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iessira leans back and folds her hands. "I know nothing of your travel plans," she says, "save where I and my captain"--she looks sidelong at Daverris--"have disrupted them. Yet there is a favor I would ask of you." She sits straighter, light gleaming on her pearls and in her hair. "There are forces moving to that end even now." "You trust them with much, Magistra--" Daverris begins. She waves away his words with an impatient gesture, her tone cynical as she says, "As if our guests have no ears with which to hear? It is the powers on high and their plans that concern me. I have no small influence, despite my choice of this post; and while Avrezin needs cleansing, I am the 'superstitious fool' who believes the wraiths are no imaginary threat." She sits back, waiting for her guests' responses. Tonar answers thoughtfully, "It seems our paths converge. Yet, I must know the request--and heart of the requester--before I can answer fully." While he ends speaking with his eyes on the Magistra's, his hearing is tuned in Daverris' direction for activity. [Scott: Liessira is doubtlessly woman enough to realize that Tonar isn't making a pass per se (although the distinction may be lost on Daverris). Rather, he recognizes that he is being asked to risk his life for her cause, and wants to be sure she's sincere. Perhaps a quiet evening of conversation without the pretense of station?] Caeric leans back in his chair, shaking his head slowly even as Daverris rises to his expectations. Which, it seems, Daverris will happily oblige. As Tonar expects, Daverris rises immediately, weaponless. "My lady," he addresses Liessira, "surely, *surely* you can not abase yourself in this manner--" "Captain," she says in a still, still voice, "it would be a shame to ruin such a meal, when such care went into its preparation--and a shame to offend guests who do not know our ways. The Firebird in his wisdom is not unreasonable." Her mouth quirks. "M'lord Tonar--has Daverris given me your name aright?" The words are obviously a rebuke. "You shall have your request, an hour after we finish this dinner. When my other duties are attended to I shall send a servant to fetch you." The casual observer might think that Tonar is ignoring Daverris totally, but nothing could be less true. Even as the warrior places his hands on the table, his mind visualizes the moments required for Deathbringer to end the captain's life in a second. Instead, he bows his head slightly to the Magistra and says, "your offer alone is a honor. I will try to use the time well." Her eyes go then to Caeric, thoughtful and not a little worried. "And you, sir? What are your thoughts--what reassurances would you require?" Caeric rocks back yet again in his chair, studying the ceiling. "My thoughts..." he repeats. "Reassurances." Liessira chuckles. It's an unexpectedly soft sound to come from such a woman. "Or as close as I may come." The bard nods lazily, his head drifting back down to study the Magistra. "To speak plainly then...My thoughts." He pauses and looks over at Daverris and then Tonar, a faint smile touching his lips as his eyes return to the Magistra. "I will assume, 'ere I speak my mind in some clear honesty, that if you wish my thoughts I will come to no harm from them? That I may speak freely?" He stops, eyes flickering to the Captain and the Magistra, waiting. "Of course," the Magistra says immediately--and this time Daverris, once rebuked, does not risk offending his lady but deliberately reaches for some of the greens. Liessira's eyes are somewhat puzzled. "Did I not intend for you to speak plainly, I would not have dishonored you by asking it falsely." "My thoughts then." Caeric pauses, resting his hand over his mouth for a moment, brow furrowed in thought before beginning to speak. "I think it is a very curious situation I find myself in now. And, since you have asked, I'm not entirely sure I like it at all." He frowns, holding up a finger to forestall interruption. None comes, even from Daverris, though he shakes his head. "Let me explain my thinking, and perhaps you shall understand. Why are we here? Either the Sungod chose us through some...premonition to you, or perhaps more likely we were noticed and you saw use for what you noticed. Here however, I grow uneasy. The choice of Master Tonar might prove obvious, if you knew what he has since made plain." Daverris says in an undertone, "A man of his bearing would find it difficult to disguise himself or his reputation." "The choice of me...I find less obvious, unless of course you need a song composed. All too possible you were seeking Master Tonar, and I had the dubious fortune to be in his company at the time. Indeed, it grows yet more troubling as I consider what you might seek of me - of us, I suppose. I am not in the business of political assassination, nor is it work I would overly seek to take up once more. I have yet to form any strong feelings, one way or another, regarding the politics of this area, so - unlike Master Tonar - I am not already in accord with your goals. So then. You did not snatch a simple Bard so far simply to ask his opinion of lands he has never been to. For all I am thankful for the excellent meal, if I am to seek reassurances over my presence here, I must begin by asking "Why am I - and I in particular - here?", "What is it you seek me to do?" and of course, as ever when playing the games of Kings and Lords, "Do I have a choice in the matter?" The Magistra addresses his questions as seriously as she did those of Tonar. "You are partly right, Master Caeric"--she manages his name creditably well--"in that I have specifically asked for certain...travellers to be escorted to this garrison. One cannot cast a net too far if one intends to catch the warier fish. But a bard is never, never simple." ["Master" is an honorific given to artisans.] A sudden smile lights her countenance. "After all, where your erstwhile travelling partner"--she nods to Tonar--"is a man of arms, forthright of tongue, your words are cautious and roundabout. Bards in the eastlands are honored, and well-travelled bards moreso, for they bring new songs. The both of you are twilight and noon, strength complementing the other's weakness, or so I judge. Truth, Master Bard: had you not arrived so conveniently, I would have sought another such." Caeric grows silent, attention seemingly held firmly to the Magistra even as he tenses slightly, the fingers of his right hand tattooing a faint pattern along the harp case that rests at his side. Caeric notices that Daverris is frowning as if trying to identify the song from whence the pattern came. It is an odd tune it seems, the beat unfamiliar, foreign, yet as Daverris' attention holds, it shifts, into what might be a refrain, and one that he thinks he recognizes. An old song, one not played in these parts, indeed, one not popular in the presence of any Lord or Lady, yet one that he has heard once before. "The King's Four Fools" was the name placed to it then, and the lyrics - do not seem to quite fit the beat. Indeed only three of the Fools are accounted for by the fingers, the fourth being an awkward empty beat. And all the while the bard's attention seems held unwavering to the Magistra. Odd, still, that he did not recognize the first part - t'was almost as though it were a different song entirely. Perhaps the lyrics have been bent in ways that no bard could anticipate. An intriguing thought, though not an entirely comfortable one. "If you have no taste for my sense of politics," and her voice grows rueful, "as a foreigner--well, you may have a different perspective. I offer you this, then: to travel as far as Avrezin and see what goes on there, and there you may decide for yourself if my analysis of the situation is a true one." Her tone sharpens, blade-thin. "I only ask that you refrain from interfering with my interests, should you decide so. I cannot afford tolerance in this matter." Caeric's hand comes up, fingers lightly rubbing against his chin. "Travel to Avrezin," he says softly. "Indeed, it seems little enough to ask, but in all honesty I've little liking to set firm travel plans. Still... Travel as far as Avrezin." "Some might not think it a far journey," Liessira says, nodding gravely toward Tonar. Caeric frowns, looking down at the table, his right hand moving up to dip within the collar of his shirt, pulling a silvered pendant from beneath his shirt. He holds the pendant before him, the cord stretched against his neck, studying the tiny shape of a broken sword for a moment, before looking back up at the Magistrate, the sword dropping gently against his shirt. "Travel as far as Avrezin," he repeats softly. Her eyes are intent upon the pendant, though from the crease between her eyebrows, the broken sword is not familiar. "And then--it depends," she says. "A moment, Caeric: your pendant is of no hand that I recognize, and yet, and yet--come you from canton Birechan, to the east? Your accent is different from those of the Qenaren, but I find it a thing of wonder..." "And then what?" the Bard asks, smiling faintly. "Surely you have some course of action in mind - and just as surely it is neither safe nor something I would choose to do without such prompting - and yet surely still, you have some motivation in mind that will convince me to aid you." Caeric shakes his head and continues on quickly, "Let us cease this dance and simply speak of what it is you seek from me, here - or elsewhere, if you do not wish to discuss business so... bluntly, at the table." The Bard sits back, still watching the Magistra, his left hand rising to twist the pendant below his neck, his right returning to the harp case, offering a different pattern this time. [Josh's note: A much more obscure piece, one would have had to travel far indeed - or have heard a Bard from far to the West (beyond the Sea) - to know the rather distinctive flow of Conssaga Arigsarkisonir, a tale of the plottings and treacheries that led to the rise and fall of the family of Lord Cons Arigsarkisson.] "Fair enough," she agrees, "since you have no pre-existing motivation to travel to that area. If you find a mission in Avrezin less to your likely, why, then I have another question that needs answering, and bards are as apt to answer as to ask." After a long listening, the Magistra's own fingers offer a counterpoint to the pattern that Caeric taps--not one that stirs memory from him, but neither is it displeasing to his ears, simplicity that weaves into syncopation when his own beat slows.
Back: Caeric & Tonar's Prologue 6 Candle image provided by Clipart Castle.
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