or Andiene, of mixed southern blood, no doubt, pretty for her kind. A trickle of blood ran down her forehead. A lute and a traveler’s pack lay on the ground near her.
One of the townsmen crossed the square to speak to her. Whatever his words, he spoke them softly. Not so, her reply. Her discussion of his habits and character could have been heard five streets away.
The man’s face reddened like a slice of rare meat, and he scuttled away. Andiene listened wide-eyed. Syresh chuckled appreciatively and turned to a stocky plain-faced woman standing nearby. “What has she done?”
The woman eyed him up and down, and gave Andiene a suspicious stare. “A stranger like you. Came here and said she was a minstrel. Hit her lute strings, and croaked out a few tunes, and stole everything there was to steal. Stole my man’s trousers!” Her voice was filled with outrage. Then, seeing Syresh’s smirk, she added hastily, “Stole them off the drying tree. But after she took our headman’s gold chain—we caught her then. In her pack, she had something from every house in the town.”
“What will you do with her?” asked Andiene.
“She stays there all day, then a few cuts with the whip, and her hair tarred down to her head, and she’ll be chased on her way.” The woman’s thin lips tightened. “I thought it should have been branding—what they would do in the city—but my man was one of the fools that said ‘no’. Men are weak.”
The sentence seemed light to Syresh, too, but luckily it was none of his concern. The prisoner shouted an insult at the woman he was speaking to, a foul-mouthed comment on both her and her husband.
The woman gasped and tossed her head and stalked forward, the light of battle in her eyes. The girl spat at her, baring her teeth like a fighting courser.
“Look,” Syresh whispered. “See her claws? Those wide bracelets. Have you ever seen that?”
Andiene shook her head.
“When she closes her fist, the claws spring out between her fingers. They weld on each bracelet—so no one can take her weapons from her. Catlens, they call them, the wandering minstrels. The villagers must have bound her cunningly, so her claws cannot cut the ropes.” Then he was silent, watching and listening.
The village wife had no great command of words, but the minstrel had been stung by what she said. Insults flowed to her lips in return, describing the village woman’s appearance, health, habits, husband, children, parents, village, and race. Some of the things that she described were extremely unlikely to have ever taken place in a quiet country town. To judge by the woman’s face, full of bewilderment as well as outrage, she had never heard of some of the habits, customs, and attributes.
Syresh listened, and his grin grew still wider. She was nimbler with mind and tongue than any he had ever heard.
The village woman was overmatched. Tongue-tied and red with fury, she looked about her. No stones within reach. She snatched up the lute and contemptuously snapped its neck across her knee. Then she flung the shell onto the ground and stamped on it. Her foot went through it easily, but she had to snap the ribs, one by one, to free herself. Then, apparently satisfied, she limped back into the crowd.
That silenced the minstrel. Her head drooped. Andiene had been standing quietly at Syresh’s side. Now she stepped forward.
“Stay out of this,” Syresh said in sudden alarm. “Don’t meddle in their business.” He caught at her sleeve.
She shook his hand off impatiently. “Remember who is servant here,” she said as she walked forward, out into the open square.
Before any of the crowd could move, or say one word, she had drawn her dagger and cut the ropes that bound the minstrel. Then she turned and faced the people with a little smile, the secretive smile that Syresh had seen earlier.
The villagers murmured, and shuffled about, but to Syresh’s amazement, they did not challenge her. His hand was at his sword hilt, ready to defend her, but there was no need. She held the eyes of the crowd for a long quiet moment; then she turned, beckoned to Syresh, and walked away. The minstrel gave one grieving look to the fragments of her lute, quickly picked up her empty pack, and hurried after them. The crowd made no move to follow.
Syresh glanced back as they walked between the houses, following the lanes that led out of town. The