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

  Was this that mysterious Bardic Magic at work? If so, he couldn’t see any reason to find fault with it. She wasn’t doing anything to hurt these people and was doing a great deal to help them. They listened to her and became caught up in her spell, losing most of the stress that they had carried when they entered the door of her performance room. How could there be anything wrong with that?

  He only wished that he could join them. He was shaken by the fight, more than he wanted to admit. The entire incident was branded with extraordinary vividness and detail in his memory, and there was no getting rid of it. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the stiletto and the man holding it, the man with the cold eyes of someone who does not care what he does so long as he is paid for it.

  The eyes of High Bishop Padrik . . . Padrik had looked that way, the one time he had really looked at T’fyrr. He had weighed out T’fyrr’s life in terms of what it would buy him and had coldly determined the precise way to extract the maximum advantage from killing the Haspur. T’fyrr had been nothing more to him than an object; and not even an object of particular value.

  As much as by the memory of his attacker, he was shaken by the memory of his first instinctive reaction.

  I lost all control. No one knows it but me, but I did. I could, easily, have murdered again. Granted, this time my victim would have been someone who was attacking me directly, without provocation, but it would still have been murder.

  Rage had taken him over completely. A dreadful, killing rage had engulfed him, a senseless anger that urged him to lash out and disembowel the man. Only luck had saved the man, luck and the ability to get out of sight before T’fyrr could act.

  Would he have felt that same rage a year or more ago? He didn’t think so.

  Singing with Nightingale calmed him; simply sitting here listening to her sing alone calmed him even more, but he was still shaking inside. That was as much the reason why he had decided to stay here for a bit as was his desire to talk to Nightingale.

  Lyrebird. I must remember that she is called Lyrebird here. I wonder why?

  In fact, paired with his desire to talk with her was his fear of resuming their interrupted friendship. I cannot place her in jeopardy, and she will be in as much danger as I am from my enemies if they learn that we are friends. I am not certain that Tyladen will be willing to protect her even if I warn him; after all, she is nothing more than an employee to him. And he knew, with deep certainty, that he was in danger from at least one enemy who was willing to hire bravos to come after him. He had known, even before Nightingale told him, that there were at least two people in that staged brawl who had been targeting him, and perhaps three or more. Being thwarted once would not stop them; they would only seek him somewhere else.

  Or seek some other way to reach me than the direct route.

  If he came and went via the sky, there would only be two places where they could ambush him: within the Palace grounds, or within Freehold. Both places had their own protections, and both had people who would protect him. But Nightingale had no wings; she could not travel except on the ground. He knew her kind, she was a Gypsy, and it was not natural for her to stay in one place for long; she would not stay here even if he warned her that it wasn’t safe to leave. If his enemies knew that he valued her, they would not hesitate to use her against him.

  He sighed and sipped at the iced herbal drink someone had brought him, while Nightingale sang and played one of her strange Gypsy songs. I wish that I knew who my enemy was, and why he sent men after me. It could be one of the other Court Musicians, who wishes to be rid of me. It could be one of the Advisors, or one of their allies, who thinks that I have too great an influence with the King. He sighed. If only I did! But that doesn’t matter as long as someone believes that I do. It also could be someone who simply does not wish to see a nonhuman in a position of such importance and visibility. Or it could be for none of those reasons, for a cause I cannot even think of.

  It could also be that someone in this city, possibly with the Church, had recognized him as the “demon” who killed a Church Guard. Since that killing could not actually be proved, this might be their own way of seeing that justice was done.

  All of those people would have ample reason to try to use Nightingale, even someone connected with the Church and High Bishop Padrik.

  That might be worst of all for her. He had seen the shadowed fear in her eyes on the single occasion when they had spoken about the power of the Church—the idea of Nightingale in the hands of a sadist like Padrik left him cold and shaking.

  He would not have been happy until he had forced her to confess to some awful crime, so that he could have her done away with in a way that brought him more power. He would have done it as casually as swatting an insect, and I know that there are more men like him in this human Church. I have seen them, watched them as they watch me in the Court, their eyes full of hot hatred, or worse, cold and calculating indifference. Like Padrik, others are important to them only as the means to power, or the taking of power from them.

  He was so lost in his own bleak thoughts that he didn’t realize Nightingale’s last set was over until she came to his seat and tapped him on the shoulder. He started and stared up at her.

  “Let’s go up to the roof,” she said, not commenting on how jumpy he was. “You’ll feel better up there with open sky above you.”

  Now, how did she know that? Or was it simply logical deduction for a creature with wings?

  Whatever the cause, it shows a sensitivity that I had not expected from a human.

  He followed her up several flights of stairs, down a corridor on the fourth floor that she said was part of the staff’s area, and up a short set of ladder-like stairs. She pushed open a hatchway and climbed up; he followed her to find himself once again under the open sky. But now it was quite dark, with stars winking through thin, high clouds.

  She shut the hatch quietly. “There are probably a few more people up here,” she said quite softly, “but they won’t bother us, and I know where they are likely to be.” She beckoned to him, and he followed her, a gracefully moving shadow, lightly frosted with silver from the half-moon overhead. She took him to the very edge of the roof and patted the raised rim of knee-high poured stone that kept people from walking right off the edge.

  “This makes a perfectly good bench if you aren’t afraid of heights,” she told him, laughing a little at the absurdity of the idea of a Haspur with no head for heights. He echoed her laugh—though it sounded a bit feeble to him—and joined her on the improvised seat. A warm thermal rose from the pavement below, still heated from the afternoon’s sun.

  “I come up here nearly every night except when I am very weary,” she told him as she looked out over the city below, then up at the moon and stars above. “It’s very peaceful. I’m sure Freehold is a wonderful place, but if you work here, you get very tired of it, especially if you aren’t particularly used to cities. I don’t like cities very much, myself. I prefer the countryside. I’d trade a hundred Freeholds for one good Faire at Kingsford.”

  He had more than his share of questions that he wanted to ask her about that. What in the world was she doing here, for one thing! Why here and why now? The last time he had seen her, she had been going in the opposite direction of Lyonarie! There were no Free Bards here, at least none that he knew of, and probably not many Gypsies, either. So what had possessed her to come here, and what had possessed her to take a position as an entertainer in Freehold of all places?

  The trouble was, if he asked questions, she would be as free to ask questions of him. “I was rather surprised to find you working here,” he said finally, trying to find a topic that would not lead back to the weeks he did not want to discuss.

  Only a few weeks, really. Not very long at all to turn me into a rabid murderer.

  “Not half as surprised as I was,” she replied dryly. “I have been wondering if I should tell you this—but given what happened tonight, I think perhaps I’d better
.”

  If she should tell him—She gave him no chance to collect his thoughts.

  “Our mutual friends, the Deliambrens, wanted me to come here to ferret out information for them,” she said, surprising him all over again.

  Nightingale? Working as a Deliambren agent? But—

  “Them, among others, that is,” she added, and coughed. “I have many friends among the nonhumans, and they seem to have a high regard for my ability to observe things. They asked me to come here and try to discover what I could about—oh, I know this sounds ridiculous, but there are reasons—about the High King. He used to be a great leader, but now it seems that there are other people making all the decisions. I was besieged on all sides, when it came down to it; I had at least three different people ask me to come here and simply keep my eyes and ears open.”

  “Why you?” T’fyrr finally asked.

  She tapped her fingers on the balustrade. “To be honest, I’m not certain. I have done similar things in the past, but—T’fyrr, it was never something like this. They have more faith in my limited abilities than I do, I suppose.” She shook her head. “As it happens, they are all people to whom I owe something—loyalty, favors, respect. I did listen. I understood why they were asking me. I knew that there were, indeed, some things I could learn, even with my limited abilities. Much to their disappointment, I refused to promise anything, and I hope they are not even aware that I made it here.”

  He felt his beak gaping in shock at her words. Not just that the Deliambrens had tried to recruit her as an agent—but that she was going along with it without any of the help she would be getting if she had agreed to aid them!

  “But why—why are you doing this alone?” he asked. “Isn’t it more dangerous, uncertain?”

  “One of my friends told me that they had already sent people in who had been uncovered and had to leave. It seemed to me,” she continued, idly tapping out a rhythm on the stone, “that if even one person that I didn’t personally know and could count on became aware that I was here and working as a Deliambren agent, that was one person who might betray me, either on purpose or inadvertently. That’s why I call myself ‘Lyrebird’ here—and I have yet another name out on the street. If I find anything of substance, I will tell those who wanted me to come here, but not before, and not until I am out of Lyonarie.”

  He reflected ruefully that it was too bad he could not have done the same. “It is a little more difficult to hide a pair of wings, a beak, and talons,” he replied by way of acknowledgement that he was doing the same work as she.

  “Ah.” She listened for a moment, but he could not tell which of the street sounds or night sounds had caught her attention. “I take it that you are the new Court Musician that everyone has been babbling about? And that our dear Deliambren friends talked you into promising what I wouldn’t?”

  He did not bother to ask how she knew; if the Deliambrens had tried to recruit her as an agent, she must have ways of gathering information that he had not even guessed. And here he had been under the impression that she was nothing more than a simple musician!

  The more she revealed, the more mysterious she became, and the more attractive. And the more he was determined to protect her from the danger following him.

  “It was Harperus’ idea,” he replied. “He seemed to think I might have some kind of influence for good on the High King. He was certain that I would at least be able to overhear things that would be useful.”

  “Hmm.” He wished he could see her face so that he could tell what she was thinking. “And have you? Had influence on the High King, that is. I assume you would not have come here tonight if you hadn’t already learned some things that were useful.”

  “Not that I have seen,” he said honestly, then added, greatly daring, “but then, I have not got the magic that some of you Free Bards do. If I did, perhaps I could actually do something to influence King Theovere.” Now, let me see if that shakes loose an admission of magic from her!

  “Do we?” she retorted sharply. “Well, if I had magic, what do you think I would use it for, if I were in your position?”

  “To get the High King to listen to what I am singing,” he replied, feeling the pain and frustration he felt at seeing the King acting the fool building up in him yet again. “The King still has his moments when he does things that are not only wise but very, very clever. He was a good ruler, and not that long ago—yet now—”

  “Now he delegates all his power to people who abuse it, and wastes his own time with musicians and Deliambren toys,” she finished for him. “I know; I’ve heard all about it from the Palace kitchen. No one there knows why, though; or what caused the change. He hasn’t been ill, he hasn’t had an accident, and there’s no record of this kind of—of loss of mental power running in his family. Is he being drugged, or has he simply been listening to the wrong people for so long that he no longer thinks clearly or pays heed to the warning signs about him?”

  “I don’t know either,” he admitted, deflated. “And if anyone else knows, they haven’t confided in me.”

  Nightingale turned toward him in the darkness and made a little sound—not quite a chuckle, but full of irony. “They wouldn’t now, would they? After all, you are only a lowly musician. One of the very things that the King is frittering away his time with. Why should anyone who wants to restore Theovere to what he was trust you?”

  He felt his talons scraping along the stone of the balustrade as he clenched his fist in frustration. He said nothing, though, and she did not press him.

  “I heard—” she began again tentatively, and he sensed she was going to change the subject. “I heard that you had been traveling with Harperus all this time, that you were somewhere around Gradford last fall at around the time Robin and Kestrel were there, too.”

  Too near the bone! He shied away quickly. “I don’t remember all the places we were,” he lied, knowing the lie sounded clumsy. After all, given how precise his memory was, how could he forget where he had been? “Harperus’ wagon travels faster than beasts can pull it, if he chooses to make it so. We have been too many places to count.”

  “I thought for certain I heard Harperus say the two of you were heading for Gradford when we parted company, though,” she persisted, and he had the feeling that she was trying to probe for something. “Didn’t you even tell me yourself that you were going to meet Robin and Kestrel there?”

  He winced this time, and was glad that it was too dark for her to see it. “I don’t recall,” he lied again. “It’s been a year, at least, after all.”

  “And a great deal has happened between then and now,” she replied, but then she stopped pressing him. “Except, perhaps, to me. I didn’t do very much in the time since you left me; I spent most of the time I passed among humans in very small villages where nothing much ever happens. My audiences are small, my recompense smaller, but it is enough to keep me. That is all the news that I have for you, I fear.”

  It took a moment for that statement to sink in, and when it did, he was astonished. Why would she do that? Look how she fills rooms here, where there are all sorts of entertainers! Why would she choose places where they could never understand what a great musician she truly is?

  “But—” He fumbled for words that would not sound like an insult. “But you are a superb musician! You should be performing in places like Freehold all the time! Why do you spend your time, your talents, among people who can never appreciate them?”

  “Never?” He heard the irony in her voice again. “But one of those people, not that long ago, was our own little Lady Lark. There are hidden treasures in those tiny villages, T’fyrr. Now and again I come upon one with the music-hunger in him, and I wake it up and show him that he does not have to remain where he is and let it starve to death. For that alone, it is worth the days and weeks among people who would not care how well I played, so long as I could play ‘The Huntsman’ twenty or thirty times running.”

  And from the tone of her voice
, that was probably precisely what happened in those tiny villages she claimed to like so much. There must be other reasons—

  “There are other reasons,” she admitted, as if she had read his thoughts. “If some authority has a grudge against Free Bards or Gypsies, I generally know it the moment I set eyes on the people there, and I can keep moving. That is better than thinking that I am safe and suddenly finding an angry Mayor or Priest with a mob come to drive me out of town. And, at any rate, I try not to spend much time actually in those villages. There are other places where I am welcome.”

  Such as with the Elves, perhaps? Hadn’t Harperus said something about that, at a time when he was trying to distract T’fyrr from his depression? He hadn’t been paying as much attention as he wished he had now.

  Something about Nightingale being considered odd, “fey,” he said, even among her own people. That she spent more time among the Elves and other nonhumans than among her own kind. That sounds uncannily like—myself. Is there something that she is trying to avoid, I wonder, even as I? Is that why she spends much time among those who care little about her and much about her music? There was a great deal that she was not saying, and he found himself wondering what it was. She had her secrets too.

  If that was the case, would she understand him and his guilt, as Harperus had not?

  He was tempted to unburden himself, sorely tempted, but resisted the temptation. He really did not want to drag anyone else into his troubles or his dangers. And he did not want to burden her, of all people, with the knowledge of his guilt. She had enough to bear.

  “I suppose I should go,” he said finally, and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She nodded; reluctantly, he thought, but nodded.

  “I have work tomorrow, and so do you,” she said—then hesitated. “I don’t suppose that you might be free tomorrow afternoon, though, would you?”