"Mercedes Lackey - Bardic Voices 03 - Eagle and the Nightingales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

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