He woke to her strange pale eyes staring at him, lit by sunlight leaking through morning clouds.
"I could have used this on you," Seraph said.
He looked at the blade she held in her dirty hands - his best knife. She must have been into his saddlebags.
"Yes," he agreed, taking it from her unresisting hand. "But I saw your face when you looked at our dead friend last night. I was pretty certain you wouldn't want to deal with another dead body any time soon."
"I have seen many dead," she said, and he saw in her eyes that it was true.
"But none that you have killed," he guessed.
"If I had not been asleep when they were killing my brother," she said, "I would have killed them all, Bard."
"You might have." Tier stretched and slid out from under the tree. "But then you would have been killed also. And, as I told you last night, I am no bard."
"Just a baker's son," she said. "From Redern."
"Where I am returning," he agreed.
"You are no solsenti," she disagreed smugly. "There are no solsenti Bards."
"Solsenti?" He was beginning to get the feeling that they knew two entirely different languages that happened to have a few words in common.
Her assuredness began to falter, as if she'd expected some other reaction from him. "Solsenti means someone who is not Traveler."
"Then I'm afraid I am most certainly solsenti." He dusted off his clothes, but nothing could remove the stains of travel. At least they weren't wet. "I can play a lute and a little harp, but I am not a bard - though I think that means something different to you than it does to me."
She stared at him. "But I saw you," she said. "I felt your magic at the inn last night."
Startled he stared at her. "I am no mage, either."
"No," she agreed. "But you charmed the innkeeper at the inn so that he didn't allow that man to buy my debt."
"I am a soldier, mistress," he said. "And I was an officer. Any good officer learns to manage people - or he doesn't last long. The innkeeper was more worried about losing his inn than he was about earning another silver or two. It had nothing to do with magic."
"You don't know," she said at last, and not, he thought, particularly to him. "How is it possible not to know that you are Bard?"
"What do you mean?"
She frowned. "I am Raven, you would say Mage - very like a solsenti wizard. But there are other ways to use magic among the Travelers, things your solsenti wizards cannot do. A few of us are gifted in different ways and depending upon that gift, we belong to Orders. One of those Orders is Bard - as you are. A Bard is, as you said, a musician first. Your voice is true and rich. You have a remarkable memory, especially for words. No one can lie to you without you knowing."
He opened his mouth to say something - he knew not what except that it wouldn't be kind - but he looked at her first and closed his mouth.
She was so young, for all that she had the imposing manner of an empress. Her skin was grey with fatigue and her eyes were puffy and red with weeping she must have done while he slept. He decided not to argue with her - or believe what she said though it caused cold chills to run down his spine. He was merely good with people, that was all. He could sing, but then so could most Rederni. He was no magic user.
He left her to her speculations and began to take down the camp. If Wresen's horse made it back to the inn, there might be people looking for him soon. Without saying anything more, she stood up and helped.
"I'm going to take you to my kin in Redern," he said when their camp was packed and Skew once more attached to the Traveler cart. "But you'll have to promise me not to use magic while you're there. My people are as wary as any near Shadow's Fall. Redern's a trading town; if there are any Traveler clans around, we'll hear about them."
But she didn't appear to be listening to him. Instead, when she'd scrambled to Skew's back she said, "You don't have to worry. I won't tell anyone."
"Tell what?" he asked, leading the way back to the trail they'd followed the night before.