Mercedes Lackey - The Eagle And The Nightingales

Not that he has ever let rank go to his head , Nightingale reflected, allowing his pleasure at seeing her to ease the distant ache of Kingsford's sorrow within her. He has made Birnam a haven of freedom for all of us .

"I would wait until the snow fell for your sake, Master Wren," she told him truthfully, scanning his honest, triangular face for signs of stress and his red hair for more strands of grey than there had been the last time she saw him. She saw neither, and felt nothing untoward from him, which eased her worries a little. He had been so adamant in asking her not to leave after the Faire closed_at least until he had a chance to speak with her_that she had been afraid there was something wrong with him personally. They were old friends, though only once, briefly, had they ever been lovers.

"Well, it is lucky for us both that you won't have to do that," he replied, and his eye fell on her little donkey. "So, the rumors of your prosperity were not exaggerated! Congratulations!"

She raised her eyebrow at that, for there was something more in his voice than simple pleasure in her good fortune. There was some reason why he was particularly pleased that she had done well, a reason that had nothing to do with friendship or his unofficial rank as head of the Free Bards.

"This simplifies matters," he continued. "I have a request to make of you, but it would have been difficult if you had already arranged to travel with anyone else this winter."

A blackbird winged by, trilling to find them standing in his territory, so near to his nest. Her other eyebrow rose. "A request?" she said cautiously, a certain sense of foreboding coming to her. "Of what nature?"

Wren can charm birds out of the trees and honesty out of Elves, and I'd better remember that if he's asking favors of me . It was mortally hard to refuse Wren anything.

But I can hold my own with the Elves; it will take more than charm to win me .

Talaysen sighed, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like a naughty little boy who had been caught in the midst of a prank_which further hardened her suspicions. "There is something I would like for you to do for me_or rather, not for me, but for the Free Bards. Unfortunately, it will involve a rather longer journey than you normally make; I expect it will take you from now until the first Harvest Faires to reach your goal even if you travel without stopping on the way."

She pulled in a quick breath with surprise. "From now until Harvest Faire?" she repeated, incredulously. "Where in the world do you want me to go? Lyonarie?"

She had thrown out the name of the High King's capital quite by accident, it being the farthest place from here that she could think of, but the widening of his eyes showed her that her arrow had hit the mark out of all expectation.

A pocket of sudden stillness held them both, and it seemed to her that the air grew faintly colder around her.

"You want me to go to Lyonarie?" she asked, incredulously. "But_why? What possible business have the Free Bards there? And of all people, why me? I am no Court Bard, I know nothing of Lyonarie, and _"

And I hate cities, you know that , she thought, numbly. And you know why !

"Because we need information, not rumor. Because of all people, you are the one I know that is most likely to learn what we need to know without getting yourself into trouble over it_or inflaming half the city." He nodded at the ruins of Kingsford behind her, and she winced; there were also rumors that enemies of the Free Bards had set that fire and that it had gotten out of hand. "You're clever, you're discreet, and we both know that you are a master of Bardic and_other magics."

"Perhaps not a master," she demurred, "and my talents are as much a hazard as a benefit_" But he wasn't about to be deflected.

"I know I can trust you, and that I can trust you to be sensible," he continued. "Those are traits this task will need as much as mastery of magic."

"Which is why you are not entrusting this to Peregrine?" she asked. "You could trust him, but he is not always sensible, especially when he sees an injustice."

"He does not do well in cities, any more than you do," Talaysen pointed out. "And he won't abide in them unless he must under direct threat to himself or his clan."

And because I have a large sense of duty, I will endure them if I must , she thought with misgiving. I had better have a very good reason_other than that Wren wants me to, however .

"What could possibly be so pressing as to send me across half the Twenty Kingdoms?" she replied, favoring him with a frown. "And there, of all places. Peregrine may not like cities, but neither do I, and I have better reason than he to avoid them." Her frown deepened. "I'm not minded to risk another witch-hunt because I seem to know a little too much for someone's comfort_or just because I am a Gypsy."

"Not in Lyonarie_" he began, but she interrupted him.

"So you say , but no one had word of what was chancing in Gradford until Robin stirred the nest and the wasps came flying out to sting," she retorted. Talaysen did not wince this time; instead he looked ever more determined. "And I ask again, what is so pressing as to send me there?"

Now Talaysen's changeable eyes grew troubled, and the signs of stress that had not been there before appeared, faintly etched into his brow and the corners of his generous mouth. "King Rolend is concerned, and as Laurel Bard and leader of the Free Bards he often asks me for my opinion. High King Theovere has been_neglectful."

Now Nightingale snorted. "This is hardly news; his neglect has been growing since before Lady Lark joined us. And so just what is it that I am supposed to do? March up to the High King and charge him with neglecting his duty?"

Talaysen smiled, faintly. "Scarcely, though I suspect you could and would do just that if it suited you. No, what Rolend and I both want is the reason why Theovere has become this way. He wasn't always like this_he was a very good ruler and kept the power neatly balanced among the Twenty Kings, the Guilds and the Church. He's mature, but not all that old, and there has been no suggestion that he has become senile, and he hasn't been ill_and besides, his father lived thirty years more than he has already, and he was vigorous and alert to the last."

She shook her head, though, rather than agreeing to take on Talaysen's little wild-goose hunt with no more prompting than that. "I won't promise," she said, as the dim sense of foreboding only increased with Talaysen's explanations. "I will think about it, but I won't promise. All I will say is that I will take my travels in the direction of Lyonarie." As Master Wren's face reflected his disappointment, she hardened her heart. "I won't promise because I have no way of knowing if I can actually reach Lyonarie," she pointed out. "I'm afoot, remember? You and Rune came here in a fine wagon with a pair of horses to pull you and the baby_travel is harder when you walk, not ride. You ought to remember that. A hundred things could delay me, and I won't promise what I am not sure I can deliver."

"But if you reach Lyonarie?" Talaysen persisted, and she wondered at his insistence. Surely he_and the King of Birnam_had more and better sources of information than one lone Gypsy!

"If I decide to go that far and if I reach Lyonarie any time before the next Kingsford Faire, I will reconsider," she said at last. "I will see what I can do. More, I won't promise."

He wasn't satisfied, but he accepted that, she saw it in his face.

"You still haven't answered the other question," she continued, suspiciously. "Why choose me?"