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

  “Normally the King does not need me in the afternoon,” he said cautiously. “And at the moment, I believe I have learned all that I am likely to for a while from the Afternoon Court. Why?”

  “Because I’d like to guide you in the city to give you some idea what places are safe for you,” she replied unexpectedly. “And there is someone I would like you to meet. Well, more than one person, actually, but there is one person I particularly want you to meet, someone I think will surprise you very pleasantly. I know he would like to meet you. If you’d like to come along with me, that is.”

  He struggled with his misgivings for some time before answering. He was so lonely—he hadn’t realized just how lonely he was until tonight, but the few hours spent with Nightingale had forced him to see just how much he needed a real friend. Not someone like the Lord Seneschal, nor like Nob. The former was using him, and T’fyrr was using the Seneschal, and both were aware and comfortable with the arrangement. The latter was a child, and no real companion or equal. But Nightingale was different, even among all of the people he had met since leaving the mountains. She was comfortable with him; when he was with her, sometimes he turned to her and blinked to see that she did not have a beak and feathers. The only humans that comfortable among the Haspur were the ones who lived among them, sharing their mountaintop settlements and their lives. In a way, those people were as much Haspur as human.

  “I—I think I would enjoy that,” he said finally, letting his hunger for companionship overcome his misgivings. “Shall I meet you here, on the roof?”

  “Perfect,” she said. “Just after noon. Now, you’d better go, while the moon is still up.”

  He nodded—then, impulsively, reached out with a gentle talon and touched her cheek. She placed her own hand on the talon, and brushed her cheek and hair along the back of his hand in a caress of her own.

  Then she released him—and afraid of doing or saying anything else that might release his pent-up emotions, he turned away from her abruptly.

  Without stopping to make a more protracted farewell, he leapt to the top of the balustrade and flung himself over the edge of the roof, snapping his wings open and catching the rising current of warm air coming from the pavement below. In a moment, he was too far from Freehold to see if she was still there watching him.

  But he sensed her, felt her eyes somehow finding him in the darkness, as he winged his way back to the Palace. And he wished that he could turn and fly back to her.

  ###

  In deference to Nightingale—

  Tanager, he reminded himself. On the street, she is Tanager.

  —in deference to Tanager they were afoot, but this section of the city was not as crowded as the streets around Freehold, and as before, crowds seemed to part before them, anyway. It was hot; he held his wings away from his body in a futile effort to cool himself, and his beak gaped a bit as he panted. Tanager looked comfortable enough, although there were beads of moisture on her brow and running down the back of her neck. She wasn’t wearing much by human standards, although her costume revealed less than that of some of the humans he’d seen in the Palace.

  Many of the people here were wearing similar clothing, anyway. Perhaps in deference to the heat, they had foregone some of that silly human body modesty. He would have been more comfortable doing without his body-wrapping, but Nob had advised against such a move.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, dodging around a child playing in the middle of the walkway, oblivious to the foot traffic around her.

  “I told you, I want you to meet someone, but first I want you to hear him speak,” she said as she threaded her way along the narrow, stone-paved streets, slipping skillfully between pushcarts and around knots of playing children. “You’ll understand why I want you to meet him once you’ve heard him.”

  At that moment, she darted across the street with him in tow and trotted up the worn steps of a fairly nondescript grey stone building. It wasn’t until they were almost inside the door that he suddenly realized the building had a steeple—it was, in fact, a Church building, a Chapel, as they called them here.

  He started to balk, but changed his mind just as abruptly as Tanager slipped inside the open door. I have heard her express fear of Church Priests. I have seen the trouble that some of these men have caused her people as well as me. She would not bring me here if she did not have a very good reason. Was this the place where she intended to have him meet that special person she had spoken of last night?

  Could it—could it be her lover?

  For some reason, his chest tightened at that thought, and he wanted, passionately, for that person to be anything, anyone, but a lover.

  Be sensible. She said nothing about a lover. And why would she meet a lover in a Church building?

  He followed her, noting with relief that it was much cooler inside the building than it was in the street. She seized his hand as they entered the sanctuary itself, gestured that he should be silent, and pulled him into a secluded nook at the rear of the sanctuary. They stood beneath the statue of a kind-faced, grieving man, out of the way, where his wings would be lost among the shadows.

  The Chapel was relatively full for a mid-afternoon service, and the first thing that T’fyrr noticed was that not all of the people here were human. There were at least two Mintaks, and he noted a Felis, a Camden, an entire family of Caprins—heads too oddly shaped to ever pass as human poked up among the caps, hoods and uncovered hair of the human attendees.

  Nor did the humans seem to care!

  He quickly turned his attention to the Priest presiding from the pulpit—for the Priest of such a congregation must be as remarkable as the congregation itself.

  He was a middle-aged man, if T’fyrr was any judge. The hair of his head had thick strands of grey in it, and the hair of his beard boasted the same. He was neither short nor tall, and his build was not particularly memorable. His square face had the same kindly look to it as that of the statue they sheltered under, and his voice, though soft, was powerful, with pleasant resonances.

  But it was his words that caught and held T’fyrr, just as they held everyone else here.

  Perhaps not the words themselves, for it was evident that the Priest was no writer of superb speeches as Bishop Padrik had been. But the content of the sermon was something that T’fyrr had never expected to hear from the lips of a human Priest.

  For this Priest, standing before humans, in a Chapel built by humans, was preaching the brotherhood of all beings, and citing examples of the “humanity” of nonhumans to prove his point.

  T’fyrr’s beak gaped open again, and not because he was overheated.

  The more the Priest spoke, the more confused T’fyrr became. Bishop Padrik had used his Church’s Holy Book to prove that any creature not wearing human form was evil. This Priest used the same Book—almost the same words!—to prove the very opposite.

  He was sincere; T’fyrr could not doubt it. He was devout; there was no doubt of that, either. But he was saying, and clearly believed, the very opposite of what the High Bishop of Gradford swore was true.

  How could this be?

  He was still gaping in surprise when the Priest finished the service, and the congregation happily filed out, leaving the Chapel empty but for the Priest himself and the two of them. The Priest turned to the altar, putting away the implements of the service and cleaning it for the next service. Tanager remained where she was, and T’fyrr stayed with her.

  “You can come out, now, Tanager,” said the Priest over his shoulder as he folded and put away a spotless white altar cloth. “And your friend, too. I’m glad you came.”

  Tanager laughed—her laugh had a different sound than Nightingale’s laugh; it was lighter, and somehow seemed to belong to a younger person.

  T’fyrr could only marvel at her ability to assume or discard a persona with a change of the costume.

  “I persuaded my friend to come here to meet you, but he didn’t know he was coming to a Church s
ervice, Father Ruthvere,” she said banteringly. “I haven’t had a chance to ask him if he was bored or not.”

  The Priest put the last of the implements away and turned, stepping off the dais and descending into the main body of the Chapel. “I hope he wasn’t, my dear child,” Father Ruthvere said, chuckling, “but I make no claims for my ability as a speaker. I never won any prizes in rhetoric.”

  As he moved forward, so did they; and as T’fyrr came out of the shadows, Father Ruthvere’s eyes widened and then narrowed with speculation.

  “There can’t be more than one bird-man in this city,” he began with hesitation in his voice. “But I have to wonder what this gentleman is doing here, rather than on the Palace grounds.”

  T’fyrr glanced down at Tanager, who nodded encouragingly.

  “I am the only Haspur in all of this kingdom that I know of, sir,” he replied gravely. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Father Ruthvere. I can assure you, you did not bore me.”

  “Coming from the High King’s newly appointed Personal Musician, that is quite more praise than I deserve,” Father Ruthvere responded just as gravely. “I hope you know that I meant every word, and I am not the only Priest in this city who feels this way.” He held out his hand, and T’fyrr took it awkwardly. “I should be very pleased if you might consider me a friend, Sire T’fyrr,” the Priest continued, then twinkled up at him. “I think, though, despite the message of my sermons, it might be a bit much for me to ask you to consider me as your brother!”

  That surprised a laugh out of T’fyrr. “Perhaps,” he agreed, and cocked his head to one side. He decided to try a joke. “If I were to present you as such, my people would be much distressed that you had feather-plucked yourself to such a dreadful extent.”

  Father Ruthvere laughed heartily. “That is a better joke than you know, Sire T’fyrr. I have a pet bird that unfortunately has that very bad habit—and my colleagues have been unkind enough to suggest that there is some resemblance between us!”

  Tanager smiled; she was clearly quite pleased that T’fyrr and the Priest had hit it off so well. For that matter, so was T’fyrr.

  They exchanged a few more pleasantries before T’fyrr and Tanager took their leave; the Priest hurried off to some unspecified duty, while they left the way they had arrived.

  “Surprised?” Tanager asked when they reached the street again. “I was, the first time I heard him. And he’s telling the truth; he’s not the only Priest preaching the brotherhood of all beings. He’s just the one with the Chapel nearest Freehold. It is a movement that seems to be gaining followers.”

  “I am trying to think of some ulterior motive for him, and I cannot,” T’fyrr admitted. “Perhaps attendance falling off, perhaps a gain in prestige if he somehow converted nonhumans to your religion.”

  “Neither, and there’re more problems associated with attracting nonhumans than there are rewards,” Tanager told him. “As I told you, I was just as surprised, and I tried to think of some way that this could be a trick. I couldn’t—and information I have assures me that Father Ruthvere truly, deeply and sincerely believes in what he was preaching.”

  T’fyrr picked his way carefully among the cobblestones and thought about the way that the Priest had met his own direct gaze. It was very difficult for humans to meet the eyes of a Haspur, for very long. Just as the gaze of a hawk, direct and penetrating, often seemed to startle people, the gaze of a Haspur with all of the intelligence of a Haspur behind it, seemed to intimidate them. Father Ruthvere had no such troubles.

  “No, I believe you,” he said finally. “And I find him as disconcerting as you humans find me.”

  “He is one of my sources of information,” she said as they turned into a street lined with vendors of various foods and drink. “We share what we’ve learned; he tells me what’s going on inside the Church, and I tell him the rumors I’ve learned in Freehold and in the Palace kitchen.”

  T’fyrr nodded; she had already told him about her clever ploy that got her into the Lower Servants’ Kitchen every day. “Well, I can add to that what I learn,” he said, “though I am afraid it will be stale news to him.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe; maybe not. Oh—look down that street. That might be a good place for you to go if you’re caught afoot and need to get into the air—”

  She pointed down a dead-end street that culminated in a bulb-shaped courtyard. Unlike the rest of the street, there were no overhanging second stories there. He nodded and made a mental note of the place.

  She continued to guide him through the narrow, twisting streets, pointing out flat roofs and protruding brickwork where he could land, then climb down to the street—finding places where he could get enough of a running start that he could take off again. And all the while she was showing him these things, she was also questioning him . . .

  She was so subtle and so good at it that he didn’t really notice what she was doing until he found himself clamping his beak down on a confession of what had happened to him in Gradford. It was only the fact that he made a habit of reticence that saved him. The words tried to escape from him, he put a curb on his tongue, and still his heart wanted to unburden all of his troubles to her.

  So he distracted both her and himself with a description of what the High King had done that day. Or, more accurately, what the High King had not done, and how troubled he was by it all.

  “There is something fundamentally wrong with the way Theovere is acting,” he said finally. “My people have no equivalent to his office, but—if you allow yourself to take advantage of great privilege and great power, should you not feel guilty if you do not also accept what obligations come with it? Should that not be required, in order to enjoy the privilege?”

  Tanager sighed. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” she replied. “I know that I would feel that way.”

  “The King’s Advisors do not,” he told her. “They continue to tell him that the most important thing that a King must learn is how to delegate responsibility. They praise him for shirking his most important tasks, for ignoring the pleas of those who have nowhere else to take their grievances and concerns. I do not understand.”

  Tanager looked very thoughtful at that—and more like Nightingale than she had since they had begun their tour of the streets. “I think that perhaps I do,” she finally said. “Let’s go back to Freehold. I want to talk about this somewhere I know is safe from extra ears.”

  ###

  That place—somewhere safe from extra ears—turned out to be her own room in Freehold, supplied as part of her wages. T’fyrr examined it while she took a change of outfit into the bathroom and turned from Tanager to Lyrebird.

  There probably had not been much supplied with the room other than the furniture—and it was, unmistakably, the Deliambren notion of “spare.” But Nightingale had put her own touches on the place: the bench and bed were covered with dozens of delicately embroidered and fringed shawls, and there were extra cushions on both. The walls had been draped with more shawls, and she had hung a small collection of jewelry on hooks fastened there, as well. Her harps sat in one corner, out of the way, and a hand-drum hung on the wall above them.

  “I’d begun to wonder about something lately,” Nightingale told him, her voice muffled a little by the closed door. “And what you just told me confirmed it.”

  She emerged, gowned in the dark green dress she had taken in with her, and settled herself on the chest, leaving the bed to him. “Humans are odd creatures,” she said finally. “We often go out of our way to justify things that we want to do, and do it so successfully that we come to believe the justifications ourselves.”

  He nodded, waiting to hear more.

  “Take King Theovere,” she said after a pause. “He was working hard, very hard. He was certainly one of the best High Kings that Alanda has seen for a while. And he solved four of the most terrible problems the Twenty Kingdoms have seen, all in a very short period of time.” She held up a finger. “The Bayden
-Anders border dispute.” A second finger. “The Grain Smut and the resulting famine.” A third finger. “The Kindgode incursion.” And the fourth and final finger. “The Black Baron’s Revolt. All four of those took place within a single decade. Any one of them would have been enough for a single High King to fail at or solve.”

  T’fyrr nodded, although he hadn’t heard anything about three out of the four problems she mentioned—but then again, he had just begun to scrape the top of the Palace archives, and he didn’t imagine there was much about a grain smut that would make a good ballad. “Your point?” he asked.

  “Theovere would have every reason to be tired, bone tired, by the end of that time. And when his Advisors began to tell him that he had done enough, that he should rest, that he deserved to take a rest, he listened to them.” She tilted her head to one side and stared up into his eyes, waiting for him to think about what she had said.

  “But he did deserve to take a rest—” T’fyrr pointed out. “At least, he deserved some rest, if those problems were as weighty to solve as you say.”

  “Of course he did!” she exclaimed. “I’m not saying that he didn’t—but the point wasn’t that he didn’t deserve to rest, the point is that he couldn’t rest.” She licked her lips, clearly searching for an explanation. “He is the High King; he could and probably should have reorganized his duties so that he had some time to recuperate, but he could not abandon his duties! Do you see what I’m saying?”

  “I think so—” T’fyrr said hesitantly. “There really isn’t anyone who can do what he can, who can be the ultimate authority. So when his Advisors started telling him to rest, to delegate important business to someone else—”

  “They were telling him what he wanted to hear, but not the truth,” she finished for him, when he groped for words. “He could arrange to take more time in solving those problems that won’t get worse with time. He can ask for help from any of the Twenty Kings. He can look to his allies for some help. He cannot tell someone else to solve them for him.”