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

  Other rumors were wilder, less believable, yet some people believed them: that the nonhumans had a new religion that required each new initiate to sacrifice a human child and eat it; that they were spreading diseases deliberately among the humans to weaken or kill them, softening up Lyonarie for future conquest; that the Deliambrens were going to bring in a huge, invulnerable, flying ship and from it lay waste to the Twenty Kingdoms, turning each of the kingdoms over to a specific nonhuman race and making the humans into slaves.

  As if we’d want humans as slaves. They’d make poor slaves; not as strong as a Mintak, not as versatile as a Jrrad, not as obedient as a Fenboi. They are too self-determined, strong-willed and clever to be slaves. The spirit that makes them poor slaves is what makes them good friends.

  T’fyrr reached the top of his arc, turned, and plunged downward again, his goal a tiny speck among the rest of the rooftops below him. Wind rushed past his face, tore at his feathers, thundered in his ears; he brought the nictating membranes over his eyes to protect them. At this speed, striking a gnat or a speck of dust could bring much pain and temporary blindness.

  That last rumor was interesting, since it had just enough truth to supply a seed for the falsehood. The Deliambrens were bringing in a huge flying ship; the platform from which they were doing their intensive survey. It wasn’t armed, couldn’t be armed, in fact, nor was it invulnerable. It leaked air like a sieve, and couldn’t go much higher than treetop level. But it did exist, and to the ignorant, it must look frightening enough. It was certainly larger than most villages and many small towns, and the vast array of nonhumans swarming over it might be taken for an army. The strange surveying instruments often looked like weapons, and the engines that bore it up in the air did sometimes flatten things below. That was one of the reasons for getting the High King’s blanket permission to mount the expedition; to keep people from panicking at the sight of it, thinking it was a military operation.

  As for turning humans into nonhuman slaves, now that was a clever twisting of the truth, since that was precisely what some of the humans were trying to do to the nonhumans in their midst.

  The Law of Degree would do that very nicely.

  The rooftop of Freehold rushed up toward him, filling his vision; he flared his wings at the last possible moment, and the air wrenched them open as if they’d been grabbed by a giant and pulled apart. He flipped forward in midair, extending his legs toward the rooftop as he flared his tail as an additional brake. His feet touched the surface; he collapsed his wings and dropped down into a protective crouch, glaring all around him for possible enemies.

  As usual, there weren’t any. As usual, he was not willing to take the chance that there might be some.

  Neither was Nightingale. She slipped out of the shelter of one of the cowlings covering some of Freehold’s enormous machines, but stayed within reach of other such machinery as she joined him.

  But for one transcendent moment, all caution and fear was cast aside as they embraced.

  As always.

  Ah, my bright love, my singing bird, my winged heart—She could not hear the endearments he whispered to her in his mind, but he knew she certainly felt the emotion that came with them. Whatever happened, they had this between them—a joy he had never expected to find. If tomorrow a hunter’s arrow found him, he would go to the winds with a prayer of thanks for having had this much.

  “Anything new?” he asked into the sweet darkness of her hair.

  “More of the same,” she replied into his breast feathers. “I’ll tell you inside.”

  They sprinted for the door to the roof, hand in hand, but ducking to remain out of the line of sight of possible snipers. Once they were safely on the staircase, she sighed and gave him the news.

  “Outright sabotage, this time,” she said. “Three incidents, all uncovered this morning. Someone burned down a Lashan-owned bakery; the printing presses at Kalian Bindery were smashed, the page proofs and manuscripts there were burned, and the type cases overturned all over the floor. And the furnaces at the new Ursi glassworks were—just blown up. They say that no more than two bricks out of every five will be salvageable.”

  “How?” T’fyrr asked astonished. “That doesn’t sound like anything a human could do!”

  She shrugged. “Tyladen has some theory about pouring water into the furnaces while they were hot; I don’t know. But do you see a pattern there?”

  He nodded; living at the Palace as he was, he would be the first to see it. “The glassworks was in the process of making a special telescope for Theovere as a presentation piece on behalf of the Deliambren expedition. Kalian Bindery was putting together a library of nonhuman songs in translation—as a presentation piece for Theovere. And the bakery makes those honeyspice cakes he likes so much, that his own cooks at the Palace can’t seem to duplicate.”

  “All three, places with projects on behalf of Theovere or meant to impress him and gain his favor,” she agreed as they wound their way down the stairs toward the ground floor, his talons clicking on the stair steps. “And only someone at Court would know that, just as you have been saying.”

  He ground his beak, thinking. “The man Harperus identified escaped last night as well. And everyone who has escaped has done so from the High King’s city prisons. Not the Church prisons, or the city gaols.”

  She turned to look at him with her eyes wide. “Why—that’s right! The few criminals we have managed to hold onto were all in the city gaols!”

  “That argues for more than an informant,” he said, his eyes narrowing with concentration. “That argues for cooperation, at the very least, from an official. Probably a high official. Likely an Advisor.”

  She didn’t groan, but he sensed her spirits plummeting. “How can we possibly counteract someone with that much power?” she asked in a small voice. He felt her fear; she was not used to opposition at so high a level. She had always been the one to run when opposition grew too intense. He understood that, and in the past it had made sense for her to do that. She was a Gypsy; she could go anywhere, so why remain someplace where an authority wanted to make trouble for her?

  But she could not do that now—and more importantly, neither could all the nonhuman citizens, not only of Lyonarie, but of the Twenty Kingdoms.

  If they were going to do what he had decided must be done—to give the nonhumans here the leader they so urgently, desperately, needed—he had to put some heart in her.

  He stopped, seized her by the shoulders, and looked deeply into her eyes. “Think, Nightingale! Think of how much damage has been done in the past few days—as if our enemy was desperately trying to do as much damage as he can before he is caught or rendered ineffective! I think he is desperate, that although Theovere may be wrapped up in his new toy, the novelty of it can’t last forever. Sooner or later he will grow tired of the same songs, played the same way, and look for us again. What is more, I think the Magic we set in motion is still working, and Theovere is coming back to himself, whether or not he likes the fact. And I think our enemy knows that, too. I believe he is at the end of his resources, and he’s hoping to overwhelm us now, before Theovere recovers.”

  “She,” Nightingale said. “Our enemy may be a female. Remember the lace handkerchiefs left in cells, the woman who seduced the guard? A woman’s been seen in other places as well, just before things happened.”

  “She, then. He or she, or they, it doesn’t matter much. There may be two, working in collusion—whoever it is, I sense the desperation of a hunter-turned-hunted.” He waited for Nightingale’s reaction; it was slow in coming, but gradually the fear within her ebbed, and she nodded.

  “Now, let’s get down to the street, collect Tyladen’s friends, and go about our business,” T’fyrr continued, after first embracing her. “Father Ruthvere is waiting for us. It is time for us to act, instead of waiting for something to happen to us and reacting to that.”

  “What are you thinking of?” she asked sharply.

  �
�We need to provide these people with more than a message,” he told her slowly, thinking things out as he spoke. “We need to give them something more than words. Tyladen won’t do it, and Harperus can’t.”

  “You’re saying they need a leader,” she said, and to his relief she did not seem as upset at that as he had feared she would be. “I had a feeling you were finally going to decide that—and I was afraid you would decide it should be us.” She shivered a little, then shook herself. “I’m also afraid that you’re right. If no one has come forward yet, no one is going to. It will have to be us, or no one.”

  She looked up into his eyes, standing quite still; making no secret of the fact that she was afraid, but also making it very clear that she was with him.

  He embraced her impulsively. “Great power—” he reminded her.

  “Yes, is great responsibility.” She sighed. “I think I would prefer being a simple musician—but on the other hand, this may be the payback for all those times I charmed my way out of trouble.” She leaned into his breast feathers for a moment, then pushed herself gently away. “Well, if we are going to do it, let’s get it over with.”

  He smiled, and took her hand. “Leadership, once assumed, cannot always be released. Are you willing to accept that as well, lover?”

  Nightingale nodded again, eyes suddenly clear of worry. “As readily as I accepted you into my heart and soul.”

  ###

  Three days later, T’fyrr stood in a most unfamiliar place—the pulpit of Father Ruthvere’s Chapel—and surveyed the closely packed faces below him. There was no room to stand in the Chapel; people were crowded in right to the doors. Roughly half of those faces were not human, but it was the human faces among the rest that gave him hope that this might work.

  He cleared his throat, and the quiet murmur of voices below him ceased. Behind him, Nightingale sent a wordless wave of encouragement to him, which held him in an embrace that did not need arms or wings. They were going to try something different today: Bardic Magic without a melody, a spell of courage and hope, meant to reinforce his message and give them the strength to take advantage of the leadership he promised them. With luck, it would work.

  With none, we will fall flat on our faces.

  “I asked Father Ruthvere to call some of you here on my behalf,” he said slowly, allowing his eyes to travel over the entire group assembled below. “Some of you are friends or patrons of Freehold. Some are simply merchants and workers; all of you are people of good will and open minds. I ask you all to open your minds a little further, for I have a message that may shock you. There is an enemy of all of us, human and nonhuman, working in this city, and he is working to enslave us.”

  He waited for a moment for them to take that in, then continued. “Our enemy is skilled, cunning and devious; our enemy’s weapons are clever. The chief of them is fear. He spreads rumors to increase that fear and divide us, each rumor carefully calculated to prey upon the things that we all fear most.”

  He looked directly into the eyes of a clutch of human manufactory workers. “Fear of poverty,” he said to them. “Fear of failure. Fear of a future full of uncertainty.” And he knew that he had struck home when he saw their eyes widen.

  He turned toward a group of families, human and not, who lived near the Chapel. “The terrible fears that all parents of whatever race have for their children.” This bolt too struck the heart, as the hands of fathers tightened on their children’s’ shoulders—mothers’ arms closed protectively around their babies.

  He swept his gaze over them all. “These fears divide us, each from the other,” he told them. “They make us fear each other and keep us from talking to each other. Let me tell you who are human what rumors have been circulating among our homes and workplaces.”

  He told them about the Law of Degree, about the other rumors flying wildly among the nonhuman communities. He added some he had heard elsewhere—how a demon-worshiping human sect had sprung up, whose initiates must murder and eat a nonhuman child, and how the humans were planning to descend on the homes and workplaces of nonhumans on a particular night to burn and pillage them, killing adults and making children into pets and slaves. He added the rumors of drugs in the water supply that would kill or incapacitate nonhumans but were harmless to humans, and the stories that there were those within the Church who planned to declare all nonhumans to be demons or descended of demons.

  He saw by the startled looks among the humans that they had heard nothing of these tales—and as he and Nightingale wove their web of courage and clarity, he saw that they were all beginning to think, comparing the rumors and finding them suspiciously similar.

  “Do you see what is happening?” he asked them. “Can you see the hand of one source behind all of this? How could these tales be so similar, and yet so cleverly tailored to match our darkest nightmares? And how else could someone keep all of us from even speaking to one another, except by making us fear one another?” Then he challenged them. “Can you think why someone would do this? What would he have to gain? Ask yourself that—for there is gain to be had here, in making us fear each other, in keeping us hiding in the darkness of our homes and listening only to rumors and wild tales.”

  He chose his next words with care. “For all that I am strange to you who are human, I am a student of your history. I have seen this pattern repeated before—in your history, and in our own, for we are not as different from you as you may trunk. We have had our tyrants, our exploiters, our would-be dictators. Here is what I have seen, over and over again. When people are divided against one another, there is always a third party standing ready and waiting to profit when both sides have preyed so much upon each other that they cannot withstand the third. Sometimes it is another land, another people, but I do not think that is the case here.” He took a deep breath, and made the plunge. “I think that the third party here is a single person; a person who would see both humans and nonhumans enslaved to his purposes. First he drives fear enough into the humans that they grant him the power he needs to make slaves of the nonhumans. Then he turns that power upon those who gave it to him, and enslaves everyone.”

  There were a few nods out there; only a few, but that much was encouraging. The rest would need time to think about what he was saying.

  “Ponder this, if you will,” he finished. “How soon would it be before something like a Law of Degree was applied, not only to those who do not look human, but to those who do not meet some other standard? When have any of you ever seen a law that took away the freedom of one group used only against that group? How about if our unknown enemy convinced you all that it should be applied to the indigent—street trash, beggars, and the like? It sounds reasonable, does it not? And who would really choose to have beggars and slackards sleeping in doorways, if they could be out doing useful work—and at least, as slaves, they would not be drinking, robbing, causing trouble in the street. But how if, after a delay of time to make it comfortable, it was then applied to those who—say—do not own property? After all, if you do not own your home, are you not indigent? What if it were applied to those who did not have a business, were not in a Guild, or happened not to have a job at a particular moment? After all, if you have lost your job, are you not indigent?”

  Startled looks all around the room showed him that he had not only caught their attention, he had brought up something they had never in their wildest dreams thought of. Very probably the majority of the humans here only rented their tiny living-quarters from someone else—and every manufactory worker lived in fear of losing his job.

  “Before you dismiss these truths as fantasy, remember that every one of you who has been robbed, cheated or raped—or knows someone who has, human or nonhuman—knows that there are those in our world who are capable of such evils. Remember that it is fear that makes all this possible,” he concluded. “Fear which keeps us from organizing, from questioning to find out the truth, which keeps us divided, human from nonhuman, men from women, those who are pros
perous from those who are not. Remember that, go and think and talk and ask questions; and then, if you will, come back to Father Ruthvere. He is a man of caring and courage, and he has tasks that need doing to make certain that this enemy does not take all our freedom away from us.”

  He stepped down from the pulpit then, in an aura of stunned silence, and Father Ruthvere stepped back up into it.

  Then the talk broke out, an avalanche of words, as those of the Chapel and those who were not cast questions up to Father Ruthvere, and he answered them as best he could.

  His best was fairly accurate, since he, Nightingale and T’fyrr had been talking about this for the past three days, gathering all the information they could and putting this little meeting together. They had decided that Father Ruthvere, and not T’fyrr, should be the putative leader of this group; he was human and would be trusted by the humans—he was a man of the Church, and presumably honorable and above reproach. Not that the real leader would not be T’fyrr—

  Or rather, the real target. I am the obvious target, leaving Father Ruthvere to do his work.

  Fortunately, the Father was honorable and above reproach, and he was trained to be a leader of his flock. He had the skills T’fyrr did not; T’fyrr had the skills of rhetoric that he did not.

  Perhaps, rather than the leader, I should style myself as a figurehead. Or perhaps an organizer? Oh, no, I believe I like Nightingale’s term better: “rabble-rouser.”

  But standing behind the pulpit and filling the choir loft was another group that T’fyrr and Nightingale turned to face—as many of Father Ruthvere’s fellow Churchmen as could be gathered together here at such short notice. T’fyrr had not had a chance to look them over before he stepped up to make his speech, but now he saw that among the grey, black, and brown robes, there were two men dressed in the red robes of Justiciars, two men and a woman in the deeper burgundy of Justiciar Mages, and one iron-faced individual in the white and purple robes of a Bishop.