Tales of the Dragon's Bard, Volume 1: Eventide by Tracy Hickman, Laura Hickman

he could hear some moaning from the eastern room. “Edvard . . . isn’t it?”
    “At your service, good Father Priest!”
    “Edvard, do you see that doorway?”
    “The one to the west, you mean?”
    “Yes, the one that I’m pointing at—await me there and I will be with you directly.”
    “With heartfelt assurance,” the Bard replied.
    Father Patrion smiled and waited until the Bard had closed the door behind him. Then he turned quickly and padded to the east room door, his candle in hand.
    Percival looked enormously relieved as the light entered the room. The room itself was Father Patrion’s study, and Percival was rather out of place in his newly tailored sneaking clothes. One of the chairs had been knocked over as the youth had moved about in the dark, but gratefully nothing more had been disarranged by his blind stumbling.
    “I appear to have a very busy evening, so if you do not mind—”
    “It’s very simple; I’ve worked everything out,” Percival said. He turned and started rearranging the items on the top of Father Patrion’s desk. “This book thing . . . what is it?”
    “That’s my Psalter of Morning Reflections!”
    “Right. This psalter is the Pantheon Church, see? This plate over here is Chestnut Court, and this . . . what is this ribbon?”
    Father Patrion shook his head in despair. “The Sash of Prayer.”
    “Well, now it’s the West Wanderwine,” Percival continued without pause. “This inkwell is the Cursed Sundial, and that blotter is Jep Walters’s place on the south side of Charter Square. Here’s all you have to do—”
    “All I have to do?”
    “It couldn’t be more perfect,” Percival went on. “You go to Vestia Walters—that’s Jep’s daughter—and deliver a message to her. She’s to meet me in the deep shadows of the Pantheon Church right after the Ladies’ Dance. There in the darkness I will deliver to her the feelings of my heart—along with one really expensive present my mother picked out—and then, HUZZAH! We’re off to the Couples’ Dance, with Vestia completely smitten with my charm and grace.”
    Father Patrion shook his head. “Tell me, Percival, just where did you get an idea so—”
    “From my mother,” Percival answered quickly.
    “Your . . . your mother?”
    “Absolutely!” Percival beamed. “She heard this story the other day from the Dragon’s Bard about a young princess who desperately wanted to be loved but her beauty was so great that no one in the town could speak with her but there was this handsome prince who really wanted to court her but couldn’t figure out a way to do it and so the young woman was told by the local priest to console herself by the light of the moon under the shadow of a gigantic oak tree that—”
    “Percival, I don’t need the whole story,” Father Patrion said, holding up a staying hand.
    “Of course, I’ve adapted it myself,” Percival basked in his own cleverness. “I mean, I figured out to substitute your church for the oak, which is much better suited for lurking and skulking, and, of course, I’m not actually a prince but then Vestia is no princess either—”
    “Well, that may depend on who you ask,” Patrion muttered to himself, but then he spoke up again. “So, all you want is for me to tell Vestia Walters to meet you after the Ladies’ Dance in the church.”
    “No!” Percival said, slamming his hand down hard on the desk and scattering the map of the town he had just built. “You cannot tell her it’s me! That’s the mystery part that will draw her heart into the church!”
    “And presumably the rest of her with it,” Father Patrion chuckled.
    “Huh?”
    “Don’t you worry,” Father Patrion answered through a yawn. “I’ll deliver your message for you. Now, go home before your father figures out you’re running about in the night looking like Dirk Gallowglass.”
    Percival grinned as Father Patrion took his candle in hand. They both left the room and entered