The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III (17 page)

Some of them, like the Mintak, were herbivorous and could not digest meat. In addition, the food was ready quickly, and if you were very hungry, you didn’t have to spend a lot of time waiting for someone to prepare your dinner, the way you did in some of the other little nooks.

“You don’t either, from what I’ve heard,” he countered. “You’re very popular.”

She shrugged. “Usually I would agree with you, but any musician can have a bad night. It would be my luck that tonight would be the one.”

Derfan snorted. “I doubt it,” he began. “A bad night for you is a terrific night for some other people around here and—” He interrupted himself. “Turn around! There he is, out on the dance floor, looking up at the light-rigs on the ceiling!”

She turned quickly and got a good view of the mysterious Tyladen as he stood with his hands on his hips, peering up at the ceiling four floors above. And to her initial relief, she didn’t recognize him.

He was much younger than she had thought, although age was difficult to measure in a Deliambren; the skin of his face was completely smooth and unwrinkled, even at the corners of the eyes and mouth. He was dressed quite conservatively for a Deliambren, in a one-piece garment of something that looked like black leather but probably wasn’t, with a design in contrasting colors appliqued from the right shoulder to the left hip and down the right leg. His hair was relatively short, no longer than the top of his shoulders, and so were his cheek feathers, although she could have used his eyebrows for whisk brooms.

He dropped his eyes just as she took the last of this in, and she found herself staring right into them. For one frozen moment, she thought she saw a flash of recognition there.

But if she had, in the next instant it was gone again. He waved his hand slightly in acknowledgement of the fact that he knew they were both watching him and they were his employees, then went back to staring at the ceiling, ignoring them.

But now she was so keyed up, she even read
that
as evidence that he was going to try to interfere in her careful and cautious plans.

She finished her dinner quickly, thanked Derfan, and hurried up to the Oak Grove, certain that Tyladen was going to show up there and demand an explanation.

But as the evening wore on and nothing happened—other than Violetta showing up, as if Derfan’s earlier mention of “her” had conjured “her”—she began to feel a bit annoyed. Granted, she really didn’t
want
some Deliambren meddling in her affairs, but she wasn’t sure she liked being ignored either!

When Tyladen finally did show up, it was during the busiest part of her evening and she was in the middle of a set. She didn’t even realize he was there until she looked up in time to see him nod with satisfaction, turn, and walk out the door.

Just that. That was all there was to it.

Her shift came to an end without anything more happening, and none of her customers had any more information about either the Law of Degree or the mysterious bird-man at the High King’s Court. Not even Violetta, who knew or at least pretended to know something about everything, had anything to say on either subject. On her way upstairs, she stopped at a little nook that sold pre-baked goods and got a couple of meat rolls and an apple tart to take up to her room, half-expecting to be intercepted between her room and the Oak Grove. No one materialized, though, and no one was waiting in her room.

She ate and cleaned up, and finally went to bed, feeling decidedly odd.

She was just as happy that she wasn’t going to be interfered with, but after getting herself all upset about the prospect to find that she was being ignored was a bit—annoying!

But that’s a Deliambren for you,
she decided, as she drifted off to sleep.
If they aren’t annoying by doing something, they’re bound to annoy you by not doing it!

###

T’fyrr checked the tuning on his small flat-harp nervously for the fifth time. He had decided this morning what he was going to perform for this, his first private concert for the High King, and he was going to need more accompaniment than even
his
voice could produce. The flat-harp would be ideal, though, for the songs he had selected were all deceptively simple.

He had wanted to do something to remind the King of his duty; he had found, he thought, precisely the music that would. He had modified one of those songs about the King himself for his first piece—not changing any of the meaning, just perfecting the rhyme and rhythm, both of which were rather shaky. But from there, he would be singing about Duke Arden of Kingsford, a series of three songs written since the fire by a Free Bard called Raven. The first was the story of the fire itself, describing how the Duke had worked with his own bare hands in the streets, side by side with his people, to hold back the fire. While not the usual stuff of an epic, it was a story of epic proportions, and worthy of retelling.

Let him hear that, and perhaps it will remind him that a ruler’s duty is to his people, and not the other way around.

If nothing else, it might remind the King of Duke Arden’s straitened circumstances, better than a cold report would.
That
might pry the help out of him that the Duke had been pleading for.

That will make the Lord Seneschal happy, at any rate.

The second was a song about the first winter the city had endured, a saga as grueling, though not as dramatic, as the fire. It described the lengths to which Arden went to see that no one died of hunger or lack of shelter that season. The third and final song described not only Arden but his betrothed, the Lady Phenyx Asher, a love story wound in and around what the two of them were doing, with their own hands, to rebuild the city.

Actually, it is more about the lady than about the Duke; Raven truly admires her, and his words show it.

The next songs were all carefully chosen to do nothing more than entertain and show off T’fyrr’s enormous range. A couple of them were not even from human composers at all.

And the last song was another designed to remind the King of his duties—for it had been written by another High King on his deathbed, and was called “The Burden of the Crown.” Though sad, it was a hopeful song as well, for the author had clearly not found the Crown to be a burden that was intolerable, merely one that was a constant reminder of the people it represented.

If that doesn’t do it, nothing will,
T’fyrr thought, then sighed.
Well, I suppose I should not expect results instantly. I am not a Gypsy, with magic at my command. If he only listens to the words, it will be a start.

He had been given nothing whatsoever to do except practice and wait for the King to send for him. He hadn’t especially wanted to venture out of his suite, either; not until the King had heard him play at least once. He had spent all his time pacing, exercising his wings, and practicing. Nob had enjoyed the virtuoso vocalists practice, but the pacing and wing-strokes clearly made him nervous. He had sought his room when T’fyrr suggested that he might want to go practice his reading and writing for his daily lessons with the pages’ tutor.

Finally the summons had come this afternoon, and Nob brought T’fyrr to this little antechamber to the King’s personal suite, a room with white satin walls, and furnished with a few chairs done in white satin and gilded wood. There he was to wait until the King called for him.

It seemed he had been waiting forever.

At last, when he was about to snap a string from testing them so often, the door opened and a liveried manservant beckoned. T’fyrr rose to his feet, harp under one arm, and followed him, the tension of waiting replaced by an entirely new set of worries.

As it happened, it was just as well that he had not set his expectations unrealistically high, for the King did not show that the songs affected him in any way—other than his delight and admiration in T’fyrr as a pure musician. He asked for several more songs when T’fyrr was through with his planned set, all of which T’fyrr fortunately knew. One of them gave him the opportunity to display his own scholarship, for he knew three variants, and asked which one Theovere preferred. That clearly delighted the King even further, and when at last the time came for Afternoon Court, a duty even the King could not put off, Theovere sighed and dismissed the Haspur with every sign of disappointment that the performance was over.

“You will come the same time, everyday,” the stone-faced manservant said expressionlessly as he led T’fyrr to the door. “This is the High King’s standing order.”

T’fyrr bobbed his head in acknowledgement, and privately wondered how he was going to find his way back to his own quarters in this maze. He had
no
head for indoor directions, and more than a turn or two generally had him confused. It didn’t help that all these corridors looked alike—all white marble and artwork, with no way of telling even what floor you were on if you didn’t already know.

To his relief, Nob was waiting for him just outside the door, passing the time of day with the guard posted outside the King’s suite. This was another of those dangerous-looking bodyguards, but this one seemed a bit younger than the ones actually
with
the King, and hadn’t lost all his humanity yet.

“Thought you might get lost,” the boy said saucily, with a wink at the guard, whose lips twitched infinitesimally.

T’fyrr shrugged. “It is possible,” he admitted.

“Not likely, but possible, I suppose. This is a large building.”

The guard actually snickered at that little understatement, and Nob took him in charge to lead him back to their quarters. “I admit I wasn’t entirely certain I knew the way,” T’fyrr told the boy quietly, once they were out of the guard’s earshot. “The hallways seem to be the same.”

“The art’s different,” Nob told him, gesturing widely at the statues. “This one, the statues are all of High Kings, see? We turn
here,
and the statues are wood -nymphs.”

Nude human females sprouting twigs and leaves in their hair. So that is a wood-nymph! No wonder the shepherds in my songs are so surprised; I don’t imagine that it is every day that a nude female prances up to the average shepherd and invites him to dance.

“We turn again here—” Nob continued, blissfully unaware of T’fyrr’s thoughts, “and the statues are all shepherd couples.”

Oh, indeed, if one expects shepherds to be flinging themselves after their sheep wearing a small fortune in embroidery and lace! This is as likely as nude women frolicking about among the thistles and thorns and biting insects, I suppose.

“Then this is our corridor, and the statues are historical women.” Nob stopped in front of their door. “Here we are, between Lady Virgelis the Chaste, and the Maiden Moriah—”

Between someone so sour and dried up no one would ever want to mate with her, and someone who probably didn’t deserve the title of
“Maiden”
much past her twelfth birthday,
T’fyrr interpreted, looking at the grim-visaged old harridan on his left, who was muffled from head to toe in garments that did not disguise the fact she was mostly bone, and the ripely plump, sloe-eyed young wench on his right, who wasn’t wearing much more than one of the wood-nymphs. He wondered if the juxtaposition was accidental.

Probably not. He had the feeling that very little in this palace was accidental.

“So,” he said, as Nob opened the door and held it open for him, “to get to the King’s suite, I go—right, through the ladies to the shepherds, left, through the shepherds to the wood-nymphs, left through the nymphs to the High Kings, and right through the Kings to where the guard is.”

“Perfect,” Nob lauded. “You have it exactly right.” The page closed the door behind them, and T’fyrr decided that he might as well ask the next question regarding directions.

“Now,” he said, “if I wanted to go into the city, how would I get out?”

###

One of the so-called “supervisors” in charge of expelling rowdy customers—who elsewhere would have been called “peace keepers”—intercepted Nightingale on her way upstairs after her performance the second night after the Deliambren Tyladen arrived to take over management from Kyran.

“Tyladen wants to see you in his office,” the burly Mintak said shortly, and Nightingale suppressed a start and a grimace of annoyance. “Tonight. Soon as you can.”

“Right,” she said shortly, and continued on up to her room to place her harp in safekeeping.
So, he recognized me after all, or someone warned him, or he got a message back to the Fortress-City with my description or even my image and they’ve told him I’m supposed to be doing some investigation for them
—She clenched her jaw tightly and closed the door of her room carefully behind her, making certain she heard the lock click shut.
I could deny it all, of course, and there is no way that he can
know
that I am Nightingale unless I admit it. Still, even if I deny it he’ll be watching me, trying to see if I’m doing anything, likely getting underfoot or sending someone to follow me. Oh, bother! Why did I ever even consider this in the first place? I must have been mad. Every time I get involved with Deliambrens there’s trouble.

She fumed to herself all the way down the stairs, and even more as she wormed her way through the crowds on and surrounding the dance floor. That was no easy task; at this time of the night, the dance floor was a very popular place. Special lights suspended from the ceiling actually sent round, focused circles of light down on the dancers; the circles were of different colors and moved around to follow the better dancers, or pulsed in time to the music. Some folk came here just to watch the lights move in utter, bemused fascination. Many spectators watched from the balconies of the floors above. Nightingale was used to such things, but for most people, this was purest magic, and they could not for a moment imagine what was creating these “fairy lights.” It was easy to see why Freehold was such a popular place; there wasn’t its like outside the Fortress-City, and not one person in ten thousand of those here would ever see the fabulous Deliambren stronghold.