The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III Read online

  If those followers were from any of his enemies at Court, she would not be safe, not even here. Her only safety lay in his pretending that she was as much a stranger to him as anyone else here.

  Yes, they would see him meeting with the Deliambren, Tyladen—but the Deliambren could take care of himself. Beautiful, fragile Nightingale could not.

  So he allowed his eyes to brush across hers with feigned indifference and pretended not to see the shock of recognition in her face. Instead, he waited until he caught a glimpse of a Deliambren hurrying toward him from a nearby corridor—who could only be Tyladen, the owner of this place. He gave all of his attention to his host, and as Tyladen hurried him into a back room, he did not even spare a second glance for the musician in the room of rainbows—however much his heart yearned for a welcoming smile from her.

  “I’m glad you came,” the Deliambren said as he closed a reassuringly solid door behind T’fyrr and turned a chair around so that the Haspur could lean his arms on the back and have his tail and wings unencumbered. “I was hoping to be able to catch you up on news from the Fortress-City before things get to a point where they are critical. The listening devices are no replacement for regular contact. We can hear you just fine, but unfortunately we can’t tell you what it is we’d like you to talk about.”

  “Something new?” T’fyrr asked.

  The Deliambren shook his head. “Not exactly new—just that there is some information we need to help us fill in some holes in our knowledge. You know that we still want to map all of Alanda, of course. That hasn’t changed.”

  “I didn’t think it would,” T’fyrr rumbled with a little reluctant amusement. “Once you people get a direction in your heads, you’re as hard to sway from it as a migrating goose.”

  Tyladen smiled. “We’ve run into some obstacles. There are some of the human kingdoms that have decided they don’t want any part of us, and in order to carry out the expedition properly, we’ll have to cross their lands. The High King can override their objections, so now we need his blanket permission in order to get the expedition underway.”

  T’fyrr blinked, as the conversations of several of the past few Court sessions he’d sat through played in his head. He had made a point of going to every single open Court that he knew about; not only to have something to do, but to make himself visible as an act of defiance against those Advisors who were trying to make him vanish. None of them seemed to realize just how good his hearing really was; he’d overheard a lot that he wasn’t supposed to, both on the dais and among the courtiers. Once you knew the factions and who belonged to what, you knew where to listen.

  In addition, he had been present at several private meetings between the King and his Advisors, in his capacity as the King’s Personal Musician. He’d heard quite a bit there, too. He just hadn’t realized that it meant anything.

  “I believe I know what you need,” he said. ‘There are several of the King’s Advisors who are against the expedition, but they have not been showing their hands openly.”

  “Yes!” Tyladen exclaimed. “And we couldn’t tell how the King himself really feels about it.”

  T’fyrr coughed. “Oh, the King—well, he is very enamored with your technology, though he refers to it as ‘Deliambren magic’. He would like to have still more of your little wonders, and as long as he has that desire, he will be swayed in favor of letting you have anything you want, within reason. However—the Advisors are not the only problem you have to deal with.”

  “They aren’t?” Tyladen looked puzzled.

  “You forget,” T’fyrr said, trying not to sound bitter, “how much these people are herded by the opinions of their religious leaders. There are several of them who are not happy with your ‘magic’ and are quietly lobbying the King against it. They are not necessarily the ones who are against nonhumans, by the way.”

  The Deliambren’s eyebrows rose sharply. “Ah! I see! Yes, the religious leaders who hate and fear nonhumans are depressingly easy to recognize, but I had not realized that there were others who might be against technology.”

  T’fyrr snorted. “Think about it. Your ways have the potential to prove some of their assertions are a pile of mutes and castings, and that would be bad for their business. Of course they fear you! Now, since I know what it is that you need, let me name you some names.”

  He closed his eyes and brought up faces and attitudes in his mind’s eye, then began to recite all that he knew. In the background, he was vaguely aware of a faint hum that was probably one of the recording-crystal devices at work, and of a steady tapping, which might mean that Tyladen was taking notes in some other way. He was rather surprised at the sheer volume of information he had, really. It wasn’t only the King’s Advisors who were important, it was also the factions with whom they were involved.

  All of those factions were represented by people, and all of those people had names, descriptions, attitudes—weaknesses that could be exploited, perhaps—likes and dislikes.

  He had to stop, rest and enjoy some cool water more than once in the course of his recitation. It all took a very long time, even for someone like him. His people relied on oral history before they met the Deliambrens, and as a consequence they were very good at organizing their memories. Still, it took time to get everything out, and when he was finished, he was well aware that it was very late.

  “That was fabulous,” Tyladen said with admiration as he tapped a few more things into some sort of device on his desk and slipped the device itself into a drawer. “You are going to prove to be a lot more useful than you thought, I’m sure of it. This is all information none of our human agents were high enough to obtain.”

  “I hope you are correct,” T’fyrr told him sincerely. “I was not as sanguine about this position of mine as Harperus was; I simply did not see what a simple musician could learn that would make any difference to all of us.”

  It was the Deliambren’s turn to snort. “Well, most ‘simple musicians’ can’t hear a mouse squeak five hundred sdaders away, either. You’re overhearing far more than anyone has any reason to believe. Don’t let them know that, whatever you do.”

  “I won’t!” T’fyrr hastened to assure him. “My safety lies in that, as I know all too well! Don’t think for a moment that I am not aware of that.”

  “Good.” Tyladen pushed himself away from his desk. “I need to go into the back and transmit all this home. Can you see yourself out? Oh—you can feel free to stay a while if you want. I left orders that whatever you ask for is no charge.”

  After all that—hmph. I should hope so. Then T’fyrr chided himself for the uncharitable thought and thanked his host. “Perhaps I will. Right now, I should like just a drink of something for my throat, and then I will look around a little, perhaps.”

  “Whatever.” The Deliambren opened a door in an apparently blank wall. “Enjoy yourself.” He slipped inside, and the door closed behind him, leaving, again, an apparently blank wall.

  Evidently, Tyladen literally meant for T’fyrr to show himself out. And evidently he trusted T’fyrr not to snoop around in the office, either.

  Not that it was any kind of a temptation, no more than it had been a temptation to snoop in Harperus’ exotic travel wagon. If this had been a library full of music recordings, perhaps, but there was nothing likely to be in this office that would hold even a hint of interest for T’fyrr.

  Not unless there is something on the personal records of the musicians here—

  No. No, he would not try to look up Nightingale to see what had brought her here. That would be rude.

  But he could go out and at least listen to her sing without revealing his presence. That wouldn’t hurt anything or anyone.

  Maybe, if the opportunity presented itself, he could find a way to contact her discreetly, privately. A note or a message, perhaps.

  So with that thought in mind, he opened the door and walked out into the main room, which was once again crowded with dancers, preoccupied with the i
dea of seeing his friend again, and a little surprised at the pleasure that gave him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It can’t be T’fyrr. But how can it not be? It must be—but how can it be him? The thoughts circled one another in her head, mutually antagonistic. For a while, Nightingale was so taken aback by the appearance of a Haspur who could be T’fyrr’s twin that she didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the customers as people, only as her audience. That is, she reacted to them and paid attention to the way in which they reacted to her, but as a group, not as individuals.

  And she also wasn’t watching them for potential trouble. She used to keep a careful eye on every person in her audiences when she was on the road, because she never knew who or what was going to cause a problem for her. Sometimes trouble came from someone who just happened to be offended by the lyrics of a particular song; sometimes it came from a more obvious source: a drunk or a person who had arrived with his own set of prejudices riding his shoulders like a pack. She had gotten out of the habit of looking for problems in her audience since she’d been here, and maybe that wasn’t such a good thing . . .

  It wasn’t until her second set was over that she shook herself out of her reverie and began that kind of “watching” that was normally second nature and due entirely to a Free Bard’s healthy sense of self-preservation. Even when trouble erupted around a Free Bard, it generally came to include the Free Bard, even if it hadn’t been intended to.

  She scolded herself for neglecting that here in The Freehold. Perhaps her instincts had been convinced that this was a kind of “safe” place, like a Waymeet or a Gypsy camp—after all, there was someone else watching out for trouble and troublemakers here. Many someone else’s, actually, most of them Mintaks, or extremely large humans of the Faire-strongman variety. The “peace-keepers” generally kept the peace very effectively; their mere presence was enough to keep some types outside the doors.

  But where the Haspur who was the King’s Chief Musician was showing up—given that the possibility of two Haspur in the same city was vanishingly small—there might be someone following.

  No. There would be someone following. The only question would be if it was a friend or a foe.

  And the chances of Freehold staff recognizing that sort of trouble if it walked in the door were remote. A “friend” would be fine—a guard assigned to protect the King’s Musician discreetly. But a foe—well, anyone following the Haspur would be hired by someone attached to the Court, and he would not be the kind to catch the notice of one of the “peace-keepers.” He would not be drunk, nor rowdy—in fact, he would take pains not to catch anyone’s attention unless the Haspur showed up again.

  But this was not the first time that Nightingale had needed to watch for that sort of trouble. Free Bards were always acquiring enemies among Bardic Guild Musicians, for instance, and the Bardic Guild had plenty of coin to hire experienced ruffians. So as she took her break between sets, she got herself something to drink and began to stroll the floor, watching the customers, seeing who didn’t quite fit in.

  There was a general feeling about the customers at Freehold. No matter how well or poorly or oddly they dressed, they all acted pretty much the same. They were here to have a good time in a place where very few people were going to make any judgments about them; that engendered a certain relaxed air. Even those who were here for the first time generally succumbed to that all-pervasive mood after a while. This was especially true of the crowd around Silas and the dance floor.

  That was why the three men sitting at one of the tables near the entrance struck her watchful instincts immediately.

  They were not here for a good time. They had drinks, and they watched the dancers, but there was nothing relaxed about them. They weren’t even paying any attention to Silas, and that in itself was unusual. She let her barriers down just a trifle, and her immediate reading was confirmed by the state of alert, slightly nervous tension she read in them, the edginess showing they were prepared to do something physical, and soon. These men were here on some kind of dirty business, and they didn’t want anyone to notice them.

  She also had the feeling that she had seen them before, but not in this part of town. There was a nagging something about them; their clothing was wrong somehow. They didn’t match the clothing; that was it. It was just a little too new, a trifle too expensive, and they were not comfortable in it.

  Still, that edginess, the waiting feeling, could just mean they were here to meet a lady of negotiable virtue.

  Or someone else’s wives.

  Just because they were here and on edge, and they weren’t regulars, that really didn’t mean much.

  Maybe.

  Then again . . . They didn’t show up until after the Haspur did, and they wouldn’t have gotten through the door in time to see where he went. Now they’re down here, near the entrance, just off the dance floor, in a spot where anyone arriving or leaving is going to have to pass them.

  She took her own drink to a table nearby, where she could see both the corridor leading to the offices and the table holding the three men. She watched them out of the corner of her eye, feeling rather put out; this was one of Silas’ better performances, and she wasn’t able to give it more than a fraction of her attention. Silas always needed one set to warm up, and by the fourth or fifth of the night he was beginning to tire, making his second and third sets perfect for someone who really appreciated seeing him at his best. And tonight was his first night with the dance group, making him doubly eager to do his finest. Nightingale would have liked to be able to sit back a little and enjoy it. Although Silas wasn’t really her type, the sensuality he radiated tonight was enough to stir a corpse, and that skintight leather outfit of his made it very clear that however else Silas indulged himself, he did not neglect his physical health.

  What was even more annoying was the simple fact that she couldn’t sit here forever; she had her third set to do shortly, and she would have to leave. She was debating whether or not she should ask one of the peace-keepers to keep an eye on the three for her when the Haspur finally emerged from the office corridor, and one of the three men caught sight of him and sat straight up, as if someone had stuck a pin in him.

  Then he quickly slumped back down, but not before Nightingale had seen his sudden interest. And not before she saw him lean over and say something quickly to his two companions.

  No more than a heartbeat later, one of his companions calmly got to his feet and reached out onto the dance floor for one of the dancers.

  He just seized whoever was nearest; it happened to be a human male, dressed, as many of Silas’ followers did, in a carefully crafted imitation of one of Silas’ outfits.

  The dancer turned toward the man who had grabbed him in bewilderment—he started to say something, and the stranger calmly slung him around toward the tables and punched him in the face hard enough to knock him backward. He knocked over two tables as he fell and landed on a third, collapsing it. Those tables overturned, and their occupants scattered, more than a few of them getting to their feet and looking for the cause of the trouble with fire in their eyes.

  Another heartbeat later, and that entire corner of the room was involved in a free-for-all—which quickly spread in the Haspur’s direction.

  Peace-keepers converged on the brawl from every part of The Freehold; Nightingale spotted them making for the stairs and pushing their way through the dancers, most of whom were not yet aware that there was anything wrong.

  But more violence erupted along a line between the strangers’ table and the Haspur, with fighting breaking out spontaneously and spreading like wildfire. Soon an entire quarter of the room was involved in the brawl, and fists were flying indiscriminately.

  Fights were not all that usual here, especially not one of this magnitude. It was almost as if there was someone going through the crowd provoking more violence, instigating trouble and moving on before it could touch him—

  Nightingale was still outside of the fi
ghting, though many people around her had abandoned the dancing or their tables and were peering in the direction of the altercation. She jumped up onto her chair, then stood on her table and scanned the crowd as the fight converged on the openly startled Haspur and engulfed him.

  Intuition and a feeling of danger warned her that the strangers must be in there, somewhere—and if the Haspur was their target, they would be moving in on him now.

  Her flash of intuition solidified into certainty as she spotted them widely separated in the crowd. There they were, all right, converging on the Haspur from three directions as he tried to extricate himself from the brawl without getting involved himself.

  And as for the Haspur’s identity—there was no glass between her and him now, and she had a good look at his head and face, at the way he moved. It was T’fyrr; it had to be. If it had been a stranger, she might have been tempted to let the peace-keepers handle it.

  Well, it wasn’t. And damned if I am going to let these ruffians go after a friend!

  Her harp was safe in the Rainbow Room; she was no bar brawler, but she hadn’t been playing the roads for all these years without learning a few tricks. She jumped down off the table and began slithering through the crowd of struggling, fighting customers. As long as you knew what you were doing and what to watch out for, it was actually fairly easy to wade through a fight without getting involved—or at least, without suffering more than an occasional shove or stepped-on toe. She quickly made her way to the spot in the milling mob where she’d last seen T’fyrr fairly—but she actually got within sight of one of the men that were after him before she saw the Haspur.

  That was when she knew that T’fyrr was in danger, real danger, and that these men weren’t just planning on roughing him up. After all, if these people weren’t after him, why would this one be carrying a net—why carry a net into a place like Freehold at all? Lyonarie was not a seaport—Freehold might offer a lot of entertainment, but fishing wasn’t part of it—and this lad didn’t look anything like a fisherman!