The Eagle And The Nightingales bv-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  The hurt was hers; the soul-pain was hers now, as she had known it would be. That was the curse that was also her gift. Once she read a person this deeply, she was committed to dealing with what she found_

  Which was one of the reasons why she preferred to spend as much time in the company of those who were not human as possible. It was difficult to read nonhumans, harder still to read them to that extent; very seldom did she find those whose hearts called to hers for help. The concerns of the Elves were either only of the moment, or of the ages_she could help with neither. The Deliambrens were as shallow streams to her, for they simply did not understand human emotions. Other nonhumans either could not be read at all, or their needs were so alien to her that their pain slipped away from her and vanished into darkness before she could do more than grasp the fact that it was there.

  Not so with T'fyrr. She braced herself against the pull of his needs and his hurts, but only to keep herself from being devoured by them. His aches were hers now, and would be until and unless she helped him to heal them. The bond between them might even last beyond that moment; it was too soon to tell.

  And too late to call it back and say, "No, wait_"

  She brought her awareness back to the here and now, her hands playing of their own will, despite the new hurts in her heart, the hurts that were not hers, and yet were now a part of her. She felt, as she always did on these occasions, as if the pain should somehow manifest itself physically, as if she should bear bleeding wounds on her hands and breast, as if she should look as bruised and broken outside as T'fyrr was within.

  But, of course, there were no such signs, nor was it likely that T'fyrr had any notion what had just happened. He sang on, finding his momentary release in music, just as she herself often did.

  Ah, Lady of the Night, we are more alike than I had thought!

  With the readiness, if not the ease, of long practice, she walled as much away as she could inside herself and smoothed over the pain that she could not wall away. Eventually, it would all be dealt with....

  Or not....

  But for the moment, it was this moment that counted.

  And there were more duties that she owed than this one. She had her duty as a musician as well as a healer, and it was as a musician that she was operating now. She sang and smiled, played and probed the needs of her audience, and answered those needs. And eventually, the set was over.

  "Let's go somewhere quiet for the break," she said once they had taken their bows and left the stage. "We have a great deal of catching up to do." And as the skin around his eyes twitched, she added quickly, "Unless you have somewhere you need to go? I don't want to get in the way of anything that you are already committed to."

  "No," he said after a moment's awkward silence. "No, I don't have anywhere to go, and no one is expecting me. I had hoped to get back before darkness fell, but_"

  "Darkness had already fallen by the time you left Tyladen's office," she pointed out, and he sighed.

  "I thought as much." He said it in a discouraged, but unsurprised tone. "I suppose I can fly in the darkness; there is enough light coming up from the streets_"

  She interrupted him, feeling more than annoyed at Tyladen for not taking care of this himself. "It was Tyladen's fault that you were here longer than you wanted to be, and Tyladen's fault_or so I suspect_that you were caught here by those men. Tyladen can damn well arrange for you to be taken to_ah_wherever it is you need to go in some kind of protected conveyance! And I'll tell him so myself!"

  She actually started in the direction of Tyladen's office, when T'fyrr, laughing self-consciously, intercepted her. "By the four winds, now I see the Nightingale defending the nestling!" he said, catching her arm gently. "So fierce a bird, no wonder nothing dares to steal her young! No, no, my friend, I can fly at night, I am not night blind like a poor hawk. And I will be far safer flying above your city at night than I will be in any kind of conveyance on the ground!"

  She let herself be coaxed out of going to confront the owner of Freehold; he was right, after all. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for a marksman to make out a dark, moving shadow against the night sky. But that did not make her less wroth with Tyladen for his sake.

  If I didn't dare let him know that I am working for the Deliambrens, I would give him a real piece of my mind! The wretched, stupid man! Oh, how I'd like to_

  She forced herself to remain calm. Even Tyladen could not ignore this night's near-riot, and when she told him what she had seen_

  Well, he just might decide to take a little better care of his agent!

  She hesitated, then offered her invitation. "Then if you can stay_and want to stay_I have one more set. After it's over, we could go up on the roof; it's quiet up there, and no one will bother us. And no one will know if you leave from there if I don't tell them."

  He pondered a moment, then agreed. But she sensed not only reluctance but resistance. He knew, somehow, that she was going to try to get him to talk about what had happened to him, and he was determined not to do so.

  And being Nightingale, of course, this only ensured that she would be more persistent than his determination could withstand.

  Just wait, my poor friend, she thought as they spoke of inconsequentials that he apparently hoped would throw her off the track. Just wait. I have learned my patience from the Elves, who think in terms of centuries. If I am determined to prevail, you cannot hold against me.

  T'fyrr sat through Nightingale's last set as part of the audience, watching those who were absorbed in the beauty of her music and the power that she put into it. She held them captive, held them in the palm of her hand. There was no world for them outside of this little room, and every story she told in melody and lyric came alive for them. He saw that much in their dreaming eyes, their relaxed posture, the concentration in their faces.

  Was this that mysterious Bardic Magic at work? If so, he couldn't see any reason to find fault with it. She wasn't doing anything to hurt these people and was doing a great deal to help them. They listened to her and became caught up in her spell, losing most of the stress that they had carried when they entered the door of her performance room. How could there be anything wrong with that?

  He only wished that he could join them. He was shaken by the fight, more than he wanted to admit. The entire incident was branded with extraordinary vividness and detail in his memory, and there was no getting rid of it. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the stiletto and the man holding it, the man with the cold eyes of someone who does not care what he does so long as he is paid for it.

  The eyes of High Bishop Padrik.... Padrik had looked that way, the one time he had really looked at T'fyrr. He had weighed out T'fyrr's life in terms of what it would buy him and had coldly determined the precise way to extract the maximum advantage from killing the Haspur. T'fyrr had been nothing more to him than an object; and not even an object of particular value.

  As much as by the memory of his attacker, he was shaken by the memory of his first instinctive reaction.

  I lost all control. No one knows it but me, but I did. I could, easily, have murdered again. Granted, this time my victim would have been someone who was attacking me directly, without provocation, but it would still have been murder.

  Rage had taken him over completely. A dreadful, killing rage had engulfed him, a senseless anger that urged him to lash out and disembowel the man. Only luck had saved the man, luck and the ability to get out of sight before T'fyrr could act.

  Would he have felt that same rage a year or more ago? He didn't think so.

  Singing with Nightingale calmed him; simply sitting here listening to her sing alone calmed him even more, but he was still shaking inside. That was as much the reason why he had decided to stay here for a bit as was his desire to talk to Nightingale.

  Lyrebird. I must remember that she is called Lyrebird here. I wonder why?

  In fact, paired with his desire to talk with her was his fear of resuming their interrupted
friendship. I cannot place her in jeopardy, and she will be in as much danger as I am from my enemies if they learn that we are friends. I am not certain that Tyladen will be willing to protect her even if I warn him; after all, she is nothing more than an employee to him. And he knew, with deep certainty, that he was in danger from at least one enemy who was willing to hire bravos to come after him. He had known, even before Nightingale told him, that there were at least two people in that staged brawl who had been targeting him, and perhaps three or more. Being thwarted once would not stop them; they would only seek him somewhere else.

  Or seek some other way to reach me than the direct route.

  If he came and went via the sky, there would only be two places where they could ambush him: within the Palace grounds, or within Freehold. Both places had their own protections, and both had people who would protect him. But Nightingale had no wings; she could not travel except on the ground. He knew her kind, she was a Gypsy, and it was not natural for her to stay in one place for long; she would not stay here even if he warned her that it wasn't safe to leave. If his enemies knew that he valued her, they would not hesitate to use her against him.

  He sighed and sipped at the iced herbal drink someone had brought him, while Nightingale sang and played one of her strange Gypsy songs. I wish that I knew who my enemy was, and why he sent men after me. It could be one of the other Court musicians, who wishes to be rid of me. It could be one of the Advisors, or one of their allies, who thinks that I have too great an influence with the King. He sighed. If only I did! But that doesn't matter as long as someone believes that I do. It also could be someone who simply does not wish to see a nonhuman in a position of such importance and visibility. Or it could be for none of those reasons, for a cause I cannot even think of.

  It could also be that someone in this city, possibly with the Church, had recognized him as the "demon" who killed a Church Guard. Since that killing could not actually be proved, this might be their own way of seeing that justice was done.

  All of those people would have ample reason to try to use Nightingale, even someone connected with the Church and High Bishop Padrik.

  That might be worst of all for her. He had seen the shadowed fear in her eyes on the single occasion when they had spoken about the power of the Church_the idea of Nightingale in the hands of a sadist like Padrik left him cold and shaking.

  He would not have been happy until he had forced her to confess to some awful crime, so that he could have her done away with in a way that brought him more power. He would have done it as casually as swatting an insect, and I know that there are more men like him in this human Church. I have seen them, watched them as they watch me in the Court, their eyes full of hot hatred, or worse, cold and calculating indifference. Like Padrik, others are important to them only as the means to power, or the taking of power from them.

  He was so lost in his own bleak thoughts that he didn't realize Nightingale's last set was over until she came to his seat and tapped him on the shoulder. He started and stared up at her.

  "Let's go up to the roof," she said, not commenting on how jumpy he was. "You'll feel better up there with open sky above you."

  Now, how did she know that? Or was it simply logical deduction for a creature with wings?

  Whatever the cause, it shows a sensitivity that I had not expected from a human.

  He followed her up several flights of stairs, down a corridor on the fourth floor that she said was part of the staff's area, and up a short set of ladderlike stairs. She pushed open a hatchway and climbed up; he followed her to find himself once again under the open sky. But now it was quite dark, with stars winking through thin, high clouds.

  She shut the hatch quietly. "There are probably a few more people up here," she said quite softly, "but they won't bother us, and I know where they are likely to be." She beckoned to him, and he followed her, a gracefully moving shadow, lightly frosted with silver from the half moon overhead. She took him to the very edge of the roof and patted the raised rim of knee-high poured stone that kept people from walking right off the edge.

  "This makes a perfectly good bench if you aren't afraid of heights," she told him, laughing a little at the absurdity of the idea of a Haspur with no head for heights. He echoed her laugh_though it sounded a bit feeble to him_and joined her on the improvised seat. A warm thermal rose from the pavement below, still heated from the afternoon's sun.

  "I come up here nearly every night except when I am very weary," she told him as she looked out over the city below, then up at the moon and stars above. "It's very peaceful. I'm sure Freehold is a wonderful place, but if you work here, you get very tired of it, especially if you aren't particularly used to cities. I don't like cities very much, myself. I prefer the countryside. I'd trade a hundred Freeholds for one good Faire at Kingsford."

  He had more than his share of questions that he wanted to ask her about that. What in the world was she doing here, for one thing! Why here and why now? The last time he had seen her, she had been going in the opposite direction of Lyonarie! There were no Free Bards here, at least none that he knew of, and probably not many Gypsies, either. So what had possessed her to come here, and what had possessed her to take a position as an entertainer in Freehold of all places?

  The trouble was, if he asked questions, she would be as free to ask questions of him. "I was rather surprised to find you working here," he said finally, trying to find a topic that would not lead back to the weeks he did not want to discuss.

  Only a few weeks, really. Not very long at all to turn me into a rabid murderer.

  "Not half as surprised as I was," she replied dryly. "I have been wondering if I should tell you this_but given what happened tonight, I think perhaps I'd better."

  If she should tell him_She gave him no chance to collect his thoughts.

  "Our mutual friends, the Deliambrens, wanted me to come here to ferret out information for them," she said, surprising him all over again.

  Nightingale? Working as a Deliambren agent? But_

  "Them, among others, that is," she added, and coughed. "I have many friends among the non-humans, and they seem to have a high regard for my ability to observe things. They asked me to come here and try to discover what I could about_oh, I know this sounds ridiculous, but there are reasons_about the High King. He used to be a great leader, but now it seems that there are other people making all the decisions. I was besieged on all sides, when it came down to it; I had at least three different people ask me to come here and simply keep my eyes and ears open."

  "Why you?" T'fyrr finally asked.

  She tapped her fingers on the balustrade. "To be honest, I'm not certain. I have done similar things in the past, but_T'fyrr, it was never something like this. They have more faith in my limited abilities than I do, I suppose." She shook her head. "As it happens, they are all people to whom I owe something_loyalty, favors, respect. I did listen. I understood why they were asking me. I knew that there were, indeed, some things I could learn, even with my limited abilities. Much to their disappointment, I refused to promise anything, and I hope they are not even aware that I made it here."

  He felt his beak gaping in shock at her words. Not just that the Deliambrens had tried to recruit her as an agent_but that she was going along with it without any of the help she would be getting if she had agreed to aid them!

  "But why_why are you doing this alone?" he asked. "Isn't it more dangerous, uncertain?"

  "One of my friends told me that they had already sent people in who had been uncovered and had to leave. It seemed to me," she continued, idly tapping out a rhythm on the stone, "that if even one person that I didn't personally know and could count on became aware that I was here and working as a Deliambren agent, that was one person who might betray me, either on purpose or inadvertently. That's why I call myself 'Lyrebird' here_and I have yet another name out on the street. If I find anything of substance, I will tell those who wanted me to come here, but not before, and not unti
l I am out of Lyonarie."

  He reflected ruefully that it was too bad he could not have done the same. "It is a little more difficult to hide a pair of wings, a beak, and talons," he replied by way of acknowledgement that he was doing the same work as she.

  "Ah." She listened for a moment, but he could not tell which of the street sounds or night sounds had caught her attention. "I take it that you are the new Court musician that everyone has been babbling about? And that our dear Deliambren friends talked you into promising what I wouldn't?"

  He did not bother to ask how she knew; if the Deliambrens had tried to recruit her as an agent, she must have ways of gathering information that he had not even guessed. And here he had been under the impression that she was nothing more than a simple musician!

  The more she revealed, the more mysterious she became, and the more attractive. And the more he was determined to protect her from the danger following him.