The Eagle And The Nightingales bv-3

by Mercedes Lackey

  I think she must have done something for him specifically with that magic of hers. I shall have to propose a special concert for him_perhaps a dinner concert on Nightingale's night off? We could do worse than have him on our side.

  Lord Secretary Atrovel was his usual acerbic, witty, flippant self; whatever was going on in the private Council sessions didn't seem to be affecting him in the least. He continued to amuse T'fyrr with his imitations of the other Advisors, and his opinions on everything under the sun.

  Lord Artificer Levan Pendleton came less often, as he was involved in some complicated project, but he was the only one of the three who actually said anything about changes in Theovere, and only a single comment. "He's up to mischief," the Lord Artificer had said briefly but with ironic approval, as if Theovere was a very clever, but very naughty, boy.

  Atrovel was there last night with Pendleton, both of them flinging insults at each other and enjoying it tremendously. I wish Nightingale could have been there, too. I wish she would move into my suite.

  T'fyrr suppressed the rest of that thought and used his deepest wingbeats to get himself high into the sky, to a carefully calculated point where he would be able to make out Nightingale in the street below, but she would not see anything but a bird form above if she looked up. He was worried about her. She told him not to worry, but he did anyway.

  They tried to capture me, maybe even kill me. They haven't been successful, and it is going to cost them to find someone willing to make a third try. At least, that is the way Tyladen says things are done here. He thinks that makes me safe.

  Well, maybe it made him safe, but it did nothing to protect Nightingale. An idiot could tell that he not only "hired" her, he cared for her. She was a single unarmed female; much easier to capture than a Haspur. She was, therefore, as much a target as he, and a much cheaper target at that.

  She had to travel the dangerous streets between Freehold and the Palace twice a day, every day. He had volunteered to escort her, in spite of the fact that the crowds made him queasy and the streets brought on that fear of closed-in places all Haspur shared.

  She had refused. He had offered to pay for a conveyance, and she had refused that, as well. Tyladen seemed unconcerned, saying only that "Gypsies can take care of themselves."

  All very well and good, but there was only one Gypsy in this city, and she would have a difficult time standing up to six armed horsemen, for instance!

  So he had started following her himself; not only from the air, but in the places where the streets were too narrow to make out where she was, by descending to use the metal walkways that connected buildings together above the second stories.

  So far, nothing whatsoever had happened, but that did not make him less worried, it made him more worried. His unknown enemy could be waiting to see just how high a value T'fyrr placed on her before moving in to kidnap her. His enemy could also be trying to figure out just where she figured in Theovere's altering personality. Anyone who wanted to ask the bodyguards could find out what they were singing for the High King, and at least half of the songs were of a specific kind. You wouldn't even need magic to get a particular message across to Theovere, if he was listening. Their choice of music alone would alert that enemy to what they hoped to accomplish.

  He looked down, spotting her from above by the misshapen bundle of the harp case on her back. She was out of the better districts and down into the lower-class areas of the city; the streets narrowed, and it was getting harder to watch her from this high. On the other hand, she was jostled along by the crowd, and it would be a bad idea for her to look up now that she was in this part of the city.

  He descended. It wasn't time to take to a walkway, yet; just the point where he should skim just above the roof level. People doing their wash or tending their little potted gardens would gawk at him as he flew past, but he was used to that now. He moved fast enough that their interest didn't alert anyone in the street below.

  And speaking of the street below_

  He fanned his wings open, grabbing for a now-familiar roost. He came to rest on a steeple, clinging with all four sets of talons, and watched her as she turned the corner into another narrow street. He particularly didn't like this one. There were a dozen little covered alleys off it, places where you could hide people for an ambush. This was one of the worst districts she had to cross to get back to Freehold, too. There had been murders committed here in broad daylight with a dozen witnesses present, none of whom, of course, could identify the murderer.

  She was nervous here, too; he sensed that as his neck hackles rose. His beak clenched tight, and the talons on his hands etched little lines into the shingles on the steeple. She felt that something was wrong_

  And it was.

  Three men stepped out of an alley in front of her just as three more stepped out of one behind her. They were armed with sticks and clubs_and as everyone else sandwiched in between their ranks fled the immediate area without being stopped, it was obvious who they were after.

  One of them stepped forward and gestured with his club as Nightingale shrank away, putting her back up against a building.

  T'fyrr shoved himself away from the steeple, plunging toward them in a closed-wing stoop.

  Nightingale knew she was being followed; she'd known it the moment that her tailer picked her up just outside of Leather Street. He had been following her for the past five days, in fact, always picking up her trail at Leather Street and leaving it just before she got to Freehold. He was good, but not good enough to evade someone who could sense a tracker's nerves behind her.

  That was why she had paid all of her army of street urchins an extra penny to follow her, as well, from the Palace gate to Freehold. They might be children, but they weren't helpless; you couldn't live in and on the street around here if you were helpless. They had their own weapons; tiny fists as hard as rocks, the stones of the street, slings like her own, even a knife or two. They had their orders: if someone tried to hurt Nightingale, they were to swarm him, give her a chance to escape, then run off themselves.

  But she had not expected to be attacked by more than one or two at the most.

  The three stepping out in front of her made her freeze in shock; the three closing in from behind brought a cold wave of fear rushing over her.

  Quickly, as the normal denizens of the street vanished into their own little hiding places, she put her back to a wall and reached inside her skirt for her own knife. This was no time or place for magic_

  Although a nice Elven lightning bolt would be welcome right now!

  At that moment, the bolt from above did come in, wings half furled, talons outstretched, screaming like all the demons of the Church put together.

  T'fyrr!

  He raked the scalp of one with his foreclaws as he plunged in, striking to hurt and disable, not to kill. That man was down, blood pouring over his face so that he couldn't see; he screamed as loudly as T'fyrr. The pain of his wounds probably convinced him that T'fyrr had taken the top of his skull off and not just his scalp.

  With a thunder of wings that sent debris flying, and a wind that whipped the ends of her hair into her face, he landed beside her and turned to face the rest of her enemies.

  He didn't speak; he just opened his beak for another of those ear-shattering screams.

  But any hope that he might simply frighten them into giving it up as a bad job died when three more appeared behind the five that remained standing.

  Nightingale's fighting knife was out and ready in one hand, a nasty little bit of chain in the other. Good enough in the ordinary run of street fighting_

  None of those men seemed at all impressed as they closed in.

  She had never been in this kind of a fight before; she spent most of her time ducking, and the rest of it trying to fend off grasping hands with her knife. Fear choked her and made it hard to breathe; T'fyrr panted harshly through his open beak. Every fiber of her wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to, no opening to seiz
e. Bile rose in her throat; she tasted blood where she had bitten her lip. One of them kicked at her legs, expertly, trying to bring her down. She ducked head blows, but not always with complete success. Her breath burned in her throat, and sweat ran into her eyes and coldly down her back.

  Nightingale fought like a cornered alleycat and T'fyrr like a grounded hawk, but neither of them were willing to strike to kill, and that actually worked against them. There were too many times when the only option open would have meant killing one of their assailants....

  A glancing blow to her shoulder made her drop her bit of chain as her arm and hand went numb; she slashed feverishly at the man who'd struck her, but he only stepped out of the way and came in again, swinging his lead-weighted club. With the chain, she might have been able to get the club away from him_

  We're not going to get away_She swallowed bile again, and backed away from the man with the club, her stomach lurching with fear.

  Suddenly, the street erupted in screams.

  The children swarmed fearlessly into the fight, screaming their lungs out, kicking, biting, throwing stones, hitting, and most of all getting underfoot. They were too small and agile for the startled attackers to stop them, and there were too many of them to catch; when one of the bullies actually managed to grab an urchin, three or four more would mob him, kicking and biting, until he let go.

  Nightingale spotted an opening at the same time T'fyrr did; they seized each other's hands, and T'fyrr charged through first, knocking one man aside with a wing, Nightingale hauled along in his wake.

  They ran until their sides ached; ran until they could hardly breathe, ran until they were staggering blindly with exhaustion_and did not stop running until they came to Freehold.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  "I can't believe you didn't break anything," Nightingale said as she carefully checked every bone in T'fyrr's fragile-appearing wings. She had already checked every inch of his body, from feet to sheath to keel, knowing from her experience with birds that the feathers could hide a number of serious to life-threatening injuries, and that seemingly insignificant tears in the skin could spread under sudden pressure to an unbelievable extent, especially across the breast muscles. Fortunately, his skin proved to be much tougher than the average bird's.

  She ached, not only from her own injuries, but from his. I know every bruise, every sprain, every torn muscle. I feel as if I am inside his body. This never happened with Raven!

  He sighed, and rubbed one elbow. Bruises didn't show on the scaly skin of his lower arms and legs, but there was so little muscle there that the bruises went to the bone. "It feels as if I have broken a hundred bones, but I know that I have not. It will be days before I can fly again."

  He did not voice the fear that put into him; the fear of the winged creature left helpless on the ground. He did not have to voice that fear, for she felt it as well.

  I was an idiot. I should have taken him seriously. I should have confronted Harperus and demanded some kind of damned Deliambren protection! I should have confronted Harperus and Tyladen and moved into the damned Palace. I was enjoying the anonymity that kept them from manipulating me, and enjoying my notoriety as Lyrebird too much. I was enjoying all the adulation and success I had here in Freehold, too. Now he's grounded and it's all my fault. Guilt made her avoid his eyes, but she could not avoid the emotions coming from him.

  She sat back on the bed for a moment, once she had assured herself that he truly did not have any broken bones. She had injuries of her own, of course_a badly bruised shoulder, bruised shins, lumps on her head_but his injuries were far more numerous than hers. He had shielded both of them with his wings, used the wings as weapons to buffet their attackers, and interposed himself between her and a blow she had not seen aimed at her any number of times.

  Well, at least there is a solution to his injuries, if he'll take it. He might be grounded, but not for long.

  "T'fyrr, I can_I can heal some of this, if you like," she offered tentatively. "It will still hurt, but I can sing it half-healed today, and do the rest tomorrow." Then she frowned. "I think I can," she amended. "I'm not sure if the magic will work on a Haspur, or if it will work the same. It should. I have not healed a nonhuman before, but my teacher Nighthawk has, and she never said anything about the magic working differently for them."

  His feathers twitched, and she felt his relief at the idea that she might be able to give him enough freedom from pain and damage that he need not be caught on the ground. "Please!" he begged with voice and eyes and clenched talon-hands. "Half-healed will let me fly again!"

  "You know how the magic works," she said, and smiled when he shook his head.

  He'll find out in a moment.

  "No, I don't_" he began, then his eyes widened in wonder. "Oh. Yes, I do...." His voice trailed off, as his eyes sought hers, seeking answers.

  They were answers she was not prepared to give him yet_perhaps never. Better that he should never know where that touch of magic and the knowledge of it came from, if there was to be nothing more between them than there had been between her and Raven. "Simply listen for the music and give yourself to it," she said, and placed both her hands atop his hard, sinewy talons. It no longer felt strange to reach for a hand and find something all bone and sinew and covered with the tough, scaly skin of a raptors feet. Did it still seem strange for him to touch her, and find soft skin over muscle, with five stubby little scales instead of talons?

  She gave him no chance to ask all the questions she felt bubbling up inside of him; she did not want to face those questions herself.

  The answers, in all probability, would hurt far too much.

  Instead, she plunged into the magic that Nighthawk had taught her_the combination of Bardic Magic and Gypsy healing, all bound up in the tonal chanting that suited Nighthawk's strong, harsh voice better than any song. But the Bardic song lay behind the chanting, and for Nightingale the chant turned into something far more musical than Nighthawk ever produced.

  The results were the same, though; as she had when she had tried to ease T'fyrr's soul-wounds, she became one with him and his hurts and felt them as clearly as if they were hers. She came between him and the pain, in fact, shielding him from it as he had shielded her from the blows that had injured him.

  If I had wings, and I could fly.... That was the refrain in many of the songs she and her kind sang to their audiences; now she spread wings of power rather than feathers and muscle, spread them over him and sheltered him beneath them, as he had sheltered her beneath his own. She was once again aware of the spicy scent of his feathers, and the bitter scent beneath it of sheer exhaustion.

  With her song and the power in the song, she drove into each injury, speeding the healing that had already begun, strengthening the torn muscles, weaving reinforcement into the sprains, soothing the bruises. In the back of her mind, she reflected that it was too bad in a way that his skin was covered with feathers; nothing she had done would be visible. On the other hand, injuries will not be obvious, either. He will appear up to full strength, which might mislead other would-be attackers. She sensed him relaxing as the pain eased, sensed his surprise in the lessening of the pain, sensed him finding the song she chanted under her breath.

  But then_

  Instead of simply opening himself up to the song as she had asked, he began to sing, too.

  And the power no longer flowed only from her to him, but came from his hands into hers, as if two great, rushing streams ran side by side, but in opposing directions.

  Her shoulder stopped aching and throbbing, as he touched her with that brush of power as warm as the caress of a feather and as light. The many points of pain in her skull ebbed, as he brushed the power over them as well.

  The quality of the chant changed a little, becoming more musical, with odd tonal qualities, but she was able to follow it effortlessly.

  But she almost lost the thread of the chant in her own astonishment when she realized consciously what he had just done,
and she felt his amusement and wonder_amusement at her surprise, and wonder at the thing that had been born between them.

  In the past, anytime she had done this, when she had opened herself to someone, it had been entirely one-sided, as she had learned to her sorrow with handsome Raven. Even when she limited her openness to the minimum required to heal, she had still been open enough to feel the mental anguish that all too often came with injury, and always she had felt the pain itself. Never, ever, had someone else returned the gift. Never had someone joined her in the chant, to heal her.

  And never had anyone ever opened himself to her heart as she had opened herself to his.

  Until T'fyrr.

  She knew that he read her soul as she had read his, felt the long loneliness, and the resignation deeper than despair and just as sorrowful. Her heart had no more secrets from his, for every wound, every scar, every bruise was laid bare to his raptorial eyes.