Holly Lisle - Bard's Tale 08 - Curse of the Black Heron

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Curse of the Black Heron

Bard's Tale 08

by Holly Lisle

some minor fixing done, needs lots more work

Chapter One

I remember the beginning of the end of my world clearly, but not for the

reasons anyone would usually associate with remembering such a day. Early

morning dragged me from my bed, and the voice of the herald from the

capital drew me out of Birdie's cool house into the town square of Blackwarren

and into the already-sticky heat of the early summer day, where I stood

beside my friend, Giraud dar Falcannes, and listened to the latest news from

the city, shouted by a lovely young herald backed up by a contingent of

cold-eyed enforcers.

"In this the Century of the Constellation Baragar the Hunter, in the year of

Ten Firehawk and the season of Merroell, on the fifth day of the month of

Tassetti, which We rename Varelle in our honor, We-Varelle dar Kothia

Surdosti-declare that Salgestis Dargoman the Usurper has been cast down,

and executed, and that We have lifted his head on a pike in Greffon's Great

Square as proof and testament of Our intentions to all such usurpers." The

herald sat astride her black horse, dressed all in royal red and empire blue,

with a crest on her tabard that I'd never seen and a weighted scroll in her

hands that gleamed at the edges with the sheen of real gold. She glared down

at all of us who stood listening to her decree, daring us to dispute her.

I leaned over and whispered to Giraud, "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but

wasn't Salgestis the rightful king? And isn't Varelle dar Kothia Surdosti the

usurper?"

Giraud grinned at me. "Mmm. Well, she was until she won," he whispered

back, "but it would be awfully impolitic of us to remember that now, wouldn't

it? And possibly hard on our necks, Isbetta. Never forget that the winners get

to call the losers anything they want."

The herald spelled out Varelle dar Kothia Surdosti's decrees to us-that she

would be empress, titled Gloriana Majeste of all the lands of Terosalle; that

her capital city would be Greffon; that she would give pardon and favor to all

who acknowledged her as empress and would execute those who did not, and

with them their every relation through ten generations; and so on, and so on.

The herald's reading made for an impressive decree, but I must confess that

discovering I had a new ruler in Greffon interested me less than discovering I

owned a new sheep would have. The fact is, I was about to graduate to

journeyman status and be admitted to the Weavers' Guild, and my foster

mother would, upon my graduation, owe me a sheep as a gift-the first of what

I hoped to turn into an impressive weaver's flock. The sheep was both symbol

and material contributor to my future. Whereas in Blackwarren the doings of

the High Court were so distant both in leagues and in their effects on our lives

that they didn't even make for interesting gossip.

I rolled my eyes. "This going to make any difference for you and His

Lordship?"

"Oh, sure. The-" Giraud made a face "-the Gloriana Majeste is bound to

want an increase in taxes to fill her empty war chests. And no doubt she'll

want Da to ride to her county seat in Kingston Bylake with my brothers to

declare undying allegiance. Shouldn't be much trouble for him otherwise,

though. If he hadn't been in high stink with King Salgestis, we wouldn't have

been in stuck here in Blackwarren in the first place, lording it over the peat

boggers and the blackflies."

"You don't think you'll have to ride to Kingston Bylake, too?"

"Nah. I'm third tit, Izza. With Storrin and Baylar ahead of me in

succession, I don't even get invited to the dances in Straje."

"And we both know how you love to dance."

Giraud snickered. "I won't complain about my place in life. I'm as happy as

I'm going to be, living in Blackwarren. And maybe with Varelle on the throne

Da will win a place of favor and we'll be able to move closer to the capital and

get a bit of culture from time to time."

I recall finding that possibility unlikely. "You think she'll grant your father

new lands? But he didn't support her."

Giraud saw it as less of a problem, but then, he was always much more the

optimist than I. Being lord's son instead of poor foster-daughter to a peat

crofter will have that effect on your outlook on life. Giraud said, "He didn't

support Salgestis, either. He wasn't crazy. From one day to the next you

couldn't tell who would win their fight, or if both of them would lose and the

damned Liedans would come sweeping down from the north by land and sea

and annex us; and Blackwarren's so far from everything Da didn't need to

make any passionate declarations of loyalty. Nobody even remembers we're

up here, most times. He just kept his head low and kept it on his shoulders

that way."

The herald had finished reading the new empress's decree, and sat rolling

her scroll, preparatory to moving on to the next town... or considering our

position relative to the rest of civilization, perhaps just heading home. I said,

"That's it, then. The news of the world beyond comes and goes, and here in

Blackwarren, nothing changes. Nothing at all."

Giraud rested his hand on my shoulder as we turned to head to my

craft-master's shop. "That isn't true for you, Izza."

I had to smile. Giraud understood my reasons for anticipating my release

from Birdie's care, and was friend enough to be excited with me. "You're

right," I agreed. "Finally, change comes."

"How many more days?"

I closed my eyes and pretended to count, but actually the number of days

I had left in my apprenticeship might as well have been carved straight

through my flesh into bone, I knew it so well. "Nineteen," I said.

Giraud laughed. "One for every year you've lived. How perfect."

"I still have two years as journeyman weaver after that, before I can

become a master and set up my own shop. It isn't as if I can leave

Blackwarren right away."

"But no more Birdie, right?"

I nodded vehemently. That was, as far as I could see, the greatest

advantage in achieving journeyman status. "Exactly right. No more Birdie.

I've been asking around, and I've already found a place living with the Widow

dar Nothellin. She'll give me bed and board in exchange for three pence a

month, and one bolt of fine blue cloth winter and summer."

"That's less than Birdie's taking."

"Birdie takes everything I make, just because she can." The anger I felt at

that fact was, for once, tempered with satisfaction. "But only for nineteen

more days."

Giraud jumped onto the boardwalk that began where the cobblestone

street became dirt and mud, and offered me his hand. I took it-I would have

been rude to refuse, even though I was quite capable of swinging myself up

onto the walk, and bounded upward. Giraud said, "I still don't know why the

old bitch didn't send you off to Watchowl Bards' Keep to train as a bard.

You've the voice, and I think a touch of the magic, too."

"You think so, do you?"

Giraud smiled, but his eyes were serious. "You've certainly enchanted

me."

I tried to laugh, but the old bitterness came through too clearly and I

stopped myself. I forced a lightness that I didn't feel and said, "But that's the

way with apprenticeships. Our fosters choose what we shall be, and leave us

the quandary of becoming good at what they choose." I pretended to shrug it

off. "My parents wouldn't have fostered me with Birdie if they hadn't agreed

with her that weaving would be the right path for me."

I was not, after all, alone in complaining about my foster-mother, or about

the hardness of my life. Every other weaver-apprentice who studied with

Marda dar Ellai complained, too. Of chores in the evening, of poor meals, of

hard beds. I was alone in other ways, though. I alone came to Blackwarren not

from a smaller town but from the greatest city of them all, Greffon. I alone

recalled a life that was not bounded by the rising and falling of the sun, that

was described neither by the movements of sheep and cattle through the

pastures nor by the growing and harvesting of crops, nor by the cutting and

drying of peat. I recalled the life I'd led as daughter of the king's own bard-I'd

been a child with free run of court with friends up to and including the king's

youngest daughter. I'd met Salgestis on occasion. I'd sung for him once-some

trippery song about what a wonderful king he was. I recall that he'd been

charmed, for I'd written the dreadful bit of doggerel myself, and had gone on

to tell him that someday I would be a Bard like my father. Bard with a capital

"B," not bard-little-b without the magic. And he'd clapped me on the shoulder

and told me what a good bard I should be, too.

I was alone in other ways. Of all Blackwarren's fosterlings, only I never

received a visit from my parents or an invitation to return home for the Long

Holiday. I alone lived exclusively with my foster-mother the year round,

never so much as receiving a letter or an Ammas Day gift from my true

parents. My fellow apprentices had endless theories about this, all of them

ugly and hateful to one degree or another. Either I was an embarrassing

bastard child, or my parents were mad and had been locked away, or I had

done something in the past that was so terrible my parents had banished me

from their lives, or I was an orphan from nowhere taken in by my

foster-mother and that I was, to boot, a dreadful liar who made up stories

about Greffon and my life before in order to "give myself airs."

Giraud didn't believe any of the stories, and sympathized with my plight as

a fellow outcast from a better life. He was old enough to remember when his

father had been in favor at court, and to wish for the return of those days. For

him, the Gloriana Majeste Varelle represented a possible door back.

Giraud had been considering my remark about my parents fostering me

with Birdie. "I wonder," he said.

"As much as she hates me, I sometimes wonder, too-but I can't say that I

see much point in thinking about it. I'd rather be a bard, but my life has gone

another way." I peeked in the window of the dar Felpas bakery as the rich,

delicious scent of goldberry pie tickled my nose. "Oh, I wish she'd shut the

window when she bakes those. I always want one," I said.

Giraud ducked inside and bounded back out again with two large berry

tarts. "For us, because we are almost free," he said.

I gave him a quick squeeze-not much of one, for not even the third son of a

lord could be seen hugging a common weaver's apprentice, no matter how

reputedly lofty her birth. I munched the pie as I walked along, closing my

eyes as an especially rich bit of crust and berries melted on my tongue. "Don't

you wish all of life was berry pies?" I asked.

"And warm, busy houses in big cities," he said, "with libraries everywhere,

and colleges and fairs."

"And silk dresses and silver-stringed guitars and musicians on the street

corners," I added.

"And I would be Lord Giraud in my own white-walled castle," he said.

"And I would be your chief bard, and wear gold chains around my waist

and ride a black horse."

"And you would never have to look at another loom or shuttle," he said,

grinning at me.

"And you would never have to open another history book."

Giraud chuckled and shook his head. "Maybe that wouldn't be such a good

outcome after all. I like history considerably better than I like swords or

politics."

"Lucky for you," I told him. I reached the door to Marda's shop and

grinned up at him. "You'll be busy for months, rewriting all the records in

your father's library so that they say 'the evil usurper Salgestis Dargoman,'

rather than 'Our Illustrious Liege Salgestis III.' "

When he realized I was right and he began to contemplate the enormous

task before him, Giraud's face fell. I laughed at him. Cruel of me, I know-but

he was the only apprentice I knew who got to live at home and learn his work

in his father's library, while sleeping in his own bed and having the comfort of

knowing his father and brothers were nearby and that his master didn't dare

beat him much, for fear of retaliation.

With such luck, he didn't deserve any sympathy over the amount of work

he would have to do.

And that was how it started. We forgot about our new empress and went

on with our lives. A week passed, in which I did the final work on my

journeyman piece, a blanket that I wove in honor of my patron goddess

Neithas, the goddess of both weavers and singers, as well as the goddess of

knowledge, the goddess of handicrafts, and when all wasn't right with the

world, the goddess of war. Very busy, she is, and encouraging to someone like

me who has a hard time making myself finish anything. I was doing the

blanket in subtle blues and greens around a central circle composed of

interlocking gold rays and pale yellow diamonds, and all through the outer

edge, I'd woven looms and chariots and cats... well, Neithas is the goddess of

beasts, too. Besides, I like cats. The blanket was as complex as anything I'd

ever tried, and both the overall design and the minor patterns that I worked

into it required most of my time and all of my concentration. After all, the

journeyman blanket was my chance to earn my way to adulthood and

acceptance, and even if weaving was no path I would have chosen for myself,

it was, nonetheless, an honorable path, and one blessed by my goddess.

Besides, I could sing while I worked, and that helped.

I barely saw Giraud the entire week I was finishing my blanket; as he'd

predicted, his father and both his older brothers had to make the trip to

Kingston Bylake to swear fealty, and he stayed behind to make sure

Blackwarren's greathouse continued to run as it should. That job would have

fallen to his mother, but the Lady dar Falcannes had died of the grippe in the

winter past, and Lord dar Falcannes had not yet found her replacement. I

knew from rumors among the other apprentices that he had taken a few

young women to his bed, to test them for suitability, but no sheaves of wheat

hung from the greathouse gates, so evidently he hadn't found one yet who was

to his liking. Or perhaps he hadn't been to the liking of the women he'd

entertained.

I'd met the man frequently. He had cold eyes and a cruel mouth and a way

of never meeting my eyes when I talked to him, and I thought, personally,

that only a very desperate woman would take him as her husband.

The day I finished my blanket, I sat for the better part of a candlemark

just staring at it. I realized for the first time that I was good at what I did.

Truly good. Neithas had blessed my hands and given me a talent with them

that was, if not equal to the voice she'd given me, at least good enough to earn

me a fine living-even in a town bigger than Blackwarren.

I was proud enough of myself that I carried the blanket to Marda to show

to her.

"So you're finished, then," Marda said. She gave the blanket a cursory

glance.

I nodded, my heart sinking. I never asked Marda for her opinion of

something that I'd done, because her opinion was always, "Is that the best

you can do?" But I couldn't help thinking that this time, surely, she would see

that the lovely patterns and fine cloth I'd created were a reflection of her own

skill as a teacher, and she'd be proud of me. So, like an idiot, I asked her,

"What do you think?"

Marda glanced from the blanket to my face, then back to the blanket for a

longer, harder look. When she looked at me again, her eyes had become as

cold as a winter wind across the peat bogs-as cold and as bone-chilling.

"We'll discuss it. But not now."

I left it with her at the shop and trudged home, completely unable to

imagine what she had found to hate about my work. I ate a silent meal with

Birdie, climbed up to my mat in the little loft about the single room of her

cottage, and tried to sleep. My mind kept tossing me images of the blanket,

and of Marda, and kept struggling to find some flaw that I'd overlooked in the

work that would so disgust her that she would look at me the way she had.

No matter how long I lay there, or how much I tossed and turned trying to

find a comfortable position on my mat, I couldn't sleep at all.

Which was just as well.

Finally in the full darkness of late night or possibly early morning, when

the fire in the hearth below had guttered down to coals and ashes, as I lay

staring up at the slats and thatching just above my head, I heard a soft

scratching at the shutters below. It was so light it might have been a branch

dragging against the wood in a light wind-except no trees grew anywhere near

the window.

Next I heard Birdie moving to the door, something about her movements

so surreptitious and stealthy that my gut knotted. Birdie's usual slow,

clump-footed gait had been replaced by something light and quick and...

dangerous.

I heard whispers at the door. "Should we go outside?"

"No. She's asleep. Been asleep for a while. Both of you might as well come

in."

I could not imagine why anyone would care whether I was awake or

asleep, but I didn't have time to ponder the oddness of the question. Others

followed after it, each stranger than the one before.

"Did you arrange everything with the guild?" Birdie asked.

"Of course." In the soft reply I recognized the voice of my craft-master,

Marda. What could she be doing in Birdie's house at an hour which hinted that

what she did, she wanted no one to know about?

"They've agreed not to wait until they pass judgment on the rest of the

apprentices?"

"Why should they? With her, we have no worries of irate parents, and now

we need not worry about interference from His Lordship, either. We'll receive

their judgment just after first bell in the morning." Marda laughed. The sound

was as ugly and cruel as anything I'd ever heard.

"I got news back from my messenger," a masculine voice said. I didn't

recognize this voice at all.

Birdie's "Did you?" gave me chills.

"Lord dar Falcannes is dead along with both of his older sons."

"And your own pending lordship?"

"Guaranteed by none other than the empress herself," the stranger's voice

assured her. "Her men will arrive in the morning and dispose of the last

remnants of the dar Falcannes. When the heads of the household of dar

Falcannes adorn pikes in the square, her duke will name me temporary

governor, and I'll travel to Kingston Bylake to be knighted. Sir Aymar dar

Ressti sounds so much better than just Aymar."

Now I knew who he was. I'd seen him from time to time, a clever,

hawk-faced burgher who came into Marda's shop to buy bolts of cloth, and

who had twice when I was alone suggested that if I came to his house and was

"nice" to him, he would be sure I had pretty dresses and silver jewelry, and

that I wouldn't have to worry about weaving for a living. He'd frightened me,

but I had no one I could tell about his attentions. So I'd said nothing.

I'd been right to fear him. He'd found a way to have Giraud's father and

brothers killed. He intended to see Giraud dead as well. I had to get out of the

house to tell him-

"As soon as the guild rejects Isbetta's journeyman status," Aymar said, "I

want her delivered to the Wolfshead Inn."

I froze, and my thoughts of charging off to get Giraud came to a halt. The

Wolfshead Inn?

"I thought you wanted her for yourself first," Birdie said.

Aymar's chuckle was cold and evil. "I intend to have her for myself first.

But I don't want her to be seen at my house. And the little bitch refused

me-let her know from the beginning what price she'll pay for her refusal.

Tassien will keep her in a room until I can get to her-after I've finished with

her, he can put her to work."

The only work for women at Tassien's inn was whoring.

"The whore's guild doesn't object?" Marda asked.

"The whore's guild is willing to pretend she doesn't exist, as long as she

takes only the trade the guild doesn't want," Aymar said. "Tassien offered to

buy her outright from me, but I decided I'd rather have a percentage of the

money he gets from her. In return, I'll pay you a gold crown every month in

recognition of your status as her... her foster-mother." He chuckled. "For as

long as she lasts, anyway; that will add up nicely for the two of you, won't it?"

"It will indeed," Birdie said.

Marda just laughed softly. "And to think I promised the Black Heron we'd

kill her after we killed her father."

I jammed the side of my fist into my mouth to keep from screaming. My

father was dead? And these were his killers? I'd always thought he'd returned

to Greffon and the king.

For an instant, the darkness that welled up from the depths of my soul

swallowed me. I didn't want to live. I didn't want to have to move. I thought,

in just that brief, bitter instant, that I would lie in the loft waiting for whatever

came to me; that I would give in; that I wouldn't fight, because I couldn't win.

But self-preservation pushed back despair.

Birdie's voice raised slightly from its previous cautious low tones. "I told

you there was money in orphans."

"Yes," Aymar said, "but even you wanted to whore her out as soon as we

got her, and think of the income you would have lost from her weaving in the

meantime. And she never would have lasted a month whoring at first. Now...

well, now she might survive a year. And we've been paid thrice for her

miserable life-the Black Heron's money, and the weaving, and now this."

They were silent for a while. I lay in the darkness, wondering how I could

get out of the house and flee before they could catch me. Wondering how I

could save Giraud. Wondering how I could get even with them for killing my

father....

"I'm still surprised," Birdie said, and her voice was thoughtful, "that the

Black Heron didn't have his people kill us when we couldn't find those pages

her father hid."

"He still hopes we'll find them. And I think we will. I'm telling you, the

bastard hid them in dar Falcannes house," Aymar said. "I'll start looking for

them tomorrow. And when we find them we'll copy them. We'll sell the Heron

the originals for the hundred pounds of gold he promised. Then we'll figure out

how to profit from the copies."

"How do you know you'll even recognize them when you see them?"

Marda asked him. "Dar Falcannes has lived in that place for seven years since

the bard left it, and he hasn't found them."

"Maybe. Or maybe he has and he's been using them all this time. Or

maybe the bard hid them in a book in the library, or buried them in a jar in

the garden. They were just parchment pages. They weren't anything fancy-I

suspect they were copies the bard made from something else, since they

looked new. I couldn't read them-they were in that script the bards use that

only they know."

"I don't understand why you didn't steal the pages when you had your

hands on them."

They fell silent again. Finally Aymar said, "There's an old saying-'Never

steal from a live bard.' It's good advice."

I thought, You shouldn't have stolen from a dead one either, Aymar-you're

going to pay for it. But I certainly couldn't make him pay for it right then.

Both Marda and Aymar left at last, and I listened while Birdie climbed the

ladder to my loft. I had my back to her, and I kept my breathing regular and

slow, and my eyes closed-I focused on feeling relaxed, on being calm, on

allowing my body to go limp. Meanwhile, I could feel her stare like a knife

between my shoulder blades, and I had to fight the impulse to hold my

breath. I wished her away, feeling as scared as I ever had in my life. She was a

murderer, and she wanted to sell me to a whoremaster, and if I didn't get

away she would.

Chapter Two

Finally I heard her moving down the ladder again, and shuffling around. I

heard the creak of her bed as she climbed into it, and the rustle of her blanket

as she pulled it over her. Then I waited some more. I didn't dare do anything

until she fell asleep. In the meantime, I had to be sure that I didn't give away

the fact that I was awake, or that I knew what had happened and what was

about to happen. So I continued to think calm thoughts to keep my body

relaxed and limp and my breathing regular and slow and deep. Calm

thoughts-green hills and the steady rhythm of shuttle through warp forming

weft and the feel of a song in my lungs and my belly and my throat. Calm

thoughts and a relaxed body, when all I wanted to do was run.

And at last I heard her breathing change, the soft burr of her snore; the

only signal I would get.

I got up carefully and dressed, then packed my few belongings-my

sleeping shirt, my other breeches, my other tunic, my other undergarments,

the wooden flute my father gave me, my knife and whetstone, my personals.

Everything I owned, when rolled tightly enough, fit into the pockets of my

cloak. I wondered if I dared climb down the ladder to retrieve my boots. I had

thought to just cut through the rope that bound the roofing slats to the

crossbeams, then push my way through the thatching to get outside; but the

more I thought about it, the more I realized I would have to travel in the

mountains if I hoped to find some form of safety, and if I traveled in the

mountains I had to have my boots. Which meant climbing down the ladder to

retrieve them-and then, since time was my enemy as much as noise, lifting

the bar that held the oaken door locked and slipping out of it into the street.

Then hurrying clear across the village without giving the impression that I

was hurrying, to get Giraud up and out of Blackwarren before the empress's

hunters came to kill him. Then running. East to the Stormfather Mountains,

then through whatever passes the two of us could find, and north into Lieda.

Running ahead of the soon-to-be-knighted Aymar dar Ressti and the

empress's killers and the villagers who would come after us, eager for reward.

I took a deep breath and eased myself over the edge of the loft, braced

myself on the ladder, and crept down. Twice as fast a I should have, a

thousand times more slowly than I wanted to. The ladder didn't creak, and I

stepped barefooted onto the wide-boarded floor of the cottage. I knew from

experience that some of the boards squeaked; what I couldn't remember but

desperately needed to was which of them. I hadn't been in the practice of

sneaking out of the house; my only experience came from the rare hurried

trip to the outhouse in full darkness, and in those situations, I'd had nothing to

hide.

And that was my answer, of course. In the event that Birdie woke enough

to notice me, I would say I had to go to the outhouse. Of course, when I failed

to return, she'd come after me. I'd lose hours of the small lead I'd have

anyway. So I kept quiet, tested each board with a cautious step before moving

onto it, and balanced my weight as carefully as I could to avoid making any

noise. Even so, something about my presence disturbed Birdie, for when I was

more than halfway across the room, she rolled to one side and murmured in a

half-awake voice, "Wha's tha'? Did 'ou say somethin'?"

Now I did hold my breath. And I prayed, Neithas, if you love me, make

her go back to sleep.

Neithas heard me, for after a while that seemed like forever, Birdie's

snoring resumed. I finished my trek across the single room, tugged my boots

on-for if anyone saw me putting them on while sitting on the boardwalk

outside our door, they would know instantly that I was sneaking about

something-and lifted the door bar. I settled it on the floor in its customary

place. I always left the house to go to Marda's shop long before Birdie woke

and rose-she was accustomed to seeing it out of place. Only if she got up

during the night for some reason and discovered the unbarred door would she

realize something had gone wrong. If she didn't realize I'd left far too early, I

could hope that she would assume I had gone to the shop, and that Marda

would assume that Birdie was keeping me busy around the cottage.

The door opened quietly-Birdie had never been able to stand the noise of

squeaking hinges, and so kept them well-greased. I pulled it shut behind me

as I stepped out onto the boardwalk, then looked down the street in both

directions. I saw no one, which was good for more than the obvious reason. In

Blackwarren everyone rose when the sun rose and slept when the sun slept.

Anyone out with me would be up to no good.

I jumped off the boardwalk and moved through the street, which was

terribly dusty but at least not knee-deep with mud as it always became in the

spring. I didn't mind getting dusty-I just didn't want my boot heels to clatter

on the boards.

I hurried through the streets, keeping to back ways and always choosing

dirt streets over cobblestone ones, because I could run faster and more

quietly over dirt. I moved steadily uphill, between the huddled houses over

Blackwarren that grew bigger and more attractive the further uphill I went.

Blackwarren House stood at the top of the hill, unwalled and ungated because

the greathouse held neither an army nor the wealth that would tempt

invaders.

That worked in my favor, of course. It would have played havoc with my

plans if I first had to work my way past gate guards and an army barracks

and a houseful of servants. Lucky for Giraud his father was a poor, weak lord.

Well, maybe not so lucky. If Lord dar Falcannes had been rich and powerful

he might have still been alive, and his private army might have been

intimidating enough that the Empress dar Kothia Surdosti would have

thought twice about attacking his home and replacing him with some

sneaking, murdering sycophant.

As it was, I went up the rose trellis outside Giraud's room and rapped on

his window until, rubbing his eyes and yawning, he opened it.

"Izza! What in the world-"

"Get a change of clothes and your weapons and come with me," I said. "I

don't have time to explain, other than to tell you that the empress's men will

be here at first light to kill you."

Giraud never had a stupid day, and bleary-eyed and sleep-fogged though

he was, he didn't have one then, either. Without argument or question, he ran

from the window; only moments later, he returned. In that length of time, I'd

had time to think.

"Which of your servants is most loyal to your family?" I asked him.

"Beidus. He served my father when they were both boys, and has been

with us ever since."

"Get him quickly. Shortly after we leave, he needs to set fire to the house,

then rouse the villagers to fight it; when all the village is stirred, he and the

rest of your servants need to escape in the melee."

Giraud's eyes narrowed and he studied me for a moment while a cold and

terrible blankness stole over his face, robbing it of expression. "Yes," he said.

He vanished into the darkness of his room again, and this time took much

longer to return.

"It's done," he said. "Those I trust will be wakened shortly, so that they'll

have time to gather what few belongings they can. I've told Beidus to empty

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CurseoftheBlackHeronBard'sTale08byHollyLisleCopyright1998someminorfixingdone,needslotsmoreworkChapterOneIrememberthebeginningoftheendofmyworldclearly,butnotforthereasonsanyonewouldusuallyassociatewithrememberingsuchaday.Earlymorningdraggedmefrommybed,andthevoiceoftheheraldfromthecapitaldrewmeoutofBi...

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Holly Lisle - Bard's Tale 08 - Curse of the Black Heron

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