The Riddle by Alison Croggon Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Cadvan and Maerad sat in companionable silence for a while, looking out over the garden. Maerad toyed with the idea of asking him about Nerili, and then decided against it. She doubted he would tell her anything, and part of her didn’t want to know.
    “It’s lovely here,” she said at last. “I wish we could stay forever.”
    “We can’t,” said Cadvan. “You know that. But we can certainly stay for a few weeks. We both need a rest. And before we head north to seek the Treesong, we have to have some idea of what we’re looking for. I’m going to have a good look through the Busk Library — it’s the most ancient in Edil-Amarandh, except perhaps for the one in Turbansk — and try and find some clue. If we know what we might be looking for, then it might not be such a goose chase.”
    “It might be a goose chase anyway,” said Maerad, thinking of the argumentative geese she had herded as a slave child, and then of the wise, gentle Bard Nelac, as she had last seen him in Norloch, solemnly charging them to find the Treesong. They were such incongruous images, she almost laughed.
    “Well, while you hunt about in the library, I’ll just sit in the garden,” she said. “I like it here.”
    “No, you won’t,” said Cadvan. “You can use the time to study. There’s so much that you should know, and there are things that it’s dangerous not to know. You really need years to catch up, but we’ll have to make do. I’ve spoken to Nerili about it — she’s agreed to let you have private teaching, so you don’t have to sit in classes with children half your age. You have particular needs, anyway.”
    “But I want a rest,” she said mulishly. “I’m tired.”
    “And a rest you shall have. For two days. It will take me that long to arrange your lessons. You’ll need some beginner’s instruction in High Magery, which is a bit peculiar, because you have all the abilities, and more, of a full Bard, but you’ve never done the basic lessons. I’ll have to think about who is best to teach you. Me, probably, but I’ll be busy. And, of course, there’s swordcraft, and reading and writing. You’re quick; you’ll use your time well.”
    Maerad pouted, but made no other protest. The prospect of resuming study excited her, but she wasn’t going to tell Cadvan that. For all her powers, she was painfully aware that she had very little skill.
    In Busk, for the first time, Maerad began to live the life of a normal Bard. She slipped as easily into it as a fish into a stream. The days settled into a steady pattern: rising at dawn for breakfast, and lessons until the middle of the afternoon, with a short break for a light midday meal. After that, if she didn’t have further study to do, her time was her own; she was free to go back to her room and rest, or to sit in the garden, or to wander down to the town and the markets of Busk, or, as she began to do more and more often after her first week, to join the noisy Bards in their colloquia. She usually ate dinner with Cadvan, either in the Common Hall or in one or other of their rooms, where they would swap news about their day: what Maerad had learned (a voracious amount) or what Cadvan had found (nothing). Or they would wander down to the lower town to meet Owan. They would eat either in one of the many taverns or at his house, which was surprisingly big for a humble fisherman, cementing what had become a fast friendship.
    As Cadvan had predicted, Maerad used her time well, and within a week all her mentors were telling her that they were astonished by her progress. Years of brusque tutelage from the Bard Mirlad in Gilman’s Cot, being taught musicianship by ear, meant her memory was excellent; she had only to be told something once to remember it. But more than that, she seemed to have an innate knowledge of Barding, which her teachers merely had to reawaken. They all commented privately on this to Cadvan; they found her aptitude a little unnerving.
    Her