Chapter 18.1.1

The dining hall roiled with laughter, the scents of spicy foods and new wine, and the jangled notes of a lyre and gittern playing separate tunes. Long trestle tables seated Bards-in-training at their lower ends and Journeymen at the higher ends; the Masters sat apart at their own table near the hearth. It was a timeless scene, a moment from every day of my youth now superimposed upon the present, yet it was completely strange. Some of the Journeymen I recognized as my classmates, but they were now seasoned men. Others whom I seen earn their first and second string now had lined faces and grey hairs. Marlin, a journeyman who had been a particular hero of mine, now sat with the Masters. But many people I once knew were missing, gone through the doors of the Bardhall to the corners of the world and their adventures, and they had been replaced by children and strangers.

I felt old.

We were noticed before we reached the bottom of the stairs. A Journeyman dressed in the vest and trousers of the western coast, with his black hair pulled into a ponytail, stood and raised his wine cup. "The Christians are here! Prepare for a sermon!"

Mocking laughter followed. Peter hung back at the top of the stairs; Charles crossed himself boldly and continued down.

"They’re beggars come for a handout!" A broad-shouldered red-haired Journeyman on the other side of the room raised his supper bowl. "Here, I’ll give him what’s left of my dinner!"

"And I’ve a swig of wine left," called out the first, as he prepared to throw his cup. He motioned for the Bards-in-training to follow suit, and many grabbed fistfuls of bread and cheese.

Had the Bardhall become a common tavern in my absence?

"SIT DOWN," Grandmaster Meiltung bellowed in a voice that age had not weakened. He stood, crossed his arms, and glared around the now silent room. "That is no way to greet guests – and Gerard of Jerden is a child of the Bardhall, due the respect you would give each other. Sieg, van – the two of will clean up after the meal by yourselves. And if there is any more such foolishness, the stables will be shining before the sun sets again. Is this clear?"

Then he looked about in a way that invited any others to join Sieg and Van in their punishment.

No one dared to respond.

Then he waved us down and gestured for us to take a seat at the end of a table.

I signed my thanks.

The dark-haired Journeyman knocked his chair back. "Child of the Guildhall? That man is a Silent Monk!"

The room exploded into mutterings and shouts that not even Grandmaster Meiltung could quell. Another chair fell with a sharp crack, and then I saw Sharp not ten feet in front of me, his naked blade in the air. The room quieted.

"Yes," my old friend said in a voice that was almost a mutter. "This good brother has turned traitor on us and taken skirts."

I signed back, "That’s not true, and you know it, bastard."

He laughed. "See? I threaten him, and he blesses me. Where’s your crucifix now, Christian dog?"

If only I held it, and the heavy chain it hung from, he might not be smiling so broadly.

Wallen then stepped up beside Sharp. His hair was disheveled, his face bruised, his feet wrapped in bloody rags – but his eyes were as hot as any nobleman’s. He laid his hand on his hand on Skyfire. "Let me – he’s mine."

I quickly signed, "I have always been faithful to you."

"I have always been good to you," he said in a low voice as he stepped closer. His father’s look was in his face, the one born of pain and drink but sired by the demons of hate. The look of a man who could burn a Bardhall to avenge his honor, or murder his most faithful friend – and this room was filled with men who help him. "I was good to you, but you turned on me."

Was marriage that bad?