"I-" Laera started to look down again. She bit her lip and forced herself to look up. She did sink back, though, folding her legs to sit cross-legged, a pose Uncle Jacerryl had once told her was most unbecoming to a young lady of quality. Of course now Uncle Jacerryl was revealed for a thief and a smuggler-and she might not be a young lady of quality much longer. She sighed. "I wanted to leave so that I could be with Tycho. Because I thought he felt something for me." She crinkled her nose. "Now I know he doesn't."
"Don't be too hard on him," Veseene cautioned her with a smile. "He wasn't being very sensitive, but he was just flirting. I know it wasn't meant maliciously. Playing to the audience-any audience-is just second nature to a bard." Her eyes twinkled. "If you were giving lessons to a handsome young man, don't you think you'd flirt with him? Just a little bit?" Laera stared at her in shock.
"No!" she said firmly, but part of her rejected that answer almost immediately. She thought about the pose in which she had arranged herself for Tycho in the library and felt color rise to her cheeks. "Well, maybe," she confessed. "But I wouldn't want to hurt anyone!"
"Neither would Tycho." The old woman sat up a little more. "But even after you found out Tycho didn't feel for you that way, you still said you wanted to take to the road. Did you really think about why or is it as Tycho says and you're just being stubborn?" The flush of Laera's cheeks grew stronger. Veseene gave her an easy smile. "It's all right, Laera. It's not my place to force you to go back home."
"Home!" Laera snorted. "Home to let my father lock me in my room?" She stood up. "He would, you know. He'd lock me up and not let me out until I was married to some ugly merchant from Impiltur or Thesk. He probably wouldn't even let me out for the wedding-he'd bring a priest to the house to hear my vows through a locked door!"
Veseene laughed. Laera glared at her. "He would!" she insisted.
"From what I've heard about him from Tycho, I don't doubt it." Veseene wiped her eyes. She shifted her legs and patted the couch. Laera sat down beside her. "Why a bard, Laera?" she asked.
Laera sighed. "Wandering from city to city, needing nothing more than an instrument, a sharp blade, and a sharper wit, living off stories, songs, and secrets " She smiled. "I read a book once that told the deeds of the Harpers-fighting evil and defending the weak then vanishing like music in the night." She crooked her head to look at Veseene. "Have you ever known any Harp-"
"No," said Veseene in a tone that was both quick and sharp. "I haven't. Did your book point out that Harpers are also meddlers? Thanks to them, there are places all through the north and west that would welcome an honest night's entertainment, but never see it because anyone who wanders in singing so much as a note is immediately clapped in irons by the local authorities, kept overnight, then run out of town in the morning." She crossed her arms. "Lliira's song, Laera, Tycho said you had been reading too many romances and listening to ballads, but have you ever really thought about what life on the road is like? You can make your way with a song and a smile, but it's brutally hard and a sharp wit can be as much trouble as a sword. Ask Tycho about that! A bard's life might sometimes be more exciting than life as a dutiful daughter or a merchant's wife, but it's seldom any easier and there's very little romantic about it!"
Tears welled up in Laera's eyes and no matter how rapidly she blinked, they wouldn't go away. Veseene turned wet and blurry. Laera wiped the back of a hand across her face. "Veseene! I thought you were on my side!"
"I'm on the side that doesn't want to see you make a stupid decision, Laera." The old woman put a trembling, feather-light arm around her and held her close. "I wouldn't trade my life for any other. I love performing. I love the people I've met and the places-all of them- I've been. I love the magic that I found along the way. But a bard's life can be ugly and confusing. You saw just a little bit of that last night." Her hand stroked Laera's hair. "Forget Tycho. Forget your father. Forget me. You need to ask yourself one thing: if you could somehow turn back the hours to yesterday afternoon, would you leave your father's house again?"
Laera gulped and stared in silence at the fire. Veseene continued to hold her and stroke her hair. After a little while, she began to speak.
"A good many years ago," she said, "not too long before I came to Spandeliyon for the first time and met Tycho in fact, I was in Two Stars, about as far east in Thesk as you can go before you're in Rashemen. Now, Two Stars was then and is now ruled by a family called Gallidy. While I was there, I made the acquaintance of a younger son of the Gallidys and he invited me to stay in his family's castle-"
"A castle and a prince?" Laera couldn't hold back a smile. "I thought you said a bard's life wasn't easy or romantic?"
Veseene only gave her a disapproving glance. "He invited me to stay in his family's castle, which is positioned precisely astride the crossroads of the Golden Way leading east and west and the Cold Road leading north and south. I wasn't the only guest in the castle, of course. There was also a Red Wizard of Thay, a group of elves, and, most important, a party of Nars, the rough folk who dwell at the north end of the Cold Road. As it happened, there was a young Nar man among them, the son of a chief, who was of an age with my host. The Nar's name was Eiter, my host's Dain, and while I was there, they grew very close and became fast friends."
"When the season drew to a close and it was time for the Nars to leave, Dain and Eiter and I went on one last carousing binge around Two Stars-"
Laera twisted around and stared at her. "Veseene! How old were you?"
"I haven't always been a shaking invalid," the bard said haughtily, "and even a lady of quality should never ask a woman her age. Let's say I was young at heart, but old enough to know better."
"Late that night, when both Dain and Eiter had fallen well into their cups, they decided that they needed to seal their friendship. With me as a witness, they cut each other's right palm and pressed their wounds together, mingling their blood and binding them in a Nar blood-oath. The next day, the Nars left."
"On their way north, brigands attacked them. With his right hand wounded, Eiter couldn't fight properly. He was killed."
Laera gasped, but Veseene continued her story. "Eiter's father sent word back to Two Stars-and a demand for restitution. Blood for blood. Dain was responsible for the wound that killed Eiter."
"That's not right!" choked Laera. Veseene's eyebrow rose.
"Isn't it? If Dain hadn't cut Eiter's palm, he would have been able to fight and he would have survived the attack."
"What happened?" Laera begged. "What did the Gal-lidys do?"
"Dain and his family could have ignored the demand, but that would have strained relations with the Nars and drawn their integrity into question. They could have tried to make restitution with coin, but that would have made a mockery of Dain's oath to Eiter. In the end, Dain saddled a horse and rode north alone along the Cold Road to meet the Nar chief. His oath to Eiter would accept no less."
Laera sighed. "That's heroic!" she said. "It's just like what would happen in a ballad!"
"Oh?" Veseene asked. "Then how would the story end in a ballad?"
She thought for a moment and frowned. "Dain found the bandits on the way north, slew Eiter's real killer, and took his body to… No." Her frown grew deeper as she thought a little more. Veseene wouldn't be asking if the ending were so simple. Laera tried to imagine how the tale would fit into a ballad, tried to imagine Tycho singing or reciting it. She began again. "Dain reached the Nar chief and showed him the scar on his palm. When the chief saw how deeply Dain had loved Eiter, he declared that blood for blood had been satisfied-and Dain took Eiter's place as his son. He lived, but never saw Two Stars again." She looked at Veseene.