The Eagle And The Nightingales

give over her ambitions for a wider reputation as a musician and simply walk away.

But all that was in the past now; there was a sweet-tempered little donkey tethered beside her, his panniers loaded with her gear and her two harps strapped over the top of it all. She had a tent as well, if a small one, and with the donkey she could carry provisions to see her through to better lodgings instead of being at the mercy of greedy or stingy innkeepers.

She was all packed up and ready to go, and eager to be on the road and away from the all-pervasive aura of tragedy that hovered over the city across the river. Only one thing kept her here, an appointment that she had made last night, and she wished he would just show up so that_

'Thank you for waiting, my friend.' Talaysen's speaking voice was as pleasant as his singing voice, and Nightingale gratefully turned her back to the river and the Church's stronghold to catch his hands in hers in the traditional greeting between Gypsies of the same clan. Talaysen smiled at her, his grey-green eyes warming, and gave her hands a firm squeeze before releasing them. Free Bard Talaysen looked prosperous, too, in his fine leather jerkin, good linen trews, and silk shirt with the knots of many-colored ribbons on the sleeves that denoted a Free Bard. He did not owe his prosperity to the Faire, however. Talaysen shared the post of Laurel Bard to the King of Birnam with his wife, Bard Rune, and his clothing reflected his importance. They were the only Free Bards with any kind of position in all of the Twenty Kingdoms.

Not that he has ever let rank go to his head, Nightingale reflected, allowing his pleasure at seeing her to ease the distant ache of Kingsford's sorrow within her. He has made Birnam a haven of freedom for all of us.

'I would wait until the snow fell for your sake, Master Wren,' she told him truthfully, scanning his honest, triangular face for signs of stress and his red hair for more strands of grey than there had been the last time she saw him. She saw neither, and felt nothing untoward from him, which eased her worries a little. He had been so adamant in asking her not to leave after the Faire closed_at least until he had a chance to speak with her_that she had been afraid there was something wrong with him personally. They were old friends, though only once, briefly, had they ever been lovers.

'Well, it is lucky for us both that you won't have to do that,' he replied, and his eye fell on her little donkey. 'So, the rumors of your prosperity were not exaggerated! Congratulations!'

She raised her eyebrow at that, for there was something more in his voice than simple pleasure in her good fortune. There was some reason why he was particularly pleased that she had done well, a reason that had nothing to do with friendship or his unofficial rank as head of the Free Bards.

'This simplifies matters,' he continued. 'I have a request to make of you, but it would have been difficult if you had already arranged to travel with anyone else this winter.'

A blackbird winged by, trilling to find them standing in his territory, so near to his nest. Her other eyebrow rose. 'A request?' she said cautiously, a certain sense of foreboding coming to her. 'Of what nature?'

Wren can charm birds out of the trees and honesty out of Elves, and I'd better remember that if he's asking favors of me. It was mortally hard to refuse Wren anything.

But I can hold my own with the Elves; it will take more than charm to win me.

Talaysen sighed, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like a naughty little boy who had been caught in the midst of a prank_which further hardened her suspicions. 'There is something I would like for you to do for me_or rather, not for me, but for the Free Bards. Unfortunately, it will involve a rather longer journey than you normally make; I expect it will take you from now until the first Harvest Faires to reach your goal even if you travel without stopping on the way.'

She pulled in a quick breath with surprise. 'From now until Harvest Faire?' she repeated, incredulously. 'Where in the world do you want me to go? Lyonarie?'

She had thrown out the name of the High King's capital quite by accident, it being the farthest place from here that she could think of, but the widening of his eyes showed her that her arrow had hit the mark out of all expectation.

A pocket of sudden stillness held them both, and it seemed to her that the air grew faintly colder around her.

'You want me to go to Lyonarie?' she asked, incredulously. 'But_why? What possible business have the Free Bards there? And of all people, why me? I am no Court Bard, I know nothing of Lyonarie, and_'

And I hate cities, you know that, she thought, numbly. And you know why !

'Because we need information, not rumor. Because of all people, you are the one I know that is most likely to learn what we need to know without getting yourself into trouble over it_or inflaming half the city.' He nodded at the ruins of Kingsford behind her, and she winced; there were also rumors that enemies of the Free Bards had set that fire and that it had gotten out of hand. 'You're clever, you're discreet, and we both know that you are a master of Bardic and_other magics.'

'Perhaps not a master,' she demurred, 'and my talents are as much a hazard as a benefit_' But he wasn't