She nodded, deliberately. "I believe that will be what you need, as your duty and your penance. It will not be easy, and it will not be pleasant."
He sighed, and yet it was not because of a heaviness of spirit. Somehow, in truly accepting this burden, his spirit felt lighter rather than crushed further down. "No penance is," he replied somberly. Somehow, in the dark despair of last night, he had come to a decision_hopefully, it was one of wisdom and not of weakness and expediency. Theovere was too far down the road of irresponsibility to be recalled by ordinary means. "I will need your magic, if you will give it," he said, feeling as if he were making a formal request or performing a solemn ceremony with those simple words.
She nodded, and bowed her head a little. "Since you will have it, I will give it," she said, making her words a pledge as well as an answer.
Then she raised her lovely, weary eyes to his again and smiled tiredly. "And you should eat_for that matter, so should I. We can do nothing half-starved."
Those words, which would have made him wince away less than a day ago, only made him aware that he was ravenous. "And after we eat?" he asked. "Will you come with me to the Palace?"
"Yes." She brushed her hair back over her shoulders. "It is time that I accepted my responsibilities as well, and stopped hiding in corners behind the name of 'Tanager.' But I will not," she added, with a warning look in her eyes, "be Nightingale. Not here, and not now. I do not trust Tyladen's friends, nor Harperus' associates. They speak too lightly and too often to too many people. They can afford to; they have many protections. I am only a Gypsy, and far from the wagons of my Clan. What few magics I have will not protect me if powerful men come hunting."
"As you are far from your people, I am far from the aeries of mine," he said impulsively, laying his hand over hers. "So perhaps we should fly our pattern together, from now on?"
"And we should begin now." She rose at that, and stretched, lithe and graceful. "Let me get clean, first, then Lyrebird and T'fyrr will eat together, and he will take her to the Palace to present her as his accompanist. Or should you go and make some formal request for an accompanist? Should this be an official, perhaps a royal, appointment?"
He actually managed a smile at that. "It would be easiest simply to do so," he pointed out. "Just as Harperus did with me. If the King hears you once, he will see to it that the appointment simply happens. He is not about to put up with interference from his Council a second time over so 'trivial' a matter as his personal musicians. They believe it is trivial, and it is both unfortunate and our good luck that he does not. This one time, his obsession can work for us."
She paused for a moment, one hand on the door to the bathroom, then nodded. "I think I see that. It is a risk, but so is everything we are doing."
She closed the door behind her, and there came the sound of running water from beyond it. He lay back down on her bed, closing his eyes for a moment, intending to plan out the next few hours in detail. He would have to get her past the guards, first, of course....
But his body had other ideas, and he dozed off, to awaken again with her hand on his arm. She was dressed in one of her most impressive costumes, and he had little doubt that the Ladies of the Court would attempt to emulate her dress before too long. He also had a shrewd notion that they would not succeed.
He got up, finding himself less stiff than he would have expected, given that he had spent the night in a human bed. She sent the bed back up into the wall with a touch of her hand; slipped the carrying case over her larger harp, and slung it across her back. It did not look as incongruous as he would have thought.
"Shall we?" she asked, gesturing to the door. He led the way; she locked the door after them both.
She disappeared into Tyladen's office for a moment, presumably to tell him where they were going and how long they expected to be gone. She is one of their chief attractions; she owes her putative employer that much, I suppose. After a hearty meal in the single eating nook open at this early hour, they went out into the street together. There was no sign of last night's altercation, but the moment they crossed the threshold of Freehold, his hackles went up, and he moved into the center of the street, away from dangerous overhangs.
It did not escape his notice that she made no objection to this, that, in fact, her eyes scanned the mostly-deserted street with as much wariness as his.
They stepped out together onto the cobblestones of the street, both of them dreadfully out of place in this part of the city. Between his appearance and her costume, anyone looking for them was likely to find them immediately.
Well, there was no help for it.
Nightingale walked beside him as serenely as if the previous night had never happened, as if she did not look like an invitation to theft. He tried to imitate her and actually succeeded to a certain extent.
But there was one thing, at least, that he was going to do. He had coins in his garment, plenty of them, and he was not going to appear at the gate to the Palace with her, walking afoot like a pair of vagabonds. As soon as they reached one of the more respectable sections of the city, he hailed a horse-drawn conveyance, an open carriage with two seats that faced each other, and gestured her up into it.
She raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. He took his place beside her, although it was dreadfully uncomfortable and he had to hold his wings and tail at odd angles to get them to fit inside. Now, how am I going to get her inside the gate? The guards aren't going to want to let her pass, she hasn't a safe-conduct or an invitation.... He worried at the problem without coming to a satisfactory solution as the streets grew progressively busier, and stares more covert. This was not the only conveyance on the street, but many of the others were private vehicles, whose occupants gazed at them with surprise. He ignored them, trying to think what he could do with Nightingale. Perhaps he could leave her at the gate, go in, find the Seneschal and get a safe-conduct for her_
But that would leave her alone at the gate, and anyone who spotted her with me on the way here could_do whatever they wanted. She is with me, which makes her presumably valuable to me.
Would anyone dare to try anything under the noses of the guards?
Oh yes, they could and would. Especially if my unknown adversary is highly placed in the Court. A little thing like a kidnapping at the gate would hardly bother him. He could make it a private arrest, for instance.
There was reasonable foot traffic at this hour, and the conveyance made excellent time; not as good as he would have flying, of course, but still quite respectable. The two horses drawing it were able to trot most of the way.
They reached the gate long before he had come to any satisfactory solution to his problem. But, as it happened, the solution was waiting for him, standing beside the guards with a smaller and far more elaborate and elegant, gilded version of the conveyance waiting beside him. The Palace grounds were extensive enough that there was an entire fleet of conveyances and their drivers available for those who lived here, just to ferry them around within the walls.
Nob? What's he doing here?
"Is that someone you know?" Nightingale asked, as his eyes widened in surprise.
"Yes, it's my servant_but how did he know I was coming in this morning, and why did he order a conveyance?" T'fyrr asked, more as a rhetorical question than because he expected an answer.
But Nightingale shrugged. "I told Tyladen where I was going. Tyladen probably foresaw the difficulty of getting me inside without waiting around at the gate and sent word to Harperus. Old Owl must have exercised some of his diplomatic persuasion and got me an invitation or a safe-conduct. I expect that's why your lad is here; to bring the pass and to get us to the Palace in the manner suitable to your rank."
T'fyrr nodded; it made sense. But Nightingale added, "The one thing I don't want is to run into Harperus. He knows me on sight, and I don't want any of the Deliambrens aware that I'm here."
He grimaced; at this point, that was a very difficult request to satisfy. "I don't know
how_"
But she interrupted him. "I can keep him from noticing me as long as I stay in the background. If Old Owl shows up at all, T'fyrr, you keep him busy, please? Don't let him think about talking to me. Tell him I'm shy, whatever it takes to get him to leave me alone. Make up something_or better yet, tell him about the attack last night. That should get his mind off me."
He wasn't at all sure he could do that, but he nodded again. "I can try," he said truthfully, and then the conveyance stopped in front of the gate, and it was too late to discuss anything more.
Nob had indeed brought "Lyrebird's" safe-conduct, although from here on she would have to come and go through a lesser gate elsewhere; she was only a lowly accompanist, after all, and not a Sire dubbed by the High King's own hand. Nob chattered excitedly at a high rate of speed, which kept T'fyrr from having to say much and Nightingale from having to say anything. The safe-conduct was from Theovere himself; Old Owl had gone straight to the highest authority available. He must have described Lyrebird in the most glowing terms; the King was most anxious to hear this remarkable player from the infamous Freehold.
"The Bardic Guild found out, too. I don't know how, but they had a Guildmaster protesting to the High King before I even got the safe-conduct," Nob continued, after describing how Harperus had come to get him early this morning. "They tried to get this lady banned from the Court because she's a Gypsy, then they tried to get her barred because she plays at Freehold and they have some kind of arrangement about the musicians at Freehold. The High King just ignored them. They were even going to make a fuss so you couldn't be heard, but Theovere got word of that before it ever happened and told them if they did anything he'd have them all discharged, so they gave up, I guess. The High King made her your Second, do you know what that means?"
T'fyrr shook his head. Nob was only too happy to explain. "She's more than a servant, like me, but she's not the High King's musician, she's yours. So nobody but you can discharge her, you see, not even Theovere if the Guild pressures the High King to do it, but she doesn't have the immunity you do if she offends somebody at Court. She can only be arrested by Theovere's personal guards, though, if she's accused of something."
"Then I'll just have to be certain I don't offend anyone," Nightingale said in a low, amused voice. Nob giggled.
"The Guild people are all pretty disgusted, but Harperus says not to worry, they can't do anything, and as long as you're real careful and never let any of them get you someplace without witnesses so they can claim you offended them, it'll be all right," Nob finished in a rush. He kept glancing over at Lyrebird with a certain awe and speculation in his eyes.
"When is Theovere expecting us to perform for him?" T'fyrr asked. That was the question of the most moment.
"As soon as you get there_I mean, after you get cleaned up and all," Nob replied, correcting himself with a blush. "You can't go before the King with dust on your feathers!"
Nightingale gave T'fyrr an amused look that he read only too easily_she had warned him something like this might happen, which was why she had made her own careful preparations before they left Freehold.
Nob hurried them both inside and, while Nightingale waited in the outer room, rushed him through his usual preparations.
Still harried by the energetic Nob, like a pair of hawks being chivvied on by a wren, they hurried up the hallways to the King's private quarters.
This time will be different. This time there will be magic. Elation and worry mingled in him in a confusing storm of emotion, leaving him feeling unbalanced. The least little things were unbalancing him, after last night....
After last night....
What exactly had happened? Something had passed between them, as ephemeral as a moon shadow and strong as spider silk. A whisper more potent than any shout, that was what it felt like; a stillness at the center of a whirlwind. As if every feather had been stripped from his body, leaving him bare to the winds.
Perhaps it was just as well that they had work to do immediately, so that he had no time to think about it. He did not want to think about it, not now, perhaps not ever.
But you will, his conscience told him. You will have to, eventually.
He didn't want to think about that, either.
Nightingale was too weary to be impressed by the Palace, the High King, or anything else for that matter. There wasn't much left of her this morning, except the magic and the music; she had saved enough of her energy for that, and had very little more. She felt as if she was so insubstantial she would blow away in a breeze, and so tired she could hardly walk.
It was not the physical weariness, although that was a part of it, certainly. She had stayed up to play for revels all night long and traveled with the dawn a thousand times. But this morning was very different.
But part of me dwells within him, now, and part of him in me. Strange and yet familiar, a breath of mountain air across her deep and secret forest; a hint of music strange and wild, a brush of feathers across her breast.
No time to think about it now; time only to enforce her don't look at me glamorie, spun with a touch of Bardic power and sealed with a hummed, near-inaudible tune. Time only to take her place behind T'fyrr in the King's chamber, set up her harp, tune it with swift fingers, and wait for his cues.
He would have to be the one to choose the tunes; she could only follow his lead, and try to set the magic to suit. They'd had no chance to discuss this, to pick specific songs. "If it is something you don't know, I'll sing the first verse alone," he whispered. "If we do that enough, it will seem done on purpose."
She nodded, and then they began.
With no time to set what they were to perform, with only their past performances together to use as patterns, he was not able to choose many songs suited to their intent. She was not particularly worried about that, not for this first attempt. She was far more concerned with setting so good an impression of her ability on the King that he would continue to support T'fyrr and, indirectly, her. It would take more than one session of magic to undo all the harm that had been wrought with years of clever advice and insidious whispers. It might be just as well that they were not too heavy-handed with the message for the first performance; better that they had more songs merely meant to entertain than to carry the extra burden. She must impress the King as well as convey the magic, after all.
She knew that she had done that much when the King ceased to play his game of Sires and Barons with one of his lords, and ignored everything else in the room, as well, closing his eyes and listening intently to the music they made. She knew that there was something more than herself at work when the bodyguards' faces took on an unexpected stillness, as if they, too, were caught up in the spell of harp and voice, when even the lord who had been playing at the game with the High King folded his hands in his lap and simply listened.
There is something of me in T'fyrr, as there is part of him in me. Has he learned to touch the magic through me? It could have been; Raven had his own touch of the magic, and she would never have noticed one way or another if he had acquired a little more of it from her after their bittersweet joining. So much of her soul was bound up in the magic, could she have ever spun it out to wrap T'fyrr's if the magic didn't come with it?
She sensed a terrible weariness in that second man, and as sensitive as she was this morning, she could not help but move to ease it. So when the music chosen did not particularly suit their purposes with the High King, she turned her attention and her magic to that weary lord, sending him such peace as she could. He was not a man who would ever feel much peace; his concerns were too deep, his worries never-ending. But what he would take in the way of ease, she would give him gladly. No one with such weariness on his heart could ever be one of the lot who were advising the King to neglect his duty. This could only be a man who was doing his best to make up for the King's neglect.
The King made no requests; T'fyrr simply picked songs as he thought of them, so far as Nightingale could tell. Finally, a
t some signal she could not see, he stopped, and it was a long, long moment before the King opened his eyes again and set his gaze on the two of them.
It was another long moment before he spoke.
"I do not ever wish to hear your musical judgment called into question again, T'fyrr," he said quietly, but with a certain deadly quality to his words. "You may bring whosoever you wish to accompany you from henceforth_but it will be my request that it be this gentle lady. Her safe-conduct to this Palace is extended for as long as she wishes to come."
The High King turned to the lord that had sat at play with him. "What think you of my Nightingales, Lord Seneschal?" he asked, but with a tone full of wry amusement, as if he expected some kind of noncommittal answer. Nightingale suppressed a smile at the unintended irony.
But the Lord Seneschal turned towards Theovere with an expression of vague surprise and a touch of wonder. "You know that I am not the expert in music that you are, Your Majesty," he said with no hint that he was trying to flatter. "I enjoy it, certainly, but it has never touched me_until today." He closed his eyes briefly, and opened them again, still wearing that expression of surprise. "But today, I felt such peace for a moment, that if I were a religious man, I would have suspected something supernatural... I thought of things that I had forgotten, of days long ago, of places and people...."
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