Except for one; the fourth lady, Ruby, who was the perfect compliment to Sapphire. Her eyes were a bright, challenging green, in contrast to Sapphire's dreamy blue. Her hair was a brilliant red, cut shorter than Rune's. Her figure was athletic and muscular, and she kept it that way by running every morning when she rose, and following that by two hours of gymnastic exercises. Where Sapphire was soft and lush, she was muscle and whipcord. Where Sapphire was gentle, she was wild. Where Sapphire was languid, she was quicksilver; Sapphire's even temper was matched by her fiery changeability.
Predictably enough,
they
were best friends.
And where Arden could tease Sapphire until she collapsed in a fit of giggles, he became tongue-tied and silent in the presence of Ruby.
And Carly
hated
that.
Well, fortunately Ruby was fully occupied at the moment-so Arden could tease Sapphire as she teased the old gentlemen at her table, and Carly only glowered, she didn't fume.
All four of them, plus Maddie, were the first female friends Rune had ever had. She found herself smiling a little at that, and smiled a bit more when she realized that her fingers had started "Home, Home, Home." Well, this
was
the closest thing she'd ever had to a home. . . .
One by one, the four ladies had introduced themselves over the course of her first few weeks at Amber's, and gradually Rune had pieced together their stories. Topaz's history was the most straightforward. Topaz, like Boony, had been a bondling, and had been taken up for the same reason; failure to pay tax and tithe. She had been a small merchant-trader until that moment. Amber had bought her contract from one of the other houses at Pearl's hysterical insistence when the tiny creature learned that Topaz was in thrall there.
"And just as well," Topaz had said, once. "One more night there, and . . . something would have been dead. It might have been a client. It might have been me. I cannot say."
Looking at her strange, golden eyes, and the wildness lurking in them, Rune could believe it. It was not that Topaz had objected to performing what she called "concubine duties." Evidently that was a trade with no stigma attached in her (and Pearl's) country. It was some of the other things the house had demanded she perform. . . .
Her eyes had darkened and the pupils had widened until they were all that was to be seen when she'd said that. Rune had not asked any further questions.
Pearl had come as a concubine in the train of a foreign trader; when he had died, she had been left with nowhere to go. By the laws of her land, she was property-and should have been sent back with the rest of his belongings. But by the laws of Nolton, even a bondling was freed by the death of his bondholder, and no one was willing to part with the expense of transporting her home again.
But she had learned of Flower Street and of Amber's from her now-dead master, and had come looking for a place. Originally she had intended to stay only long enough to earn the money to return home, but she found that she liked it here, and so stayed on, amassing savings enough to one day retire to a place of her own, and devote herself to her other avocation, the painting of tiny pictures on eggshells. As curiosities, her work fetched good prices, and would be enough to supplement her savings.
Sapphire's story was the one she had obliquely referred to that first morning when Rune had met her; carried off and despoiled by a rich young merchant's son, she had been abandoned when her pregnancy first became apparent. She had been befriended by Tonno, who had found her fainting on his doorstep, and taken to Amber. What became of the child, Rune did not know, though she suspected that Amber had either rid the girl of it or she had miscarried naturally. Amber had seen the haggard remains of Sapphire's great beauty, and had set herself to bringing it back to full bloom again. And had succeeded. . . .
Then there was Ruby, who had been a wild child, willful, and determined to be everything her parents hated and feared. Possibly because they had been
so
determined that she become a good little daughter of the Church-perhaps even a cleric-Priest or a nun. She had run away from the convent, got herself deflowered by the first man she ran across (a minstrel, she had confided to Rune, "And I don't know who was the more amazed, him or me") and discovered that she not only had a talent for the games of man and maid, she
craved
the contact. So she had come to Nolton ("Working my way"), examined each of the brothels on Flower Street, then came straight to Amber, demanding a place upstairs.
Amber, much amused by her audacity and impressed by her looks, had agreed to a compromise-a week of trial, under the name "Garnet," promising her a promotion to "Ruby" and full house status if she did well.
She was "Ruby" within two days.
Ruby was the latest of the ladies, a fact that galled Carly no end. Carly had petitioned Amber for a trial so many times that the lady had forbidden her to speak of it ever again. She could not understand
why
Ruby had succeeded where she had failed.
Sapphire left the gentlemen for a moment and drifted over to Rune's corner. Seeing where she was headed, Rune brought her current song to an end, finishing it just as Sapphire reached the fireplace. The young gentleman who had earlier requested a song hardly breathed as he watched her move, his eyes wide, his face a little flushed.
"Rune, dear, each of the gentleman has a song he'd like you to play, and I have a request too, if you don't mind," Sapphire said softly, with an angelic smile. "I know you must be ready for a break, but with five more songs, I think dear Lerra might be ready to-you know."
Rune smiled back. "Anything for you ladies, Sapphire, and you know it. I didn't get to play much out on the street today; my fingers aren't the least tired."
That was a little lie, but five more songs weren't going to hurt them any.
"Thank you, dear," Sapphire breathed, her face aglow with gratitude. That was one of the remarkable things about Sapphire; whatever she felt, she felt
completely,
and never bothered to hide it. "All right, this is what we'd like. 'Fair Maid of The Valley,' 'Four Sisters,' 'Silver Sandals,' 'The Green Stone,' and 'The Dream of the Heart.' Can you do all those?"
"In my sleep," Rune told her, with a grin. Sapphire rewarded her with another of her brilliant smiles, and started to turn to go-
But then she turned back a moment. "You know, I must have thought this a thousand times, and I never told you. I am terribly envious of your talent, Rune. You were good when you first arrived-you're quite good now-and some day, people are going to praise your name from one end of this land to the other. I wish I had your gift."
"Well-" Rune said cautiously, "I don't know about that. I've a long way to go before I'm that good, and a hundred things could happen to prevent it. Besides-" she grinned. "It's one Guild Bard in a thousand that ever gets
that
much renown, and I doubt I'm going to be that one."
But Sapphire shook her head. "I tell you true, Rune. And I'll tell you something else; for all the money and the soft living and the rest of it, if I had a fraction of your talent, I'd never set foot upstairs. I'd stay in the common room and be an entertainer for the rest of my life. All four of us know how very hard you work, we admire you tremendously, and I want you to know that."
Then she turned and went back to her little gathering, leaving Rune flattered, and no little dumbfounded.
They
admired
her
? Beautiful, graceful, with everything they could ever want or need, and they admired
her
?
This was the first time she had ever been admired by anyone, and as she started the first of the songs Sapphire had requested, she felt a little warm current of real happiness rising from inside her and giving her fingers a new liveliness.
Even Jib thought I was a little bit daft for spending all my time with music, she thought, giving the tune a little extra flourish that made Sapphire half turn and wink at her from across the room. Tonno keeps thinking about what I should be learning, Maddie doesn't understand how I feel about music, and even to Lady Amber I'm just another part of the common room. That's the very first time anyone has ever just thought that what I did was worth it, in and of itself.
The warm feeling stayed with her, right till the end of the fifth song, when Sapphire laughingly drew one of the gentlemen to his feet and up the stairs after her.
She played one more song-and then she began to feel the twinges in her fingers that heralded trouble if she wasn't careful. Time for a break.
She threw the young gentleman a good-natured wink, which he returned, and set off to the kitchen for a bit of warm cider, since it was useless to ask Carly for anything.
They admire me. Who'd have thought it. . . .
Rune let her fingers prance their way across her lute-strings, forgetting that she was chilled in the spell of the music she was creating. Tonno listened to her play the piece she had first seen back in the summer, and thought impossible, with all its runs and triple-pickings, with his eyes closed and his finger marking steady time.
She played it gracefully, with relish for the complexities, with all the repeats and embellishments. She couldn't believe how easy it seemed-and how second-nature it was to read and play these little black notes on the page. She couldn't have conceived of this back in the summer, but one day everything had fallen into place, and she hadn't once faltered since. She came to the end, and waited, quietly, for her teacher to say something. When he didn't, when he didn't even open his eyes, she obeyed an impish impulse and put down the lute, picking up Lady Rose instead.
Then she started in on the piece again-this time playing it on the fiddle. Of course, it was a little different on the fiddle; she stumbled and faltered on a couple of passages where the fingering that was natural for the lute was anything but on the fiddle, but she got through it intact. Tonno's eyes had flown open in surprise at the first few bars; he stared at her all through the piece, clearly dumbfounded, right up until the moment that she ended with a flourish.
She put the fiddle and bow down, and waited for him to say something.
He took a deep breath. "Well," he said. "You've just made up my mind for me, dear. If ever I was desirous of a sign from God, that was it."
She wrinkled her brow, puzzled. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked. "It was just that lute-piece, that's all."
"Just the lute-piece-which you proceeded to play through on an instrument it wasn't intended for." Tonno shook his head. "Rune, I've been debating this for the past two weeks, but I can't be selfish anymore. You're beyond me, on both your instruments. I can't teach you any more."
It was her turn to stare, licking suddenly dry lips, not sure of what to say. "But-but I-"
This was too sudden, too abrupt, she thought, her heart catching with something like fear. She wasn't ready for it all to end; at least, not yet.
I'm not ready to leave. There's still the whole winter yet, the Faire isn't until Midsummer-what am I supposed to do between now and then?
"Don't look at me like that, girl," Tonno said, a little gruffly, rubbing his eyebrow with a hand encased in fingerless gloves. "Just because you're beyond my teaching, that doesn't mean you're ready for what you want to do."
"I'm-not?" she said dazedly, not certain whether to be relieved or disappointed.
"No," Tonno replied firmly. "You're beyond my ability to contribute to your teaching-
in music
-but you're not good enough to win one of the Bard apprenticeships. And I've heard some of your tunes, dear; you shouldn't settle for less than a Bardic position. Of all the positions offered at the Faire, only a handful are for Bardic teaching, and you are just not good enough to beat the ninety-nine other contenders for those positions."
Good news
and
bad, all in the same bite. "Will I ever be?" she asked doubtfully.
"Of course you will!" he snapped, as if he was annoyed at her doubt. "I have a damned good ear, and I can tell you when you will be ready. What we'll have to do is find some of my truly complicated music, the things I put away because they were beyond my meager capabilities to play. You'll practice them until your fingers are blue, and then you'll learn to transpose music from other instruments to yours and play
that
until your fingers are blue. Practice is what you need now, and practice, by all that's holy, is what you're going to get."
I guess it's not over yet. Not even close.
She sighed, but he wasn't finished with his plans for her immediate future.
"Then there's the matter of your other lessons," he continued inexorably. "I've taught you how to read music; now I'll teach you how to write it as well-by ear, without playing it first on your instruments. I'll see that you learn as much as I know of other styles, and of the work of the Great Bards. And
then,
my dear, I'm going to drill you in reading, history in particular, until you think you've turned Scholar!"
"Oh, no-" she said involuntarily. While she was reading with more competence, it still wasn't something that came easily. Unlike music, she still had to work at understanding. History, in particular, was a great deal of hard work.
"Oh, yes," he told her, with a smile. "If you're going to become a Guild Bard, you're going to have to compete with boys who've been learning from Scholars all their lives. You're going to have to know plenty about the past-who's who, and more importantly,
why,
because if you inadvertently offend the wrong person-"
He sliced his finger dramatically across his neck.
She shuddered, reflexively, as a breath of cold that came out of nowhere touched the back of her neck.
"Now," he said, clearing the music away from the stand in front of her, and stacking it neatly in the drawer of the cabinet beside him. "Put your instruments back in their cases and come join me by the stove. I want you to know some hard truths, and what you're getting yourself into."