Lily had finished her day's duties under the wash mistress, ran clean water in the cool stone environs of the wash room to rinse away the days accumulated sweat and dirt and slipped upstairs to change into the clothing that would transform her from castle servant to minstrel. Crayl had invited her to come and play with his little band of minstrels this night. A song or two after she finished at the White Hare. She was ecstatic that she had been invited. A chance to prove to them her talent. A chance that they might invite her to travel with them when they left Sta-Veron.
She had lute in hand when Setha came bounding into the room, out of breath and bright eyed with barely suppressed excitement. The girl saw her and a her face broke into a wide grin.
"Lily! I was afraid I wouldn't catch you before you left. You're to come downstairs and play."
Lily stared at her silently, not understanding why she was to do such a thing and waiting for an explanation.
"There are guests aplenty in the hall for dinner. All come to talk about Helo Vran and his impudence. Some of the city lordlings brought a jester, but he was more pitiful than funny and his lordship said he didn't want to watch him during dinner and asked that you come down and entertain them. Isn't that wonderful? Guard captains and ladies and rich merchants tip well."
"Wh--who asked for me to play?" Lily could not quite get past that one sentence in amidst the rest of Setha's babbling.
"Lord Kall-Su, silly. Didn't I just say as much?"
"L-l-lord K-K-" She couldn't get the name out she was so astounded. Her fingers gripped the neck of the lute so hard the strings made a twanging sound of protest. Fear, trepidation, thrill raced through her. It was so much more dramatic request than Crayl's and so much more frightening.
"I can't." She stammered. "I've promised to play at the White Hare."
"The White Hare can wait. You'll never get another chance like this. Isn't it every minstrel's dream to be asked to play for lordly listeners? Besides which, you can't just refuse when our lord commands."
"He commanded?"
Setha gave her an impatient look. "He asked didn't he? It amounts to the same thing. Come on. You've already got your lute."
Setha took her arm, pulling her from the room and down the narrow servant's hall. Lily couldn't gather her thoughts the entire way down. Just followed dumbly in the other girl's footsteps. He'd asked to hear her play. He'd asked her if she was afraid of him. Oh, gods, gods, she wasn't -- not when she truly thought about it, but she was afraid of this sudden interest. She was afraid to go down there and have him watch her, afraid that she would fall apart under the scrutiny. That everyone would know how infatuated the silly former slave girl was with the lord of this castle. They would laugh at her and she would die from shame.
Setha pulled her into the hall. No one noticed her, everyone engrossed in a savory smelling feast and an undulating buzz of conversation. Keitlan bustled over, looking harried and displeased. She cast a dark glance back at the hall, muttering under her breath about not having enough for second courses if everyone kept eating as much as they were and the rudeness of dinner guests showing up without at least a day's proper notice. Then she glared at Lily, as if Lily were personally responsible.
"Well, girl, I trust you'll do better than the fool and the tumbler. Go to it, then and take their minds from food Cook didn't have forewarning to prepare."
Lily took a breath. Another huge one to chase away the terror. For everything she was or was not the rest of the time, when she performed, she was a professional. She knew the paths to charm her audience. She knew the ways of garnering attention when she sat with a lute across her lap. Attention that she despised at any other time. She straightened her back, trapped into this now, and softly asked of Keitlan.
"Could you have a stool brought out for me, please."
Setha ran and got one, brought it out and sat it in the center of the open floor space. Lily's vision centered on that spot. No different than playing at a tavern, or in a gypsy circle where travelers stopped for a bit of rest and a night of song and dance. Those traveling players -- those gypsies had been the first to teach her how to charm an audience. How to steal their attention in music and dance and whatever else might earn a coin to line their pockets. No different this. Setha was right. The gratification here might be worth the effort. Find that frame of mind she'd been taught by the wanderers and seduce them all.
She walked out to the lonely chair and the conversation hardly faltered. No one noticed her, or if they did, found enough interest to pause to see what she might do. Surreptitiously her gaze swept the hall. Soldiers and their ladies, servants and guards. A wizard or two, the tunics of priests. Avoid looking at the main table, because her downfall was there. She struck a chord and began a melody. No words this. Merely an enchanting tune that would slowly make them aware that there was a harper in their midst. It was a tavern tactic, a way to draw in a noisy, drunken crowd and make them receptive to her workings. She bent over the lute and let herself be drawn into the music, floating with the currents of her creation. The end of the melody melted into a song with lyrics. A rite of spring song that she'd played nightly at the White Hare. The people here seemed to embrace anything to do with the escape from winter.
The conversations did not stop, but they became softer, as people half listened to the song. She did a lighthearted tune about the fisherman's daughter and her dilemma over a netted fish that promised a wish if she let it go. There was a spattering of applause, mostly from the lesser tables where the guards sat after that. Their appreciation was the only thing that let her know she had worth. It always had been and she gathered it in and hoarded it like a miser with his gold.
One tried not to appear entirely enthralled. Especially with Schneider's malicious presence close by. But it was difficult. He would have appreciated her talents even had she been some harper fresh from the road that he'd never seen before. She perched on her stool, voluminous red skirt falling about her legs, one knee propped up so she might rest the lute upon it. The hem of the skirt parted to reveal slim calf and sandled foot. Her toe tapped in time with the music she made. Her hair hid her eyes most of the time, but one could see her lips moving to form the words. Naturally red lips and white teeth. There was something almost elemental about her when she sang. Some vague underlying sense of strength that she hid so well the rest of the time.
She wouldn't look in his direction, which annoyed him on one level and granted some relief on another. If she didn't look at him, then he wouldn't have to pretend the glance did not effect him. He slouched back in his chair, steepling his fingers under his chin. There had to be a solution to this foolishness. He did not know this girl. He had barely exchanged words with this girl. If he was beholden for her generosity in the past, then he had discharged that debt. He owed her nothing, save that occasionally dreams of her voice and her rare looks chased away more dire nightscares.
"She's not half bad." Schneider said grudgingly. "They're still over there talking."
Kall-Su did not comment, although his eyes did flicker momentarily away from Lily to the place where Yoko and Arshes Nei sat. One might, if one was vindictive, wish uncomfortable things to happen to Schneider as a result of that détente.
She began a love song and the females in attendance, both guest and servant, tittered appreciatively. For the most part the men still talked about bandits and military strategy. He half heard Kiro talking to Gara two chairs down from his own. Half heard Kiro's expressed worry about the bandits that had but recently been driven out of Sta-Veron.
"--- still would rather know they're long gone than worry about fifteen vengeful men lurking in the forests beyond the city. If they haven't flown straight back to their master, they'll be hell on trappers and the like coming down to market."
"My offer still stands to hunt them down."
Kall-Su frowned, attention pulled further away from the songstress by the muted discussion. He had not been at his most attentive the day the bandits had ridden into the city, but ---
"15?" He leaned towards Kiro. His captain looked at him blankly. Gara lifted a brow, equally curious at his sudden interest in their talk.
"There were 20 or more on the road in."
Kiro kept staring, his raw boned face slowly turning a shade of agitated pink. "The gate guard stopped them, my lord. Confiscated their weapons. There were only fifteen men. We only escorted fifteen out of Sta-Veron. Are you sure you're not mistaken?"
"I don't make mistakes like that."
"Which means there are five, minus the one Kall iced, still loose in the city." Gara surmised. "Makes sense. I wouldn't have sent my whole force in in one lump group. Not if I was planning on creating some mischief."
"But --" Kiro started, beginning to look very upset.
"How many merchants or trappers or caravans from highland towns came in that day? Did you keep track of every one of them? Or only the dangerous looking ones."
"Damnit." Kiro cursed, pushing back from his chair. He beckoned sharply to his commanders and men broke their conversations. "My lord," He promised stiffly to Kall-Su. "If we've made such a mistake, then I will see it corrected."
He marched towards the door, stopping to collect the city constable on his way out and converging with his men, pausing to give them hushed directions, before the lot of them hurried outside. The hall was suddenly emptied of over half its occupants. The remaining ladies and servants, stared at the egression with wide, uncertain eyes. Lily had faltered in her playing, twisted on her stood to watch the departing backs. She turned about and for one brief moment, while everyone else looked towards the doors, her eyes locked with Kall-Su's. She was breathless from the songs, and there was a reckless, almost brazen light in her eyes, as if the music invigorated her. Or empowered her.
He broke the stare first, unnerved by the directness in her eyes when before there had been none.
"Well, I'd say dinner is over." Schneider drawled. He was looking across the room, where Arshes and Yoko had risen, one walking towards the doors, the other along the back of the tables towards them. She stopped behind Schneider's chair and slipped her arms around his neck.
"What's going on?"
"They missed a couple of bandits." Schneider said, twisting his head to look up at her. Yoko smiled benignly. "Oh. Well, it will give them something to do, then. Lily was wonderful, don't you think? Much better than the fool and the acrobat."
"Much." Schneider agreed warily. "What were you talking about?"
"Oh, this and that. Kall, don't you think Lily was good?"
She had a look in her eyes that Kall-Su did not like. Yoko with a cause in her stubborn little head was a thing to be cautious of. He pushed back his chair, officially signaling that this dinner was over. The commander's wives were getting up, clustering together on their way towards the doors, the servants were scattering, taking plates and mugs towards the kitchens as they did. The priests -- or at least Geo Note and his aide, were coming towards them, probably with plans of bidding Yoko good night. Schneider was scowling while Yoko whispered to him to be good.
And Lily had slipped off her stood and was headed towards the main doors with her lute tucked under her arm, no doubt off to play in whatever tavern it was she took herself at nights to ply her musical trade. Having no wish to be caught in the middle of a dialogue between Schneider and Geo Note he retreated along the table and down the side of the hall towards the stairs leading up. Lily disappeared through the doors. He hesitated at the bottom of the steps, thinking about bandits loose in his city and hapless girls traveling the streets alone at night. She shouldn't have been out at the hours she kept even without the threat of cutthroats.
He passed the stairs and continued on to the doors. Stepped outside into a cool, star filled night and surveyed the courtyard. There were men being organized, torches and lanterns bobbing about the yard as guards ran here or there. Kiro was shouting at a group of men, perhaps the men who'd been on gate duty when the bandits had come in. The castle gates were open, men riding out in small companies or marching out afoot. If they accomplished anything tonight other than alarm the populace he would be surprised. And if he walked through that yard he'd have more questions and demands of his person than he wished to deal with. It was easier just to whisper a word; conjure a flight spell and rise silently up into the darkness. He came to earth on the other side of the wall in the shadows of a building just outside the gates. She was just passing through the gates, slipping around a pair of horses skittish at being roused so late and put to duty. She clutched the lute to her breast and looked back at them as she hurried on. He almost let her pass, calling himself a fool and a lackwit for having more concern for a mere girl than he did for the threat of bandits loose in the city.
"Its dangerous to wonder the streets alone at night."
She almost squealed when he did step out behind her from the shadows. She backed a few steps up, head up and eyes a little wild with the fright he'd given her. She kept staring at him, breathing hard, as if he were some demon come to claim her soul. And she'd said she didn't fear him. He half smiled at that ironic little lie. They all did at some level or another. Every mortal being he'd ever had a connection to - with the possible exception of Gara -- eventually grew to fear him and what he was. It was only the immortal ones, the ones with the connection to the arcane, that clove to him.
"You frightened me." She said in a small, whispery voice.
"I know." He said sadly. "There are enemies loose in Sta-Veron. Best if you did not stray from the protection of the castle at night."
"Not my enemies." She said reasonably. "What grief would they have with me?"
She argued with his efforts to protect her and he could not come up with an answer that did not sound foolish or condescending to reply to her with. He did not quite know what to do in this situation he had thoughtlessly put himself in. What had he expected her to say? To ecstatically thank him for his concern and rush back to the safety of the castle?
"You're right." He said levelly, numbly. "I wasn't thinking." He didn't know why he admitted the last, save that it was blatantly true. She was staring at him. Actually staring without her hair hiding her eyes and he could not manage to collect his wits enough to utter something poised or elegantly cold in passing.
"You were interrupted before anyone had a chance to express their appreciation for your performance. Perhaps a few coins ---"
"I don't wish your silver." She cut him off, actually sounding a little angry.
He blinked at her, surprised. She took a breath and amended. "You're the master of this city, my lord. You need not pay for me to entertain you. It is my honor."
That was said with the voice of a consummate performer. An impersonal and well used speech that somehow managed to prick him. He looked away from her, nodding, wishing he had gone upstairs and let her go about her business. Wishing he could make proper decisions instead of the disastrous ones he'd been producing of late. He took a step away, wanting away from this embarrassment. She made a distressed little sound, reached out and touched his shoulder.
"You misunderstand, my lord." She said. "I've been beholden so long, I wish to earn my own way."
He didn't turn, couldn't quite manage to speak because her fingers still rested on his back and the touch was electric. Silly girl. She had earned it. He had not been prepared to offer her anything that her talents did not warrant. Perhaps she took his silence as offense, for she withdrew her hand and murmured an apology.
"Thank you for your kindness, my lord." She said softly, eyes downcast now, hair spilling over to cover her blush. "I'll be on my way. It isn't far."
He found his voice. "Where?"
She bit her lip and shifted the lute in her arms. "The White Hare Tavern and Inn."
"I'll see you there."
"Oh." A catch in her voice. "You don't have to do that, my lord."
No. But he might as well, having come this far. He took her under the elbow before she could protest further and started her moving. She ducked her head and walked at his side. After a few moments she looked up at him from under her hair.
"Do you know where it is?"
He had to admit to ignorance, not having the tendency to frequent the taverns and ale houses of his city.
"Three blocks up and to the left." She said.
He nodded silently. A pair of guards on horseback passed them on the street, but paid them no heed. Lily shied a little closer to Kall-Su at the swift passage of heavy horse body. There were people on the streets, the hour being relatively early as far as the night time revelers were concerned.
"I think you were right, about the bandits, my lord." She offered quietly, taking him off guard with that unexpected statement.
"I've heard the servants and the guardsmen talking," she continued, almost shyly. "And they all seem to think you should have --- done to all of them what you did to the one. Killing them all -- that would have been something the Master -- the Prophet would have done. You would have had all their blood on your hands then."
He drew a breath, half laughing. If she only knew how much blood stained his hands. She was so naive. "I've blood aplenty. Theirs would have made no difference."
She shuddered. Horrified, he thought, at that admission. But she surprised him by saying. "You're a fool, my lord, if you think that. You let the words of men like the Master taint you. I don't believe the words of the priests. You're only a sinner if you believe in the sin. There's nothing that can't be repaired, or forgiven or changed. See, even a slave can be a free woman again." She held up her hand, free of blemish for him to see. Behind it she smiled. An encouraging little lift of her lips. He did not know what to say to that optimism. Pessimistic musing were more his nature.
They came to the corner and turned it. "You can not understand." He told her quietly. She hadn't the scope or the years to comprehend all that he'd done.
She sighed, and stopped, pointed up the street and said. "It's just down there. I'll be fine from here on."
He inclined his head, sorry to part her company.
"Thank you." She said. Stood there hesitating as if she wanted to say more, then from down the street someone called her name.
"Lily, is that you little love?"
Her head swung around. Two men walked towards them. A tall red-head and a shorter, brown haired young man. They sauntered up, the former putting his hands familiarly on Lily's shoulders and the later looking Kall-Su up and down speculatively.
"We were worried when you didn't show up to meet us."
"Who's this? A new friend?" the shorter insisted. Kall narrowed his eyes at the familiar way the one had his hands on Lily.
"Ah --" Lily was floundering, not knowing quite how to answer.
"Since you are in the company of friends, I'll take my leave. I might suggest you get them to accompany you home." He inclined his head at her, ignored the two men, spun and strode away. He did not look back. He was annoyed for no good reason. He was not prone to jealousy. Not over a woman at any rate. Very few things had been denied him once he'd come into his power. He'd been on the verge of conquering the world and here he was, irritated over the fact that some drunken dandy was comfortable enough to put his hands on Lily -- a laundry girl -- when he himself could not bring himself to do it.
Schneider was right. He dearly needed to take the time to get his head together, because there was only so much irrationality he could tolerate from himself before he gave up and went completely mad.