family group. I stood watching them sing together, and my mind went back to Buckkeep and the last time I had heard music and seen folk gathered together. I did not realize I was staring until I saw one of the women surreptitiously elbow the other and make a minute gesture at me. The other woman rolled her eyes, then returned my look. I looked down, reddening. I surmised I had been rude and turned my eyes away.
I stood on the outskirts of the group, and joined in the applause when the song ended. The fellow with the harp was ready by then, and he coaxed them into a gentler tune, one with the steady rhythm of oars as its beat. The women sat on the edge of the table, back to back, their long black hair mingling as they sang. Folk sat down for that one, and some few moved to tables against the wall for quiet talk. I watched the man’s fingers on the strings of the harp, marvelling at the swiftness of his fingers. In a moment a red-cheeked boy was at my elbow, asking what I would have. Just a mug of ale, I told him, and swiftly he was back with it and the handful of coppers that were the remains of my silver piece. I found a table not too far from the minstrels, and rather hoped someone would be curious enough to join me. But other than a few glances from obviously regular customers, no one seemed much interested in a stranger. The minstrels ended their song and began talking amongst themselves. A glance from the older of the two women made me realize I was staring again. I put my eyes on the table.
Halfway down the mug, I realized I was no longer accustomed to ale, especially not on an empty stomach. I waved the boy back to my table and asked for a plate of dinner. He brought me a fresh cut of meat from the spit with a serving of stewed root vegetables and broth spilled over it. That, and a refilling of my mug took away most of my copper pieces. When I raised my eyebrows over the prices, the boy looked surprised. ‘It’s half what they’d charge you at the Yardarm Knot, sir,’ he told me indignantly. ‘And the meat is good mutton, not someone’s randy old goat come to a bad end.’
I tried to smooth things over, saying, ‘Well, I suppose a silver bit just doesn’t buy what it used to.’
‘Perhaps not, but it’s scarcely my fault,’ he observed cheekily, and went back to his kitchens.
‘Well, there’s a silver bit gone faster than I expected,’ I chided myself.
‘Now that’s a tune we all know,’ observed the harper. He was sitting with his back to his own table, apparently watching me as his two partners discussed some problem they were having with a pipe. I nodded at him with a smile, and then spoke aloud when I noticed that his eyes were hazed over grey.
‘I’ve been away from the river road for a while. A long while, actually, about two years. The last time I was through here, inns and food were less expensive.’
‘Well, I’d wager you could say that about anywhere in the Six Duchies, at least the coastal ones. The saying now is that we get new taxes more often than we get a new moon.’ He glanced about us as if he could see, and I guessed he had not been blind long. ‘And the other new saying is that half the taxes go to feed the Farrow men who collect them.’
‘Josh!’ one of his partners rebuked him, and he turned to her with a smile.
‘You can’t tell me there are any about just now, Honey. I’ve a nose that could smell a Farrow man at a hundred paces.’
‘And can you smell who you are talking to, then?’ she asked him wryly. Honey was the older of the two women, perhaps my age.
‘A lad a bit down on his luck, I’d say. And therefore, not some fat Farrow man come to collect taxes. Besides, I knew he couldn’t be one of Bright’s collectors the moment he started snivelling over the price of dinner. When have you known one of them to pay for anything at an inn or tavern?’
I frowned to myself at that. When Shrewd had been on the throne, nothing was taken by his soldiers or tax-collectors without some recompense offered. Evidently it was a nicety Lord Bright did not observe, at least in Buck. But it did recall me to my own manners.
‘May I offer to refill your mug, Harper Josh? And those of your companions as well?’
‘What’s this?’ asked the old man, between a smile and a raised eyebrow. ‘You growl about spending coin to fill your belly, but you’d put it down willingly to fill mugs for us?’
‘Shame to the lord that takes minstrels’ songs, and leaves their throats dry from the singing of it,’ I replied with a smile.
The women exchanged glances behind Josh’s back, and Honey asked me with gentle mockery, ‘And when were you last a lord, young fellow?’
‘’Tis but a saying,’ I said after a moment, awkwardly. ‘But I wouldn’t grudge the coin for the songs I’ve heard, especially if you’ve a bit of news to go with it. I’m headed up the river road; have you perchance just come down?’
‘No, we’re headed up that way ourselves,’ put in the younger woman brightly. She was perhaps fourteen, with startlingly blue eyes. I saw the other woman make a hushing motion at her. She introduced them. ‘As you’ve heard, good sir, this is Harper Josh, and I am Honey. My cousin is Piper. And you are … ?’
Two blunders in one short conversation. One, to speak as if I still resided at Buckkeep and these were visiting minstrels, and the other, to have no name planned out. I searched my mind for a name, and then after a bit too much of a pause, blurted out, ‘Cob’. And then wondered with a shiver why I had taken to myself the name of a man I’d known and killed.
‘Well … Cob,’ and Honey paused before saying the name just as I had, ‘we might have a bit of news for you, and we’d welcome a mug of anything, whether you’re lately a lord or not. Just who are you hoping we won’t have seen on the road looking for you?’
‘Beg pardon?’ I asked quietly, and then lifted my own empty mug to signal the kitchen-boy.
‘He’s a runaway ’prentice, Father,’ Honey told her father with great certainty. ‘He carries a scribe’s case strapped to his bundle, but his hair’s grown out, and there’s not even a dot of ink on his fingers.’ She laughed at the chagrin on my face, little guessing the cause. ‘Oh, come, … Cob, I’m a minstrel. When we aren’t singing, we’re witnessing anything we can to find a deed to base a song on. You can’t expect us not to notice things.’
‘I’m not a runaway apprentice,’ I said quietly, but had no ready lie to follow the statement. How Chade would have rapped my knuckles over this blundering!
‘We don’t care if you are, lad,’ Josh comforted me. ‘In any case, we haven’t heard any cry of angry scribers looking for lost apprentices. These days, most would be happy if their bound lads ran away … one less mouth to feed in hard times.’
‘And a scriber’s boy scarcely gets a broken nose, or a scarred face like that from a patient master,’ Piper observed sympathetically. ‘So small blame to you if you did run away.’
The kitchen-boy came at last, and they were merciful to my flat purse, ordering no more than mugs of beer for themselves. First Josh, and then the women came to share my table. The kitchen-boy must have thought better of me for treating the minstrels well, for when he brought their mugs, he refilled mine as well, and did not charge me for it. Still, it broke another silver bit to coppers to pay for their drinks. I tried to be philosophical about it, and reminded myself to leave a copper bit for the boy when I left.
‘So, then,’ I began when the boy had left, ‘what news from downriver, then?’
‘And have not you just come from there yourself?’ Honey asked tartly.
‘No, my lady, in truth I had come cross country, from visiting some shepherd friends,’ I extemporized. Honey’s manner was beginning to wear on me.
‘My lady,’ she said softly to Piper and rolled her eyes. Piper giggled. Josh ignored them.
‘Downriver is much the same as up these days, only more so,’ he told me. ‘Hard times, and harder to come for those who farm. The food grain went to pay the taxes, so the seed grain went to feed the children. So only what was left