“S-so when I asked if I c-could bring Bumper, they said yes.” She paused for another spate of tears, and pulled a square of white cloth from her sleeve to dry them with.

Outwardly, he probably seemed calm. Inwardly, he was beginning to panic. :What do I do now?: he begged Dallen. He felt himself floundering. Now that he had gotten himself involved in this girl’s grief, he didn’t feel as if he should extricate himself, but he also didn’t know how to react to it. Some mostly-smothered instinct said comfort her, but how did you do that? He’d never felt that much attachment for another human being as to weep over him, so how was he to sympathize with such an outpouring of grief over what to anyone else would have been a feature at dinner?

“Now I’m all alone,” she sobbed into the cloth.

“Ah, nah, yer a Bardic gel, no?” he responded, before Dallen got a chance to prompt him. “Ye gots lots of friends, surely—”

“No, I don’t!” she cried. “I don’t have any friends! How could I have, when Tobias Marchand is my father?”

She said that as if she expected that answered all questions. Mags’ brow crinkled, but Dallen answered him before he could voice the obvious question.

:Tobias is a very famous Bard,: Dallen told him, sounding surprised. :I’ve heard he can play almost every instrument there is, and do it brilliantly—and his songs are popular in at least three countries besides Valdemar. And, besides that, he’s supposed to be a simply amazing and witty man, able to hold a conversation on just about any subject. I had no idea he had a daughter—:

“Well, yer Da can make sure yer looked out for, no?” he ventured.

She looked up, stricken. “Oh, no!” she whispered. “No. No, I couldn’t call on my father. And anyway, I hardly know him. He never spent much time with us, he was much too busy. He’s too important for someone like me to bother.”

Dallen reacted to this with indignation, although it seemed perfectly sensible to Mags. Cole Pieters’ boys knew better than to bother him with anything that did not have to do directly with the running of the mine, for instance. . . .