Vanyel blushed at his own poor manners. “I didn't, I'm sorry. Vanyel.”

“Vanyel – that - Vanyel Ashkevron - my Holy Stars! The Herald?” the luthier exclaimed, his eyes going dark and round. “Herald Vanyel? The Shadow -”

“Stalker, Demonsbane, the Hero of Stony Tor, yes,” Vanyel said wearily, sagging against the man's bunk that was on the wall opposite the rack of instruments. The instrument maker's reaction started a headache right behind his eyes. He dropped his head, and rubbed his forehead with one hand. “Please. I really - get tired of that.”

He felt a hard, callused hand patting his shoulder, and he looked up in surprise into a pair of very sympathetic and kindly eyes. “I 'magine you do, lad,” the old man said with gruff understanding. “Sorry to go all goose-girl on you. Just - person don't meet somebody folks sing about every day, an' he sure don't expect to have a hero come strollin' up to him at a Border Harvest Fair. Now - you be Vanyel, I be Rolf. And you'll have a bit of my beer before I send you on your way - hey?''

Vanyel found himself smiling. “Gladly, Rolf.” He started to pick his way across the wagon to the door at the rear, but the man stopped him with a wave of his hand.

“Not just yet, laddybuck. As I was startin' to tell you, I got a few pieces I don't put out. Keep 'em for Bards. And I got a few more I don't even show to just any Bard - but bein' as you are who you are - an' since they say you got a right fine hand with an instrument -” He opened up a hatch in the floor of the crowded wagon, and began pulling out instruments packed in beautifully wrought padded leather traveling bags. Two lutes, a harp - and three instruments vaguely gittern-shaped, but-much larger.

Rolf began stripping the cases from his treasures with swift and practiced hands, and Vanyel knew that he had found what he was looking for. The lutes-which were the first cases he opened-bore the same relationship to the instruments on the wall as a printed broadside page bears to an elegant and masterfully calligraphed and ornamented proclamation.

He took the first, of a dark wood that glowed deep red where the light from the open door struck it, tightened a string, and sounded a note, listening to the resonances.

“For you, or for someone else?”

“Someone else,” he said, listening to the note gently die away in the heart of the lute.

“High voice or low?”

“High now, but I think he may turn out to be a baritone when his voice changes. He's my nephew; he's Gifted, and he is going to be a fine Bard one day.”

“Try the other. That one is fine for a voice that don't need any help, it's loud, as lutes go - and all the harmonics are low. The other's better for a young voice, got harmonics up and down, and a nice, easy action. That one he'd have to grow into. The other'll grow with him.”

Vanyel looked up in surprise at the old man.

Rolf gave him a half-smile. “A good craftsman knows how his work fits in the world,” he said. “I got no voice, but I got the ear. Truth is, the ear is harder to find than the voice. Though I doubt you'd find a Bard who'd agree.”

Vanyel nodded, and picked up the second lute, this one of wood the gold of raival leaves in autumn. He tightened a string and sounded it; the note throbbed through the wagon, achingly true. He tried the action on the neck; easy, but not mushy.

“You were right,” he said, holding the chosen instrument out to the luthier. “I'll take it. No haggling.” He looked wistfully over at the other. “And if I didn't already have a lute I love like an old friend. ...”

Rolf waggled his bushy eyebrows, and grinned, as he took the golden lute from Vanyel and began carefully replacing it in its bag. “Care to try a friend of a new breed?” He nodded at the gittern-shaped objects.

“Well . . . what are those things?”

“Something new. Been trying gitterns with metal strings, 'stead of gut; you tell me how it came out.” He laid the chosen lute carefully down on his bunk, and stripped the case from the first of the gitterns. “I keep 'em tuned; this one is a fair bitch to demonstrate if I don't. Hoping to get to Haven one day, show 'em to the Collegium Bards.”

“Great good gods.” Vanyel's jaw dropped. “Twelve strings? I should say”

“Fingers like a gittern. That one's like it; the other has six. Use metal harpstrings.”

Vanyel took it carefully, and struck a chord -

It rang like a bell, sang like an angel in flight, and hung in the air forever, pulsing to the beat of his heart.

He closed his eyes as it died away, lost in the sound; and when he opened them, he saw Rolf grinning at him like a fiend.

“You,” he said, sternly, “are a terrible man, Rolf Dawson.”

“Oh, I know,” the old man chortled. “It don't hurt that the inside of this wagon's tuned, too. That's one reason why them student lutes sound as good as they do. But that lady'll sound good in a privy.”

“Well, I hope you're prepared to work your fingers to the bone,” Vanyel replied, snatching up the leather case and carefully encasing his gittern. “Because when I take her back to Haven and Bard Breda hears her, she will send packs of dogs out to find you and bring you there!”

Rolf chuckled even harder. “Why d'you think I pulled her out and had you try her? You're going to do half my work for me, Herald Vanyel. With you t'speak for me, an' that lady, I won't spend three, four fortnights coolin' my heels with the other luthiers, waitin' my turn to see a Collegium Bard”

Vanyel had to chuckle himself. “You are a very terrible man. Now - you might as well tell me the worst.”

“Which is?”

He felt a twinge for his once-full purse. Well, what else did he have to spend money on? “How much I owe you.”

Vanyel shut the door to his room behind him, and set his back against it, breathing the first easy breath he'd taken since he left his chamber this morning. “Gods!” he gasped. “Sanctuary at last! Hello, Medren. Oh, you brought wine-thank you, I need it badly.”

The boy looked up from tuning the new strings on his new lute. Giving it to him had given Vanyel one of the few moments of unsullied joy he'd had lately, a reaction worth ten times what Vanyel had paid.

Medren grinned. “Mother?”

“That was this morning,” Vanyel replied, pushing away from the door, heading for the table beside the window seat and the cool flask of wine Medren had brought. “I swear, she chased me all over the keep, with stars in her eyes and the hunt in her blood.”

Poor Melenna. Gods. She's driving me insane, but I can't bring myself to hurt her. I've been the cause of so much hurt, I can't bear any more.

“And lust in her -”

“Medren!” Vanyel interrupted. “That's your mother you're slandering!”

“- heart,” the boy finished smoothly. “What did you do?”

“I took a bath,” Vanyel replied puckishly. “I took a very long bath. When I finally came out, she'd given up.”

“So who was chasing you this time, if it wasn't Mother?”

“Lord Withen. On the Great Sheep Debate. Meke wants to keep the sheep on Long Meadow until spring shearing; Father wants yearling cattle back there immediately, if not sooner.” Vanyel groaned, and held both hands to his head. “If it wasn't for the fact that once this door is shut they leave me alone-gods, the Border was more peaceful!”

Water droplets beaded the side of the flask and ran down the sides as Vanyel picked it up. “Whoever gets you as protege will bless you for your thoughtfulness, lad.” He poured himself a goblet of wine, and took it with him to sip while he stood over Medren at the window seat. No breath of air stirred without or within, and even the birds seemed to have gone into sun-warmed naps. “That instrument still as much to your liking?”

Medren nodded emphatically, if with a somewhat preoccupied expression. He was tuning the last string, a frown of concentration making his young face look adult.