The Eagle And The Nightingales

Nightingale kept her back quite stiff with indignation as she pulled her donkey away from the door of the Muleteer. Her guide_a girl-child with dirty hair that might have been blond if one could hold her under a stream of water long enough to find out_sighed with vexation. It was an unconscious imitation of Nightingale's own sigh, and was close enough to bring a reluctant smile to the Gypsy's lips.

'Honest, mum, if I'd'a thunk he was gonna ast ye pony up more'n music, I'd'a not hev brung ye here,' the girl said apologetically.

Nightingale patted the girl on one thin shoulder, and resolved to add the remains of her travel-rations to the child's copper penny. 'You couldn't have known,' she told the little girl, who only shook her head stubbornly and led Nightingale to a little alcove holding only a door that had been bricked up ages ago. There they paused out of the traffic, while the girl bit her lip and knitted her brows in thought.

'Ye set me a job, mum, an' I hevn't done it,' the child replied, and Nightingale added another mental note_to make this girl the first of her recruits. Her thin face hardened with businesslike determination. 'I'll find ye a place, I swear! Jest_was it only wee inns an taverns ye wanted?'

Something about the wistful hope in the girl's eyes made Nightingale wonder if she had phrased her own request poorly. 'I thought that only small inns or taverns would want a singer like me,' she told the girl. 'I'm not a Guild musician, and the harp isn't a very loud instrument_'

'So ye don' mind playin' where there's others playin' too?' the girl persisted. 'Ye don' mind sharin' th' take an' th' audience an' all?'

Well, that was an interesting question. She shook her head and waited to reply until after a rickety cart passed by. 'Not at all. I'm used to 'sharing'; all of us do at Faires, for instance.'

A huge smile crossed the child's face, showing a gap where her two front teeth were missing. 'I thunk ye didn' like other players, mum, so I bin takin' ye places where they ain't got but one place. Oh, I got a tavern-place that's like a Faire, 'tis, an' they don' take to no Guildsmen neither. Ye foller me, mum, an' see if ye don' like this place!'

The child scampered off in the opposite direction in which they had been going, and Nightingale hauled the donkey along in her wake. The girl all but skipped, she was so pleased to have thought of this 'tavern-place,' whatever it was, and her enthusiasm was quite infectious. Nightingale found herself hoping that this would be a suitable venue, and not just because her feet hurt, she was wilting with the heat, and her shoulders ached from hauling the increasingly tired and stubborn donkey.

She also wanted to be able to reward this child, and not have to thread her way out of the neighborhood the little girl knew and hunt up a new guide. The streets were all in shadow now, although the heat hadn't abated; much longer and it would be twilight. She would have to find at least a safe place to spend the night, then; it wasn't wise, for a stranger to be out in a neighborhood like this one after dark. In a smaller city she wouldn't have worried so much, but she had heard of the gangs who haunted the back streets of Lyonarie by night; she was a tough fighter, but she couldn't take on a dozen men with knives and clubs.

The child turned to make certain that she was still following, and waved at her to hurry. Nightingale wished powerfully then for that rapport with animals that Peregrine and Lark seemed to share; if only she could convince the donkey that it was in his best interest to pick up his feet a little!

But he was just as tired as she was, and surely he was far more confused. He'd never been inside a city at all, much less had to cope with this kind of foot-traffic, poor thing.

The child slipped back to her side, moving like an eel in the crowd. 'Tisn't but three streets up, mum, just t'other side uv where ye met me,' she said, looking up into Nightingale's face anxiously. 'Oh, I swan, ye'll like the place!'

'I hope so,' the Gypsy replied honestly. 'I can promise you, at least I won't dislike it as much as I did the last!'

The little girl giggled. 'La, mum, ye're furrin, an' the Freehold, it's got more furriners than I ken! Got Mintaks, got Larads, got Kentars, got a couple 'a Ospers, even! Half the folk come there be furrin, too!'

Now that certainly made Nightingale stand up a bit straighten 'Why all the_' She sought for a polite word for the nonhumans.

'Why they got all the Fuzzballs?' the child asked innocently. 'Well, 'cause other places, they don' like Fuzzballs, they don' like furriners, they even looks at ye down the nose if ye got yeller skin or sompin. Not Freehold, no, they figger Fuzzball money spends as good nor better'n a Churcher. I like Freehold. I'd'a taken ye there fust, but I thunk ye wanted a place where ye wouldn'_ah_'

'Where I wouldn't have any competition?' Nightingale replied, laughing at the child's chagrin. 'Oh, my girl, I promise you I am sure enough of my own songs that I don't have anything to fear from other musicians!'

The child grinned her gap-toothed grin again and shrugged. 'Ye'll see,' she only said. 'Ye'll see if I be takin' ye wrong. Freehold_it's a fine place! Look_'tis right there, crost the street!'