The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III (9 page)

It had been a woman, a Gypsy, playing her harp beside a stream. He had known enough about humans even then to recognize how unique she was. Black-haired, dark-eyed, her featherless skin browned to a honeygold from many miles on the open road beneath the sun, she was as slender and graceful as a female of his own race and as ethereal as one of the beings that Harperus called “Elves.” With her large, brooding eyes, high cheekbones, pointed chin and thin lips, she would probably have daunted him in other circumstances, since those features conspired to give her an air of haughty aloofness. But her eyes had been closed with concentration; her lips relaxed and slightly parted—and her music had entwined itself around his heart and soul, and he could not have escaped if he had wanted to.

They had shared a magical afternoon of music, then, once she finished her piece and realized that he was standing there. She had been as eager to hear some of the music of his people as he had been to learn the music of hers. An unspoken, but not unfelt, accord had sprung up between them, and T’fyrr sometimes took that memory out and held it between himself and despair when his guilt and gloom grew too black to bear.

The wagon lurched, and T’fyrr caught himself with an outstretched hand-claw.

Deliambren chairs were not made for a Haspur; the backs were poorly positioned for anyone with wings. Harperus had compromised by having a stool mounted to the floor of the wagon, with a padded ring of leather-covered metal that T’fyrr could clutch with his foot-talons a few
krr
above the floor. It was only a compromise, and T’fyrr found himself jarred out of his memory of that golden afternoon with Nightingale as the wagon lurched and he had to clutch, not only the foot-ring, but the table in front of him, to avoid being pitched to the floor.

Those stabilizer things must he broken again.
Much of the Deliambren’s equipment had a tendency to break fairly often; Harperus spent as much time fixing the wagon as he did driving it. Most of the time the things that broke merely meant a little inconvenience; once or twice the Deliambren had actually needed to secure the wagon in a place that could be readily defended at need and call his people for someone to bring him a new part.

Still, this was a marvelous contraption. T’fyrr had, out of purest curiosity, poked his beak into the wagons of other travelers, and this behemoth was to those little horse-drawn rigs as he was to a scarcely fledged starling.

The wagon was divided into four parts: an eating and sitting part, where he was now; a sleeping part; a bathing and eliminating part; and a mysterious part that the Deliambren would allow no one into but himself. T’fyrr suspected that this final part was where the controls for the wagon were, and where Harperus kept some of the “technical” and “scientific” instruments that he used. Not that it mattered. T’fyrr was supremely incurious where all that nonsense was concerned.

The wagon could propel itself down a road without any outside pulling by horses or other draft-beasts. Right at the moment it was doing just that, although up until this point the Deliambren had taken exacting pains to keep humans from knowing it could move of itself. On the hottest days, it remained cool within—on the coldest, it was as warm as the Haspur could have wished. There were mystical compartments where fresh food was kept, remaining fresh until one wished to eat it. There was another kind of seat for elimination of bodily waste, and a tube wherein one could stand to be sluiced clean with fresh water. The whole of the wagon was most marvelously appointed: shiny beige wall and ceiling surfaces, leather-covered seating, rough, heavy rugs fastened down on the floor that one could dig ones talons into to avoid being flung about while the wagon was moving. Even the beds were acceptable, and it had been difficult for T’fyrr to find an acceptable bed—much less a comfortable one—since he had come down out of the mountains.

The very windows of this contrivance were remarkable.
He
could see out, but no one could see in. T’fyrr still did not understand how that was possible.

Unfortunately, the view displayed by those windows at the moment was hardly savory.

And Harperus claims that this is not the vilest part of this city! It is difficult to believe.

The Haspur lived among the tallest mountains on Alanda; while they were not very territorial by nature, they were also not colony-breeders. Each Haspur kept a respectable distance between his aerie and those of his neighbors. No enclave of Haspur ever numbered above a thousand—and there were at least that many humans just in the area visible from the window of the wagon!

They crammed themselves together in dwellings that were two and three stories tall, with the upper floors extended out over the street in such a way that very little sunlight penetrated to the street below. There must have been four or five families in each of the buildings, and each family seemed to have a half-dozen children at absolute minimum. T’fyrr could not imagine what it must sound like with all of them meeping and crying at once. And how did their parents manage to feed them all? A young Haspur ate its own weight in food every day during the first six years of its growth; after that, he ate about half his own weight each day until he was full-grown. That was one reason why Haspur tended to limit their families to no more than two—T’fyrr could not even begin to imagine the amount of food consumed by
six
children!

This was not even a good place in which to raise young. In addition to the lack of sun, there was a profound lack of fresh air in this quarter. The buildings restricted breezes most cruelly. T’fyrr did not want to think about how hot it must be, out there in the street; why these people weren’t running mad with the heat was a mystery. And the noise must be deafening, a jarring cacophony also likely to drive one mad.

Perhaps they are all mad; perhaps that is why they have so many offspring.

Haspur did not have a particularly good sense
of smell,
which he suspected was just as well, for he was certain that so many people crowded together—like starlings!—must create an environment as filthy as a starling roost.

The crowds seemed to be thinning, though, and the standard of construction in the residences rising the farther they went. He was not imagining it—there definitely was more room between the buildings; there were even spots of green, though the greenery was imprisoned away behind high walls, as if the owners of the property were disinclined to share even the sight of a tree or a flower with the unworthy.

There were fewer children in the street, too, and those few were not playing; they were with adults, supervised. Some even seemed to be working under adult supervision, sweeping the gutters, scrubbing walls, polishing gates.

They paused for a moment; T’fyrr couldn’t see what was going on at the front of the coach, but a moment later they were on the move again and he saw why they had stopped. There was a simple wooden gate meant to bar the road, now pulled aside, and several armed guards to make certain no one passed it without authorization. They watched the coach pass by stoically enough, but T’fyrr noted that they did seem—impressed? puzzled?

Well, Harperus is Deliambren, and he was bent on displaying Deliambren wonders to the court of the High King . . . I suppose he must have decided to begin with everyone in the city.

Harperus had insisted that here in Lyonarie it was of utmost importance to display as much power as one could, conveniently. Abstractly, T’fyrr understood this; the powerful were never impressed by anyone with
less
power than they, after all. But this business of going out of their way to look strange and different, including operating the coach without horses—

Looking different can be hazardous; I have had a crop full of what that hazard can be. Displaying too much power can incite as much envy as anything else, and the envious, when powerful, are often moved to try and help themselves to what has excited that envy, at whatever cost to the current owner.

Still, Harperus claimed that he had “connections” at the court of Theovere, and given the dangerous trends of the past two years, he and his people had felt it was time to employ those “connections.”

Theovere was a music lover of the most fanatic vein; apparently this was what had been occupying the time he should have been spending doing his duty as High King. Originally, Harperus was going to offer Theovere one of the music machines and a set of memory-crystals as a blatant bribe for a little more influence in legislation, but since the time that original plan had been conceived, he had evolved a better one—

Better, not just because it means no dangerous “technology” will be in the hands of those who might somehow manage to find an unpleasant use for it, but because it will mean
—
or so he thinks
—
that he will have a direct influence instead of an indirect one.

T’fyrr sighed, flipped his wings to position them more comfortably, and drummed his talons on the table. He was not looking forward to this. Harperus’ plan was to have T’fyrr appointed as an official Court Musician to the High King himself. Harperus was unshakably certain that once the High King heard T’fyrr sing, the Haspur would become a royal favorite. And once a nonhuman was a royal favorite, it would be much more difficult for other interests to get laws restricting the rights of nonhumans past the High King.

Interests such as the human Church, perhaps . . . though I am not particularly sanguine about one Haspur being able to overcome the interests of the Church, however optimistic Harperus may be. Religion rules the heart, and the heart is the most stubborn of adversaries. Rule the religion, and you rule the heart, and no one can oppose you
—
unless what you offer is better. Then, you must convince them that what you have is better, and people will die to hold on to what they already believe . . .

T’fyrr twitched his tail irritably. Harperus was optimistic about a great many things—and T’fyrr did not share his optimism in most of them.

Even if we can get in to see this High King, there is no guarantee he will be impressed with my singing. Even if he is, there is no guarantee that he will actually do anything about it personally; and from what I have seen, if he leaves my disposition up to his underlings, they will find a way to “lose” me. No, Harperus is counting on a great deal of good luck, and good luck seems to have deserted me.

T’fyrr glanced out the windows again and was impressed, though in a negative fashion, by the homes he now passed.
These
dwellings—each a magnificent work of art, each set in its own small park and garden—were clearly owned by those of wealth and high rank. And the guards on that gate they had passed showed just how unlikely it would be for a commoner to get access to these lovely garden-spots.

So the low and poor must crowd together in squalor, while the wealthy and high live in splendor. If I were low and poor
—
I think I would go elsewhere to live. My home would still be poor, but at least I would have sunlight and fresh air, green things about me and a little peace.

But—perhaps these humans enjoyed living this way. Starlings certainly did. That made them even less understandable.

Not that he had come close to understanding them so far. The humans’ own Sacrificed God spoke of fairness and justice and faith in the goodness of others. These things should prevent believers from doing harm to strangers. Why should an underling, clearly seeing his superiors doing vile things to another living being, believe that those things were justified? How could he be convinced that another being, who had done
no
harm, was a monster worth destroying? How could such a man be so convinced that those superiors were correct that he would spend his own life to carry out their will?

Perhaps those superiors
were
right; perhaps T’fyrr was as potentially evil as they claimed. After all,
he
was the one who had killed. Perhaps he misunderstood what the Sacrificed God was all about—after all, if the Deliambrens could make white into black, maybe the humans could, too.

I only hope that Harperus’ plan works as well as he thinks it will,
T’fyrr thought, depression settling over him again.
I
might somehow redeem myself if only I can be in a position where I can do some real good
—
or perhaps this helplessness to affect anything for the better is punishment for my evil . . .

T’fyrr was not as expert at reading human expressions as he would have liked, but there was no mistaking the look the Court official facing them wore on
his
refined visage.

Disdain, Not all of Harperus’ Deliambren charm
or
magic had been able to remove that look from the face of this so-called “Laurel Herald.” He had taken in the splendor of Harperus’ costume—a full and elaborate rig that made the Deliambren look to T’fyrr’s eyes rather like one of those multitiered, flower-bedecked, overdecorated cakes that some races produced at weddings and other festivities. He had watched the coach drive itself off to a designated waiting place with a similarly lifted brow. Of course, he was probably used to seeing similar things every day, and his livery of scarlet and gold, embroidered on the breast with a winged creature so elaborately encrusted with gold bullion that it was impossible to tell what it was supposed to be, was just as ornate in its way as Harperus’ costume. He sat behind a huge desk—a desk completely empty so far as T’fyrr could see—in the exact center of an otherwise barren, marble-walled and mosaic-floored chamber. The walls were covered with heroic paintings of stiff-faced humans engaged in conflicts, or stiff-faced humans posing in front of bizarre landscapes. There was a single bench behind the desk, where many young humans in similar livery sat quietly.

Now he waited for Harperus to declare himself, which Harperus was not at all loathe to do. The Deliambren adored being able to make speeches.

“I am Harperus, the Deliambren Ambassador-at-large,” he announced airily to the functionary. He went on at length, detailing the importance of his position, the number of dignitaries he had presented his credentials to and the exalted status of the Deliambren Parliament. Finally, he came to the point.