The Eagle And The Nightingales

might consider me a friend, Sire T'fyrr,' the Priest continued, then twinkled up at him. 'I think, though, despite the message of my sermons, it might be a bit much for me to ask you to consider me as your brother!'

That surprised a laugh out of T'fyrr. 'Perhaps,' he agreed, and cocked his head to one side. He decided to try a joke. 'If I were to present you as such, my people would be much distressed that you had feather-plucked yourself to such a dreadful extent.'

Father Ruthvere laughed heartily. 'That is a better joke than you know, Sire T'fyrr. I have a pet bird that unfortunately has that very bad habit_and my colleagues have been unkind enough to suggest that there is some resemblance between us!'

Tanager smiled; she was clearly quite pleased that T'fyrr and the Priest had hit it off so well. For that matter, so was T'fyrr.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries before T'fyrr and Tanager took their leave; the Priest hurried off to some unspecified duty, while they left the way they had arrived.

'Surprised?' Tanager asked when they reached the street again. 'I was, the first time I heard him. And he's telling the truth; he's not the only Priest preaching the brotherhood of all beings. He's just the one with the Chapel nearest Freehold. It is a movement that seems to be gaining followers.'

'I am trying to think of some ulterior motive for him, and I cannot,' T'fyrr admitted. 'Perhaps attendance falling off, perhaps a gain in prestige if he somehow converted nonhumans to your religion.'

'Neither, and there're more problems associated with attracting nonhumans than there are rewards,' Tanager told him. 'As I told you, I was just as surprised, and I tried to think of some way that this could be a trick. I couldn't_and information I have assures me that Father Ruthvere truly, deeply and sincerely believes in what he was preaching.'

T'fyrr picked his way carefully among the cobblestones and thought about the way that the Priest had met his own direct gaze. It was very difficult for humans to meet the eyes of a Haspur, for very long. Just as the gaze of a hawk, direct and penetrating, often seemed to startle people, the gaze of a Haspur with all of the intelligence of a Haspur behind it, seemed to intimidate them. Father Ruthvere had no such troubles.

'No, I believe you,' he said finally. 'And I find him as disconcerting as you humans find me.'

'He is one of my sources of information,' she said as they turned into a street lined with vendors of various foods and drink. 'We share what we've learned; he tells me what's going on inside the Church, and I tell him the rumors I've learned in Freehold and in the Palace kitchen.'

T'fyrr nodded; she had already told him about her clever ploy that got her into the Lower Servants' Kitchen every day. 'Well, I can add to that what I learn,' he said, 'though I am afraid it will be stale news to him.'

She shrugged. 'Maybe; maybe not. Oh_look down that street. That might be a good place for you to go if you're caught afoot and need to get into the air_'

She pointed down a dead-end street that culminated in a bulb-shaped courtyard. Unlike the rest of the street, there were no overhanging second stories there. He nodded and made a mental note of the place.

She continued to guide him through the narrow, twisting streets, pointing out flat roofs and protruding brickwork where he could land, then climb down to the street_finding places where he could get enough of a running start that he could take off again. And all the while she was showing him these things, she was also questioning him....

She was so subtle and so good at it that he didn't really notice what she was doing until he found himself clamping his beak down on a confession of what had happened to him in Gradford. It was only the fact that he made a habit of reticence that saved him. The words tried to escape from him; he put a curb on his tongue, and still his heart wanted to unburden all of his troubles to her.

So he distracted both her and himself with a description of what the High King had done that day. Or, more accurately, what the High King had not done, and how troubled he was by it all.

'There is something fundamentally wrong with the way Theovere is acting,' he said finally. 'My people have no equivalent to his office, but_if you allow yourself to take advantage of great privilege and great power, should you not feel guilty if you do not also accept what obligations come with it? Should that not be required, in order to enjoy the privilege?'

Tanager sighed. 'You'd think so, wouldn't you?' she replied. 'I know that I would feel that way.'

'The King's Advisors do not,' he told her. 'They continue to tell him that the most important thing that a King must learn is how to delegate responsibility. They praise him for shirking his most important tasks, for ignoring the pleas of those who have nowhere else to take their grievances and concerns. I do not understand.'

Tanager looked very thoughtful at that_and more like Nightingale than she had since they had begun their tour of the streets. 'I think that perhaps I do,' she finally said. 'Let's go back to Freehold. I want to talk about this somewhere I know is safe from extra ears.'