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

T’fyrr shook his head. “It is easy to feel sorry for him,” he said, thinking back to Theovere and realizing that he had seen signs of strain that he had not noticed at the time. Perhaps even those temper tantrums were a sign of that strain. “It seems like too much of a burden for one man. No one should be expected to bear that much.”

  Nightingale spread her hands in a gesture of bafflement. “There’s no good answer,” she admitted. “There is a reason why the High King has the privileges that he has; why he lives in a place that is second only to the Fortress-City in luxury, why virtually anything he wants is given to him. Since his duties can’t be made easier, his life is made easier. But do you see what our answer might be?”

  T’fyrr thought it all through before he answered. “Theovere was tired; his Advisors told him what he wanted to hear—that he needed to stop working so hard, he needed to rest, he needed to give over some of his responsibility to others. So he followed their advice and found that he liked the new life—and his Advisors only reinforced his feelings when they told him that he was doing the right thing. It probably began with very little things, but by now—by now it has built up to the point that Theovere is actually doing very little in the way of his duty, and the Advisors are still telling him what a wonderful leader he is.”

  Nightingale nodded emphatically as she put her hair up into a complicated twist. “Furthermore, since they are not letting anyone in to speak to him who is likely to tell him something that contradicts what they are saying, he believes that everything is exactly as it was when he was in his prime. He wants to believe that, and the sycophants are only too happy to tell him so.”

  T’fyrr fanned his wings a little in the breath of moving air from the ventilator grille. “It will be difficult to turn that trend around,” he offered diffidently. “I have been trying—I have been inserting songs with a particular theme, that great power demands the acceptance of responsibility, into the performances that the King has asked me to give. But as I told you, I have not seen any evidence that he has paid any more attention to them than to the story ballads or the love songs.”

  Nightingale’s hands stopped moving for a moment. Her eyes took on the expression of someone who is looking deep into her own spirit, and T’fyrr wondered what she was thinking.

  Then, with an abrupt motion, as if she had suddenly made up her mind about something, she put the last twist into her hair and folded her hands on her lap. “T’fyrr, who told you that some of the Free Bards have—magic?” she asked.

  “Harperus,” he replied promptly. “Harperus told me that you have it, in fact. Well, not magic, as such—he told me that many of you have some sort of power that he and his people could not weigh or measure, but that observation would prove existed. He said that you could influence peoples’ minds, among other things. He suspected that you could, well, see into the future. He said that some Deliambrens believe that you can influence events as well as minds, provided that the influence need only be very small. He has real evidence that you can heal people in ways that have nothing to do with medicine as he knows it.”

  She bit her lower lip and looked away from him for the first time. “I am not really supposed to admit to this,” she said finally. “Especially not to someone connected with the Deliambrens.” She looked back at him with a wan smile. “Harperus and his kind are driven mad by things they cannot measure, and if they knew we really did have abilities such as you describe, they would be plaguing us constantly to find out what it is we do and how we do it.”

  T’fyrr nodded but said nothing, only waited quietly for her to continue.

  “There is—there is a power in music properly performed,” she said after another long moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the air in the ventilators and the distant murmur of all the sounds of Freehold below them. “You might call it ‘magic.’ Certainly the Gypsies and the Elves do, and so does the Church, although the Churchmen have no idea how great or little that power really is. I’ll put it to you briefly: some Bards are mages, and—among other things—we can influence the thoughts of others through our music. Some of us can do the other things you described as well, but it is that one particular power that pertains to our situation now. Sometimes, not often, we are powerful enough to make others act against their will. Most of us confine ourselves to very minor acts of—well, it is manipulation, and as such, it could be considered improper. Most of the time, all we do is to enhance our audiences’ ability to appreciate the music.”

  “But you can do more,” T’fyrr stated. He had no doubt that she, personally, could do much more.

  She nodded reluctantly. “This might be a case where doing more is justified. Would you care to add me, and my magic, to your performances for the King? All you need do is bring me in as your accompanist, and I can do the rest. Between the two of us, we may be able to reawaken his sleeping conscience and rouse his slumbering sense of duty. But I won’t lie to you; this is interference in someone’s mind, his thoughts. Before you take me up on this, you need to think about that—and if you would appreciate having something like this done to you, if your situation and his were reversed.”

  Now that she had put it baldly and offered her services, and now that she had admitted that this “magic” was as much a form of manipulation as the overt form that Theovere’s Advisors were doing, the idea wasn’t as attractive as it had been. In point of fact, the notion made him feel rather—shaken up inside.

  Did he want to do this? If he were the King—if he were in Theovere’s place—

  If he were thinking clearly, thinking as his old self, he might. But doesn’t this preclude his thinking clearly? Wouldn’t we be clouding his mind as much as all that bad advice?

  “It is a great power,” Nightingale said softly. “This is why we so seldom use it. It is far too tempting to misuse it.”

  He took a deep breath. “It is also too great an issue to decide on impulse,” he told her firmly. “I need to think about this at length.”

  And I wish there was someone, anyone, who I could ask for advice!

  He was afraid that Nightingale would be annoyed with him for prevaricating after she had taken the great step of not only admitting that she had this power, but offering to help him with it. But she only nodded, as if she had expected him to say something like that.

  “You should see what you can do on your own,” she told him. “You haven’t been doing this for very long; you may be able to stir the King’s conscience without any outside influence. That would be better—for him, and for you—I think.”

  She did understand. “I promise, I will think about this, the morality of it,” he told her, and grimaced. “It may well be that the morality of manipulating one person’s mind to rid him of bad influences is of less moment than the welfare of all the people, human and otherwise, in the Twenty Kingdoms.”

  “There is that,” she agreed. “But I am not the one in the position to make the decision; you are. And I will not make your decisions for you.”

  “But what would you do if you were in my place?” he asked—no, begged.

  She sighed and shook her head. “If I were in your place—I have traveled the roads of several of the kingdoms, and seen some of the worst places in this one. I can see what I think are unpleasant trends that are only going to continue if the High King remains neglectful. I am prejudiced; the people most immediately affected are friends of mine, my own people, and the Free Bards. There are other people who will prosper if things go as I believe they will, and they would certainly not thank us for interfering.” She smiled a little. “This is a long explanation for a short answer, so that you can see why I feel the way I do. In your place, having weighed all the options and outcomes, I would use the magic and see what happened. You may not come to the same conclusion. If you do not, I cannot and will not fault you for it.”

  Silence hung between them for a long time. She broke it first.

  “It may be that by using the magic this way, we are making ourselves in
to worse monsters than even the Church believes us to be. The next time we are tempted, we might not resist. And the time after that, for something purely selfish? We might be able to justify it to ourselves as easily as the King justifies his current neglect. That is the danger.”

  He could see that. Oh, how easily he could see that! “I understand,” he said very softly.

  She rose. “And I must go, to the legitimate uses of my magic,” she said, lightly, although he thought she was covering a heavy heart with her light tone. “You know the way to the roof?”

  “I do,” he replied, and then formed his beak into something like a human smile. “But I have time enough to let you work some of that magic on me, before I go.”

  He thought for a moment that he had startled her, but it might only have been a sudden shadow as she moved. In the next breath, she looked as serene as always.

  “Well, then, shall we go down?” she asked. “I should be happy to include you in the spell.”

  “Perhaps one day, I shall ask you to weave a magic for me alone,” he said playfully, opening the door for her as she picked up her harp to carry it down the stairs.

  Once again, that startled look came over her face, but this time, when she turned to look at him, her expression was not as serene. There was a shadow there, and a hint of speculation.

  “Perhaps you shall,” was all she said. “And—perhaps I shall oblige you.”

  ###

  T’fyrr looked up from his reading as someone rapped on the door to the suite, but he did not rise to answer it. He knew better, now, after several sharp lectures from Nob about the propriety of the King’s Chief Musician answering his own door. Nob answered the summons instead; he spoke briefly with someone there and came back to T’fyrr with a message in his hand.

  “There’s someone to see you, T’fyrr,” he said with a grin. “That Deliambren who dresses like a tailor’s worst nightmare.” He handed the small piece of paper to T’fyrr, who found it was simply a note from Harperus asking if he was free. “Shall I tell the page to bring him up?”

  “Certainly!” T’fyrr replied. “Absolutely!” At the moment he couldn’t think of anyone he wanted to see more.

  Except Nightingale, perhaps—

  He shook the thought away. The one person he dared not think about was Nightingale, not now, not with Harperus around. While she hadn’t exactly sworn him to secrecy about her magic, she had certainly told him in no uncertain terms that she did not want the Deliambrens to know she was in the city. If he thought about Nightingale, he might let that fact slip.

  And she would be justifiably angry with me.

  It was a pity, since Harperus, for all his faults, was the one person he wished he could discuss this “morality of magic” business with. But he couldn’t do that without revealing who would actually be working the magic.

  Well, I will just have to deal with this on my own.

  It had occurred to him, more than once, that this just might be the chance he had hoped for, the act that would expiate his crime of murder. The only question was—which act would be his redemption? The act of using the magic? Or the act of not using the magic? The choice was almost as difficult to deal with as the aftermath of the crime . . .

  “T’fyrr!” Harperus exclaimed, breaking into T’fyrr’s thoughts as Nob let him into the room. “You’re looking well!”

  “Let us say, the High King does not stint his servants,” T’fyrr replied, rising to his feet and clasping Harperus’ hand in his claws. “And you? What mischief have you been up to, Old Owl?”

  “A great deal of mischief,” Harperus replied, but soberly, and switched to Deliambren. “Actually, I am now, officially, and with absolute truth, the appointed Envoy to the High King from the Fortress-City. I am here with a direct request from the Deliambrens for Theovere; we absolutely need his blanket permission for the mapping expedition.”

  So the last attempt at local negotiations broke down. T’fyrr nodded and replied in the same language. “And you need from me?”

  “Advice,” Harperus told him. “We know more about the Advisors than we did—” he glanced at one of the “sculptures” to make his point “—but we still need to know the best time and place to approach Theovere on this.”

  T’fyrr closed his eyes and thought hard. Technically, this was not a problem that the King needed to call a Council about; he knew that much now, from all of his listening. It was also not something that needed to be brought up at official Court. It was, in fact, in the nature of a personal favor, and well within the High King’s purview.

  If, of course, Theovere chose to see it that way.

  “Everyone except the Seneschal is going into Lyonarie in two days, in the afternoon,” he said slowly, returning to the human tongue. “There is some sort of processional—religious, I think. It is apparently important for them to be seen attending, and many of them have made some elaborate arrangements for viewing stands and the distribution of alms and largesse.”

  “In the King’s name, of course,” Harperus said smoothly.

  T’fyrr’s nares twitched. “Of course,” he agreed. “Theovere himself has been advised not to go—it is going to be very hot, and it would require standing in the direct sun for many hours. It has been deemed inadvisable for health reasons. So he, and the Seneschal, will remain at the Palace. I have been asked to perform for him then—but there will be an informal sort of Court at the same time.”

  Harperus’ eyes narrowed. “What sort of Court?” he asked sharply.

  T’fyrr shrugged with elaborate casualness. “Very minor. The presentation of some gifts, the requesting of personal favors, that sort of thing. I would not be performing if it were anything important, but it strikes me that you just might have a gift with you that you meant to present to Theovere.”

  “I just might.” Harperus smiled and stroked the hair on his cheekbones. “I know how much he enjoys our little gifts.”

  Too much, T’fyrr thought a little sourly, but he didn’t say that aloud. “He does indeed, and that would be a good time to give him such a gift, without disturbing those members of his Court who don’t approve of Deliambren craftwork.”

  “True enough.” Harperus suddenly stretched, and all of the tension ran out of him like water from a broken jug. He glanced around, looking for a piece of purely human furniture, and threw himself into a chair with casual abandon.

  “So, old bird,” he said cheerfully. “What have you been up to?”

  “More than you would guess,” T’fyrr replied with perfect truth. “For one thing, I have visited that fabulous Freehold place that you recommended . . .”

  ###

  Two days later, T’fyrr was unsurprised to hear Harperus’ name announced during his performance at the informal Court. Theovere had been playing a game of Sires and Barons with the Lord Seneschal, but he readily abandoned it as Harperus came into the Lesser Throne Room, holding a small package in his hand. T’fyrr brought the song he was singing to a polite close, so that the King would not be distracted by the music.

  And if Nightingale were here, we would be singing instead of staying silent.

  “Harperus!” Theovere said. “What brings you back here so soon?” His delight at seeing the Deliambren was obvious—in fact, T’fyrr didn’t think he even noticed that Harperus was carrying a package.

  “Two things, Theovere,” Harperus said genially. “This, for one.” He handed the package to one of the bodyguards to open. “One of my people came up with a rather delightful little star projector—ah, you simply put it in a dark room, and it will mimic the patterns of the night stars on the ceiling and walls. Very soothing to look at; orient it to the north and it will follow the stars in all the changes of the seasons. Build a room shaped like a dome, and it will mimic the sky perfectly.”

  “Really?” Theovere took the lumpy little device from the guard and examined it with interest. “Why, you wouldn’t have to go outside to cast a horoscope, would you?”

  Harp
erus had the grace not to wince; the Deliambrens were usually very vocal in their scorn for astrology and astrologers. “No,” he agreed. “You wouldn’t. The purpose is mainly entertainment, though.”

  “Well, it’s a delightful gift,” Theovere told him with a real smile. “Now, what is the other reason? I have to assume that since you brought a gift, you’re going to ask a favor. Everyone else does it that way.”

  T’fyrr winced. That was a little too cynical, even for Theovere.

  But Harperus only laughed. “Now who am I to go against the trend? Yes, we do need a favor, but it’s a minor one. It won’t cost you or anyone else a clipped copper, and it’s mainly just to take care of some rather stubborn folk who think we’re demon spawn.”

  Theovere sat back in his chair, wearing a widening grin. “Oh, I know the type you’re talking about. So what is this favor?”

  “We need your blanket permission to cross the Twenty Kingdoms with a rather large vehicle,” Harperus told him. “We’re going to map all of this continent of Alanda. Accurately. We’ll supply you and any other government with maps of your own territories, of course—they’ll be detailed down to the nearest furlong. We can do maps more detailed than that, but they’d fill a room this size if we gave you maps of all of the kingdoms.”

  Theovere looked thoughtful at that. “We might need something that detailed,” he said finally. “You ought to have some copies made up for the archives here if nothing else.” Then he grinned again. “Oh, I know why those old goats don’t want you crossing their kingdoms, and it has nothing to do with what you Deliambrens and your machines are or are not.”

  “It doesn’t?” Harperus raised both his eyebrows in feigned surprise.

  As if you didn’t know the reason, too, Old Owl. It occurred to T’fyrr that Theovere’s cynicism was contagious.

  “Of course not!” Theovere glanced at his Seneschal for confirmation. “They know that once I have accurate maps, I’m likely to find out they’ve been adding to their territory an inch or two at a time for years! And, of course, once I have maps like that, I have to send my personal surveyors out to make certain that the borders are marked correctly. Don’t I?”