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

  Nightingale sat down gracefully. “Now,” she said sweetly. “About that protection?”

  T’fyrr smiled. “For both of us,” he added, coming to stand behind her and putting both his taloned hands on her shoulders.

  Tyladen just sat and stared at them both.

  ###

  They returned to the Palace with a double Mintak guard; twins, or so it was said. They certainly looked like twins, insofar as a human could tell. Since this pair had been known to break up fights with their bare hands and now were armed with very impressive axes in their belts, Nightingale doubted that there would be any more ambushes today.

  In fact, their path was remarkably clear of interference. Even peddlers found reasons to take their pushcarts out of the way.

  As they walked steadily toward the Palace, her street-children slipped up to her one and two at a time, pretending to beg, but in actuality making certain that she was all right and gleefully recounting their own parts in the melee. It made her a little sick to realize that they had seen it as normal, quite in keeping with life on the streets. Perhaps a bit more fun than most of the violent situations they witnessed or were a part of in the course of a month or so. She slipped each of them an extra couple of pennies for diligence and quick thinking; she would have given them more, but that would leave all of them open to robbery or worse. No street-urchin dared carry more than a couple of pennies on his person, and very few of them had a safe place to cache money.

  I can give them more, later. I can double their “wages.” I can see to it that they can come to the kitchen door of Freehold and be fed, and have it taken out of my wages.

  When they neared the Palace, T’fyrr took off into the air, much to the astonishment of the passers-by, leaving Nightingale to go on to the Bronze Gate with her double Mintak guard flanking her. Their presence raised an eyebrow from the gate guard, but one of the Mintaks grunted and said to him, “Been some trouble for Freeholders. People roughing up folks as works for us, callin’ ’em Fuzzy-lovers. Boss wants his investment protected.”

  The gate guard nodded at that and waved her through; the inexplicable had been explained in terms he could understand. Nightingale passed inside and the two Mintaks went back across the street, took up a station in a nearby cafe that catered to the servants of those who came and went through the Bronze Gate, and set out a tiny portable Sires and Barons game between them. They would be there when she came out again, and they might even hear or be told something useful while they were there.

  Now all she had to worry about were the dangers inside the Palace. About which I can do nothing. Hopefully, Tyladen or Harperus has something that can protect me.

  T’fyrr landed beside her in a flurry of wing feathers, as she traversed the stone-paved path between two regimented beds of fragrant flowers. With her practiced eye, she knew by his careful landing that he was still in some pain; his wingbeats were not as deep, and he landed on both feet, rather than one.

  The flowers in these formal gardens weren’t anything she recognized, but then, the High King’s gardeners had access to flowers found nowhere else inside the Twenty Kingdoms, and their breeding programs could make even familiar blooms unrecognizable. She allowed herself to be distracted from her concerns for a moment by their beauty and their perfume, but she couldn’t be distracted for long.

  Among the major concerns, there were some minor ones. Nothing that really mattered in either the long or the short run, but somehow they nagged at her.

  One was strictly personal, and a cause for some embarrassment. Would there be gossip about them? It was certainly possible. It would be the second time that T’fyrr had remained out of the Palace all night, and both times (if anyone was keeping track) he had been at Freehold, in her room. She found herself blushing at the notion of what people might be thinking, which rather surprised her. After all, hadn’t she been willing to move into his suite and live there?

  But that was different . . .

  Oh, certainly. With a preadolescent boy to act as chaperon, it was different. Indeed. She blushed even more.

  This is ridiculous! I’m a Gypsy, a Free Bard; people have been saying things about me for as long as I’ve been alive, and I didn’t care! I laughed at them!

  She managed to get her blushes under control before they reached their goal, by dint of much self-scolding. Which, in itself, was ridiculous . . .

  But when they arrived at the Palace itself and entered the huge, self-opening doors, they found the place as chaotic as an overturned beehive.

  The great hall at the main doors was full of courtiers and servants and everyone in between, all of them chattering, and all of them upset. People of all stations were standing together in tight little groups, rigid with apprehension, or rushing about—apparently with no clear destination in mind. Pages ran hither and yon on urgent errands, their eyes wide and faces pale. All that Nightingale could pick up was fear; fear and excitement, and all that those emotions engendered.

  What’s been happening? She and T’fyrr stood just inside the door, and no one noticed them, which in itself was nothing short of astonishing.

  T’fyrr solved the entire question by reaching out and intercepting one of the page boys as he ran past. The boy felt the talons close on his shoulder and stopped dead, with a little squeak of surprise.

  “What is going on here?” T’fyrr rumbled down at his captive. “What has happened since yesterday? Why is there all this commotion?”

  The page stared at him with wide blue eyes and stuffed his fist into his mouth as he blinked up at them. He wasn’t very old, no more than seven or eight—and very sheltered. One of Nightingale’s street-urchins would have replied already and been well on his way. T’fyrr waited patiently. Finally the boy got up enough courage to speak.

  “It’s the D-Deliambren, S-sire!” he stammered, then seemed to get stuck, staring up into the Haspur’s raptorial eyes exactly like a mouse waiting for the hawk to strike.

  “What about the Deliambren?” T’fyrr asked with a little less patience. “I haven’t been here, I’ve just come in. What about the Deliambren?”

  “H-he’s—he’s been attacked!” the boy blurted. “He’s hurt, they say badly, they say someone tried to kill him!” Then as T’fyrr’s grip loosened with shock, the page pulled away and ran off again.

  T’fyrr’s shock didn’t last past that moment; he knew where Harperus’ suite was, and may the Lady help anyone who got between him and his destination. He headed off in that direction with a purposeful stride that Nightingale had to match by running. Her mind flitted from thought to thought, infected a little by all the fear around her. Attacked? By who? Is he really hurt badly? Is he—oh Dear Lady, not dead, surely! The idea of Old Owl dead—no, it was not to be thought of, surely not he, not with all of his Deliambren devices to protect him? He had outlived her grandfather with no sign of old age, how could he be dead?

  But how could he have been attacked? How could anyone have gotten in to him, past his devices, to attack him?

  They ran past rank after rank of statuary, taking the quickest path to the Deliambren suite. Past animals, past famous generals, past mermaids—up the stairs to the fourth floor and past guildsmen, past famous Bards, past farmers—oh dear, there is one with his favorite piggy at his feet! she thought distractedly—past the Allies of the Twenty Kingdoms—

  And there was the door to Harperus’ suite, now guarded by a pair of the King’s personal bodyguards, who let T’fyrr and herself past without so much as a challenge. T’fyrr flung himself inside immediately. But she stopped at the door and caught the attention of one of the guards, one she thought she recognized from the King’s suite. “What happened?’ she asked shortly . . . He looked down into her eyes, his own as flat and expressionless as blued steel. Finally he opened his thin, grim lips and answered.

  “Someone broke in here last night while Envoy Harperus was with the High King. They—there was more than one—were ransacking the suite when the Envoy came in and
found them still there. His devices had stunned and captured one of them, and the others were trying to get him free. When the Envoy surprised them, they clubbed him and fled. The Envoy is still unconscious. The High King has put his own personal servants in place here, since the Envoy’s assigned servants have disappeared and might even have been in collusion with his attackers.”

  “We have the one the device caught in custody,” the other guard said at last. “The Envoy regained consciousness long enough to tell us what had happened, how to free the man, and to ask for Sire T’fyrr, and then collapsed again.”

  She might have thought she was imagining a faint tone of disapproval that T’fyrr had not been here when Harperus asked for him, except that she sensed the disapproval as well as heard it. She simply nodded with dignity, and said, “Sire T’fyrr and I were attacked by nine armed men in the city last night. We were some time in being tended to and unable to send word to the Palace. It seems that someone would like to harm the High King’s foreign allies.”

  Then she passed on through the doors into the Deliambren suite, knowing that the bodyguards were far more than mere soldiers, and knowing that what she had just said would be recounted, with exact tone and inflection, to the High King’s Spymaster. And whether that mysterious gentleman served Theovere only, or served some of the Advisors as well, there would be no doubt that she and T’fyrr were well aware of what their attackers were, if not who.

  It was a risk to reveal that, but it was an equal risk to seem unaware of their situation. Perhaps this would make their enemy a bit more wary.

  But for right now, she was grimly certain that Harperus had better have someone at his side who was his friend, guarding him. The King’s bodyguards might help so long as whoever was after Harperus tried to pass the doors, but they wouldn’t be of much help if an attacker were one of the King’s servants, or came in by some other means.

  The suite didn’t look a great deal different from theirs, except in one small detail. Harperus had none of the “Deliambren sculptures” around the suite. That might explain why Tyladen didn’t know about the attack.

  Yet.

  Nightingale passed through the reception room and into Harperus’ bedroom, where there were two more guards at the door. T’fyrr had already settled at Harperus’ bedside, displacing a servant; Nightingale bit her lip, then reached out to touch the Deliambren’s bruised brow and hummed a fragment of the healing chant under her breath.

  But she emerged almost immediately from her brief trance with a feeling of profound relief. “He’ll be all right,” she told T’fyrr, whose tense shoulders and twitching tail signaled his own worry and fear. “He’s healing himself; he doesn’t even need me to do anything. That is why he went unconscious again. He has a concussion, but when he wakes, it will have been taken care of. I’m going to your suite to get something; I’ll be right back.”

  T’fyrr started up at that, and she knew what must be in his mind. “If anyone got into your suite last night, it won’t matter,” she pointed out. “Whoever was behind this was probably behind the attack on us, and he knows where we were. After Harperus was attacked, the King’s men probably checked all the suites to make sure no one else was hurt, so even if the attackers got into yours, Nob is surely all right.”

  He sank back down on his stool, and nodded. “Nob is all that I care about,” he said, a bit hoarsely. “Anything else can be replaced, and most of it is not mine, anyway. Things can be restored; people cannot.”

  She hurried out, running as soon as she reached the hallways, picking up her skirts like a child so that she could run the faster.

  Despite what she had told him to reassure him—thank the Lady we can’t read thoughts!—she was by no means sure that she would find either the suite or Nob intact. In the excitement, the guards might not have thought to check. Nob could be lying with his skull cracked in the bathroom of the suite or in his own room even now.

  But as she pushed the door open, Nob came flying out of the bedroom with a cry of relief to see her, and the room seemed intact.

  “T’fyrr is all right,” she said, and gave him the short version of the attack in the streets—and then, for the benefit of Tyladen’s listening devices, a short story of the attack on Harperus. Nob had known that there had been an attack on someone, for guards had come checking the other suites as she had suspected they might, but he had known nothing more than that one of the envoys had been hurt. He hadn’t known which one, and he’d been afraid to leave the suite to find out. He hadn’t known what to do; his training in etiquette hadn’t covered this sort of situation, and he was afraid to act without orders.

  But now that T’fyrr was back he had someone to give him orders, which put his world back in place again. Nightingale gave him the first of those orders, on behalf of his master.

  “Have someone bring T’fyrr his breakfast in Harperus’ suite,” she said, “then you bring him fresh clothing. He’ll want you to stand guard over Harperus while he uses the envoy’s bathroom. He still hasn’t had much of a chance to get completely clean after those bravos attacked us.”

  Nob nodded; his eyes were full of questions, but he was too well-trained to ask them. Nightingale was not going to say anything; it wasn’t her place. Whatever T’fyrr wanted him to know, T’fyrr would tell him.

  “I will perform for the High King, as usual,” she told the boy. “We will hope he will find me a satisfactory substitute. I’ll be going there as soon as I get my harp in tune.”

  As soon as Nob was out of the room, she locked the door and gave a much more detailed accounting of everything for the sake of the listening devices.

  “That is all we know now,” she said. “I presume we will find out more when Harperus awakens. In the meantime—”

  She stopped herself; after all, what could she suggest that was of any real value? “In the meantime, I will substitute for T’fyrr with the High King, unless I receive orders from the King to the contrary. I will not be back to Freehold for the next day or so.”

  As she took her harp in its case off her back—she was so used to the weight that she hadn’t really noticed it, even when she’d run to the suite—she tried to calm herself. She would not be able to call the Magic if she was too tense to hear its melody above her own.

  The trouble was that this second attack pointed all too clearly to an enemy within the highest ranks, an enemy who had at least some inkling that she, Harperus, and T’fyrr were all working together, presumably to bring about changes in the King that this enemy did not want to see occur.

  And depending on how high that enemy was—

  We are already marked. We could be doomed.

  And with that cheerful thought in mind, she passed out of the doors and into the hall, walking swiftly on her way to entertain the King.

  ###

  She and T’fyrr sat beside Harperus turn and turn about; sometimes they practiced their music, softly, but without the addition of the Magic. Their only connection to the world outside the suite was Nob. She worried, briefly, about the Mintaks she had left. Presumably someone from Freehold would send for the twins—

  But in case Tyladen didn’t think of it, she finally sent Nob down to the Bronze Gate with a note for them, letting them know what had happened and that she would not be coming out today. If they were thorough, they would probably wait to see if this was a ruse, and when she didn’t show up, return to Freehold on their own. Tyladen could confirm her note to them then. At any rate, they would have passed a fairly pleasant morning and afternoon in congenial surroundings paid for by Tyladen.

  There were other things she would like to see him pay for, but she was unlikely to see that happen in her lifetime.

  Damned Deliambrens, interfering in our lives and playing at games with us, never thinking there might be any real danger involved—after all, we’re all backward barbarians, and how could we be a danger to anyone . . .

  Then the two of them watched over their friend with care and concern, thinking
no more of the outside world, until the outside world intruded on them, in the form of the King’s Physician.

  He did not deign to explain himself to them, nor did he pay any particular attention to them. He simply breezed past the guards and into Harperus’ bedchamber, ignoring them both. While this was rude, it was not entirely unexpected, at least to Nightingale. While T’fyrr theoretically outranked a mere physician, it was only in theory, and there wasn’t much T’fyrr could do if this man chose to ignore his rank and even his presence just because he was not human.

  But the moment he ceased doing a simple physical examination and opened up the bag of instruments he brought, he found T’fyrr’s talons clamped around his wrist.

  He had reached out so quickly that Nightingale did not even see him move, only that his talons were suddenly locked around the physician’s wrist.

  He told me once that a Haspur can kill a deer with his hands, and a buffalo with his feet. I hope this physician cooperates. He will find it difficult to practice medicine with a broken wrist.

  “What do you think you are doing?” the Haspur snarled, his beak parted in threat.

  Startled, the human glanced around for help from the guards. But the guards were not disposed to interfere, at least not yet. T’fyrr hadn’t done anything contrary to their orders, and Nightingale doubted that they had any idea just how much pressure those hand-claws could exert.

  And if they did, they still might not interfere.

  The man made an abortive move to free his wrist and discovered just how strong a Haspur’s grip was. Nightingale stayed out of the way and in the background. The less she drew attention to herself, the better. Too many people already had her marked as it was; she didn’t need to add the physician to the list.

  Finally the man decided that answering was better than standing there with his wrist in the grip of a giant predator—although he tried to look as important as possible. That was a bit difficult, given that he was also wincing from the pain of T’fyrr’s grip.