The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III (23 page)

He felt his talons scraping along the stone of the balustrade as he clenched his fist in frustration. He said nothing, though, and she did not press him.

“I heard—” she began again tentatively, and he sensed she was going to change the subject. “I heard that you had been traveling with Harperus all this time, that you were somewhere around Gradford last fall at around the time Robin and Kestrel were there, too.”

Too near the bone! He shied away quickly. “I don’t remember all the places we were,” he lied, knowing the lie sounded clumsy. After all, given how precise his memory was, how
could
he forget where he had been? “Harperus’ wagon travels faster than beasts can pull it, if he chooses to make it so. We have been too many places to count.”

“I thought for certain I heard Harperus say the two of you were heading for Gradford when we parted company, though,” she persisted, and he had the feeling that she
was
trying to probe for something. “Didn’t you even tell me yourself that you were going to meet Robin and Kestrel there?”

He winced this time, and was glad that it was too dark for her to see it. “I don’t recall,” he lied again. “It’s been a year, at least, after all.”

“And a great deal has happened between then and now,” she replied, but then she stopped pressing him. “Except, perhaps, to me. I didn’t do very much in the time since you left me; I spent most of the time I passed among humans in very small villages where nothing much ever happens. My audiences are small, my recompense smaller, but it is enough to keep me. That is all the news that I have for you, I fear.”

It took a moment for that statement to sink in, and when it did, he was astonished.
Why would she do that? Look how she fills rooms here, where there are all sorts of entertainers! Why would she choose places where they could never understand what a great musician she truly is?

“But—” He fumbled for words that would not sound like an insult. “But you are a
superb
musician! You should be performing in places like Freehold all the time! Why do you spend your time, your talents, among people who can never appreciate them?”

“Never?” He heard the irony in her voice again. “But one of those people, not that long ago, was our own little Lady Lark. There are hidden treasures in those tiny villages, T’fyrr. Now and again I come upon one with the music-hunger in him, and I wake it up and show him that he does not have to remain where he is and let it starve to death. For that alone, it is worth the days and weeks among people who would not care how well I played, so long as I could play ‘The Huntsman’ twenty or thirty times running.”

And from the tone of her voice, that was probably precisely what happened in those tiny villages she claimed to like so much. There must be other reasons—

“There are other reasons,” she admitted, as if she had read his thoughts. “If some authority has a grudge against Free Bards or Gypsies, I generally know it the moment I set eyes on the people there, and I can keep moving. That is better than thinking that I am safe and suddenly finding an angry Mayor or Priest with a mob come to drive me out of town. And, at any rate, I try not to spend much time actually
in
those villages. There are other places where I am welcome.”

Such as with the Elves, perhaps?
Hadn’t Harperus said something about that, at a time when he was trying to distract T’fyrr from his depression? He hadn’t been paying as much attention as he wished he had now.

Something about Nightingale being considered odd,
“fey,”
he said, even among her own people. That she spent more time among the Elves and other nonhumans than among her own kind. That sounds uncannily like
—
myself. Is there something that she is trying to avoid, I wonder, even as I? Is that why she spends much time among those who care little about
her
and much about her music?
There was a great deal that she was not saying, and he found himself wondering what it was. She had her secrets too.

If that was the case, would she understand him and his guilt, as Harperus had not?

He was tempted to unburden himself, sorely tempted, but resisted the temptation. He really did not want to drag anyone else into his troubles or his dangers. And he did not want to burden her, of all people, with the knowledge of his guilt. She had enough to bear.

“I suppose I should go,” he said finally, and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She nodded; reluctantly, he thought, but nodded.

“I have work tomorrow, and so do you,” she said—then hesitated. “I don’t suppose that you might be free tomorrow afternoon, though, would you?”

“Normally the King does not need me in the afternoon,” he said cautiously. “And at the moment, I believe I have learned all that I am likely to for a while from the Afternoon Court. Why?”

“Because I’d like to guide you in the city to give you some idea what places are safe for you,” she replied unexpectedly. “And there is someone I would like you to meet. Well, more than one person, actually, but there is one person I
particularly
want you to meet, someone I think will surprise you very pleasantly. I know he would like to meet you. If you’d like to come along with me, that is.”

He struggled with his misgivings for some time before answering. He was so lonely—he hadn’t realized just how lonely he was until tonight, but the few hours spent with Nightingale had forced him to see just how much he needed a real friend. Not someone like the Lord Seneschal, nor like Nob. The former was using him, and T’fyrr was using the Seneschal, and both were aware and comfortable with the arrangement. The latter was a child, and no real companion or equal. But Nightingale was different, even among all of the people he had met since leaving the mountains. She was comfortable with him; when he was with her, sometimes he turned to her and blinked to see that she did not have a beak and feathers. The only humans
that
comfortable among the Haspur were the ones who lived among them, sharing their mountaintop settlements and their lives. In a way, those people were as much Haspur as human.

“I—I think I would enjoy that,” he said finally, letting his hunger for companionship overcome his misgivings. “Shall I meet you here, on the roof?”

“Perfect,” she said. “Just after noon. Now, you’d better go, while the moon is still up.”

He nodded—then, impulsively, reached out with a gentle talon and touched her cheek. She placed her own hand on the talon, and brushed her cheek and hair along the back of his hand in a caress of her own.

Then she released him—and afraid of doing or saying anything else that might release his pent-up emotions, he turned away from her abruptly.

Without stopping to make a more protracted farewell, he leapt to the top of the balustrade and flung himself over the edge of the roof, snapping his wings open and catching the rising current of warm air coming from the pavement below. In a moment, he was too far from Freehold to see if she was still there watching him.

But he sensed her, felt her eyes somehow finding him in the darkness, as he winged his way back to the Palace. And he wished that he could turn and fly back to her.

###

In deference to Nightingale—

Tanager,
he reminded himself.
On the street, she is Tanager.

—in deference to Tanager they were afoot, but this section of the city was not as crowded as the streets around Freehold, and as before, crowds seemed to part before them, anyway. It was hot; he held his wings away from his body in a futile effort to cool himself, and his beak gaped a bit as he panted. Tanager looked comfortable enough, although there were beads of moisture on her brow and running down the back of her neck. She wasn’t wearing much by human standards, although her costume revealed less than that of some of the humans he’d seen in the Palace.

Many of the people here were wearing similar clothing, anyway. Perhaps in deference to the heat, they had foregone some of that silly human body modesty. He would have been more comfortable doing without his body-wrapping, but Nob had advised against such a move.

“Where are we going?” he asked, dodging around a child playing in the middle of the walkway, oblivious to the foot traffic around her.

“I told you, I want you to meet someone, but first I want you to hear him speak,” she said as she threaded her way along the narrow, stone-paved streets, slipping skillfully between pushcarts and around knots of playing children. “You’ll understand why I want you to meet him once you’ve heard him.”

At that moment, she darted across the street with him in tow and trotted up the worn steps of a fairly nondescript grey stone building. It wasn’t until they were almost inside the door that he suddenly realized the building had a steeple—it was, in fact, a Church building, a Chapel, as they called them here.

He started to balk, but changed his mind just as abruptly as Tanager slipped inside the open door.
I
have heard her express fear of Church Priests. I have seen the trouble that some of these men have caused her people as well as me. She would not bring me here if she did not have a very good reason.
Was
this
the place where she intended to have him meet that special person she had spoken of last night?

Could it—could it be her lover?

For some reason, his chest tightened at that thought, and he wanted, passionately, for that person to be anything, anyone,
but
a lover.

Be sensible. She said nothing about a lover. And why would she meet a lover in a Church building?

He followed her, noting with relief that it was much cooler inside the building than it was in the street. She seized his hand as they entered the sanctuary itself, gestured that he should be silent, and pulled him into a secluded nook at the rear of the sanctuary. They stood beneath the statue of a kind-faced, grieving man, out of the way, where his wings would be lost among the shadows.

The Chapel was relatively full for a mid-afternoon service, and the first thing that T’fyrr noticed was that not all of the people here were human. There were at least two Mintaks, and he noted a Felis, a Camden, an entire family of Caprins—heads too oddly shaped to ever pass as human poked up among the caps, hoods and uncovered hair of the human attendees.

Nor did the humans seem to care!

He quickly turned his attention to the Priest presiding from the pulpit—for the Priest of such a congregation must be as remarkable as the congregation itself.

He was a middle-aged man, if T’fyrr was any judge. The hair of his head had thick strands of grey in it, and the hair of his beard boasted the same. He was neither short nor tall, and his build was not particularly memorable. His square face had the same kindly look to it as that of the statue they sheltered under, and his voice, though soft, was powerful, with pleasant resonances.

But it was his words that caught and held T’fyrr, just as they held everyone else here.

Perhaps not the words themselves, for it was evident that the Priest was no writer of superb speeches as Bishop Padrik had been. But the content of the sermon was something that T’fyrr had never expected to hear from the lips of a human Priest.

For this Priest, standing before humans, in a Chapel built by humans, was preaching the brotherhood of
all
beings, and citing examples of the “humanity” of nonhumans to prove his point.

T’fyrr’s beak gaped open again, and not because he was overheated.

The more the Priest spoke, the more confused T’fyrr became. Bishop Padrik had used his Church’s Holy Book to prove that any creature not wearing human form was evil. This Priest used the same Book—almost the same words!—to prove the very opposite.

He was sincere; T’fyrr could not doubt it. He was devout; there was no doubt of that, either. But he was saying, and clearly believed, the very opposite of what the High Bishop of Gradford swore was true.

How could this be?

He was still gaping in surprise when the Priest finished the service, and the congregation happily filed out, leaving the Chapel empty but for the Priest himself and the two of them. The Priest turned to the altar, putting away the implements of the service and cleaning it for the next service. Tanager remained where she was, and T’fyrr stayed with her.

“You can come out, now, Tanager,” said the Priest over his shoulder as he folded and put away a spotless white altar cloth. “And your friend, too. I’m glad you came.”

Tanager laughed—her laugh had a different sound than Nightingale’s laugh; it was lighter, and somehow seemed to belong to a younger person.

T’fyrr could only marvel at her ability to assume or discard a persona with a change of the costume.

“I persuaded my friend to come here to meet you, but he didn’t know he was coming to a Church service, Father Ruthvere,” she said banteringly. “I haven’t had a chance to ask him if he was bored or not.”

The Priest put the last of the implements away and turned, stepping off the dais and descending into the main body of the Chapel. “I hope he wasn’t, my dear child,” Father Ruthvere said, chuckling, “but I make no claims for my ability as a speaker. I never won any prizes in rhetoric.”

As he moved forward, so did they; and as T’fyrr came out of the shadows, Father Ruthvere’s eyes widened and then narrowed with speculation.

“There can’t be more than one bird-man in this city,” he began with hesitation in his voice. “But I have to wonder what this gentleman is doing
here,
rather than on the Palace grounds.”

T’fyrr glanced down at Tanager, who nodded encouragingly.

“I am the only Haspur in all of this kingdom that I know of, sir,” he replied gravely. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Father Ruthvere. I can assure you, you did not bore me.”

“Coming from the High King’s newly appointed Personal Musician, that is quite more praise than I deserve,” Father Ruthvere responded just as gravely. “I hope you know that I meant every word, and I am not the only Priest in this city who feels this way.” He held out his hand, and T’fyrr took it awkwardly. “I should be very pleased if you might consider me a friend, Sire T’fyrr,” the Priest continued, then twinkled up at him. “I think, though, despite the message of my sermons, it might be a bit much for me to ask you to consider me as your brother!”