The Eagle And The Nightingales

And as always, she sighed; what woman born could refrain from a sigh, presented with these dresses? They were Elven-make, of course, and not even the Deliambrens could replicate them. Elven silk. Incredible stuff. Now there is magic! The sleeves, the skirts, floated in the air like wisps of mist; they gave the impression that they were as transparent as a bit of cloud, and yet when she wore them, there was not a Cloistered Sister in the Twenty Kingdoms who was as modestly clad as she. There was so much fabric in them that if one took a dress apart and laid the pieces out, they would fully cover every inch of space on the dance floor below, yet each dress packed down into the size of her hand and emerged again unwrinkled, uncrumpled.

One dress was black, with a silver belt, otherwise unadorned, but with its multiple layers of sleeve and skirt cut and layered to resemble a birds feathers. One was a true emerald-green, embroidered around the neckline, sleeves, and hem with a trailing vine in a deeper green; it had a belt of silk embroidered with the same motif. The third was the russet of a vixen's coat, and the sleeves and hem were dagged and decorated with cutwork embroidery as delicate as lace; the belt that went with this was of gold-embroidered leather.

They would suite Lyrebird very well_and because no one save the Elves had ever seen Nightingale in this finery, there was very little chance that anyone would recognize her from a description. She would certainly stand out_but no one would know her.

Nor would anyone recognize, in the plain, shabby little mouse who would go out into the streets, the flamboyant harpist of Freehold in her Elven silks.

And since most of my customers and the members of my audience are going to be nonhuman, Lyrebird is going to be perfectly safe from any untoward conduct, even in her Elven silks. Very few non-humans were going to find her attractive or desirable, which was just fine so far as she was concerned.

She selected the russet for her first performance_what better place for a russet vixen than an Oak Grove? _and gratefully stripped out of her sweat-soaked clothing and headed for the bathroom.

The water-cascade worked just like the one she remembered, and to her great pleasure the soap was delicately scented with jessamine and left a fresh perfume in her hair. She luxuriated in the hot water pouring over her body, washing every last trace of the long journey away. This would be wonderful for easing the aches and strains of long playing, caused by sitting in one position for hours at a time.

She dried and styled her long, waist-length black hair in an arrangement very unlike Nightingale's simple braid; this was an elaborate coil and twist along the back of her head, with the remainder of her hair emerging as a tail from the center of the knot, or allowed to trail as a few delicate tendrils on either side of her face. She slipped the silken dress on over her clean body_it would have been a desecration and a sin to have put it on without a full bath_reveling in the sensuous feel of the silk caressing her hips and legs, slipping sleekly over her arms.

Now she took the cover off the larger of her two harps, the one she could only play while seated, and tuned it. She ignored her stomach as she did so_she could eat later, if need be, but at the moment she had to get the harp ready in good time before her performance. Kyran had told her that he would send one of the servers up to her room, to guide her to the Oak Grove when it was time for her to play_her performance would extend past midnight, just this once, because she would never have had time to bathe and change and ready herself before suppertime.

It was very hard, though, to ignore the savory aromas wafting up from below. Most of them were as strange as they were pleasant_not exactly a surprise, if most of the clientele were not human.

She was going to surprise Kyran, however. He probably expected her to perform human-made music only, but Lyrebird was a bird of a different feather altogether.

Hmm. Perhaps I ought to have worn the black!

She was going to sing and play the music of at least three nonhuman cultures, besides the Elves. Human music would comprise the smallest part of her performance.

And again, since very few people, even among the Gypsies and the Free Bards, knew that she collected the music of nonhumans, this would be utterly unlike Nightingale.

She retired to her room in a glow of triumph, harp cradled in her arms, two hours after midnight; entirely pleased with herself and her new surroundings. Her particular performance room_which was, indeed, decorated to resemble a grove of trees with moss-covered rocks for seats and tables 'growing' up out of the floor_was far enough from the dance floor that her own quiet performance could go on undisturbed. She had begun with purely instrumental music, Elven tunes mostly, which attracted a small, mixed crowd. From there she ventured into more and more foreign realms, and before the night was over, there were folk standing in line, waiting for a seat in her alcove. Most of them were not human, which was precisely as she had hoped; word had spread quickly among the patrons of Freehold that there was a musician in the Oak Grove who could play anything and sing 'almost' anything. Most of the nonhumans were hungry for songs from home_and most of the time she could oblige them with something, if not the exact song they requested.

As she climbed the stairs to her room, oblivious to the cacophony of mixed music and babbling talk, she hardly noticed how tired she was. She was confident now that her salary would be in the three-or four-silver area, if not five. That would be enough; it would purchase the help of quite a number of children at a copper apiece. Kyran had checked on her during one of the busier moments, which was gratifying_he'd had a chance to see with his own eyes how many people were lining the walls, waiting for seats. His eyes had gone wide and round when he'd seen her in costume, too.