If this common room was typical of the rest of the inn, it was one of the better such places Jonny had seen in all of his travels.
Then again, my pocket wasn't up to bearing the price of inns when I was on my own, he thought wryly.
But this was a good, solid place. Immaculately clean, the simple wood furniture was scarred by use and dark with age and many years of cleaning, but sturdily made; the floors were covered with clean rushes, and the smoke-blackened beams above were free of cobwebs. A few lanterns burned along the walls, but most of the light came from the fireplace. There were more lanterns along the walls, but they were not lit, perhaps in the hope of saving a little money on lamp oil.
"Eat," Robin advised him. "No one is going to hear us, or care what we say. They've heard everything in a place like this. They know we're Gypsies and Free Bards, and I rather doubt that the innkeeper is very fond of the Church and the High Bishop of Gradford. Right now, they're more concerned that their custom has dropped off than in anything we might say or do. We're just ordinary musicians, remember? What possible damage could two musicians do to anyone?"
He shook his head, and followed her advice. There was no point in wasting a perfectly good meal, especially not one as tasty as this; the cook had a good hand with pastry, and the tender, flaky crust covered a meat pie rich with brown gravy. But his stomach was a trifle uneasy and it took concentrated effort to calm it; Rodrick's information frankly disturbed him.
It appeared that the Ghost might have been right; certainly this High Bishop was an excellent candidate for the source of the sentiment against Free Bards. An ambitious man_as Padrik clearly was_could look for no better and quicker road to power than through the Church, and no quicker way to rise in the Church than to find something to get people upset about on religious grounds.
There aren't too many things that can get people aroused the way religion can, he observed, and with this outbreak of "piety," sooner or later someone is going to find a "cause" to expend all their energy on. Unless Padrik is a fool, he'll be that someone; it will be the only way he can continue to control his followers. And if the "cause" turns out to be the control of music and musicians by the Church, it's going to be a bad day for the Free Bards.
There his thoughts might have ended, if he hadn't spoken with Harperus and T'fyrr, but those conversations had opened his eyes to the fact that an attempt to control would not end with music. Control had to begin somewhere, and the best target for the initial stages of control would ideally be someone who was very obviously different, someone who was in the minority. An obvious set of targets for that method of control were the nonhuman citizens of the Twenty Kingdoms.
"So," Gwyna said, as he finished his dinner and pushed the wooden plate away. "We obviously need to go to Gradford even more now than before. What are we going to do? We can't go in as musicians. I have the feeling that we'd better have an obvious reason for being there, or we might find ourselves the center of some unwelcome attention."
"B-but we c-can g-go in as t-traders," Jonny replied. "Even th-the Gh-Ghost's silver won't l-last f-forever. W-we n-need t-to support ourselves s-s-somehow. Th-the only q-question is, wh-what do we s-s-sell?"
She toyed with a bit of bread, and a stray lock of hair slipped over her eye, curling in a most distracting and charming manner. "Religious goods. That would be the most obvious reason to be there. And it would be the safest, really. I don't think anyone is going to accuse a peddler of religious goods of impiety." She tucked the flyaway lock of hair behind her ear, and dropped the bread on the plate. The quickest and easiest things for us to come up with on short notice are jewelry and display pieces; God-Stars are very easy to make, they're just tedious. And they're the kind of thing that only common, country folk display, so very few craftsmen ever bother with them. If no one in Gradford has thought of selling them, we'll have a temporary monopoly."
Jonny nodded; he had never seen God-Stars until he had arrived in Rayden as a child, for no one of noble blood would ever be caught wearing or displaying one. As wall-decorations, they were simply four-armed crosses, with colored yarn woven about the arms to form a solid square. The colors used varied with the prayers of the owner. Red, yellow, and white, for instance, meant the Star was a prayer for prosperity. Blue, green, and white meant a prayer for health, while blue, green, and brown was a plea for good harvests. He had never heard of anyone making God-Star jewelry, however.
"How d-do you make S-Stars as j-jewelry?" he asked.
"It isn't often done, because real jewelers and silversmiths can't be bothered," she replied, with a wry twitch to her mouth. "You can make them of embroidery thread and twigs, or metal and wire. With the wire ones, you have to be very careful so the wire doesn't break_but you use iron, copper, brass, and silver wire, and two nails for the Sacrificed God as the cross-pieces. Easy enough, and they make rather pretty little pendants."
He brightened. "Th-that would w-work. B-but where c-can w-we g-get materials?"
She thought for a moment, sipping at her mug of beer. "Well, Gradford's a center for metals and gems; I'd bet that we can find someone making wire outside the town and buy up a stock. Nails are easy. It shouldn't be too hard to find a weekly market to get dyed wool yarn, and linen embroidery thread, and sticks are under every tree."
"Wh-why not ask th-the innkeeper?' he asked, with a sudden inspiration. "W-wouldn't he know the b-best p-places t-to find things around here?"
She licked her lips, and nodded. "He would, and if he's like any other innkeeper I've ever met, he'll probably have a relative only too pleased to sell to us. That's fine; we'll make him happy and get our stock with a minimum of effort. The amount of money we'll save looking around for ourselves won't be worth the time we'll waste."
She shoved her stool away from the table, and trotted across the common room to consult with the barkeeper. After an exchange of a very few words, the barkeeper went off, and returned with the man Jonny had seen supervising the stable hands. Gwyna spoke with him for a little, and returned to her seat beaming.
"There!" she said. "It's taken care of. I told him part of the truth, that we were headed for Gradford and just heard we wouldn't be welcome there as musicians, so we need to continue our journey in another of our trades, peddlers selling handcrafted holy objects, since we couldn't afford the loss that going back would mean. He snorted, said, 'Religious trinkets, you mean,' and I knew he'd be willing to help us. He has a brother-in-law who can supply us with wire, and a cousin who can bring us the wool yarn and linen thread. He'll sell us horseshoe nails himself. So we're set."
Jonny shared her grin, and took her hand for a congratulatory squeeze. "S-so far," he replied, "s-so g-good. It's a g-good s-start, anyway!"
Four days later, thanks in no small part to the Ghost's gift, they left the inn with a full stock of God-Stars in several forms. They had bought all of the supplies that the innkeeper's relatives had brought, and still had some of the Ghost's silver left when they were done with their bargaining. There were several trays'-worth of the tiny Stars Robin had made up as pendants, from the cheapest Stars of linen thread and tiny twigs, to inexpensive copper Stars through Stars of mixed metals, to ones made entirely of silver wire and thin silver bars. Jonny had learned the knack of turning out wall-hanging Stars at a goodly clip, and he had used up all their yarn at about the same time Gwyna had run out of wire.
He was glad to pick up the reins and drive for a change; they had worked for as long as daylight lasted all during those four days, and his hands and wrists were sore from twisting yarn around sticks in movements he was not accustomed to making. He knew that Gwyna's hands hurt just as much; working with the wire was enough to try the patience beyond bearing, for it broke when flexed too often, and then it was impossible to mend without the mend showing. She'd been pierced with the sharp ends of nails and wire so often that her finger-ends looked like pincushions, and it was just as well that they were not going to be playing their instruments for a while, for her fingers needed to heal before she picked up her gittern or harp again.