around much of the tower, to a door opening into the bottom of the tower itself. He looked in. A young woman with long, pale, curly hair stirred a cauldron over an ancient hearth. She turned at his step across the threshold. Her face stopped his heart.
It was a perfect oval, skin luminous as spindrift and pearl, cheekbones like half-moons, and a mouth, in all that pearl, as full and sweetly red as strawberry. Her eyes were pale green. The expression in them as she saw the lank-haired stranger with his harp and his pack and the hollows of hunger in his face was both discerning and reserved; it made her seem older than she looked.
She spoke, and his heart started up again, erratically thumping. Low and melodious, her voice sounded like some fine, rare instrument. In that moment, he glimpsed the proud towers, the pennants, the rich tapestries in which such voices might be heard, and knew why, in all his wanderings, he had never encountered such music before.
âTake a bowl from that stack,â the wondrous instrument said. âTheyâll be finished playing and down in a moment. Youâve come just in time to help finish the roof. Thereâs water in that pitcher, and breadâAh, you found it.â
âThank you,â he said huskily around a bite. He forced his eyes from her face and found her hands. Two poems, he thought, entranced: long, tapered, graceful fingers, the nails a bit work worn, but warmly suffused with rose, while in the veins along her ivory wrists, the blood ran blue.
He asked with an effort, not really caring, just trying, now, to drag his attention from her fingers, âWhat is this place?â
âYou donât know?â
âIâm on my way across the plain. Itâs a broad, lonely stretch of nowhere, with no one to talk to but those great stones. I saw the firelight on a hill a few nights ago and came looking for it. Then I smelled your stew.â
She smiled; he watched the pale skin glide like silk over her bones. âI am still learning how to cook,â she said, ladling stew into a bowl. âWe all do what work we can, and Iâm no good at lifting stones or shaping logs.â She dropped a spoon into the bowl and handed it to him. âBe careful; it is very hot. When I saw your harp, I assumed that you had come to join the school.â A hot bite rendered him mute; he could only raise his brows at her until she enlightened him. âDeclanâs school.â
He swallowed too quickly; the pain made his voice harsh. âDeclan.â
âKing Orohâs bard. You harp; you must have heard of him. He came here to live when he relinquished his position at King Orohâs court two years ago. He fell in love with this plain. He says that wind and leaves and stones here speak the oldest language in the world and that he can teach us to understand it. By then, he had played everywhere in the fiveâBelden, it is now. He wasnât alone here long. Rumor found him, and then we did.â
âHow?â His voice still sounded seared. âHow did rumor find a way across this emptiness?â
âWho knows? A bird told a fox who told a tinkerâs mule ... Word traveled. Declan played for my father, Lord Deste, at his court in Estmere when I was fifteen, six months after my brothers battled King Oroh for Estmere. I left home to come to Stirl Plain the day I learned Declan was here. My father and brothers tried to stop me, but ... His music has that effect. I wasnât his first student, and more musicians kept coming after I did. Winter here is pitiless, and this tower grew too small for us. So we began to build around it.â
A ragged flow of voices preceded the clatter of feet down the ancient watchtower steps behind her. Nairn shifted his eyes, a bite of mutton frozen between his teeth. The lean, fox-haired bard spiraled into view first, his harp over his shoulder, and a shepherdâs pipe in one hand. He looked back at
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