The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III (4 page)

CHAPTER TWO

From the vantage of a low hill, at the top of the last crest of the King’s Highway, Lyonarie was a city guaranteed to make a person feel very small, entirely insignificant.

That was Nightingale’s first impression of the metropolis, anyway. There was no end to it from where she stood; seated in the midst of a wide valley, it sprawled across the entire valley and more.

It did not look inviting to her; like something carved of old, grey, sun-bleached wood or built out of dry, ancient bones, it seemed lifeless from here, and stifling. In a way, she wished that she could feel the same excitement that was reflected in the faces of the travelers walking beside her. Instead, her spirit was heavy; she hunched her shoulders against the blow to her heart coming from that grey blotch, and she wanted only to be away from the place. Heat-haze danced and shimmered, making distant buildings ripple unsettlingly. As she approached, one small traveler in a stream of hundreds of others, she had the strangest feeling that
they
were not going to the city, it was calling them in and devouring them.

It devours everything: life, dreams, hope . . .

The great, hulking city-beast was unlike any other major population center she had ever been in. There were no walls, at least not around the entire city, though there were suggestions of walled enclaves in the middle distance. That was not unusual in itself; many cities spilled beyond their original walls. It would have been very difficult to maintain such walls in any kind of state of repair, much less to man them. The city simply
was;
it existed, just as any living, growing thing existed, imbued with a fierce life of its own that required it to swallow anyone that entered and make him part of it, never to escape again.

Was this the reason why I felt such foreboding?
That was reason enough; for someone of Nightingale’s nature, the possibility of losing her own identity, of being literally devoured, was always a real danger.

It was not just the heat that made her feel faint.
Thousands of silent voices, dunning into my mind—thousands of people needing a little piece of me—thousands of hearts crying out for the healing I have
. . .
I could be lost in no time at all, here.
She would have to guard herself every moment, waking and sleeping, against that danger.

She took off her hat and wiped her forehead with her kerchief, wishing that she had never heard of Lyonarie.

The shaggy brown donkey walked beside her, his tiny hooves clicking on the hard roadbed, with no signs that the heavy traffic on the road bothered him. Traffic traveled away from the city as well as toward it, right-hand side going in, left-hand side leaving, with heavy vehicles taking the center, ridden horses and other beasts coming next, and foot traffic walking along the shoulder. The road was so hard that Nightingale’s feet ached, especially in the arches, and her boots felt much too tight.

She’d had a general description of the city last night from the innkeeper at the tavern she’d stayed in. From this direction, the King’s Highway first brought a traveler through what was always the most crowded, noisy, and dirty section of any city, the quarter reserved for trade.

Oh, I am quite looking forward to that. Stench, heat, and angry people, what a lovely combination.

About six or seven leagues from the city itself, the road had changed from hard-packed gravel to black, cracked pavement, a change that had given both Nightingale and her beast relief from the dust, but which gave no kind of cushioning for the feet. She knew by the set of the donkey’s ears that his feet hurt him, too. This grey-black stuff was worse than a dirt road for heat; on top of that, waves of heat radiated up from the pavement, and both she and the donkey were damp with sweat.

I do wish I’d worn something other than this heavy linen skirt
—
and I wish I’d left off the leather bodice. I should have chosen a lighter set of colors than dark-green and black. This is too much to suffer in the name of looking respectable. I think I could bake bread under this skirt!
She dared not kilt it up, either, not and still look like an honest musician and not a lady whose virtue was negotiable.

The road up the valley toward Lyonarie led across flat fields, every inch cultivated and growing a variety of crops, until suddenly, with no warning, the fields were gone and buildings on small plots of land had taken their place.

As if they had grown there, as well, like some unsavory fungus.

These were small, mean houses, a short step up from the hovels of the very poor, crowded so closely together that a rat could not have passed between them. Made of wood with an occasional facing of brick or stonework, they were all a uniform, grimy grey, patched with anything that came to hand, and the few plants that had been encouraged to take root in the excuses for yards had to struggle to stay alive under the trampling feet of those forced off the roadway by more important or more massive traffic.

The sight made her sick.
How can anyone live like this? Why would anyone want to? What could possibly tempt anyone to stay here who didn’t have to? No amount of money would be worth living without trees, grass, space to breathe!

The houses gave way just as abruptly a few moments later to warehouses two and three stories tall, and this was where the true city began.

Those who ruled the city now showed their authority. A token gate across the road, a mere board painted in red and white stripes, was manned by a token guard in a stiff brown uniform. He paid no attention to her whatsoever as she passed beneath the bar of the gate. His attention was for anyone who brought more into the city than his own personal belongings. Those who drove carts waved a stiff piece of blue paper at him as they passed—or if they didn’t have that piece of paper, pulled their wagons over to a paved area at the side of the road where one of a half-dozen clerks would march upon them with a grimly determined frown. No one cared about a single Gypsy with a donkey, assuming they recognized her as a Gypsy at all. She passed close by the guard, fanning herself with her hat in her free hand, as he lounged against the gatepost, picking his teeth with a splinter. She was near enough to smell the onions he had eaten for lunch and the beer he had washed them down with, and to see the bored indifference in his eyes.

She was just one of a hundred people much like her who would pass this man today, and she knew it. There was virtue and safety in anonymity right now, and suddenly she was glad of the sober colors of her clothing. Better to bake than to be memorable.

How could I have forgotten? I wanted to be sure that no one would remember me; there might be someone waiting and watching to see if I show up! It must be the heat, or all this emotion-babble . .
.

But the press of minds around her was a more oppressive burden than the heat.
This
was why she hated cities, and Lyonarie was everything she disliked most about a city, but constructed on a more massive scale than anything she had previously encountered. There were too many people here, all packed too closely together, all of them unconsciously suffering the effects of being so crowded. Most of them were unhappy and had no idea how to remedy their condition—other than pursuing wealth, which brought its own set of problems whether the pursuit succeeded or failed. Their strident emotions scratched at her nerves no matter how well she warded them out.

Never mind that. I’m here, so now I need a plan, however sketchy.
She hadn’t actually formulated a plan until now; she’d been hoping, perhaps, for some unavoidable reason
not
to go on to Lyonarie. Geas or fate—or not—here she was, and it was time to make some kind of a plan.

Something simple; the simpler, the less likely it will be that I’ll have to change it.

Once past the guard, Nightingale pulled the donkey off to the side of the road, taking a moment to stand in the shade of one of the warehouses. She fanned herself with her hat, pretended to watch the traffic, and considered her next move on this little game board.

It is a game, too
—
and I can only hope I’ve made myself less of a pawn than I would have been if I’d jumped into it without care and thought.

People streamed by her as she stood on the baking pavement with her patient little beast; as she watched, she saw everything from farmers hauling wagonloads of cabbage to the carriages of prosperous merchants—from footsore travelers like herself to the occasional creature more alien than a Deliambren. They all apparently had places to go, and they were all in a dreadful hurry to get there. They paid no attention to her; their eyes were on the road and the traffic ahead of them.

The buildings on either side of the road trapped the rays of the sun; the pavement beneath absorbed the heat and radiated it up again. Sweat ran down her face and back, and not even the most vigorous fanning helped cool her even a little. She licked her lips and tasted salt, wishing for the cooler clothing she’d worn at Kingsford Faire—the light skirt made of hundreds of multicolored ribbons sewn together from knee to waist, but left to flutter from knee to ankle, the wide laced belt of doeskin, the shirt of fabric just this side of see-through, and the sandals . . . The leather of her bodice and boots was hot, stilling hot. The soles of her boots were far too thin to cushion her feet in any way or deflect the heat of the pavement.

What she really wanted right now was a cool place to sit, a cool drink, and a moment in semi-darkness to build up her mental defenses.

Well, the sooner I join in this game, the sooner I can leave. If I’m both lucky and clever, I might even be able to get out of here before winter. At least I didn’t lose any time on the road.

In fact, she had made such good time getting here that it was not quite Harvest Faire season. She had met with no obstacles, and her earlier good start had been typical of the whole journey. She’d been able to stop before dark every night, and hadn’t even been forced to spend much of her hard-earned Faire money.

In fact, her purse was now a bit heavier than it had been when she had left Kingsford. She had made such good time that it had been possible to trade performances in the kind of small country inns she preferred in return for food, a bed, and whatever came into her hat. If she had just been making her rounds of the Faire circuit, she would have been pleased but not particularly surprised by this. She was a
good
harpist, a fine musician, and there was no reason why innkeepers should turn her away. Her hat usually had a few coppers in it at the end of the night, no matter how poor the audience.

But the very smoothness of her travel had made her suspicious, or rather, apprehensive. It felt as if someone or something was making quite sure she would get to Lyonarie, and seeing to it that she would be ready for just about anything when she arrived there.

A geas? The hand of God or the Gypsy’s Lady of the Night?

Or just a string of unprecedented good luck? And did it matter?

Not really. What did matter was coming up with a course of immediate action that would keep her inconspicuous.
If I were truly in the “service” of any of my so-needful friends, what would I do first?
she asked herself. The answer seemed obvious: find a tavern or an inn at the heart of the city and take up lodging there. If she was expected to gather information, that would be
all
that she would do; there would be no time for anything like taking on a regular job as a musician. And that
would
make her conspicuous—someone who carried musical instruments, yet did not try to find a position; someone who spent money but did nothing to earn more. It would be “logical” to devote all of her time and energy into collecting information, but it would not be wise.

So, since that is what is predictable and logical, it is what I will not do.

She considered her options further as she also pondered the question of High King Theovere. The two were inextricably linked. How to gain information on the High and Exalted without venturing out of her persona as Low and Insignificant?

At least, now that she wasn’t moving, she didn’t seem to be quite as warm.

As Talaysen had pointed out, the King should have been overseeing the business of his twenty vassals—but they had been left, more and more, at loose ends, without a guide or an overseer. As often as not, though the King of Birnam was an exception, they had been making use of this laxness to enrich themselves, or simply to amuse themselves.

The King of Birnam thought more of his people and their lands than himself; he was a good ruler, and as a result, his kingdom prospered in good times and survived the bad in reasonable shape. But those lands whose rulers were not out of Rolend’s mold were showing all the signs of a careless hand on the reins. The signs were everywhere, and touching everything. In Rayden, for instance, there was little or no upkeep on the public roads: bridges were out, roads were rutted and full of potholes, signs were missing or illegible. In some remoter parts of Rayden and in other lands, the neglect was far more serious, as rivalry between sires and even dukes had been permitted to escalate into armed feuding.

The High King was supposed to represent the central unifying power in the Twenty Kingdoms. Now the Church was well on the way to taking over that function.

As if her thought of the Church had summoned a further reminder of its power, the tolling of bells rang out over the rumble of cart wheels on pavement and the babble of thousands of voices. Nightingale lifted her eyes from the road to see the spire of the Chapel housing those bells rising above the warehouse roofs.

And that represented another interest in the dance. There were perhaps hundreds of chapels in Lyonarie, ranging in size from a single room to huge cathedrals. The Church was an all-pervasive presence here, and there was no way to escape it. The Church might also have an interest in keeping Theovere weak and ineffectual.

She swallowed in sour distaste. There was no love lost between herself and most representatives of the Church. Too often of late she had been the subject of attempts by Churchmen to lay the blame for perfectly ordinary accidents at her door, because she was a Gypsy, a Free Bard, and presumably a wielder of arcane and darksome powers. In some places, at least, it seemed that the Church was trying to incite people against Gypsies, nonconformists, nonhumans—indeed, against anything that did not obviously and directly benefit the Church itself as much as a flock of sheep would benefit the herdsman.