Dreamspinner's Curse

      Shirtless and alone in the evening forest, the old man knelt over the smokey warmth of his fire circle, drawing deeply of the gray whispers of magic curling about his face. The familiar pain in his bones ebbed as forgotten spells winged free from dusty cashes of memory.

      And the dream took form in that tiny void where flame becomes smoke.

      The old man's callused feet shuffled beneath the cold, wet litter of the forest floor, while behind the flames, the Troubadour's boots clicked against paving cobbles as he swaggered down the narrow street past the warmly lit windows of free-peasants. As he turned the final corner, the village livery loomed before him, aglow in the risen moon's yellow wash. Blood pounded hot in the Troubadour's temples: the Dancer awaited.

      No! The fools! The young fools! It must not be!

      Suddenly, the old man shook himself free of enchantment and arose without regard for angering spiteful joints. Hands trembling as much from ire as from age-palsy, the old man fumbled for his knotted staff lying atop last year's leaves, and with it scratched feverishly at his spell fire. Overhead, the spring-budded branches suddenly swarmed with spiraling, white hot sparks, while below in the damp forest litter, orange eyes of accusing coals hissed up at him, knowing but impotent. He had loosed the forbidden magic, and now the dream gone awry must play its course.

      The Troubadour quickened his steps. The old, vinegar-tempered dreamspinner had enjoined them to sleep tonight in their separate beds. But even a dreamspinner's dream was but a dream, a shade, so why not spend their last night chastely in each other's arms? He would at least know the Dancer's touch, her warmth, and her love.

      Fools!

      Ignoring the grinding burn of bone on bone, the old man stood, cold and bent, and from a knotted oak, he pulled down his ancient cloak held there in the grasp of a branch's twisted fingers and wrapped it about himself, tying it closed with a piece of old rope, which unlike his hands, had grown soft and smooth with age.

      The old man shuffled through the shadowed wood toward the Tavern Road that led to town, and from his body the boots and breeches of the Troubadour faded; folds of white linen now caressed the Dancer's limbs as she turned anxiously toward the footsteps crunching behind her in the door of the livery, already feeling her love's sweet kiss, gentle upon her lips.

      Suddenly, the old man clutched at his cloak, drawing it tightly closed. The Dancer's warm anticipation had gelled into cold fear at the sight of the unexpected yet terrifyingly familiar figure outlined in the moonlight. Knowing his journey futile, nevertheless the old man hobbled on, cursing the morning's visitors who were bringing him to ruin. Cursing his morning's weakness.

      Cursing the morning.

      Another day had oozed yellow-brown through the dirty, rag curtained window of the single room house, casting formless shadows at the old man's feet as he shuffled to his kitchen-corner across floor boards black from uncounted steps. He paused before an ancient, narrow table of crudely cut wood standing more from habit than from carpentry. Above it, shelf-planks clung desperately to the wall, displaying an assortment of withered insect husks and dust encrusted crockery.

      Two visitors.

      Bending over the table, the old man dipped his hands into a mildew dotted bucket of yesterday's water. Its chill was as hot shards to his swollen knuckles as he mopped the remains of sleep from his face. He shuffled to the door past a cold hearth of unhewn stones, not bothering to brush away the drops trapped in the web of his spider-fine beard. Then, his fingers bent though well practiced in their stiffness, he clicked the iron latch and returned to the foot of his bed, folding onto the straw filled ticking like a half empty sack of kindling reconciled to the certain coming of unwelcome guests.

      The old man had witnessed the passing of many springs since visitors had sought him out at the end of the branch and creeper choked path that departed from the Tavern Road. For those who used the Tavern Road were either patrons intent upon the base pleasures to be found at its end, or gamblers and whoremasters intent upon their profits, or bandits intent upon cutting the purses, if not the throats, of the unwary. So, few took notice of the rude trail snaking to a hermit's forest hovel, a one-room structure that like its occupant sat alone, gray and misshapen with age.

      The minutes passed. Only the muted rustling of the awakening forest penetrated the weathered door. At last came tentative footsteps and whispering, followed by hesitant raps and a youthful voice equally unsure and apologetic.

      "Please . . ., we seek the house of the Dreamspinner."

      Fatigued from the exertion of his sudden awakening, the old man declined to stir from the sanctuary of his bed, and so, answered without rising.

      "And suppose you have found it, sirrah," he called out, the rattle of phlegm boiling in his throat. "Why must you disturb an old man before the sun has warmed the air?"

      Hinges creaking their rusty protest, the door slowly opened, fanning the yellow morning across the floor. Framed by the brightening dawn, stood the hooded figure of a tall, young man clutching about his shoulders a cape-grown-small that fell to the legs of coarse-woven breeches, the knees white with wear. And from beneath the cape's once stitched hem dangled the inlaid, parti-wooden bowl of a troubadour's mandolin.

      The youth hesitated, then drew in a deep breath as if having reached a great resolve, and reached out to tug into view a sallow-faced lass. Holding fast her hand, he stepped across the threshold intent upon leading her inside. But the gangly boy tripped over his shadow, and with arms flapping their cloaks like a brace of frightened geese, they stumbled noisily inside.

      The maiden's eyes shone wide and skirred about, probing the room to settle fearfully upon the old man. She was slight, her face brittle, and from around her neck fell a long, tattered cloak that broke open in front when she moved, revealing faded dancer's tights bulging about her kneecaps but otherwise stretched thread-thin over her limbs. The frail looking girl eased close to the boy and pressed to his side, fidgeting with the ends of her curls, which loosely bound with last night's ribbon, hung limp about her shoulders.

      The boy had reclaimed his composure, and so the pair quietly stood, clothing rumpled, huddled together half in the light and half in the shadow, the only noise being the old man's rasping breath as he appraised his callers: Poorly appointed for prentice-minstrels, they were more the likely Tavern bond-slaves who had stolen away to lie together in the woods.

      Finally the lad, the incumbency of speaking his, blurted out, a bit too loudly, "We have a ha'Silver."

      The old man shook his head and pulled his thin robe tightly about himself, elbows bent like the broken poles of a carnival tent. A half-piece of Silver, indeed. But twas possible. Unlike those who rowed the galleys or tunneled the mines, bond-slaves often kept a few meager possessions and even earned wages, though they be paltry in the extreme, if not conveniently forgotten by their masters.

      The boy, no doubt sensing the old man's disbelief, pressed on. "Truly, good sir, we have hoarded our wages and have sold what little we had, save our clothes." He pulled back his cape to reveal the multi-colored, stringed instrument slung at his side. "And my grandfather's mandolin."

      Convinced they indeed had the coin, the old man now turned away from the visitors. There was but one thing he had worthy of a half-piece of Silver. A thing he had not thought upon for years for its very consideration pierced his lethargy and filled him with dread.

      "Go. Leave me, for what you seek is forbidden." But the old man's voice was not as reproving as it might have been, for the glint of promised coin had struck his mind's eye.

      The lad closed his hands about the girl's, and looking down into her eyes, he replied in such a whisper that the old man could barely discern the words.

      "We wish a dream."

      "Has not the King banned the selling of dreams?" The old man's response was wooden, well rehearsed from repeated sayings. "They are no more."

      The lad continued as if the Dreamspinner had not answered. "We wish for one night to be as one."

      The old man suddenly burst out in a rasping laugh that quickly matured into a spasm of hacking and coughing so violent that the girl was moved to dip water from the bucket with her hands--being repelled by the rodent droppings clinging to the bottom of the lone clay cup--and carry it to his lips. His shaking hands guiding hers, he drank. Then without thanking her, he rebuffed the young man.

      "If you want her, 'tis but a simple matter to hide in the forest and conjure the Beast with Two Backs. You need not a dreamspinner to rub bellies with a wench."

      "But, you do not understand, good sir," the lad explained, taking the wet hands of the girl into his and pulling her close. "We are bond-slave to the tavern, and because she does not dance, nor I play, to the bond-master's liking, tomorrow I am to be sold to the plow, and she to the fancy-house." The boy paused while his hand brushed her cheek as if caressing the petal of a white rose. He continued in a voice that lingered on the edge of cracking. "She is as yet untouched and will bring a great price. And if she does not so arrive, they threaten she would be beaten, disfigured, and put to service deep in the mines as reward for obedient prisoners."

      The old man thought upon the young man's plea. The selling of children as bond-slaves to pay the King's taxes kept the fields and brothels well stocked. But foolish old men can be stretched upon the rack for dealing in dreams, and so he asked:

      "Then why do you not scamper away like the brown, little mice you are and make your life in another realm, another land, and so not bother me?"

      The lad hung his head. "We have no place to go, nor know what to do. And if caught . . ."

      The girl whimpered and threw her arms about the boy and buried her face into his neck. All knew of the brutality of the King's patrols and the punishment bestowed to escaped bond-slaves. "Can it be such a bad thing to have remembrance of a night's love to keep one company on a cold, lonely night?" implored the lad as he pushed the half-piece into the Dreamspinner's hand. "A dream of what might have been, that can be called upon to reunite us, though we be forever apart?"

      The old man knew well of cold, lonely nights. He rubbed their coin between his rough fingers feeling on it the likeness of the king whose heart had blackened and banned the spinning of dreams so long ago, and also feeling on it the bread and the cheese and the salted fish it would buy, and so he relented and told them to leave him and go their separate ways. Tonight they must sleep apart as always, but would be forever united by their dream.

      And so the bargain struck, they had left the old man on his bed clutching his coin, and hand-in-hand the pair picked their way through the briars and branches toward the Tavern Road. And when the sun was warm and high in the sky, the old man had sought out in the forest the old herbs and fungus, and that night when the moon had found its way through the thick weave of trees, the Dreamspinner laid his fire beneath the arms of an ancient, twisted oak and spun his spell.

      His night's journey still ahead but already near exhaustion, the old man hobbled along the Tavern Road. At the stable at last, the Troubadour found its wide door ajar. Suddenly from within wailed the frightened soprano of the Dancer, her pleas counterpoint against a drunken, guttural bass that laughed and spoke of vile and loathsome things.

      The Troubadour quietly laid his parti-wood mandolin against the rough-sawn boards of the stable wall and drew his tiny dagger, more suitable for paring turnips than for combat. His hands cold with sweat and his belly a quivering knot, he slipped sideways through the open door. His eyes searched the darkness.

      A sliver of moonlight brushed his love's simple dress of white linen as it shrank back from a hulking, colorless shadow; the glint of a blade betrayed a hand, making the dark apparition human.

      The Troubadour called out his quavering challenge. The figure turned-a man to be sure, but faceless in the dark, his deep voice laughing at the puny boy and his turnip dagger. Then swearing mightily, the man lunged with his sword, but drunkenly misjudged the attack and instead only stumbled toward the Troubadour. The lad leapt aside, pushing back the obscenity as the Dancer fled screaming into an empty stall, her skirts wedging fast into the crack of a broken board.

      The Troubadour's palm quivered and grew warm. The tiny dagger had transformed into a guardsman's sword, stout but not so long as to be clumsy in close quarters, the hilt now part of the Troubadour's hand as he circled and feinted, the blade now an extension of his will.

      Suddenly, the moonlight beaming through the door fell across his opponent, and the Troubadour saw that what had been a man was now a demon with horned head and red eyes that glared hungrily at the Dancer as it advanced toward her, its claws dripping the filth of the charnel house. The Troubadour leapt in front of the Dancer's stall as she cried out, desperately tugging at her captured skirts. The beast's eyes aflame, it charged toward them with a great shriek, but the Troubadour, protecting his Lady, stood firm and greeted the scaled fiend with the point of his blade and in a great, cleansing bolt of blue-white lightening sent the beast spinning down into its Fiery Pits, its soul piercing screeches receding into the void until the only sound that assailed the Troubadour's ear was the rapid beating of his own heart.

      His chest heaving, the victorious Troubadour looked to his Lady and saw that the stable had become the bed chamber of kings; the bundled straw, now great cushions of silk and brocaded satin; the irregular cracks between the boards of the walls, lattice windows of brass and ebony through which the moon painted amber patterns upon a floor of pink-veined marble.

      The Dancer, her eyes downcast, whispered, "Play for me."

      She raised her face. Her eyes sparkled like the clear, night sky resplendent with myriad points of light, shaming the precious gems bejeweling her empty gown she now clutched modestly to her breast. The Dancer breathed but a single word more:

      "Play."

      And the dress billowed to her feet in a rustle of stars.

      The Troubadour sank onto the pillows, soft and cool against his skin, and played for her on the mandolin with the parti-wood bowl. The Dancer's leg arched high, and her limbs moved lithe and free as she leapt, and her body swayed and turned with his music as a willow in the spring. The Troubadour no longer knew his fingers; he had forgotten both rhythm and chord, for the notes now poured from his heart, sweet and intoxicating as honeyed wine. He played, and her body flowed like the long grass in the river's edge, riding the eddies of his song first this way and then that. And the Dancer's hair floated about her as she spun, her skin golden under the moonlight.

      Then flushed from her dance, she knelt before him in the cushions, and her throat breathless and velvet, she began a lovers' duet. The Troubadour's fingers, now kissing softly the strings, found her melody, and his voice the harmony, and together they sang, their eyes locked in embrace.

      And at the last refrain, he set aside his mandolin with the parti-wood bowl, and she came to him, and he to her. And with the final words gentle at each other's ear, their song rose into the night, their voices blending with the moonlight.

      And the heart of the Troubadour and the heart of the Dancer beat as one.

      With each labored wheeze, the pre-dawn air slit the Dreamspinner's lungs. The lub-dubbing of his heart, a pointed hammer hacking at him from inside his chest. Exhausted, the old man hung from his bent staff like a spent chrysalis suspended from a dead twig and stared down at the two young fools curled together in the straw, naked and mindless as kittens. His inflamed hips and knees screamed their hatred of a night of struggling over rough trails, shuffling down long roads in vain effort to reach the stable in time. A simple injunction: Go to your own beds as usual. But no, they had thought to better his dream, and so, had brought him to ruin.

      Now defying the pain knifing through in his hands, the Dreamspinner raised up his staff and swung it down smartly across the exposed, white rump of the boy, rousing him to his feet even before he was fully awake. The girl stirred at the sudden movement, crying out when she saw the old man glaring over her and scrambled about in the straw for her dress to cover herself. Still breathless from his journey, the old man spoke in gasps.

      "You could not listen! . . . Foolish children . . . do you not realize the power of dreams shared? Because of you, . . . I am undone!"

      "But good sir, we have done nothing," implored the lad. "Twas a wondrous dream you spun for us, the stable became a palace--"

      Without warning, the Dreamspinner swung his staff up between the boy's legs, causing him to jump back to avoid the end of the knotted stick now pointed menacingly at his young manhood. "Then perhaps it is that you paint your cod with strumpet's rouge, perhaps to entertain in the darker rooms of the fancy-house?"

      Looking down at himself, the young man's eyes widened at the crusty, red-brown smear. The lass, inhaling a hoarse scream at the revelation, turned her back, frantically pawing at the hem of her skirt.

      "But it cannot be," offered the boy, bewildered. "Twas only a dream,"

      The girl's each breath became stifled sobs as she gaped down at herself.

      "And while you contemplate the mysteries of maiden's blood, my young rakes," the Dreamspinner said, wheeling his stick about to point toward the far side of the stable. "Think upon this as well."

      The lad's gaze followed the Dreamspinner's extended staff to fall upon the supine body of the Tavern's bond-master, its face ashen and waxy, its open eyes sightless. And encircling the hilt of the delicate dagger protruding from its chest, spread a dark stain peppered with buzzing flies. The young man babbled as he stumbled into his breeches, whining that it was but a dream spun for them, and that in it he had protected his lady from a demon.

      The old man nodded. A demon, close enough.

      "Many will see your knife buried in his ribs to be a blessing and believe your claims of self-defense, but I doubt the King's justice will find it so."

      "But who is to know?" The lad implored, pulling on his shirt. He looked about fearfully for the stable hands soon to arrive with the sun.

      The old man's voice grew shrill and cracked, his colorless lips flecked with spittle. "I suppose you will now tell me, how last night you so carefully crept among the shadows to this place and did not strut like a banti cock down the center of the road for any looking out their windows to see? And I suppose that no one at the Tavern suspects your puppy eyes, and that soon no one there will anxiously report that your beds went unslept? Nor ask of the bond-master, whose bed also lies idle?"

      The old man redirected his tirade toward the girl, now hanging from the boy's neck and sobbing into his nape. "And I am sure your skinny wench will remember to bleed again prettily for her new masters at the fancy-house."

      She looked up at her lad, seeking deliverance, and finding in his face not even a wisp of hope, she renewed her wails. Whether they escaped the King's justice or not, her fate at the hands of the whoremaster was written.

      "But the lives of bond-slaves are not my concern," the Dreamspinner continued. "And while death does not frighten a tired old man, the rack does."

      Pulling a twig of straw from the girl's disheveled hair, the boy answered. "But we will say nothing of you, good sir." He gently kissed her cheek and drew her close, her tears, wet and salty on his lips.

      The old man leaned forward on his staff, his voice hissing his rage. "When you are standing in the gallows, and the King's soldiers drag your dancing wench to the block, and she is hanging by her ankles, bleeding this time from the lash, what will you offer the Inquisitors then, my loyal buyer of forbidden dreams?"

      The two lovers stood wrapped in embrace, her sobs muffled at his breast, he staring blankly into the shadows. And when the girl at last raised up, her eyes raw and spent, they had agreed silently there be no choice but to flee.

      "And take back your coin," the Dreamspinner said, flinging his words and the half-piece at their feet. "With it, there may be some small chance of your escape from this land, and so my evasion of torture and death; but cheated of my payment and for the peril you have set upon me, this curse I also give you."

      And he turned to the sniffing lass, his voice now cold as winter's tomb. "You lusted for a dream to bind you together while a lifetime apart, and so a lifetime apart I shall give while you are together. You shall not conceive with this man, and until you lie with another, you will be forever barren, never to know the warmth of a child at your breast, always to walk in the shadow of his hatred for your folly."

      Then pointing a knotted finger at the boy, he continued. "And likewise, you shall forsake your sniveling wench lest you never know the pride a son nor the joy a daughter can bring, and if you stupidly cling to her side, you shall watch her die a cold and empty crone, knowing your foolishness has brought this upon her."

      The tears streaming anew down her face, the girl pled between her sobs that she wanted no other and would gladly relinquish the blessing of motherhood and even life itself for her lad, but please, what sacrifice could be made to lift the curse? And again the boy clutched the girl close, swearing he would never give her up and likewise begged reprieve.

      For a span, the Dreamspinner silently clenched his stick, his knuckles, mottled knots on the wood. Finally, his voice drained of emotion, he said to them: "For the warming of five springs know you not home or rest. Walk the corners of the land and live off the graces of strangers if you can, if they will pity you and stupidly reward you for your tuneless plucking and stumbling turns. Then return and give to me your purse of all your silver, and if it be large enough, I may forgive the curse, and if you are lucky, your faces and your crimes may be forgotten."

      "But where . . . ?" The young man's voice was now that of a lost child, quavering at the edge of tears.

      The old man turned to go, muttering that he cared not, but that the eastern edge of the realm, though many leagues distant, be the shortest journey to escape the King's justice and their masters' wrath.

      Leaning into his staff, the old dreamspinner shuffled painfully home, his heart pounding anew with the dread of two frightened children who hand-in-hand fled toward the quickening sky with but the clothes upon their backs, a ha'Silver, and a mandolin with a parti-wood bowl.

      Dawn. Visitors.

      The snorting and blowing of horses outside the old man's door and the treading of feet, hard upon the loose, brittle boards of his stoop had roused the old man from empty sleep. He sat up quickly, ignoring the pain. Shod horses and heeled boots spoke of soldiers, and although the young King had outlawed his father's evils, even to the forgiving of bond-slaves their debts, still, it was unwise to predict royal whim: The Dreamspinner held to his old fear of soldiers. The pounding of a gloved fist brought him, hunched, to his feet.

      "Wait," he called out, fearful that they would break in his door, barely able to withstand last winter's wind much less loutish soldiers intent upon entry. "Please, good sirs, a moment."

      He took his cloak from the peg, and shuffling across the room, he tied it about himself with a piece of old rope.

      Pain knifed through his hands as he fumbled with the iron latch: his fingers no longer bent until late in the day. And after scraping the sagged door through an arc well scratched into the floor, the old man beheld two figures, backlit by the glare of the new sun.

      Dressed alike in black leather tunics over white blouses of shining silk, they sported wide brimmed hats adorned with long, sweeping cock feathers-reds and oranges and blues shimmering in the sun like butterflies' wings. The man's breeches were of the dark red favored by journeymen troubadours, and buckled comfortably at his waist was a scabbard of tooled leather from which protruded the scrolled hilt of a broad-sword. The shorter of the pair, a woman, wore the form fitting tights of red and white pattern called Dancer's Skin, and low on her smoothly muscled thigh was strapped scabbard and dirk, a smaller likeness of her companion's kit, that like his, bore the patina of a working weapon. And their boots, cut of like leather and design, rose gracefully to the knee, ending in a soft roll. The man spoke in a sure, clear voice.

      "We have business with the Dreamspinner."

      The old man threw up his hands before his face, making the sign that wards evil, and staggered back to his bed and collapsed onto the straw, his weight sagging it but slightly. Between fits of coughing he begged them to leave.

      "Begone . . ., I no longer practice the Art. I have lost the spells. . . . I am bereft of dreams. Go, let an old man die in peace."

      The woman removed her hat and riding gauntlets and gave them to her companion, then shook out her long, shining tresses, which tumbled in waved rivulets about her shoulders. She filled her hands from his bucket and crossed to the old man and despite his objection carried the water to his lips. He drank, helpless in her hands.

      Her companion, having stepped outside to the horses, now returned with a sack the size of a cabbage, which from the way it hung in his arms was of considerable weight. He sat it beside the bed with the unmistakable clink-thud of coin. Its contents confirmed when the bag opened, spilling bits of white fire that glinted across the floor, some rolling to rest against the old man's feet, others spinning in place to flash in the sun like giant sparks against the black boards.

      "Remember us Dreamspinner?" sounded the deeper voice, "We have returned to you after the warming of five springs."

      The woman wiped her wet hands on her tunic. "Behold your silver, old man, the price of your curse."

      The Dreamspinner remembered. But a long time had passed since he had dreamt of two foolish children fleeing for their lives with little more than his half-piece and their wits to sustain them.

      The old man pulled his cloak more tightly about his shoulders and asked, "Then tell me, sirrah, whither did you travel to collect such a fortune, or have you robbed some merchant or the royal tax collector perhaps, and even now the King's soldiers close upon you?"

      The man laughed, and he and the woman sat together crosslegged upon the floor and told the old man that the silver was honest, earned by their wit and by their art. They told of how they stayed at lonely cross-road inns, she singing and dancing to his tunes to please the traveling peddlers and sojourning priests. And when the fire was low and the ale freshly poured, how he would strum upon his mandolin with the parti-wood bowl and sing tales of bold deeds done for glory or for a pure maiden's favor, and so they earned their evening's mutton and night's roof and fire from the Coppers dropped into her tambourine.

      And how they visited cities great and small, and amid the bright flags and striped tents of carnival, his fingers would dance upon the strings, and she, her skirt tucked to the side of her hip, would leap and spin under the morning sun, drawing Silvers from the velvet purses and Coppers from the coarse-woven until the ladies and good-wives, smiles pasted under disapproving eyes, urged their men away. And how later in the sultry afternoons, he would stroll the quieter paths of the bazaars and sing ballads of sweet passion and desire, kissing the hands of the same women as they sighed and discreetly pressed their coins into his palm.

      And of how they came to the tribes of the vast Northern Steppes, he trading legends with their shamans, she learning the frenzied reels of the herdsmen's women and the sensual, undulating movements of the Khan's harem--the Great Kahn being so pleased by their dance and stories that they were given horses and taught to ride in the style of the Steppes' legendary cavalrymen. And they told of when they rode west to the great water and joined in the midnight celebrations of the fisher clans, dancing barefoot in the warm, dark sand, hailing the laughing bonfires set out upon a frothy sea by a smiling moon. There he was taught to play the sailor's pipes, she mastering their songs and demanding steps.

      And the music of their laughter rang about the old man's room as they recounted each tale and bold adventure shared. Like how in the first hungry nights of their travels, they had come upon a camp of highwaymen who had just waylaid a private carriage, murdering all save a young noble. And how, after a number of the rogues had ridden off to arrange the ransom, they had easily joined the camp under the pretense of harlot and procurer.

      The scoundrels shouted with drunken delight as she danced for them, singing the songs of city strumpets, and he refreshing their cups again and again with the nobles' strong wine until one-by-one the outlaws lay snoring by the fire. And they told of how they then cut the young noble free and fled with him into the forest before the rest of the band could return, the three huddling together without fire in the bole of a great, hollow tree, where they talked of many things including the cruelty of the King's justice and the pain of being bond-slave. And how at first light they were found by the King's soldiers and told that the noble was, in truth, Crown Prince and Heir to the realm, and how the Prince had departed with only a nod, for it would be unseemly for him to thank common folk for loyalty that was his due. Yet, after he had ridden away, they discovered a golden Realm-ducat worth more than a year's good wages shining among the Coppers in their purse.

      Their narrative complete, the old man heard the soft crackle of tailored leathers and the smooth rustle of silk as they arose, smelled the sweat of fine horses when they crossed to him.

      "And now, Dreamspinner," the man's voice resounded above him, "you will remove your curse from us. We have atoned for our foolishness and your jeopardy. We have paid your price."

      "Yes, remove your curse," echoed the woman. "For soon we shall quit the wanderer's ways. We dream of the warmth of our own hearth and for the feel of new life quickening beneath my heart."

      The Dreamspinner studied the comely pair standing before him. They were far indeed from two frightened bond-slaves resigned to their fates and forced to flee.

      "It would seem that you have turned your penance of exile into grand adventure that has served you well." The old man regarded the coins at his feet. "That has served us all well." He paused, returning his gaze to them. At last he asked, "And where have you chosen to alight and raise your spawn, and once having left the minstrel life, how do you suppose that you will feed them?"

      The woman opened her mouth as if to speak, but instead, looked to her man and said nothing. At last the man answered, an edge of uncertainty now rimming his words.

      "We shall live off the Prince's ducat 'till we can make our home."

      "So! You have cheated me!" Red faced with anger, the old man raised his quavering hand, its fingers pointing, hunched and bent like his shoulders. "So! You have kept the golden ducat to squander for yourselves, and so I shall not remove the curse. Never will you rest. Never will she conceive."

      Suddenly, the woman leapt at the old man, her blade a flashing blur at his throat, but her hand was stayed by the strong, gentle grip of her companion, who spoke close to the old man's ear.

      "We do you no wrong, wicked Dreamspinner. You said to bring to you all our silver, and this we have done. Surely the bag is large enough, and though many of the coins are not of this realm, they will spend as well, some better."

      The Dreamspinner sat unmoved by his words nor her dagger.

      The man, still holding to the woman's wrist, continued: "But we will spend no more time on tales this day, Dreamspinner, like tales of my lady's skill with blade and staff as we fought back-to-back battling hungry wolves and hungrier thieves." He released her and stepped away. "At this moment, were I to see to the horses, you may find her not to be the simpering maid you remember."

      The old man looked into the face of the woman whose eyes had become as cold as the steel in her hand yet could not mask the desperate yearning that burned in her heart. He was tired and coveted the solitude of his bed, and so he told her that if she were to lie with the man, she would conceive.

      "But, because you deny me the gold," the Dreamspinner's voice was high and quavering, "you need not search long for your hearth, for you must return to labor in the very tavern from where you once fled. Only there will she conceive. Only there can you rest and bring forth your whining whelp."

      Suddenly, the old man bent double in a fit of dry coughing while the man and the woman looked on. His face at his knees, he regained his breath unaided. A moment, and the Dreamspinner raised up, his voice now dead as dust.

      "Such is my curse. And so,if you are to use your knife, woman, then be done with it. The specter of a quick, cool blade does not frighten a sick old man."

      The woman silently returned her weapon into its sheath. And donning her gauntlets, she said to him: "No. There is no pain we could inflict to equal the sickness the emptiness of your soul has already visited upon you. We shall leave you to fester alone in your greed and self pity."

      She paused in the door, her face in the sun, seating the tight leather of her gloves, finger by finger. "Relish your silvers, sirrah."

      Their business done, the man and the woman, pushing aside limbs and vines, led their horses in single file down the path toward the Tavern Road.

      And when the branches had closed behind his visitors, and the only sound in the trees was the wind, the old Dreamspinner, his heart leaden with the despair of dashed hopes and the sweetness of success cloying bitter in his mouth, arose and shuffled across the room to close the door.

      The old man sucked the last of the fat from the side of his knife, and licking his fingers, basked in the happy din of the Tavern. Closing his parchment hand about his tankard, he turned it up and drank his fill; the chill of fresh ale had not pained his fingers for many waxings of the moon.

      Supper was done, and wenches who not long ago might have slaved in the fancy-house were clearing the tables and pouring new drink for the patrons. The Troubadour hurried along a dawdling kitchen lad then took his flute from his belt and began to play, his lively notes giving attention to the entrance of the Dancer, who wearing the tunic and tights of Guild Mistress of Dance, moved into the crowded tables with the ease of a swan upon the water. Her eyes bright and her voice mischievous and gay, she sang a bawdy song of soldiers in barracks pleasuring a lusty lass and bade all to join in the refrain, and the Tavern laughed and was alive.

      Then her voice fell soft as a maiden's tear, and she sang of a seafarer far from home and of a love forgotten and danced wistfully between the verses, her body the evening fog rising in twisting folds from a lonely, rocky shore. And the eyes of the patrons, noble seated with common, sparkled shamelessly with melancholy.

      Her song complete, she twined through the applauding tables, humbly touching hands with the cheering patrons. She then quietly corrected a wench new in her duties while the Troubadour sat upon a high stool and strummed a lyre beribboned with the red and gold of Master Harper and sang an epic tale of heroic deeds in a strange land. And the Tavern listened intently, for none in the realm could sing a tale as he. It was even whispered that the young King himself, disguised as a lessor noble, occasioned the Tavern to partake of the hospitality at the inn of the Troubadour and the Dancer and to applaud their art.

      So, the evening ebbed. The clamorous crowd thinned, and two lads quietly bore in a cushioned chair with rockers, setting it by the hearth. Now wearing the more practical habit of good-wife, the Dancer came with her babe, chubby and pink from its bath. She sat and loosed her bodice; her breasts, heavy with milk and love, glowed golden from the waning fire. And she gave suck to the child, and with her voice clear and pure, gave also song while the Troubadour sat at her feet, plucking softly upon a scarred mandolin with a parti-wood bowl.

      And the tavern was warm and still.

      The remaining patrons, common and noble, drawn by the gentle music, watched a moment nodding their approval, then turned away from the Troubadour and the Dancer and their babe and sipped their ale and spoke softly among themselves. His tankard dry, the old man arose and took down from his peg his cloak and tied it about himself with an old rope, which unlike his hands had grown soft and smooth with age. But the stiffness was late in coming this year, and so he was grateful.

      Outside the door, returning the polite nods of the King's soldiers who now patrolled the Tavern Road, he took little notice of the bite of the evening breeze that caused to sway gently overhead, the Tavern's oaken blazon: the gaily painted sigil of a golden ducat and a mandolin with a parti-wood bowl. He paused before the window and admired the tableau within, counting in his mind the coins in the sack beneath his bed in his room at the inn of the Troubadour and the Dancer, who no longer begrudged an old man his Silvers. Silvers to be divided someday among the infant and its sister to be and its brother to be, who will grow from fat babes into bright faced children and will cluster about his feet and call him Papa Dreamspinner.

      And he will tell them of dreams past and of dreams yet to come, and that dreams shared be the most powerful of dreams, powerful enough to best a dreamspinner's curse. But he would keep to himself the manly pride of living well by your art and the joy of sharing all with the warrior who wielded her blade in the defense of your life then danced for your supper, the wanton lass who with a hoyden's delight inflames your passion, the good-wife to whom you have committed your heart.

      Nor will he tell them of the majesty of life growing in your belly, or of the bliss of cradling your nursing child while its father, your lord-protector and master, your companion in arms and art, your lover, husband, and friend sits at your feet, his head resting softly against your skirts.

      The old man, carrying his staff more from custom than need, hurried toward the little used hovel in the woods: The moon shone high, and he had much to prepare. For the morrow would bring a visitor. With a ha'Silver. Perhaps more.

      The King was said to be generous.