Read The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III for Free Online Page B

I get established, I’ll build myself a little army of street-children and pay them to go listen for me. No one ever pays attention to them, and they can get into the most amazing places . . .
    This would not be the first time she had built herself such a network. Children were never regarded as threatening by adults, but street-brats were wise beyond their years and knew how to listen for anything that might be of value. The nice thing about children was that they tended to stay loyal to the person who hired them. They might be wise beyond their years, but they lacked the experience that taught them double-dealing. Children still believed, in their heart of hearts, in playing fair.
    Servants, too — they’re the other invisibles. I’ll show up at the kitchen doors, clean but very shabby. I’ll ask to play in return for food. The Courts of Kings might boast the cream of entertainers, but the servants never saw it, and any chance for a little entertainment of their own usually was snatched at. Kitchen gossip often reflected the doings of the great and powerful long before many of their masters knew about it. So long as she pretended not to notice, she would probably get an earful.
    Raven never did learn that lesson, silly boy. He would always start asking questions rather than letting servants babble to each other.
    She would be just as invisible as a servant or a street urchin; just another common tavern-musician. There weren’t many Free Bards who traveled all the way to Lyonarie; it was a long way from Rayden, where the group first came to be organized, and Free Bards had their routines like anyone else. Likely no one would even recognize the knot of multicolored ribbons on her sleeves as anything other than decoration. Even if they did know her for what she was, well, the Guild had made it difficult for a Free Bard to work in Rayden, and the Church had done the same in Gradford, so it made sense for someone to come this far afield for work.
    I look like a Gypsy and there is no disguising that, but that might work for me rather than against me. People like things that are a bit exotic; it gives them a taste of places they’ll never see, a kind of life they’ll never lead.
    Gypsies didn’t like cities much, which also might mean she would not be recognized as one. Ah, well. It was always a case of playing odds being a Gypsy.
    And if she was recognized, and it caused her trouble—well, she would deal with that when she saw what cards were in her hand.
    The donkey suddenly gave a frightened bray and reared back against the lead-rope, trying to dig all four hooves into the pavement. The rope scraped her palm and she tightened her grip automatically as she looked around for what danger might have alarmed him—but a sudden whiff of powerful odor told her that he had simply reacted to another aspect of a city that she hated. There was no mistaking that charnel reek as it wafted into her face: blood and feces, urine and fear.
    She put her hat back on her head and soothed him with her free hand as she continued to pull his lead, gently but firmly, until he started walking again. His eyes rolled, but he obeyed her. She couldn’t blame him for balking; she’d have done the same in his place. He might even have scented a relative in that reek.
    Or rather, an ex-relative.
    The warehouses gave place to something else, and now she knew why she had seen so many carts laden with smaller beasts on this road. This was the district of slaughterhouses and all that depended on them.
    She held the donkey’s halter firmly under his chin as he fought to escape, shivered and rolled his eyes. There wasn’t anywhere he could go, and the press of traffic on all sides was enough to keep him moving. Nightingale wished she had taken thought to cover her mouth and nose with a neckcloth as so many around her were doing—she needed both hands to control the donkey, and her kerchief was in her pocket.
    The reek of the slaughterhouses and