The languid music, like some suffocating gas, slowly worked upon the patrons a dreadful drowsiness. It could not even be called boredom. Those who listened to the bard’s song weren’t aware enough to be bored. Their eyes stared dully from their heads with purposeless stares.
With ears full of beeswax, the bard’s compatriots slunk from their shadows. By old habit given to creeping, the two upon their toes went to their work, though an elephant might have blundered through without piquing the interest of anyone with unstopped ears, plundering the helpless patrons of anything worth plundering.
The bard was himself yawning, the sleepiness of his music seeping into him. He watched as his friends, in the long-accepted custom of their occupation, moved through the crowd, filling their bags and satisfying their avarice. He wished they would forgo custom and hurry up, but they were ever the professionals.
They would have to make a run for it, as they had before, and though this was only the third time they had pulled this trick in their journeys, he suspected that nothing this good could last. He felt his fingers twinging on the strings, urging him to change keys. A mischievous grin played for a moment on his lips. Still he mastered his fingers anyway, though he let the idea develop in his mind like some new motif. He was playing with the possibilities behind his still grinning eyes.
How easy it would be, he thought, when the time would come, when the rewards would be offered, to play his friends a parting song, and collect the price of both their heads. What a wonderful idea.
Tale Told 