The Lark and the Wren - Chapter Nineteen

[kalinara]

Last time, our heroes got married! Six chapters after they met! You can't say they don't move quickly! But it was pretty satisfying I think.

We're reaching the end of what I consider to be the "third" part of the book. The first part, IMO, was Rune's coming of age story. Basically Westhaven and Nolton. The second part was the Faire and the introduction to the Free Bards. This third part consists of little mini-adventures. Altogether, they kind of fit a theme: Rune and Talaysen's romance and wedding, but the plots themselves are standalone. Almost like short stories.

The fourth part is interesting, because that actually is an overarching plot and story, and the one that will lead into the rest of the series. It's a little funny that the "main" plot of the book only starts in the last quarter, but I have to admit, it kind of works for me.



This chapter starts in media res, with an indignant Talaysen bitching about being tied up. This apparently is the last straw after a string of indignities: they'd been barred from three separate Faires. The Faires are supposed to be secular, but apparently no one told the Church Guards that. Apparently, the Guild had petitioned the City Council and the Church claiming that licensing money was being lost, and that having free musicians on the grounds encouraged revelry and licentiousness.

Rune and Talaysen would be able to purchase a busking permit to play in the streets of the city or the inns, but only Guild musicians and apprentices would be permitted inside the Faire itself.

Later Rune and Talaysen learned that there was no "free" entertainment at all inside the Faires. Anyone who wanted to listen to music would have to pay to enter a Guild tent (copper for an apprentice, silver for a journeyman.). At night, the only option was to pay three silvers to listen to a Master. No dancers in the streets or otherwise. Only commerce and Church rituals.

Rune thinks that there'll be so many complaints that this will only last for one year, but that doesn't help Rune and Talaysen much. And now their coin reserve is very low. They've been forced to head out into the countryside where they could at least snare or fish some extra supplies.

That's where they ran into this trouble. Two Sires are at war, and Rune and Talaysen have picked the wrong estate to enter. They were surrounded by guardsmen and taken prisoner.

The captors are very clearly inexperienced. They've tied them back to back, making it impossible for them to get to their feet as ordered when it comes time to meet the Captain. Fortunately, the Captain has come out to look for himself. Unfortunately, he's decided that they're spies.

This riles up Talaysen's temper, and Rune icily points out that they were camping on the side of the road and carrying musical instruments. They don't even have weapons!

He blinked at them doubtfully. "Well," he said at last, "if you aren't spies, then you're conscripts." As Talaysen stared at him in complete silence, he continued, looking them over as if they were a pair of sheep. "You-with the gray hair-you're a bit long in the tooth, but the boy there-"

"I'm not a boy," Rune replied crisply. "I'm a woman, and I'm his wife. And you can go ahead and conscript me, if you want, but having me around isn't going to make your men any easier to handle. And they're going to be even harder to handle after I castrate the first man who lays a hand on me."

The captain blanched, but recovered. "Well, if you're in disguise as a boy, then you're obviously a spy after all-"

It's a little hard to believe that someone could be quite THIS dense, but as a farce, it's pretty entertaining. It goes in circles a bit longer, as Rune points out their musical instruments and the guy insists that spies could carry instruments too.

But Rune points out that they can prove themselves. She lays on the charm and says he'll get a free show from people who've played before Dukes and Barons. (Not entirely a lie, she thinks, because there were Dukes and Barons who passed by Kingsford.)

Talaysen is perplexed, but Rune tells him she has an idea and coaxes the man to let her loose. Her idea is to try to use what she learned against the elves and see if she could get him to turn them loose. She's noticed lately that when they've really needed money, she's been able to coax it from normally unresponsive crowds, as long as she follows the strange inner melody she'd heard when playing for the elf king.

The melody is always a variation on what she's already been playing. Just a tiny bit different. And as soon as she matches it...well, whatever she needs to happen would occur. She's developing a theory that it's actually magic. She hasn't had a chance to talk about this with Talaysen yet.

So she gets her fiddle. The Captain thinks he's trumped her by claiming any spy could learn a few tunes. But she challenges him to name ANY song. If she knows it, she's not a spy.

One bit I like here is that Talaysen winces when she says this, and she herself acknowledges that not every fiddler could know every song. It's a risk. But this guy isn't very bright. So he blurts out the first thing that comes into his mind: "Shepherd's Hey" which is apparently one of a half-dozen songs fiddlers hope to never have to play again, but someone ALWAYS requests it.

She plays. Three times too. She'd noticed that three was a significant number against the elves and when she played for those crowds. She coaxes him to pick something else. He does. It's another overplayed oldie, "Foxhunter."

Now Rune chooses the next song, "Captive Heart", which is slower and more mournful, so she could get into his mind and influence how he thought. She notices that Talaysen is listening with concentration, and thinks that he hears the hidden melody too.

This works, and on the third repetition, the Captain snaps out of it and cuts them loose. He apologizes, explaining that the last few weeks were hard on them and getting them "looking for spies behind every bush".

They act cheerful and friendly and make haste out of there. Once they're on the open road, Talaysen wants an explanation. He knows what he saw, and what he thought he heard...

Rune asks him if he knows about magic. He knows only the little bit that his cousin mentioned, and the songs, he asks if she's a mage. She doesn't know, but she's hearing something when she plays and she thinks he heard it too.

Talaysen notes that per Ardis, every mage has their own way to sense magic. Maybe a mage who's a magician would sense it.

She explains how it happens, the variation and the threes. He asks about the elves. He didn't hear her doing variations there. Rune's only guessing, but what she'd been playing was Roma music or music already associated with elves. Maybe elves are more susceptible. Or the music was already the right tune to be magic. Rune thinks that next Midsummer Faire they should talk to Ardis about this. She doesn't really like doing things without knowing how they work.

Unfortunately, their conversation is cut short when they meet a roadblock of the men from the OTHER side of this stupid skirmish. Rune proposes that Talaysen take the lead and they can try to work the magic together, with the hopes that with two of them they can do a little more than just get themselves released.

Talaysen does so, greeting the men warmly. And apparently it's successful because later, they have ten pennies, a nice little stock of provisions, and an escort to the border.

Actually, they got a little more than that. They were brought to the Sire himself, who, while sadly not interested in hiring a musician until his border feud was resolved, was still able to give them a fair bit of information.

(Well, Talaysen at least. Rune had been stuck listening to the life story of one of the Sire's cousins.)

Anyway, apparently ALL of the Guilds had band together to pull this shit. And rumor is, if they pull this crap again, the non-Guild craftspeople have threatened to hold their own Faire outside the gates and just off the road. Meaning an open Faire with no Church or city tax.

Rune wonders if they can do that, but Talaysen doesn't see why not. A farmer apparently had agreed to let them use his fallow fields for free the first year. Apparently the Kingsford Faire had started the same way once upon a time. Talaysen's been asked to spread the news so that small crafters are ready next year.

Rune notes that this was another thing that Free Bards did that she hadn't realized: they pass news wherever they go. Sometimes it's news that those in power would prefer others didn't know. In a way, she muses, they ARE spies.

Rune asks if they're going to meet Gwyna at their destination. Talaysen says that it's the plan. But Rune's lost in thought:

She and Talaysen were news, so far as the Free Bards were concerned. When they had parted from the Free Bards, she and Talaysen had been Master and Apprentice. Now their relationship was something altogether different. Gwyna planned a course of travel that put her in and out of contact with a good half of the Free Bards over the year, not to mention all the [Roma] Clans. She would be the one telling everyone she met of Master Wren's change of status, and if she didn't approve . . .

She realizes that she really wants Gwyna and the Free Bards to approve of their relationship. If they don't, then it could bring divisiveness and trouble. They'll never succeed in making a difference if that happens.

Rune finds herself musing on the curious feeling of being a part of a group, since she's been a loner all her life.

Fortunately, Rune is sensible at heart, and remembers how Gwyna had seemed to be really supportive of them back at the Faire before they split up. So she changes the topic:

She noticed that Talaysen was watching her with a concerned frown, and smiled at him. "It's all right, no disasters. Just thinking things through," she said cheerfully. "Tell me something, do you think we were working magic last night, or not?"

He hesitated a moment, taking the time to wipe some of the dust from his face with his scarf. "I never thought of myself as a mage, or anything like one," he said, finally. "Even though everything I've ever really wanted I've gotten. Now that I think about it, that is rather odd; I don't know of anyone who always gets what he wants or needs. I always thought it was plain fool luck, but maybe it wasn't just extraordinary good luck. Maybe it was magic all along."

Rune points out that Talaysen's cousin is a mage, and at least in the ballads, this kind of thing runs in families.

Talaysen confirms that he had heard the magic and tried to match it with her when they won over the Sire's men. And Rune confirms that she felt him join in. She thinks that's why the men asked them to stay and play. Talaysen also thinks that's why the Sire talked to them personally. While she was working on the soldiers, he'd realized that the Sire was listening just beyond the fire. Since Rune had the soldiers in hand, Talaysen had focused on the Sire himself.

However, Talaysen has more experience with nobility and he's realized something that Rune hasn't: Namely that the Sire had been TOO friendly. He'd spoken to them as equals and friends. Whatever Talaysen had done had changed the man's mind.

"Maybe not," she countered. "He was camped out there with his men, after all, and he's obviously liked as well as respected. Maybe he would have done all that anyway. Maybe he's used to treating underlings well; maybe he just likes music."

"Maybe, but it's not likely." He shook his head. "But that's not the point. The problem here isn't what he did, it's that I made him do it. I made him do those things just as surely as if I'd held a knife to his throat and ordered him to tell us the same things. Even though it kept us out of trouble, I don't like the implications. Being able to change the way people think and react is-well, it's frightening."

I rather love that Rune is the pragmatist and Talaysen is the idealist in this pairing. But Rune does have to agree that it's a scary concept. She asks if Ardis can do this. Yes, and other things aside. Though Ardis doesn't use her magic often. Only when it's just and fair, not simply convenient.

So this leads to an interesting ethical discussion.

Was it just and fair to keep the men-at-arms from throwing them in the dungeon or conscripting them? Yes, probably.

Would it have been fair to make that asshole priest from last chapter marry them? No.

"Why not?" she asked, wanting to hear his reasoning.

"It would not have been just and fair to change his mind, because we were only inconvenienced. On the other hand, if those men-at-arms had jailed or conscripted us, we would undoubtedly have been harmed." He smiled feebly. "I don't do well in damp dungeons. And I wouldn't know one end of a sword from the other. In the former, I'd probably become ill rather quickly, and as a conscript I'd probably become dead just as quickly."

"Obviously the same goes for the elven-king," she replied, thoughtfully.

He nodded. "Elves aren't predictable. He might have kept us a while, or killed us when he tired of us. Now, whether or not we should have used this power of ours to change the minds of people at those Faires to let us in-I don't know."

I really like this whole ethical discussion, by the way. It's interesting and kind of a rare subject of discussion in fantasy novels.

Rune and Talaysen have basically discovered a brand new form of magic, one that specifically focuses on influencing their audience. So how do you use it while still holding onto your ethics?

Rune by the way dismisses Talaysen's last question. The people they would have needed to influence weren't going to come out and listen.

But, Talaysen points out, they could have started a riot. All they'd have had to do is stand outside the gates and sing rabble-rousing songs. People were already annoyed, after all. It would have been easy to make it worse.

That's a bone-chilling thought, and Rune agrees. Both of them agree that causing a riot would require something a lot more serious as justification.

Rune ends up thinking about how she'd coaxed money from crowds in the past:

Had that been "fair and just"? After all, she hadn't done anything important to them, had she? They wouldn't have parted with their coins if they hadn't had them to spend. Would they?

Yes, but- She had still changed their thoughts, the most private thing a person could have. The poorest person in the world, the man accused of heresy and thrown into the Church's dungeons, a cripple who couldn't move arms or legs-they could still claim their thoughts as their own, and in that much they were wealthy and free.

She thinks about the temptation that this magic would have been in Nolton, how she could have gotten the audience to buy cider and rolls from her friends, whether or not they were hungry. And she would have too, back then.

So Rune has another ground rule: They don't use it to make an audience like them. The audience either likes them or doesn't on their own merits.

So the rules they have:

1. Not for the sake of convenience
2. Not when there are other ways to deal with a situation
3. Only when it's fair and just.

Rune sighs and admits that it sounds like they really can't use it to help themselves at all. Talaysen suggests: they can't use it unless they're really being threatened or if it's something that needs to be done.

The chapter concludes with some banter about whether hunger counts as enough of a threat. Or whether or not Rune should wait and ask Talaysen when he's hungry.

So now Bardic Magic is officially a Thing. And they have rules, of a sort, to go with it. I really do like that a lot. I get a weird enjoyment out of seeing ethical characters figure out what they can and cannot do with the gifts they've been given. Now we'll get to see what they actually do with it.