Free The Bone Flute by Patricia Bow

newspapers and not looking at him.
    Camrose watched from an arched doorway. The music had led her here and it still pulled at her, but this time it didn’t waft her away to anyplace strange. After a few minutes the old couple folded their newspapers, got up and walked off. They went out without dropping any money in the busker’s bag.
    He went on playing to empty chairs and tables. The tune was full of long notes that died away, like birds crying on distant shores. It sounded like all the homesickness in the world.
    The last grieving notes faded. Camrose walked stiffly across the flagstones to where he half-sat, half-stood, propped on one of the iron tables. She bent to drop a handful of coins into his canvas backpack.
    He gave her a dark look as he untangled himself from his pipes. “So far have I fallen,” he muttered.
    â€œSorry, but it’s—it’s all I have.” She went hot with embar–rassment. “It’s the last of my birthday money.”
    â€œChild, it’s a king’s ransom!” He scooped up the money and dumped his pipes into the backpack. With a grand sweep of his arm that hardly matched his ragged jeans and faded sweatshirt, he waved around at the ruin. “Come, join me, and we’ll sit at our ease in this goodly hall, drinking the blood-red wine.”
    â€œThanks, but—”
    â€œWhat, you refuse my hospitality?”
    â€œNo, but I’m not old enough to drink wine. Besides, they only serve coffee here.” She nodded at the Old Mill Coffee Shop.
    â€œCoffee, then. Black as a sinner’s heart, my love,” he said to the girl behind the counter, who gave him a suspicious look.
    To Camrose he added, “I’ve grown to like the stuff, oddly enough. Taste is one of the few pleasures I can still enjoy.”
    Camrose accepted an iced mocha latte. The sun was pouring into the stone shell and it was already shaping up to be a sultry day. They took their drinks to a table near the cliff side.
    A couple of peanut shells were scattered over the tabletop. Camrose pushed them around with her forefinger. How to begin? “You … um, play the bagpipes.”
    â€œThey’re uillean pipes, to name them true.”
    â€œIllen pipes,” she repeated, because that was how it struck her ear. “You’re awfully good. I mean, it sounds like you’ve been playing them a long, long time.”
    He studied her for a moment. “No, not so very long.”
    She sagged. Well, then, this couldn’t be Diarmid.
    â€œOnly a matter of fifty years or so. I was a true bard once.” He held her eyes and let the moment stretch out. “But the kings I harped for have been dust a thousand years.”
    Her heart thumped. “So you’re …”
    â€œYes, I am Diarmid, once a harpist. Now I pipe on the streets for my bread. I suppose it’s better than being dead.”
    He raised his mug to her and smiled, which changed him for that moment into a shining boy. “Keeper, your health. Long have I sought you, too often lost you. Let this time be the last!”
    â€œI hope so too.” She felt her face glowing, reflecting his smile. But a voice niggled at the back of her brain. Not so fast! Get all the facts. Think before you decide!
    â€œYou want proof.” His smile cooled.
    â€œWell, you see, I … It’s a big responsibility.”
    â€œOf course. The devil of it is, I have no proof at all. You know the tale, I take it? Yes, well … It leaves a lot out. One thing it doesn’t tell is that Rhianna and I were to be married. But on the very eve of our wedding she was stolen away.”
    â€œYou mean she was kidnapped?”
    â€œJust so. Her beauty had caught the eye of the Otherworld prince. Such things have happened before. Those people are drawn to the most beautiful among us, perhaps because their own forms and natures lack substance.”
    â€œHow d’you