Very Best of Charles de Lint, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

kind of bodach.”
    “Oh, don’t talk about bodachs,” Meran said. “I’ve had my fill of them this winter.”
    Having let one stay in their rafters over the winter, she and Cerin had found themselves with the dubious honour of guesting up to a half-dozen of the little pranksters some nights.
    “Part of the trick,” Tulo Jen went on as though she hadn’t been interrupted, “is to give your instrument the right sort of a name. Now a badger knows his tricks and, what’s more, he never lets go, so when Whizzy Fettle explained this thing about names to me, I knew straight-off what to call my fiddle.”
    Meran looked down at her flute. “I don’t know,” she said. “This looks more like a snake to me. I don’t much like snakes—at least I can’t imagine putting one up to my mouth.”
    “And besides,” Cerin added. “You already had the scroll carved into a badger’s head. How could you not call it that?”
    “What did I say about listening? Broom and heather, it’s like I’m talking to the wind. First off—” Tulo Jen, bristling, made a show of counting on her fingers, “—the badger’s head came after, but that’s another story. Secondly, it has to be the right sort of a name and you’ll know when it comes to you and not before. And thirdly, the second thing I was going to say was that one should listen, really listen—”
    “Thirdly, the second thing?” Cerin asked.
    “I’m getting confused,” Meran added. “Does the name come first or…”
    Tulo Jen looked straight ahead and stiffly concentrated on keeping the horses on the road—make-work, really, for they were too well-trained to stray. She said nothing, letting the clatter of the wooden wheels on the road fill the place left by her lack of words.
    “I was only teasing,” Cerin said after a few moments of her silence.
    “Oh, aye.”
    “It was a joke.”
    “And a grand one, too.”
    “I really do want to learn the trick,” Meran added.
    “Oh, hear me laugh.”
    “That’s the trouble with Kelledys,” Cerin said to his wife. “They don’t like to get bogged down with all sorts of silly things like facts and the like when they’re telling a story. So when you ask them to explain something, well…” He shrugged, smiling before giving Tulo Jen a quick glance.
    The tinker tried to keep a straight face, but it was no use. “You’re a hundred times worse than Uncle Finan,” she said at last, “and Ballan knows, he could drive a soul to the whiskey sack without even trying.”
    “You were talking about Whizzy Fettle’s advice,” Cerin reminded her. “Something about tricking a name out of an instrument.”
    “You’re the one to talk—with that roseharp of yours sitting in the back. Do you mean to tell me that its name means nothing?”
    “Well, no….”
    Telynros was a gift from the Tuathan, an enchanted harp that bore the touch of the Old Gods in its workmanship. Silver-stringed, with deeply resonating wood, it bore a living rose in the joint where the forepillar met the curving neck. A rose the colour of twilight skies.
    “Well then, listen to what I have to say, or at least let me tell Meran without all your interruptions—would that be possible?”
    There was an obvious glint of humour in her fierce gaze and Cerin nodded solemnly in acquiescence. Tulo Jen cleared her throat.
    “As I was saying,” she said, looking at Meran, “the name comes first. But that alone would never be enough. So…”
    The road wound on and Cerin closed his eyes, listening to the rise and fall of the tinker’s voice. The summer air was thick with the scent of hedgerow flowers and weeds. He was soon nodding. The sound of the wheels and the horses’ hooves, the buzz of Tulo Jen’s voice, all faded and he fell asleep with his head on Meran’s shoulder. The two women exchanged smiles and continued their talk.

    * * *

    That night they camped in a field, close by a stream. They had a fire for their supper, but let the coals die down