed in her explorations of the river. It was an ingenious campsite; the huge tent lay athwart the entrance to a little hollow beside the stream. That gave them their own little park, free from prying eyes, screened by thick underbrush and trees that grew right up to the very edge of the bank on the other side. This was a wilder watercourse than the one Rune had crossed, upstream. It had a little waterfall at the top of the hollow, and was full of flat sheets of rock and water-smoothed boulders below the falls.
A hollow log carried water from the falls to a place where someone had cemented river-stones on the sides of a natural depression in one of those huge sheets of rock. There was a little board set into the rocks at the lower end like a dam, to let the water out again, and a fire on the flat part of the rock beside the rough bath-tub. The rock-built tub was already full.
Nice. Apparently the Free Bards have been coming here for a long time, and they always make sure to be among the first, so they always get this spot. They keep the tent with a local merchant.
So anyway, Gwyna helps Rune bathe. She's very matter of fact about the whole thing, and at one point, she comes bearing vile tasting medicine. And with the bath and the promised clothing as well as her own underthings, she feels a lot better.
Rune asks what she should do to help. She doesn't want to get in the way or be a burden, but Gwyna briskly sends her off to bed. She points out that there's plenty that Rune can do from there: particularly, she can teach her comic songs to someone named Erdric.
Rune has no idea how they'd even heard her music, but as it turns out, the Roma girl that danced for Rune on the street corner was named Thrush, she passed the info along.
Rune is rather understandably aggravated at this point, wondering if every single busker in the world was a Free Bard and if she was the only person to not know about this. Gwyna laughs at her, which annoys Rune further, but Rune reins in her temper realizing that she probably would not be so cranky if she weren't feeling so miserable.
Gwyna explains that it's more of a Roma thing in this case. Roma people are used to passing messages back and forth, and they tend to keep an eye on stuff that interests the Free Bards.
Gwyna gives us a bit of an explanation as to how the Roma and Free Bards work:
"Quite a bit," Gwyna said, sobering. "You see, Master Wren came to us when he first ran away from the Guild, and it was being with us that gave him the idea for the Free Bards. He liked the kind of group we are. He says we're 'supportive without being restrictive,' whatever that means."
And now basically, all of the Roma who are musically inclined are Free Bards. Apparently there are a lot of really talented Roma men who would probably have made it into the Guild, but they're not really interested in what Gwyna calls "the caged-life" Meanwhile, for non-Roma, Gwyna estimates that one in ten of the street musicians are probably Free Bards. Most of the others aren't good enough. Rune was, so they watched her.
Apparently there aren't any Free Bards in Nolton, but the Roma were still keeping an eye on her.
After the bath, Rune meets the child, Sparrow, who had fetched her belongings. And like all children, he's got questions:
"Did it hurt?" he asked, bright-eyed, as innocent and callous as only a child could be.
"Yes, it did," she told him. "A lot. I was very stupid, though nobody knew how stupid I was being. Don't ever put yourself in the position where someone can beat you. Run away if you can, but don't ever be as stupid as I was."
"All right," he said brightly. "I won't."
"Thank you for getting my things," she said, when it occurred to her that she hadn't thanked him herself. "I really appreciate it. There isn't anything special in my pack, but it's all I've got."
"You're welcome," he told her, serious and proper. Then, as if her politeness opened up a floodgate, the questions came pouring out. "Are you staying with the Free Bards? Are you partnering with Master Wren? Are you going to be his lover? He needs a lover. Robin says so all the time. Do you want to be his lover? Lots of girls want to be his lover, and he won't be. Do you like him? He likes you, I can tell."
This makes me laugh, because kids are annoying like that.
That said, this is mostly here as a clumsy way to introduce the idea of the love story. And it's awkward. Rune hasn't been in any condition to really appreciate Talaysen as a man. And he hasn't yet shown any romantic interest in Rune. So this really does feel like it's out of the blue.
Anyway, Gwyna scolds Sparrow. This does serve one useful purpose though, as an introduction to the Free Bard naming system. You may have noticed that every one of Rune's early teachers had a bird name. That's deliberate. It comes from a Roma custom. Roma in this book don't like strangers to know their real names, so they take craft names that are associated with this occupation. Musicians then take bird names.
Gwyna's is Robin. Which is kind of funny, because Rune did list a "Robin" among her early teachers in Chapter One. I don't think it's the same girl though, because Gwyna seems to be only a few years older Rune herself. And she'd have said something. The Free Bards probably end up recycling names. There are only so many birds.
Gwyna ends up rattling off everyone's real name and bird name. It's not terribly interesting, though for trivia purposes, it's kind of nice to have actual names for Raven (Reshan), Heron (Daran), and Nightingale (Aysah.) Gwyna notes that they need a name for Rune, but that "Master Wren" (Talaysen) has already tagged her with the one that will stick: Lark or Lady Lark.
So now, we know the meaning behind the title. It's not deep. It's still kind of funny that it takes about 250 pages before we meet the Wren part of the equation.
So after that, Erdric (or Owl) comes by to see her. Erdric had been dude who took charge of her medical treatment. As mentioned, he wants to learn her comic songs. His logic seems to be pretty sound: he's aging, and his voice is going on the top and the bottom, so he can't really sing the stuff he used to. He writes love songs, but well, he's old. And people don't generally pay old people to sing love songs. So he gives his songs to younger performers and learns the comic stuff instead.
I kind of love this. We get to really appreciate the egalitarian and cooperative nature of Free Bard society. The master is the student is the master. And that's pretty cool.
Eventually, the other Bards show up and go out again, in fancier garb this time. Rune gets to appreciate that "watching the tent" is actually a pretty involved job. They make sure that there's fresh food available, water, and that the lanterns and torches are lit, and that the fires are burning outside of the entrance.
Eventually Talaysen returns, looking tired and angry. He fills them in on the fact that there are a lot rumors about the boy or girl who won the trials and then vanished. No one's telling the truth, and the guild has presented their winners, looking smug. Talaysen wants the Guild to know that Rune is under their protection, and there will be "equal retribution" if they go after them.
We get some backstory for this: Apparently after Talaysen left the guild, he came to the fair to play. He was recognized, despite the fact that he was already using an alias, and they almost broke his head. The Roma were offended and took that out on the Guild Bards that they could find. Not lethally: but the Guild Bards were freaked out enough that they wouldn't walk the Faire without a guard. They haven't gone after a free bard since. Not when there were Roma about anyway.
Talaysen's plan is simple: he's going to learn the Ghost song and make sure it's sung all over the Faire. The Guild will know that she's under their protection when she goes out in public in a week or two. Rune is startled, because her arm won't have healed yet. Talaysen points out that she can sing. Basically, they'll go out together: he'll play, they'll sing.
Rune is understandably a bit freaked out by this. She compares it to her almost rape in Westhaven. She's really afraid.
Talaysen seemed to sense her fear. He reached forward and took her good hand in his. "Believe in us, Lady Lark," he said, his voice trembling with intensity. "Believe in us-and believe in yourself. Together we can do anything, so long as we believe it. I know. Trust me."
She looked into his green eyes, deep as the sea, and as restless, hiding as many things beneath their surface, and revealing some of them to her. There was passion there, that he probably didn't display very often. She found herself smiling, tremulously.
And nodded, because she couldn't speak.
...okay, so maybe there's a bit of chemistry here. Something which is clearly noticed by Erdric and Gwyna's exchanged glances. Rune catches that too, and thinks about what Sparrow had said: she decides to keep her observations to herself: It was more than enough that the greatest living Bard had taken her as his apprentice. Anything else would either happen or not happen.
But things do get interesting.
About a week in, the oft-mentioned, but never seen, Raven, arrives in camp. He's very pleased to see Rune and very pissed off about what happened. The others calm him down and he wisely decides it's better that he not go out to play on the streets for a while. He flirts jokingly with Rune, who realizes that she's not really his type. But Talaysen seems to take it quite seriously:
"I've never in all me life had quite such a not-lecture," he whispered to her, when Talaysen had gone to see about something. "He takes being your Master right seriously, young Rune. I've just been warned that if I intend to break your heart by flirting with you, your Master there will be most unamused. He seems to think a broken heart would interfere more with your learning than yon broken arm. In fact, he offered to trade me a broken head for a broken heart."
Oh dear. Well, both Raven and Rune are pretty amused, and they joke around enough that Talaysen is reassured. He decides it's time to give Rune a real lesson, since she insists he act like a Master. He has her sing every song that she's ever written, until he can pick them up, then he critiques them. And surprisingly, he's a pretty harsh critic.
He likes the comic songs, but warns that there's more to music than parody, and she's got to be careful not to be known for just one style. She has to make sure people are aware that she's versed in everything.
For Fiddler Girl/Skull Hill Ghost, he likes the tune, but thinks it's limited. He wants her to expand her bridges into a whole set of mini tunes, so that the audience gets a sense of what it's like to fiddle all night long. He wants her to improvise and recreate the experience. His main critique of the lyrics is that they're too difficult for most people. He and Rune, and most of the other Free Bards can manage them - if sober, and not tongue tied, but the average street busker will have a tough time. Basically it looks like she wrote them without thinking about how hard they'd be to sing.
Which is true. He advises her to recite them first, and be willing to change.
He ends up dismissing the serious songs that she wrote with Brother Pell as "ordinary", which hurts a bit, but she had felt constrained by the rules and is a bit gratified that he's given her independent stuff more praise.
Then he gives her an assignment: write a song about elves, maybe with a broken bargain and an original retribution.
I know I've said that we've basically reached the end of the Dragonsinger comparisons, and this I think is the last one. I love this bit, genuinely, because I think it really gets into what was missing in Dragonsinger: which is a sense that Menolly was LEARNING anything.
That's not Menolly's fault by the way. Part of the issue was that the book took place over such a short amount of time. The other part is that Robinton sucks at actually teaching her anything.
Both Menolly and Rune have signature songs that were written before they started their true Bardic/Harper education. They are both explicitly flawed songs, but that show a lot of promise, and people genuinely love them.
In Menolly's case, we're told that Robinton made some fixes to the song. It's still recognizably Menolly's, but the fixes are enough that Menolly doesn't feel like it's HER song anymore. Now we're never told what those fixes are. We don't really know what Menolly's weaknesses are as a performer or composer. We know she's not the greatest singer, and that her music tends to be simpler and in a range she can perform easily, but that's not a flaw. That's just a description.
Meanwhile, there's no indication that Robinton ever bothered to explain to her WHY he made the changes that he made. When Menolly writes Brekke's song, there's no indication that she is thinking about any advice or lessons that she was given.
It's hard to get the sense that Menolly has learned anything. And that's not her fault.
Rune on the other hand, well, she actually has some explicit flaws. She's young and inexperienced. Her serious work is a bit too conventional. Her comic work is a bit too restrictive. And the Skull Hill Ghost song, while very enjoyable, could incorporate some fancier tricks musically, and has lyrics that are too complex for an average singer.
Because of this, I feel like I have a better sense of Rune's progression as a musician. I can feel confident that, even if we're not shown subsequent lessons, Rune will take this advice to heart. I suspect that Rune's next songs will be more adventurous musically and simpler lyrically, because that's the specific criticism, and she's taking it seriously.
I also like that Rune gets to take the criticism with respect and dignity. She doesn't accuse Talaysen of being out to get her, nor does she feel crushed or hurt by it. She's disappointed because she wants to do better, that's all.
In the final section of the chapter, we actually switch viewpoint characters! We follow Talaysen, our eponymous Wren, as he makes a little trip. He's being rather clandestine about it: leaving his instruments and anything identifiable back at the tent. This is because he's going to the Cathedral, which is right next to the Bardic Tent. He doesn't THINK he'll be recognized after all this time (especially since the more respectable colleagues who might remember him are probably entertaining the wealthy elite), but he doesn't particularly want to be beaten. His bones are older now and won't heal as quickly.
Now this is interesting: Talaysen makes his way to a special gate in the Cathedral wall, one that he opens with a key. A black clad guard comes forward, and Talaysen says that he's looking to see Lady Ardis.
Lady Ardis, as it turns out, is both a Church mage and the cousin of Talaysen...or Gwydain, as she greets him. (I'd wondered if both names were pseudonyms, but this implies that Gwydain was his actual birth name.)
Ardis has heard some of the rumors of what happened to Rune, and when she learns about Rune's condition, she offers to treat her, if Talaysen can bring her to the Cathedral. Talaysen asks if it will cause Ardis problems, but Ardis is fine. She is both a mage and a Justicar, and she's of high enough status that no one's going to tell her she can't arbitrarily decide to heal some street performer if she wants to.
She does have a price though: She thinks there's a dark mage among the Brotherhood. She wants Talaysen to keep an ear out for any rumors of a Priest gone bad, who's abusing power. Apparently people tend to tell Bards everything, so he's got a decent shot of finding the guy. Ardis would especially love if Talaysen could bring the guy before her when she's acting in official capacity.
That out of the way, they move onto more personal concerns:
"So, what else do you need of me, cousin?" she asked, a look of shrewd speculation creeping over her even features. "It has to do with this little songster, doesn't it?"
"Not so little," he replied, with a bit of embarrassment. "She's quite old enough to be wedded with children, by country standards. She's very attractive, Ardis. And that's the problem. I promised to give her a Master's teaching to an apprentice, and I find her very attractive."
"So?" A lifted shoulder told him Ardis didn't think that was much of a problem.
"So that's not ethical, dammit!" he snapped. "This girl is my student; if I took advantage of that situation, I'd be-dishonorable. And besides, I'm twice her age, easily."
...she's sixteen. At some point by the end of the book, she'll be eighteen. It's not entirely clear how the time passes, but we're going to go with anything that makes this a bit less creepy.
I think I mentioned this before, but Talaysen's own age is one of those murky inconsistent things. Based on what Tonno said, Talaysen should be forty. I think eventually the book settles somewhere around 35-37. Which is still a pretty big age gap.
But I do appreciate that Talaysen is at least cognizant of the issue.
Ardis thinks he's making a big deal about nothing, but recommends that he just keep his attraction hidden under "a mask of fatherly regard" and if he keeps pushing her away, she'll probably get bored and move on. She does note that the age difference isn't that significant. She, apparently, had been betrothed to a man three times her age when she was twelve. But it was more convenient to send her to the Church instead.
So Talaysen leaves to mull things over. Apparently the Roma and Freebards really do know each other, because Talaysen thinks that if a Roma like Nighthawk had been available, he'd have sent Rune to her rather than his cousin. (Nighthawk had been the lady hired by Amber to help with Rune's fever.) But he's appreciative, even if it does mean there's a new task on his plate.
He's disappointed that Ardis didn't back up his own assertions that "the child" is much too young. So am I dude. I'm going to forgive your use of "the child" here, because you're trying to be a mature adult. Still though.
Talaysen basically decides that he's just going to continue acting in a fatherly manner so she won't guess his feelings, and then "in the way of the young" would move onto someone like "Young Heron" or "Swift".
I am amused that Raven is not named there.
We're back to Rune's point of view, as Talaysen urges her to the Cathedral. She's understandably terrified, but he guides her in. Fortunately, Ardis appears to put her at ease. She gets the introduction and explanation: Ardis is a Priest who also practices magic, and she wants to cast a healing spell on Rune, but to do so, she needs Rune's consent.
I like when mages ask for consent. (Except in Shapechangers, but that's just because if you spend a whole "book" violating the poor girl's consent, you don't get to suddenly turn around and play the noble card.)
So the healing goes well, though she notes that Talaysen is acting a little odd. She decides to distract him by asking if all priest mages wear red. No, mages have no one color. Ardis wears red because she's a Justiciar. He starts explaining the Brotherhood, but Rune's not listening.
Instead, Rune is suddenly realizing that Talaysen is pretty hot. Actually, Rune comes across as pretty bi here:
He continued on about the various Brotherhoods in the Church, but she wasn't really listening. She had just realized as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, what an extraordinarily handsome man he was. She hadn't thought of that until she'd seen his cousin, and noticed how striking she was.
How odd that she hadn't noticed it before.
. . . .possibly because he was acting as if he was my father. . .
You know, it occurs to me that Rune is generally a lot more observant about women's looks than men's. Sapphire and Amber got a far more thorough description than Shawm or Jib. I think she paid more attention to Gwyna's looks than any of the men at the Free Bard camp.
And now, she's noticing Talaysen but only AFTER meeting his equally hot lady cousin. It seems like Rune swings both ways, but notices women first.
She does not however seem to have a Daddy kink.
The Chapter ends with Rune smiling "unconsciously" and considering the possibilities of something happening after the Faire. She definitely likes that idea.
So this was an eventful chapter: we got our last Dragonsinger comparison, which I won't rehash now. We got the introduction of the romance element. I still think Sparrow's babbling was unnecessary and the Chapter would have worked just as well without it. We also get a bit more nuance: the Church may be evil, or at least corrupt, but not every priest or mage or even Justiciar is. And that's good to see.