The Eagle & the Nightingales: Bardic Voices, Book III by Mercedes Lackey Page A

in the winter; just as she came to the conclusion that she didn’t have the head for such a complicated calculation, the “boss” appeared in the door.
    A human of middle years, average in every way from his hair to his clothing, looked her up and down in surprise. “You are a Gypsy, aren’t you?” he said, before she could say anything to him. “And a Free Bard?”
    She nodded cautiously, but he only smiled, showing the same gap at the front of his teeth that the child boasted. “Well! In that case, we might be able to do some business. Will you enter?”
    “What about the beast?” she asked dubiously, keeping a tight hold on the donkey’s halter. She was not about to leave him outside, not in this neighborhood.
    “Bring him in; there’s a stable just inside the door,” the man replied readily enough. “If you have a big enough building, you can do anything you want, really, and the owner thought it would be nice if people didn’t have to go out into the weather to get their riding-beasts.”
    “Oh.” That was all she could say, really. It was all anyone could say. Who would have thought of having a stable inside your tavern?
    “Trust a Deliambren to think of something like that,” the man continued, as an afterthought. “He’s almost never here, of course, but he’s always coming up with clever notions for the place, and the hearth-gods know a Deliambren has the means to make anything work.”
    Ah. Now it makes sense! And now it made sense for a tavern to be situated in a warehouse, for only a Deliambren would have the means to heat the place—yes, and probably cool it in the summer, as well!—without going bankrupt.
    She turned to the girl, and held out the promised penny, and with the other hand fumbled the bag of travel food off the back of the packs. “Here, take this, too,” she said, holding it out as soon as the child accepted her penny with unconcealed glee and greed. “Can I find you in the same place if I need a guide again?”
    The child accepted the bag without asking what was in it—hardly surprising, since almost anything she was given would be worth something to her. Even the bag itself. She clutched the bag to her chest and nodded vigorously. “Yes, mum, ye jest ast fer Maddy, an’ if I ain’t there, I be there soon as I hear!” She grinned again, shyly this time. “I tol’ ye that ye’d like this place, mum, didn’ I jest?”
    “You did, and I don’t forget people who are clever enough to guess what I’d like, Maddy,” Nightingale told her. “Thank you.”
    Before she could say anything more, the child bobbed an awkward curtsey and disappeared into the crowd. The “boss” of the tavern was still waiting patiently for her to conclude her business with Maddy.
    “Don’t you think you ought to look us over and see what we can offer before you make a decision?” the man asked her, although his amused expression and his feelings, as loud as a shout, told her he was certain she would want to stay here. This was quite unlike the proprietor of the Muleteer, whose feelings of lust had run over her body like a pair of oily hands.
    She simply raised an eyebrow; he chuckled, and waved her inside.
    The doorway opened into a room—or, more correctly, an anteroom—paved like the street outside, furnished with a few wooden benches, with a corridor going off to the right. A Mintak boy appeared in the entrance at the sound of the donkey’s hooves on the pavement.
    Nightingale had seen many Mintaks in the course of her travels, but never a youngster. Like all the others she had seen, this boy wore only a pair of breeches and an open vest; his hide, exactly like a horse’s, was a fine, glossy brown. His head was shaped something like a cross between a horse and a dog, but the eyes were set to the front, so that he could see forward out of both of them, like a human, instead of only one at a time, like a horse. He had a ridge of hair—again, much like a horse’s mane—that