Time to enlighten it.
"Of course we have heard of you!" she said, clearly and calmly. "The whole world has heard of you! Listen _"
Her fingers picked out the introduction to "The Skull Hill Ghost." And she began to sing.
I sit here on a rock, and curse my stupid, bragging tongue,
And curse my pride that would not let me back down from a boast
And wonder where my wits went, when I took that challenge up
And swore that I would go and fiddle for the Skull Hill Ghost!
As she sang, she exerted a little magic of her own; warm and loving magic, Bardic Magic and Gypsy magic and the magic of one true lover for another. She sent it, not at the Ghost, but at Kestrel, all of it aimed at breaking the spell of fear that held Jonny imprisoned in his icy silence as she had been imprisoned a moment before.
The warmth must have reached him, for as she reached the chorus, he shook himself, and suddenly his harp joined the jaunty chords of her gittern as his voice joined hers in harmony.
I'll play you high, I'll play you low
For I'm a wizard with my bow
For music is my weapon and my art_
And every note I fling will strike your heart!
That was a change from the original wording of Rune's contest-song; more of a metaphor for the life-and-death battle she had waged to save herself from the Ghost and a life of grim poverty than the original chorus had been.
Robin continued in the "Rune" persona, with Kestrel coming in with the Ghost's first line_in a cunning imitation of the Ghost's own voice.
"Give me reason why I shouldn't kill you, girl!"
She watched her audience of one as closely as she had ever watched any audience; had she seen the spirit start with surprise at hearing his own words?
She responded as Rune.
"I've come to fiddle for you, sir _"
Kestrel came in_and again, his voice was not a booming and spectral one, as Wren usually sang the part, but in that deliberate imitation of the Ghost's true disembodied whisper.
"_Oh have you so?
Then fiddle, girl, and pray you fiddle well,
For if I like your music, then I'll let you live to play_
But if you do not please my ears I'll take you down to Hell!"
The cowl nodded, ever so slightly. And the pressure of magic eased off.
Now Robin concentrated on the music, and not the Ghost. She had his attention. Now she must keep it.
The song was a relatively short one, meant for a Faire audience that might not linger to hear an extended ballad. The last verse came up quickly.
At last the dawnlight strikes my eyes, I stop and see the sun_
The light begins to chase away the dark and midnight cold_
And then the light strikes something more, I stare in dumb surprise_
For where the Ghost once stood there is a heap of shining gold!
Then she and Kestrel swung into a double repeat of the last chorus, laughing and triumphant.
I'll play you high, I'll play you low
For I'm a wizard with my bow
And music is my lifeblood and my art
And every note I sing will tame your heart!
They finished with a flourish worthy of Master Wren himself. The Ghost regarded them from under his hood with a speculation and surprise that Robin felt, just as she had felt the fear he had tried to force on her.
"Well," it whispered, the voice now coming from beneath that cowl and not from every shade and shadow in the clearing. "So, the little fiddler girl survived. Did she thrive as well as survive?"
There was more than a little interest in that question. And not a hint of indifference. He remembered Rune, and he wanted to know about her.
"She continues to thrive, sir," Robin said boldly. "Your silver bought her lessons and instruments, and brought her to the Kingsford Faire and the Free Bards. She got a Master from the Free Bards, and then more than a Master, for she wedded him and earned her title of Master and of Elf-Friend as well. They sing for a King now, and wander no more."
"A good King, I am sure," came the return whisper. "She would settle for naught else, the bold child who dared my hill." Then amazingly, something that sounded like a hint of chuckle emerged from beneath the cowl. "It is, I trow, hard to find a rhyme for 'silver'_and that 'heap of shining gold' tells me why, on a sudden, a fool or two a year has come to dig holes in my hill when they never did before."
"And they f-f-find?" Jonny asked, boldly.
"Rocks. And, sometimes, me." Again the chuckle, but this time it chilled and had no humor in it. Once again, she sensed the power coiled serpentlike behind him, a power that quickened to anger at very little provocation. So before he had time to be angered at the song, at them, she spoke.
"Sir, we came to ask a bargain of our own. Not gold or silver or even gems _"
She was the entire focus of the Ghost's gaze now; the antithesis of the tropical sun, it fell upon her and froze her in a silence of centuries. Or tried. It was at that moment the Ghost must have realized she was not caught in his web of terror, for the spirit straightened a little in what looked very like surprise. "What_bargain?" it said at last.
"We will tell you anything you care to ask, in as much detail as you wish, if we know the answers," she said, faintly, from beneath the weight of that gaze. "We will sing and play for you until dawn, as Rune did. Information and entertainment, and in return _"
The frigid pressure of his regard deepened. "In return_what? Besides your lives, of course. You have not_yet_earned those."
She tried to answer, and could not. For a moment she struggled in panic, knowing that if she did not answer, he could and would use that as the only "excuse" he needed to take her, Kestrel_
"F-free p-passage f-for G-G-G-Gypsies and F-F-Free B-B-B-Bards," Kestrel stammered, forcing the words out for her, fighting his stutter as she fought the Ghost's compulsion. The Ghost's cowl moved marginally as his gaze transferred to Kestrel and the pressure holding her snapped.
"Exactly," she said, quickly, into the ominous silence. "Free and unmolested passage across your Pass at any time of the day or night for Gypsies and Free Bards. Including us, of course. That's all." She remembered now something else that Rune had said_that the Ghost had heard her tale of being harassed and plagued, and then had said that he and she might have more in common than she guessed. "We're something less than popular with the Church right now," she added, and had the reward of seeing the cowl snap back to point at her. "And with the Bardic Guild. We sing a little too much of the truth, and we don't hide what we know for the sake of convenience. We might need _"