The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III (41 page)

His heart swelled with pride and love for her. “She is right,” he agreed. “It does not matter. Our enemies are counting on our cowardice. We must teach them better. And
—
” He hesitated for a moment, as the last of his anger with Theovere washed away. “And the High King needs us,” he concluded. “If we desert him—we are no better than they. Perhaps, we are worse. We will try, for nonhumans and humans alike.”

Harperus wordlessly stood aside, and the two of them walked out of the tiring room, through the Chapel and out into the street.

High King Theovere needs us, and he
is
the Twenty Kingdoms, for better or worse. With luck on our side—

—perhaps we can make it,
“for better.”

###

Nightingale settled at the High King’s side, next to T’fyrr. The Haspur looked very odd, with patches of down-feathers showing where coverts had been taken, with his wings denuded, with reddened, visible scars and with not even a stump of a tail.

No one could deny his dignity, however; a dignity that transcended such imperfections.

That dignity had gotten them past the Bodyguards to the Captain, and from there to the one person T’fyrr thought might still back them: the Seneschal. The Captain and the Lord Seneschal had been skeptical of their claims to be able to reach Theovere by music—but they were also no friends of the King’s Physician. The Seneschal simply didn’t trust someone who was often in and out of the suites of the other Advisors. The Captain just didn’t trust him, period. It was his opinion that there had been too much talk of purgings and bleedings, and not enough of things that would strengthen rather than weaken a patient.

So the Captain of the King’s Bodyguard chose a time when the Advisors were all huddled together in Council, threw out the Physician and smuggled them in.

“Now what?” T’fyrr asked her as she surveyed Theovere’s bed. Theovere
was
in it, somewhere in the middle, hardly visible for all the pillows and feather comforters piled atop him, and lost in the vast expanse of it. The bed itself was big enough to sleep three Gypsy families and still have room for the dogs. “Do we need to have physical contact with him?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied as the Captain moved a little in silent protest to that suggestion. He might not trust the Physician, but he also made no bones about the fact that his trust for them was very limited. “No, there’s nothing we can do with a physical contact that we can’t do without it.”

She turned to the Captain then, as something occurred to her. “You were there when he collapsed, weren’t you?”

The beefy man nodded, face red with chagrin and anger at himself. “And why I didn’t think
—
”

“You’re not at fault,” she interrupted gently. “There should have been no way for a note to get to the King that hadn’t been checked for problems first. Unless
—
”

He looked sharply at her. “Unless?”

“Unless that note was put on the tray by one of the King’s Advisors and had the seal of the Council on it,” she said, and got the satisfaction of seeing his eyes narrow with speculation. “Now, I know if
I
were an Advisor to the High King, knowing that the King wasn’t getting any younger, and suspecting that a successor might be named soon who would want his own Advisors in place . . .” She let her voice trail off and raised an eyebrow significantly.

The Captain nodded, his face as impassive as a stone wall, but his eyes bright with anger. “I take your meaning, and it’s one I hadn’t thought of.”

Nightingale shrugged, pleased that she had planted her seed in fertile ground. But the Captain was not yet finished.

“Lady, I
—
” She sensed him groping for words through a fog of grief, though there was no outward sign of that grief on his features. “I’ve served Theovere all my life. I’ve seen him at his best, and at his worst, and
—
”

He stopped and shook his head, unable to articulate his own feelings. She held her hands together in her lap, holding herself tightly braced against the wash of his emotions, as strong as the tide at its full. Now she knew why every man in the Bodyguards was so fanatically devoted to the King.

He could inspire that devotion once. Lady, grant we make it possible for him to do so again.

She caught his eyes and nodded gravely, once, then turned back to the enormous bed and its quiet occupant. “If we succeed, Captain, it will be for the good of all—and if we fail, then at least we will have been able to give Theovere a parting gift of the music he loved so much.”

“Nightingale,” T’fyrr said suddenly, in the Gypsy tongue, “didn’t you tell me that there might be a—a spirit of some kind, holding Theovere away?
Look over there.”

He pointed with his beak rather than draw the attention of the Captain, and Nightingale stared in the direction he pointed.

There is a shadow there, where a shadow has no business being!

It hovered just above Theovere’s head, but it did not
feel
like Theovere. It felt hungry, cruel, petty
—

What is it?
Whatever it was, she knew at that moment that they would have to deal with it before they could bring Theovere back to himself.

“I think it’s occupied,” T’fyrr whispered, his voice shaking a little. “I think—I think it might be tormenting Theovere.”

Odd. That sounded familiar. A little like
—

Like the Ghost that Rune fiddled for, that Robin and Kestrel helped to free!
It had been bound to a pass by a malicious magician, and had taken out its rage on those who tried to cross the pass by night.
If you had something like that—a lesser spirit, perhaps—and bound it to your service—

Then you might have something that you could set on a man simply by sending him a note to which it had been attached—something that could drive the soul from his body and keep it there. You
would
have something that would become more and more bitter and malicious the longer it stayed bound.

Which meant it was half in this world and half in the next; and wasn’t that the definition of those with the Sight? She had it—she just hadn’t used it much, not when her greater power lay with the heart rather than the soul.

And the Elven message had clearly said, “This is magic of the heart and the Sight.” Elves simply didn’t get any clearer than that.
Well, the first thing to do is get its attention. I haven’t invoked the Sight in a long time . . .

She put her hands on the strings of her harp, and began to play quietly, humming the melody under her breath as she slowly sharpened her focus out of this world and into the next. She sensed T’fyrr following her lead, and wondered if he would
share
her Sight, or if he had a touch of it himself.

The room grew grey and dim, and faded away at the edges as she moved her vision into that other world where shadows were solid and restless spirits dwelled. She could still see Theovere, but now
—

Now there were two of him.

One was in the bed, the other standing at the foot of the bed, an expression of fear and frustration on his face. And hovering above the Theovere in the bed was—something.

It wasn’t human, not precisely. There was a certain odd cast to the face, as if the structure of the skull was subtly different from a human’s. The red eyes were slanted obliquely toward the temples. The fingers were too long and there were seven of them; the limbs looked oddly jointless. It had the pointed ears of an Elf, but It wasn’t an Elf, either. At the moment, It was watching Theovere, and It was enjoying his plight.

“Can you See anything?” she whispered to T’fyrr, and she described what she Saw. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him shake his head.

“Only the shadow,” he replied. “I will trust you to know what to do.”

I
only wish I did!
she thought; but they were in it now, and there was no turning back. Whatever It was, It didn’t seem to be paying any attention to her or her Music. It also wasn’t
doing
much—except to keep Theovere from reentering his own body. Which meant—what?

That It’s probably not all that powerful. That I’m not reaching It. But I’m not really trying. Think, Nightingale! What do you do when you have to reach an audience and you don’t know what they want?

You try something so beautiful they can’t ignore it.

She heard It speaking now, faintly; It taunted Theovere with his plight and his helplessness, playing with the symbols of his power that It conjured up into Its own hands. It didn’t have the
real
crown, rod, or sword, of course—but Theovere didn’t know that.

Her hands moved of themselves on the strings, plucking out the first chords of “The Waterfall,” one of the most transcendently beautiful songs she knew. She didn’t do it often, because she didn’t have the range to do it justice.

But T’fyrr did.

She poured her heart into the harping, and he his soul into the Music—and It snapped Its narrow head around, affixing them with its poppy-red eyes, as the ephemeral Objects of State vanished into the nothingness from which they had been conjured.

It said nothing, though, until after they had finished the song.

“What are you doing here?” It asked in a voice like wet glue.

She started to answer—then stopped herself just in time. To answer It
might
put herself in Its power; Its primary ability must be to drive a spirit from the body, then keep that spirit from reentering. It might be able to do that to more than one person at a time. But the Laws of Magic were that It could not do so if It did not know her; It must have been fed what It needed to take Theovere, but she was a stranger to It. It needed a connection with her to find out what tormented
her.

So instead, she started a new song hard on the heels of “The Waterfall,” and followed that one with a third, and a fourth.

I have to make It go away, and I can’t do that by
driving
It away. It’s already here by coercion.
The longer It stayed silent, listening to her, the more she sensed those shadow-bindings, deeper into the shadow-world than It was, that kept It blocking Theovere’s return. But the bindings were light ones; It could break them if It chose.

So It was here because It liked being here. It enjoyed tormenting people.

Well, so had the Skull Hill Ghost, but Rune and then Robin had tamed the thing, showing it—what?

All the good things of the human spirit! All the things that give life joy instead of pain!

And her hands moved into the melody of “Theovere and the Forty-Four,” one of the songs that she and T’fyrr had used to try and wake the High King up to his former self.

It was a moving tale of courage and selflessness, all the more moving this time because the Theovere-spirit listened, too, and wept with heartbreak for what he had been and no longer was. He was in a place and a position now where he could no longer lie to himself
—
and very likely, that was one of the things his captor had been tormenting him with. The truth, bare and unadorned, and equally inescapable.

He has looked into the mirror and seen a fool.

She sensed T’fyrr pouring his own high courage into the song, the courage that had sustained him while captive, the courage that made him go out and try to
do
something to remedy the ills he saw around him. And while she did not think that courage was particularly her strong suit, she added her own heart, twined around his.

She saw Its eyes widen; saw the maliciousness in them fade, just a little, and moved immediately to “Good Duke Arden.” The Theovere-spirit continued to weep, bent over with its face in both its ephemeral hands, and the Shadow softened a little more.

But she sensed just a hint of impatience.

Change the mood. It’s getting bored.

She moved through the entire gamut of human emotions: laughter, courage, self-sacrifice, simple kindness, sorrow and loss. Always she came back to two: love and courage. And with each song they sang, she and T’fyrr, with their spirits so closely in harmony that they might have been a single person with two voices, It softened a little more, lost some of Its malicious evil, until finally there was nothing of evil in It anymore. Just a weariness, a lack of hope that was not
quite
despair, and a vast and empty loneliness.

That was when she thought she knew something of Its nature. It was a mirror that reflected whatever was before It—or a vessel, holding whatever was poured into It. It was as changeable as a chameleon, but deep inside, It did have a mind and heart of Its own, and she seemed to be touching It.

Her hands were weary, and her voice had taken on that edge of hoarseness that warned her it was about to deteriorate. And under T’fyrr’s brave front, she felt bone-tiredness.

If ever we can drive this thing away—no, lead it away!—it must be now!

So she changed the tune, right in the middle of “Aerie,” to one of the simplest songs she had ever learned: “The Briars of Home.”

It was the lullaby of an exile to her child, singing of all the small things she missed, all of them in her garden. The smell of certain flowers in the spring; the way that the grass looked after the rain. The taste of herbs that would not grow where she was now. The leaves falling in autumn; the snow covering the sleeping plants in winter. The songs of birds that would not fly in her new garden. The feel of the soil beneath her hands, and the joy of seeing the first sprouting plants. And the homesickness, the bittersweet knowledge that she would never experience any of those tiny pleasures again, for all that she was happy enough in the new land. And last of all—how she would give all of the wealth she possessed in the new place for one short walk in her own garden at home.

And as the last notes fell into silence, It spoke to her for the second and last time.

“I have a garden.”

And with those four words, It snapped the coercions binding It, and vanished.

But Theovere did not return to his body; instead, he stood there staring at it, empty-eyed and hollow. He looked old, terribly old; he stood with hanging hands, stooped-over and defeated.