The Prophecy (4 page)

The tapster snorted. “If the dragon doesn’t come along some cold autumn night and burn your harvest to ashes.”

The farmer gave him a sympathetic glance. “He’s from Fair Meadows,” he told Perryn quietly, and Perryn nodded in sudden understanding. “My wagon will be empty on the way out. I can give you a ride, if you want it.”

PERRYN FELL ASLEEP IN THE JOLTING WAGON AND
didn’t wake until they rolled onto Dunstable’s noisy cobblestones.

“It’s getting lively already,” the farmer noted as Perryn scrambled onto the seat beside him. They were part of a long, slow-moving line of carts heading toward the market square.

As Perryn rubbed the sleep from his eyes and adjusted his spectacles, he saw that the town teemed with people: farmers, housewives, craftsmen, and merchants. He’d never been in a town this large—the village that served Idris Castle was smaller, and when he’d run away before he hadn’t gotten very far. The clamor of voices echoing off the cobbled streets and stone walls was disconcerting, though Perryn tried not to show it. The Prince of Idris shouldn’t gawk like a country bumpkin.

Then the shutters of an inn flew open, and a man sailed out onto the road. The crashes and thuds of a brawl reached them through the open window. The man rolled to his feet and ran back into the tavern. Shouts for the town guard rose from people on the street. Perryn realized he was staring, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

The flow of carts carried them closer to the brawl. The town guard was coming. Perryn swallowed, trying not to look as nervous as he felt.

“Don’t worry,” said the farmer cheerfully. “The guard will take care of it.”

Two burly guardsmen pushed through the crowd and into the tavern. The crashes and thuds grew louder, then began to dwindle.

“You see,” said the farmer. “Just like I said.”

Two guards emerged, dragging a slender young man with torn clothes and tangled, light-brown hair. His nose was bleeding onto his brightly embroidered tunic, but he still struggled in the guards’ grip.

“My harp!” His voice was clear as a tenor bell. “You dragon-blasted fools, my harp’s in there! I’m not going anywhere without it.”

“You’re going with us, like it or not,” the shorter of the two guards panted.

“Either you let me get my harp, or I shall report your uncooperative conduct to the mayor himself,” announced the bard. He’d stopped fighting and stood straight, looking almost dignified in spite of his disheveled clothes and hair.

The taller guard snorted. “What makes you think he’d listen to you?”

“Because I know his daughter, Hyacinthe,” said the bard. “I saw her just last night.” The tall guard became very still. “She was with
you.
Of course, she didn’t call herself Hyacinthe then. What name was she using? Alyce? No, Anise, that was it. Tell me, does the mayor know…?”

The tall guard turned and went back into the tavern. A moment later he emerged carrying a gracefully curved but battered harp, which he shoved into the bard’s waiting hands. The three of them went off through the crowd together.

The farmer was laughing. “Your bard?”

“I suppose he must be,” said Perryn ruefully, climbing down from the cart. “I’d better follow them. I thank you, sir, for all you’ve done.”

“My pleasure,” said the farmer. “And don’t worry about following them. You’ll be able to find your bard in the town lockup anytime in the next month, or I miss my guess. Take care, lad.”

Perryn bowed and set off to find the jail.

“
SO THEN I LOOKED IN HIS BAGS AND
—”

“—swindling me, the toad, right from—”

“Silence!” roared the justice, for the fourth time.

“But it—”

“I—”

“Excuse me,” said Perryn, trying to wiggle through the crowd in the public hall. “Excuse me, please.” No one budged.

“Bailiff, throw them both in a cell!”

Silence fell around the justice’s chair.

“Ah, that’s better,” said the justice. “Let me see if I’ve managed to understand all this. You, sir, are a tavern keeper, who employed the bard Lysander to entertain your customers.”

Perryn saw a three-inch gap between two broad backs and lunged for it. “Excuse me.”

“Employed, hah,” the bard responded. “A pallet on the floor, scraps from the tables, and permission,
permission!
to keep the coins people offered, while I brought in crowds of—”

“I took you in, fed you, housed you, and you repaid me with theft, you—”

“Bailiff!”

“Excuse me.” Perryn struggled onward. The crowd was getting thicker, and the noise level was rising again.

“And you, Lysander, feeling that the tavern keeper was underpaying you, decided to increase your wages without his knowledge?”

“It wasn’t theft,” said the bard. “This miserly rogue offered me all I could eat, if I honored his filthy hovel with my playing.”

“Filthy! Hovel!”

“Silence!”

“Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.”

“I’ve heard enough,” the justice declared. “Tavern keeper, we will return the food the bard was taking. Next time, be more careful of the character of those you employ. And as for you, master bard, there can be no doubt that you planned to steal from the tavern keeper.”

Perryn wedged himself between two more bodies and squirmed. He couldn’t wait while the bard served a long sentence. His father would surely find him, and all his plans would come to nothing. Disastrous for him, and maybe for Idris, too.

“You have also caused a public brawl and disturbed the king’s peace,” the justice continued. “Therefore, I sentence you to ninety days in lockup. If you want to take any of our jail food with you when you go, feel free.”

“But you can’t do that!” Perryn burst through the crowd at last. “I need him.”

The sudden silence was even more absolute than the hush produced by the justice’s previous threat. Everyone stared at him. Perryn belatedly remembered that interrupting the proceedings of a court was illegal. The impulse to run seized him.
Weak willed.
He forced himself to meet the justice’s gaze firmly.

“I beg your pardon?” the justice said.

“The boy is my brother,” said the bard quickly. “Dependent on my care. Just look at the state he’s in! He’ll starve if I’m in jail. It was for him I took the food.”

“Is that true, lad?” asked the justice.

“Ah, well, no,” said Perryn.

“You ungrateful cur!” exclaimed the bard. “After all the years I’ve fed you, clothed you—”

“Silence!”

“But I do need him,” said Perryn. “If I have to wait here ninety days…well, it will be too late. Please, sir, is there any way you could reduce his sentence?”

“I could impose a fine instead.” The justice scratched his chin. “It should be…hmm. Ninety coppers. Do you have ninety coppers, lad?”

“No.”

“No money at all?” The justice eyed his patched, dusty clothing, and Perryn blushed.

“I was robbed yesterday,” he explained.

The justice’s brows rose. “I’ve heard nothing of this. Did you make a complaint?”

“No,” said Perryn. “That is…it was in another town, and I was traveling on. I didn’t want to cause trouble.”

Contempt flickered over the bailiff’s face, and Perryn realized that he sounded as weak as Cedric claimed. Anger rose instead of tears. Who cared what some local jail guard thought of him!

“Isn’t there any other way?” he asked the justice desperately.

“Hmm.”

Perryn, struggling not to look pathetic, changed his mind. He needed their sympathy, even their pity. He let his desperation, his embarrassment sweep over him. Tears brimmed, running hot over his cheeks. Miraculously, the bard remained silent.

“This is most irregular,” the justice complained. “I really don’t see…”

“Please,” said Perryn. “It’s very important.”

“Humph. We can’t have you wandering the streets without a copper for ninety days, that’s for certain.” The justice rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I’ll make you a deal. You say you want this man. Out behind the jail is a big pile of wood. We’ve gotten low on kindling over the winter. A woodcutter could chop it in two or three days, but he’d charge us a gold piece for the job. That’s a bit more than ninety coppers, but it’s going to take you longer. You can sleep in the jail kitchen, we’ll feed you, and you can have your bard as soon as the wood is chopped. Until then, he’s a prisoner. Good enough?”

Perryn wiped his face hastily. “Most fair, sir, and I accept with gratitude. But…”

“But?”

“But I’m not sure I want him. I mean, I’m not sure that it’s him I want. Sir, may I speak to this man alone for a moment? Please?”

“Oh, if you must.” The justice gestured toward an empty corner behind him. “Bailiff, watch them.”

“That’s remarkable,” said the bard before Perryn could speak. “I never saw anybody who could cry on cue like that. Even traveling players have to use an onion. Is it hard to learn?”

“Are you a true bard?” Perryn demanded. “Really a true bard?”

And if he wasn’t, what could Perryn do? How many bards were left in Idris? Could he even find another?

“I’m a bard,” said Lysander. “For what it’s worth, which these days is practically nothing. I don’t know what you want, but whatever it is, you’re unlikely to get it from me. All I have is my harp, and that isn’t for sale.”

“Can you see and sing the truths that are hidden in men’s hearts?”

Perryn held his breath.

The bard’s face went still.

“Yes. I can.”

“Can you prove it?”

The bard laughed. “How?”

Perryn thought. “I’ll chop the wood,” he said finally. “I’ve never used an ax before, so it’ll take a while. While I work you’ll write a song. A song that—”

“Reveals the truths and so on and so on. I understand. What happens if you don’t like the song?”

“Then I leave the last ten logs in the woodpile untouched, and you rot in jail for ninety days.”

Lysander studied him. “You’re serious, aren’t you? What do you want? Really?”

“There’s…a task I want you to perform. If I get you out of jail quickly, will you do it?”

“How quickly?”

“As quick as I can. I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to, but I don’t know how long it will take.”

The bard shrugged. “It shouldn’t take more than a week. And whatever you want, it’s got to be better than wasting the summer in lockup. All right, if you get me out, I’ll perform your task.”

“Do you swear that?”

“I give you my oath as a bard,” said Lysander grandly. “Let’s go tell the justice, shall we?”

THE AX WAS LONGER THAN PERRYN’S LEG AND
the most awkward tool he’d ever encountered. He’d seen woodsmen at work around the palace, so he knew the basic theory; but theory, as he was discovering, was very different from practice.

“Try hitting the wood with the edge of the blade, not the flat,” suggested Lysander from the barred window.

Perryn glared at him. He was already regretting that the bard’s cell overlooked the woodpile. “Don’t you have something else to do? If you haven’t written a song by the time I reach the last ten logs…”

He swung the ax again.

“At this rate I’ll have a hundred days to write it. Maybe if you gripped the handle a little higher?”

“The wood turned as I hit it.” There had been nothing about chopping wood in any book he’d ever read. Perryn removed his spectacles and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. The blisters on his palms stung. He’d be able to concentrate better if he weren’t so worried about what Cedric was up to. At least there were no other prisoners to observe his unprincely clumsiness. “I don’t need advice from a musician—and a lazy musician at that. Don’t you have a song to write?”

But Lysander continued to offer suggestions. A few of them were even helpful. By the end of the first day, Perryn was picking up the trick of using the ax’s weight, instead of his own scrawny muscles, to split the wood.

As the days passed, they learned more about each other.

“You’re lucky to have found a bard in Idris at all,” Lysander told him. “All the smart bards have gone south, to richer kingdoms. That’s what I’m doing myself, come the first cold nights.”

“Running from the dragon?” Perryn swung the ax. With a sweet crack, the log split cleanly in half.

“Nice blow. Pity you don’t do that more than one stroke in five. Of course I’m running from the dragon. I spent the winter in Cirin, snowed in. The dragon raided four villages in that area—pure luck it missed Cirin. When I realized that, I knew it was time for sensible men to move on. I take great pride in my good sense.”

“So write a song about it,” said Perryn bitterly. “How the once-great kingdom of Idris was cravenly deserted—”

“By sensible men. Why don’t you come with me? You’re obviously not meant to be a woodcutter, but you might find a place in one of the universities. Judging by our conversations, you seem to be very well-read.”

The ax twisted. The wood bounced.

“My father won’t let me,” said Perryn.

“So run away,” said the bard. “That’s what I always do. As soon as I’m out of here, we can—”

“When you get out of there you have to do a job for me, remember? Your oath as a bard? Write a song!”

PERRYN TRIED TO USE THE MIRROR EACH NIGHT
, asking the same question. But the surface showed only his own face, except for the night when it showed Perryn’s favorite riding mare, asleep in her stall. Her ears twitched and she snorted in her dreams. This might have been a reaction to his flight, but Perryn doubted it.

More days passed, and Perryn’s skill grew. His arms stopped aching and got stronger. His blisters healed. He learned to work with the grain of the wood. He learned how to make the ax fall precisely where he wanted it to. He developed a rhythmic swing that ate steadily at the woodpile.

Lysander was at the window less often now. From the cell Perryn began to hear chords, fragments of melody, and an occasional, muttered curse.

Finally Perryn stood, chest heaving, before the chopping block. A small mountain of kindling rose behind him—not bad, for a scholar! Only ten logs remained. He hadn’t seen Lysander since early yesterday. He hadn’t heard a sound all morning.

“Lysander,” he called. “Are you ready? I’ve done my part.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” The bard’s mobile face popped into the window like a jumping jack. He’d charmed the guards into letting him shave regularly, though his hair was getting shaggy and his fine clothes looked bedraggled. “Mind you, the lyrics may be a little rough. I only finished them this morning.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“And I haven’t performed for some days. I may be a little rusty. Are you sure you don’t want to finish up that pile while I rehearse it once or twice?”

Perryn put down the ax and folded his arms.

“All right, all right. But remember, it’s rough.”

The bard’s face disappeared, and music took its place. The voice of the old harp was mellow and true. The swirling melody had a pronounced rhythm that was oddly familiar. Then the voice of the bard joined in and the rhythm, the melody, and the words became a single entity: a song.

The ax is a tool

For woodsmen to use

Or a weapon for warriors

Who’ll die if they lose.

Against men, against wood,

When to win is the goal

It’s the song of the ax

That’s the song of your soul.

The mother creates

A new life with each birth.

The farmer brings life

From the depths of the earth.

The bard strikes a string

And with joy the soul fills,

But the song of the ax

Is a music that kills.

The heart of the pine

Or the heart of your foe.

Both woodsman and warrior

Bring death with each blow.

Each cut jars your arm

Every stroke takes its toll,

But the song of the ax

Is the song of your soul.

The echoes sounded in Perryn’s heart long after they had faded from his ears. He winced. “It’s not exactly…heroic, is it?”

“Neither are you,” said Lysander complacently.

“I suppose not.” But he had his bard. That was what mattered. Perryn picked up the ax. “I’ll finish here and go find the justice.”

“
HERE YOU ARE
,
LAD
.”
THE JUSTICE’S CLERK
handed him the order for Lysander’s release. “All done up proper. The justice was sorry not to be here himself, but he serves all the villages in this area. When they call, he goes.”

“Tell him I thank him for drawing up the order before he left,” said Perryn. “And tell him…tell him I thank him.”

“No thanks owed,” said the clerk. “You worked off your friend’s fine. Did a good job too. Are you quite sure you want the man? If you needed a job we could—”