The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III (16 page)

Lad with all the hair? Coach with no horses? Dear Lady, that can’t be
—
oh surely not
—

“Coo, ye should’a seen what came w’ him!” said another, one of the chief cooks. “ ’Tis a great bird man, ’twas, w’ wings an’ all, an’ a great evil beak like a hawk i’ the middle’v his face! An’
claws!
I wouldn’ want t’ get on the wrong side uv him!”

Tanager sat frozen, her hands wrapped around her empty cup. It was! It was Harperus—and with him, T’fyrr! It must be! But why here, and why now?

“Ah, but ye haven’t heard the best of it,” said a third girl knowingly. “My second cousin is best friend t’ Lord Atrovel’s secretary’s valet, an’ this birdy-man like to set the whole Court on its ear!”

As Tanager sat in stunned silence, the girl gleefully told the entire story, while the rest of the kitchen worked and put in a word or two of commentary. According to the girl, a nonhuman who
had
to be a Deliambren from the description, and another who was either T’fyrr or another of his race, had come in yesterday afternoon to Court. They had been announced as some kind of envoy, and at that point, for a reason that the girl either didn’t know or couldn’t explain, the bird-man broke into song. From there, her version differed slightly from the ones offered by a few others. The others claimed that the bird-man had challenged the King’s Musicians to a contest and had won it; the girl maintained that he had simply begun singing, as a sample of what he could do.

At any rate, when it was all over, the King had appointed the bird-man to be his Chief Musician (the others claimed Laurel Bard), the rest of the Court Musicians were furious (no one differed on that), and most of the King’s Advisors were beside themselves over the fact that the King had overruled them.

Ah, but if the first girl was to be believed, the King had not only appointed the Haspur—for it must be a Haspur, even if it wasn’t T’fyrr—as his Chief Musician, he had appointed him directly to the Royal Household, made a sire out of him, and installed him in a suite in the royal wing of the Palace!

I
only hoped to hear something about the Law of Degree,
Tanager thought dazedly,
not this
—

Could
it be T’fyrr and Old Owl? She didn’t know of any other Haspur and Deliambrens traveling together. But why would they come here?

Why am I here? Whoever these strangers are, it is for the same reason, surely.

Now she was very, grateful that she had been so careful to keep her real identity and purpose here a secret. With
two
sets of agents blundering about, it would have been appallingly easy for them to trip each other up.

Now I need only watch for them, and avoid getting entangled in whatever scheme they have going. Oh, yes,
need only.
If it is Harperus, that will be like trying to avoid the garbage in the streets! He’s more clever than twenty Gypsies in his own way, and encompasses everyone he meets in his grand plots in some way or another. Ah, well, at least he doesn’t know I’m here; I just hope he doesn’t get T’fyrr in trouble . . .

Somehow she managed to pull herself together and continue singing and playing for the rest of the morning. That was all the time she ever spent here—and that was reasonable, for Tanager. Mornings were fairly useless for a street-musician; the afternoon meant better pickings, and Tanager would now, presumably, go on to whatever street corner she had staked out as her own. There she could expect to earn “hard currency” for her work; pins, mostly, with a sprinkling of copper coins, and some food.

As usual, she spread out a threadbare napkin, and the chief cook filled it with her “pay”—mostly leftover bread, with a bit of bacon and a scrap of cheese, some of last night’s roast from the Upper Servants’ Kitchen that was too tough and stringy to even go into soup today. Tanager thanked her with a little bobbing curtsey, tied it all up into a bundle, and slipped out the door just in time to avoid the lunchtime rush.

She always hurried across the cobbles to the gate, but today she had more reason to half-run than usual. She wanted to find out if anyone in the city had heard anything about the bird-man,
or
the Law of Degree, and to that end, there were two places she needed to go. First, as Nightingale, the Chapel of Saint Gurd. Second, the square just down the street from Freehold where she generally met Maddy and the rest of her army of urchins just after lunch.

Surely, between them, Father Ruthvere or the children would have heard or seen something. And at the moment, she was not certain whether she wanted to hear more about the Law of Degree or—T’fyrr.

If that was who the feathered wonder was.

###

Nightingale slipped back into Freehold by the back door feeling quite frustrated. There had been nothing worth bothering about in the way of news at the Chapel; the Priest, Father Ruthvere, had heard nothing about a “Law of Degree,” but he promised Nightingale fiercely that he would do his best to find out about it.

Father Ruthvere was something of an odd character, and Nightingale never would have trusted him with her true Bard-name if it had not been that
he
had recognized her Free Bard ribbons during one of her visits (not as Tanager) and had asked her how Master Wren and Lady Lark were faring. It turned out that he had some sort of connection to that cousin of Talaysen’s who was also in the Church. He had been promoted to his own Chapel here, and he had promised Priest Justiciar Ardis when he was sent on to Lyonarie that he would keep an eye out for Free Bards and help them when he could.

That in itself was either an example of how small a world it truly was—or that there
was
something in the way of Fate dogging her footsteps.

The convoluted twists that this little mission of hers was taking were beginning to make her head spin.

For the meantime, however, Father Ruthvere was an ally she was only too glad to have found. He was one of the faction that followed the “we are all brothers” faith, and that made him doubly valuable to her, and vice versa.
He
knew what was going on, to a limited extent, within the Church—
she
had her information from the street and the Court. Together they found they could put together some interesting wholes out of bits and pieces.

Maddy and her crew hadn’t come up with anything either, though as usual they were glad enough for her bag of leftovers and the pennies she gave them all. The only thing that one of the boys knew was that his brother had actually
seen
the horseless wagon on its way to the Palace. It had not been pulled or pushed by any beasts, and from the description, it could have been the wagon that Harperus used.

But then again,
she thought to herself, as she scrambled up the staircase,
wouldn’t any Deliambren wagon look like any other? I don’t know for a fact that Harperus is the only one traveling about the countryside.

But would any other Deliambren have a Haspur with him?

She slipped down the hall, making certain first that there was no one around to catch her in her Tanager disguise, then unlocked the door to her room and whisked inside.

“I don’t even know that it’s a Haspur,” she told herself, thinking out loud. “There is more than one bird-race, and most of them would match the description that girl gave. It could be anyone. In fact, it’s just not
likely
that it’s Harperus and T’fyrr.”

But as she changed out of her Tanager clothing and headed for the bathroom for a needed sluicing, she couldn’t help but think that—given the way that things were going—the fact it wasn’t likely was the very reason why it would turn out to be her friends.

###

She drifted down the stairs in one of her rainbow-skirts; the blue one this time. Today, Lyrebird was in a casual mood and had dressed accordingly.

Actually, today Lyrebird was ravenous and wanted to be able to eat without worrying about delicate dagging and fragile lace. She had missed her lunch in order to fit in a stop at Father Ruthvere’s Chapel, and she’d given all those leftovers to the children without saving even a roll for herself.

Not that she had been hungry enough for stale rolls and stringy beef. Her stay here had spoiled her; there had been plenty of times when those leftovers would have been a feast.

Well, plenty of times in the long past, when she was between villages and her provisions had run out, maybe. Nightingale had
never
been so poor a musician that she’d
had
to sing for leftovers.

This hour was too late for lunch and a bit too early for dinner. Only a few of the eating nooks were open and operating, and all of those were on the ground floor. Lyrebird went to one of her favorites, where the cook was a merry little man with no use of his lower limbs because of an illness as a child. Not that he let it get in the way of his work; he
was
a cook, after all, and he didn’t need to move much. He plied his trade very well from a stationary seat within a half-circle of round-bottomed pans, all heated on Deliambren braziers to the sizzling point. You picked out what you wanted from a series of bins of fresh vegetables, and strips of fowl, fish and meat in bowls sunk in ice, and brought it to him in your bowl; he would quick-fry it in a bit of oil, spice it according to your taste, and serve it all to you on a bed of rice, scooped out of the huge steamer behind him. If he wasn’t busy, he was always happy to talk.

Nightingale was always happy to talk to him, and this time of day she was often his only customer.

“Well, Lyrebird, you’re eating like a bird indeed today—twice your weight in food! You’re eating like dear little Violetta!”

He winked at that; most of the staff found Violetta amusing. The name was female, and surely the little misfit dressed like a woman, but there wasn’t a person on the staff who was fooled.

No matter. Freehold was full of misfits, and if “Violetta” wanted to dress in fantastic gowns and gossip like one of the serving wenches, no one here would ever let “her” know that they had seen past the disguise.

“Skip your breakfast?” Derfan asked, eyeing the size of the bowl she had picked up at the start of the bins.

“And lunch,” she confirmed, bringing him her selection and taking a seat on one of the stools nearby to watch him work. He had the most amazingly quick hands;
she
would have scorched everything, or herself, but Derfan never spoiled a meal that she had ever heard. And he never once burned himself, either.

He pursed his lips and shook his head at her. “That’s very bad of you. You’ll do yourself harm if you make that a habit. I should think you’d be ready to faint dead away. What was so important that you had to skip two meals?”

“That business with that new law people were so upset about last night,” she replied casually. Since it had been the talk of Freehold, there was no reason why she should not have been out looking for confirmation. “I know a good Priest who keeps his ear to the ground and hears a great deal, but he’s halfway across the city.”

“And?” Derfan prompted, dashing in bits of seasoning and a spot of oil while he tossed her food deftly on the hot metal.

“He hadn’t heard a thing,” she told him. “I’m halfway convinced now that it was a rumor being spread so that our good leaders can slip something else into law while
we
are out chasing our tails over this.”

“Could be, could be,” Derfan agreed, nodding vigorously. “It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done things that way.” The jovial man grinned infectiously as he ladled some juices here and there. “But we’ve got enough excitement right here in Freehold to keep everyone stirred up for the next few days, and never mind some maybe-so, maybe-no law out there.”

She shook her head as he handed her the bowl full of rice and stir-fried morsels. “I haven’t been here, remember?’ she said, fanning the food to cool it, and daring a quick bite. It was too hot, and she quickly sucked in cool air to save her tongue.

“Our leader’s shown up.” Derfan raised both eyebrows at her.

She wrinkled her brow, unable to guess his meaning.

“Our real boss,” Derfan elaborated. “The one Kyran works for.” He sighed when she shook her head blankly. “Tyladen, the Deliambren, the owner of Freehold. He’s here.”

She stopped blowing on her food and looked up at him sharply. “No,” she said. “I thought he never came here!”

Oh, this is too much!
she thought as Derfan nodded and shrugged.
Not one, but
two
Deliambrens showing up in the space of a single day? What is this,
a conspiracy? Is
everyone
around here involved in some kind of plot?

“It isn’t that he never comes here, it’s just that he doesn’t do it often,” Derfan told her as she applied herself grimly to her food again. “Maybe he’s decided he ought to, seeing as there’s been all that law talk. Maybe it’s about time he did, too—
he’s
the one with all the money. Precious little you and me could do if the High King decides to make trouble for our friends, but Deliambrens have got the stuff that the high and mighty want, and that means they have money
and
a reason for the lords and ladies to listen to ’em. They’ve used that kind of influence before, I’ve heard.”

“Well, if he wants to have any customers, he’d better get involved, I suppose,” she agreed mildly.

Now what? What happens if he recognizes me? I didn’t recognize his name, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know me. I’ve met a lot of Deliambrens, and I don’t remember half of them. Damn! The last thing I want is some wealthy fuzzy-faced half-wit breathing down my neck right now, watching everything I do and wanting to know why I haven’t found out more!

As if to confirm her worst fears, Derfan had even more news about Tyladen. “Word is,” Derfan said in a confidential tone, “that Tyladen’s going to make the rounds of the whole place tonight; look in on all the performers, the cooks and all, see how they’re doing, see how many customers they’re bringing in.”

“Well, you have no worry on that score,” Nightingale pointed out. Derfan blushed, but Nightingale spoke nothing but the truth. Derfan’s little corner was always popular, since his customers always
knew
what was in the food he fixed for them.