The Eagle And The Nightingales

about the attack last night. That should get his mind off me.'

He wasn't at all sure he could do that, but he nodded again. 'I can try,' he said truthfully, and then the conveyance stopped in front of the gate, and it was too late to discuss anything more.

Nob had indeed brought 'Lyrebird's' safe-conduct, although from here on she would have to come and go through a lesser gate elsewhere; she was only a lowly accompanist, after all, and not a Sire dubbed by the High King's own hand. Nob chattered excitedly at a high rate of speed, which kept T'fyrr from having to say much and Nightingale from having to say anything. The safe-conduct was from Theovere himself; Old Owl had gone straight to the highest authority available. He must have described Lyrebird in the most glowing terms; the King was most anxious to hear this remarkable player from the infamous Freehold.

'The Bardic Guild found out, too. I don't know how, but they had a Guildmaster protesting to the High King before I even got the safe-conduct,' Nob continued, after describing how Harperus had come to get him early this morning. 'They tried to get this lady banned from the Court because she's a Gypsy, then they tried to get her barred because she plays at Freehold and they have some kind of arrangement about the musicians at Freehold. The High King just ignored them. They were even going to make a fuss so you couldn't be heard, but Theovere got word of that before it ever happened and told them if they did anything he'd have them all discharged, so they gave up, I guess. The High King made her your Second, do you know what that means?'

T'fyrr shook his head. Nob was only too happy to explain. 'She's more than a servant, like me, but she's not the High King's musician, she's yours. So nobody but you can discharge her, you see, not even Theovere if the Guild pressures the High King to do it, but she doesn't have the immunity you do if she offends somebody at Court. She can only be arrested by Theovere's personal guards, though, if she's accused of something.'

'Then I'll just have to be certain I don't offend anyone,' Nightingale said in a low, amused voice. Nob giggled.

'The Guild people are all pretty disgusted, but Harperus says not to worry, they can't do anything, and as long as you're real careful and never let any of them get you someplace without witnesses so they can claim you offended them, it'll be all right,' Nob finished in a rush. He kept glancing over at Lyrebird with a certain awe and speculation in his eyes.

'When is Theovere expecting us to perform for him?' T'fyrr asked. That was the question of the most moment.

'As soon as you get there_I mean, after you get cleaned up and all,' Nob replied, correcting himself with a blush. 'You can't go before the King with dust on your feathers!'

Nightingale gave T'fyrr an amused look that he read only too easily_she had warned him something like this might happen, which was why she had made her own careful preparations before they left Freehold.

Nob hurried them both inside and, while Nightingale waited in the outer room, rushed him through his usual preparations.

Still harried by the energetic Nob, like a pair of hawks being chivvied on by a wren, they hurried up the hallways to the King's private quarters.

This time will be different. This time there will be magic. Elation and worry mingled in him in a confusing storm of emotion, leaving him feeling unbalanced. The least little things were unbalancing him, after last night....

After last night....

What exactly had happened? Something had passed between them, as ephemeral as a moon shadow and strong as spider silk. A whisper more potent than any shout, that was what it felt like; a stillness at the center of a whirlwind. As if every feather had been stripped from his body, leaving him bare to the winds.

Perhaps it was just as well that they had work to do immediately, so that he had no time to think about it. He did not want to think about it, not now, perhaps not ever.

But you will, his conscience told him. You will have to, eventually.

He didn't want to think about that, either.

Nightingale was too weary to be impressed by the Palace, the High King, or anything else for that matter. There wasn't much left of her this morning, except the magic and the music; she had saved enough of her energy for that, and had very little more. She felt as if she was so insubstantial she would blow away in a breeze, and so tired she could hardly walk.

It was not the physical weariness, although that was a part of it, certainly. She had stayed up to play for revels all night long and traveled with the dawn a thousand times. But this morning was very different.

But part of me dwells within him, now, and part of him in me. Strange and yet familiar, a breath of mountain air across her deep and secret forest; a hint of music strange and wild, a brush of feathers across her breast.