Rune cradled the harp in her good arm, too awe-stricken to reply.
"We'll send someone in the morning for your things, wherever it is you've cached 'em. Lean back there-oh, it's a proper nursemaid I am-" He chattered, as if to cover discomfort, or to distract her, as he made her comfortable on her pillows, covering her with blankets and moving her two-no, three-new instruments to a place of safety, but still within sight. He seemed to understand how seeing them made her feel. "We'll find you clothing and the like as well. That sleepy-juice they gave you should have you nodding shortly. Just remember one thing before you doze off. I'm not going to be an easy Master to serve; you won't be spending your days lazing about, you know! Come morning, I'll set you your very first task. You'll teach me"-his eyes lighted with unfeigned eagerness-"that Ghost song!"
"Yes, Master Talaysen," she managed to say-and then she fell deeply and profoundly asleep.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Faire ran for eight weeks; Rune had arrived the first day of the second week. Not everyone who was a participant arrived for the beginning of the Faire. There were major events occurring every week of the Faire, and minor ones every day. She had known, vaguely, that the trials and other Guild contests were the big event of the second week-the first week had been horse races, and next week would be livestock judging, a different breed of animal every day. None of this had made any difference to her at the time, but it might now. The final week of Faire was devoted to those seeking justice, and it was entirely possible that the Guild might decide to wreak further justice on her, in trials of another sort. She spent the night in pain-filled dreams of being brought up before the three Church Justices on charges of trying to defraud the Bardic Guild.
Each time she half-woke, someone would press a mug of medicinal tea into her hands, get her to drink it down, and take it away when she'd fallen asleep again. When she truly woke the next morning, the big tent was empty of everyone except Gwyna, the dark Gypsy girl, Erdric, and a young boy.
It was the boy's voice that woke her; singing in a breathy treble to a harp, a song in a language she didn't recognize. The harp-notes faltered a little, as he tried to play and sing at the same time.
She struggled to sit up, and in the process rattled the rings of the curtain next to her against the wire strung overhead. There was no sound of footsteps to warn her that anyone had heard her, but Gwyna peeked around the curtain and smiled when she saw that Rune was awake.
"Everybody's gone out busking," she said, "except us." She pulled back the curtain to show who "us" was. "It's our turn to mind the tent and make sure no one makes off with our belongings. What will you have for breakfast?"
"A new head," Rune moaned. Moving had made both head and arm ache horribly. Her head throbbed in both temples, and her arm echoed the throbbing a half heartbeat after her head. She also felt completely filthy, which didn't improve matters any.
"How about a bath, a visit to the privy, and a mug of something for the aches?" Gwyna asked. "Once you're up, it'll be easier to get around, but for the first couple of days Redbird has said you ought to stay pretty much in bed." Wondering who "Redbird" was, Rune nodded, wordlessly, and Gwyna helped her up. "I think you'll have to borrow some of my clothes until yours can be washed," the girl added, looking at Rune's stained, filthy clothing. "If you've no objection to wearing skirts."
"No-I mean, the whole purpose of looking like a boy was to get in the trials. . . ." Rune sighed. "I don't really care one way or another, and if you'd be willing to lend some clothing, I'd be grateful. I left some other stuff, my bedroll and all, up a tree, but most of the clothing in my pack was dirty too." She described where she'd left it, as the boy left his harp with the old man, and came close to listen.
"I'll go get it!" the child said eagerly, and was off before anyone could say a word, flying out the front of the tent, where the two flaps stood open to let in air. Erdric shrugged.
"Hard to keep them to lessons at that age," the old man said, not without sympathy. "I know how I was. He'll be all right, and he'll get your things without touching the pack, he's that honest. Though I should warn you, if you've got anything unusual, you'd better show it to him before he gets eaten up with curiosity, imagining all sorts of treasures. That's my grandson, Rune. His name's Alain, but we all call him Sparrow."
The name suited him. "Well, if he gets back before we're done, would you tell him I thank him most kindly?" Rune said with difficulty, through the pain in her skull. The ache made her squint against all the light, and it made her tense up her shoulder muscles as well, which didn't help any. "Right now, I can't think any too well."
"Not to worry," Gwyna chuckled. "We all know how you must be feeling; I think every one of us has fallen afoul of someone and has ended up with a cracked bone and an aching head. I mind me the time a bitch of a girl in Newcomb reckoned I was after her swain and took after me with a fry-pan. I swear, my head rang like a steeple full of bells on a Holy Day. Come on, Lady Lark. Let me get you to some warm water to soak the aches out, and we'll worry about the rest later."
Rune hadn't really hoped for warm water, and she wondered how tent-dwellers, who presumably hadn't brought anything more than what they could carry, were going to manage it. She soon found out.
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.
"We've been coming here for years, and since we're here before anyone but the merchants, we always get this spot," Gwyna explained, as she shoveled rocks out of the heart of the fire, and dropped them into the waiting water with a sizzle. "We keep the tent in storage over in Kingsford during the year, with a merchant who sometimes lets it to other groups for outdoor revels. We've put in a few things that the wind and weather won't ruin over the years; this was one of the first. Do you know, those scurvy merchants over in the Faire charge a whole silver penny for a bath?" She bristled, as if she was personally offended. Rune smiled wanly. "You can't win," she continued. "You can get a bath for a copper in the public baths across the river in Kingsford, but you'd either get soaked going over the ford or pay four coppers coming and going on the ferry."
"That's a merchant for you," Rune agreed. "I suppose the Church has rules about bathing in the river."
"No, but no one would want to; up near the docks, it's half mud." She shook her head. "Well, when you're better, you'll have to do this for yourself, and remember, on your honor, you always leave the bath set up for the next person. He may be as sore and tired as you were when you needed it."