The Ghost either did not notice, or else since it was not threatening, he simply ignored it. Probably the latter; Robin had the feeling he noticed everything.
As Jonny played, she paid careful attention to the flow and flux of powers about them all. About halfway through the song, she knew that there was a pattern to those flows... and near the end, she knew what it was.
She had a suspicion when he agreed to the bargain that the Ghost would take power from them, through the music, through the Bardic Magic he hoped they would invoke. And it looked as if she was half right; but only half. He was not stealing their power, nor pulling it in. It was as if they were campfires, and he was basking in the warmth they produced. Taking nothing, only enjoying what flowed to him naturally.
But she sensed something else as well. This benign enjoyment was the reverse side of something much, much darker. That was the side that his victims saw, the icy chill to the warmth... as he stole their life-force along with their life.
He chose a Gypsy love song from Robin next; she hid a grin, because she had the feeling he was hoping she'd sing something at and for Kestrel. Well, he would get that_but not just yet. Instead, she sang a song of a night of celebration and tangled lovers who could not make up their minds over who was going to pair off with who, until in the end, everyone ended up sleeping alone, for that night at least! She got the definite impression that her audacity pleased him, and that the song itself amused him.
"Tell me what this quarrel is that the Church has with your kind," he whispered, as soon as she had finished. "How did you come to this conclusion, and what are you doing to remedy it? All that you know, tell."
She found herself recounting what Nightingale had told them, what she and Kestrel had seen, and Harperus' speculations. He listened silently to all of this, not prompting her by so much as a single word, as she concluded with what she and Jonny were doing_heading to Gradford on the chance that the source of the problem lay in that direction, while Nightingale went in the opposite direction. The anger was back again, but this time she could not imagine what had invoked it. She was only glad that it hadn't been any of their doing.
"I think"_the Ghost began, after a cricket-filled silence_"your searches are like to bear more fruit than hers."
But before she could follow up that astonishing bit of information with a question of her own, he had already demanded a ballad "with free wind in it" from Kestrel.
He obliged with one of the Gypsy horse-trainers' racing songs, and by the time he had finished she knew without asking that question_how he knew that Gradford was the direction they must go_that the Ghost would only give them what he chose to in the way of information. It would be enigmatic, they would probably only understand what he meant after they discovered answers for themselves. And he was much too dangerous to play games with, verbal or otherwise.
So when he asked her again for a love song, this time she played one of her own, made for Jonny, and put her whole heart into it.
"I think," the Ghost said, tilting his cowl up towards the eastern sky, "that it is not long until dawn."
Gwyna shook soreness out of her weary arms; this had taken a lot more energy than she had ever suspected, and if she felt this way with Kestrel and talk to spell her, how had poor Rune ever survived her night of playing?
"I did not lend my strength to you as I did to the fiddler girl," the Ghost said, matter-of-factly, as if he had just read her mind. Perhaps he had; she would not place anything beyond him at this point, and she was very glad that they had both chosen to tell him only the strict and complete truth when he had asked his questions about the outside world. His interrogation had been fascinating to experience; things he had wanted to know, he wanted to know in depth, and things she had assumed he would be curious about, he cared nothing for.
But those things he wished to know_his questioning left her feeling like a rag that had been used to soak up something, then wrung dry. He not only extracted information from her, but as the night went on, he became more and more adept at extracting her feelings about something from her. She was not certain of his motives. It might only be that he had wished to feel things, if only vicariously. It might be he extracted some nourishment from emotions, which might also explain why he killed through terror. It might also be that for some reason he needed to understand if she felt strongly about something, and why.
"You did not need that strength," he continued. "There were two of you, and you did not play continuously. So. Dawn approaches. Your bargain is complete. You have given as you pledged, and fully. I shall pledge likewise. From this moment, all Gypsies and Free Bards that are not sent from Carthell Abbey may pass this way freely." He cocked his head a little sideways. "I may appear, and request a song_but it shall be a request."
Kestrel blew on his fingers to cool them, and echoed the Ghost's head-pose. "I th-think s-such a req-q-quest would b-be honored," he said dryly.
There was a whispered chuckle from the Ghost. "You need not give them identifying marks," the spirit continued_which was something that had been in Gwyna's mind. "Such things can be stolen or counterfeited. I shall know them from their thoughts."
She didn't bother to hide her start of surprise. So he could read thoughts!
"On occasion," he whispered, and there was a hint of humor in his voice. And perhaps, a touch of smugness. "You have been generous in your bargain. I shall be as generous. Spend the morn in safety here, if you wish, or go on. Nothing shall molest you or disturb you while you sleep. My choice of manifestation is my own, for their compulsions were limited in nature_and if I choose to expend myself, the daylight need not hinder my powers _"
And with that final astonishing pronouncement, he disappeared_just as the first light of the dawn-red sun touched the precise spot on which he had been standing just the moment before.
The sunlight glinted on something metallic.
It was Kestrel who climbed down from the tail of the wagon, placed his harp carefully on the floor of the wagon, and walked stiffly across the sun-gilded weeds to the spot that shone with such bright and promising glints.