The Eagle And The Nightingales

That was why the most popular acts were all on the first floor, where everyone could see them that wanted to.

Can I do it? she asked herself, and forced herself to think about it dispassionately. Yes, she decided, on sober contemplation. I think that I can.

But she had to stop on the way up and bespeak a pot of very hot water from one of the tea vendors. Mingled excitement, anticipation, and stage-fright were beginning to build inside her at the prospect of facing the largest audience at the greatest rate of pay she had ever, in her life, warranted. If she was going to be able to do anything tomorrow, she was going to need to get some sleep tonight, as Tyladen had pointed out. Fortunately, she had packed a number of herbal remedies in her panniers, and one of them was for sleeplessness.

And tonight she was going to need it.

The excitement was almost enough to drive her real reason for being here out of her mind.

Almost.

As she reached her room again, shut and locked the door behind her, and began to prepare for bed, her mind went back to what Tanager had heard at the Palace today. The Haspur_and if the mysterious new Court Musician wasn't a Haspur, he was of some race so like them that it made no difference_was the sensation of the Court and had inspired some of the most envious hatred in the King's musicians she had ever heard of. Some of them were threatening to pack up and leave the King's service; others swore they would 'get rid of' the interloper. Nightingale was not particularly worried about the ability of the Court Musicians as individuals to 'get rid of' their rival; they were Guild Bards after all, and as a group, Guild Bards were singularly ineffectual at doing anything of a practical nature. The trouble was that they all had been placed where they were by someone; they must have powerful allies, and those allies might decide to take an interest. Allies and patrons of that sort had access to all manner of unpleasant things, from simple thugs to sophisticated poisons. They might consider the new Court Musician to be too trivial a problem to bother with_but in a Court ruled by a High King with an obsession for musicians, that was not as likely as it would otherwise have been. In fact, the new musician might be considered as deadly a potential rival as any of the Grand Dukes and Court Barons_and one with fewer protections.

Did the Haspur know this?

I hope so, she thought, slipping into her nightshift and preparing her pot of soporific tea. Oh, I hope so. I hope he is finding himself some equally powerful allies. Because if he doesn't_he's going to find himself wing-clipped and surrounded, and that lovely position he has earned himself will be no more than a beautifully gilded trap....

Like most of the other performance rooms in Freehold, the Rainbow Room lived up to its name, but not in the way that anyone who had not seen it would have expected. It was not decorated in many colors, nor worse, festooned with painted rainbows like a child's nursery. The Rainbow Room was the plainest, simplest performance room in the building, its walls and ceiling painted a soft white, the floor and tables some seamless substance of a textured, matte black, the booths and chairs upholstered in black as well, something as soft and supple as black suede leather, although Nightingale was fairly certain that was not what it was. It would have cost a fortune to cover that much furniture in black leather, and not even a Deliambren had that much to spare on furnishings in a performance room.

No, it was when the lights were dimmed and the special performance lighting lit that the Rainbow Room lived up to its name.

For there were crystal prisms hidden everywhere: in the ceiling fixtures, in the pillars supporting the ceiling, set into the leaded glass windows that divided the room itself from the dance floor. When the performance lighting was illuminated, those prisms caught and refracted it into a hundred thousand tiny rainbows that flung themselves everywhere, and since many of the prisms were free to move with air currents, the rainbows moved as well in a gentle dance of color. With that as a backdrop, no performer needed anything else.

Silas had shown himself to advantage here, and Nightingale hoped to emulate him. To that end she had chosen her black Elven silks for this first performance in the new room.

And in fact, she was beginning to think farther ahead than just the next few days or even weeks. If she could sustain her popularity here_why go anywhere else? Why go back on the road, once she had collected the information that the Deliambrens, the Free Bards, and the Elves all wanted? She didn't particularly have a sense of wanderlust the way some Gypsies did; she simply had never found a place she wanted to stay for more than a few months at a time.

Why not stay here?

Granted, she hated cities, but she couldn't avoid them altogether, and if she was going to have to endure them, why not do so where she was guaranteed a level of comfort that she would never get anywhere else? Where else would she have her own room with her own bathroom, heated and cooled to perfection? Where else would she get her choice of foodstuffs, so that she could go all month and never eat the same meal twice? And where else would she find a performance venue like this one?

And to that end_if she stayed, she would need new costumes, many new costumes, all of the same quality as her silks. The Elves would owe her once she got their information back to them; she could send word back with her own messages that she needed new dresses, and ask for specific colors and designs....