And in fact, she was beginning to think farther ahead than just the next few days or even weeks. If she could sustain her popularity here_why go anywhere else? Why go back on the road, once she had collected the information that the Deliambrens, the Free Bards, and the Elves all wanted? She didn't particularly have a sense of wanderlust the way some Gypsies did; she simply had never found a place she wanted to stay for more than a few months at a time.
Why not stay here?
Granted, she hated cities, but she couldn't avoid them altogether, and if she was going to have to endure them, why not do so where she was guaranteed a level of comfort that she would never get anywhere else? Where else would she have her own room with her own bathroom, heated and cooled to perfection? Where else would she get her choice of foodstuffs, so that she could go all month and never eat the same meal twice? And where else would she find a performance venue like this one?
And to that end_if she stayed, she would need new costumes, many new costumes, all of the same quality as her silks. The Elves would owe her once she got their information back to them; she could send word back with her own messages that she needed new dresses, and ask for specific colors and designs....
She shook herself out of her reverie as the doors of the room opened and people began to make their way in. Concentrate on what's going on right now, foolish woman, she scolded herself. Deal with what you have before you. Worry about far into the future when you know you will have that kind of future.
Outside on the dance floor, Silas and the other musicians were setting up; she saw them clearly through the window. He must have sensed her watching, for he turned toward the Rainbow Room and waved, grinning broadly, then gave her the Gypsy sign for well-wishing. She smiled back and did the same, knowing that he could see her as easily as she saw him. He looked particularly wonderful and outrageous tonight, and his tight leather costume would give most Church Priests heart failure. It was cut out in unexpected patterns that allowed his golden-tan skin to show through, and unless she was very much mistaken, he was wearing a leather codpiece with a red leather rose appliqued on the front.
Showoff. But she smiled as she thought it. It was impossible not to like Silas; he went out of his way to be kind to even the lowliest of the waiters and cleaners and encouraging to the worst of his fellow entertainers. There wasn't an unkind bone in Silas' body.
Unfortunately, there wasn't a chaste bone in there, either. "Promiscuous" did not begin to describe him, and Nightingale feared he would meet an early end, either torn to pieces among a dozen jealous lovers, each of whom was sure he or she was Silas' only true love, or worn away to nothing by the exertion of all his love affairs. Silas' one fault_and it was a bad one_was that he had a habit of telling his lovers whatever they wanted to hear. That had gotten him into trouble in the past, and he had never learned better. Perhaps Silas unconsciously feared the same early end that she suspected for him; he seemed to be trying to pack a lifetime's worth of experience into months rather than years.
But for now, at least, he's having a fine time as far as I can tell. Still, it wouldn't be my choice to burn up like a falling star for the sake of a single spectacular bout of fireworks. I would rather leave a carefully crafted and large legacy of music behind me.
This new venue was only going to give him more trouble in the popularity department; now he was free to move about the stage as he sang, instead of being pinned to a stool behind a guitar. That was only going to make him more attractive so far as his admirers were concerned. Up until now they'd had no reason to suspect Silas danced as well as he sang.
Well, this wasn't the time to worry about Silas and his troubles; her harps were in perfect tune, and the place was about as full as it was going to get until and unless word spread tonight that her performances were not to be missed. So_
So it's time to start creating a performance that is not to be missed, foolish wench!
She ran her hands over her harp strings, and the quiet murmur of talk died away as the lights above the stage brightened and the ones out in the room dimmed slightly. She took a deep breath, mentally ran over all of her options, and decided to begin with something she hoped would impress even the most difficult critic. She chose an Elven piece, and backed it with the appropriate Bardic Magic meant to enhance the moods called up by the song.
After that, all of her attention was bound up in her music and the reactions of her audience. It seemed to her that the listeners were impressed; they were quiet when she wanted them to be, nodded or tapped along in time when she played or sang something lively, and responded to the subtle textures she added with the Bardic Magic she wove into the fabric of her songs. In this incarnation, the magic was only meant to enhance an experience, not to manipulate anyone's thoughts. That was how the Elves generally used it among themselves. The room continued to fill as she played, until at the end of her first set, there were not too many tables or booths empty. And this was at supper_once people were finished eating, the audiences should grow larger.
The lights came back up as she signaled the end of her set; she stepped off the stage and went into the back of the room, where a cleverly concealed door led into a small closet-like affair. This was where another of the nonhumans, a fellow whose race she didn't even know, sat doing arcane things with a board of sliding bits and buttons. Xarax was a likable fellow, though he didn't speak much to anyone; he looked as human as Nightingale until you got close to him and saw that his eyes were exactly like a goat's, with an odd, sideways, kidney-shaped pupil, and his skin was covered with tiny hexagonal scales. She didn't know if he was completely hairless, but his "eyebrows" were nothing more than a darker pattern of scales, he had no sign of a beard, and he always wore a shirt with a hood and kept the hood up. He was the one in charge of the lighting here; he worked this room for Nightingale now as he had worked it for Silas before.
"That was perfect," she told him warmly. "I couldn't have asked for anything better."
His thin, lipless mouth stretched in a smile. "Excellent," he replied, with no hiss at all to his words. "You are a more subtle performer than Silas; I hoped I would match that subtlety. The audience likes you. The exquisite Violetta actually came here to listen to you before she went off to the dance floor. That is a good omen and proves that the customers like you."
"They do?" she replied, knowing she sounded pathetically eager, as eager as any green child in her first appearance, and knowing it would not matter to Xarax. "Oh, I hope so_"
"Tyladen did not choose you wrongly to take Silas' place," the nonhuman assured her, even reaching out with one three-fingered hand to pat her on the shoulder in an awkward gesture of reassurance. "He was half minded to choose another exactly like Silas, but I told him that would be a mistake, for such a choice would only invite comparison and unwelcome rivalry. I said to him to choose someone as unlike Silas as possible; someone whose emphasis was on the music rather than the performer_and here you are, and you prove me right. And Tyladen, who chose you."
That was the longest speech she had ever heard out of Xarax, and he abruptly turned back to his buttons and boards, as if embarrassed by the outpouring of words. She knew better than to be offended at his abruptness; she thanked him again and left him alone with his beloved machinery.
When her break was over, most of the people from her first performance were still in the room, sipping drinks they had ordered from waiters during the interval, and many more had arrived to fill up the rest of the seats. As the lights dimmed again, she saw the dance group had ended its first performance, and the dance floor had emptied. Silas and his group would be taking a longer break than she did_their work was physically more demanding. For a while, at least, the music in here would penetrate onto the open dance floor, and might attract more people here.
And even as she began her first song of the second set, she caught sight of someone who startled her so much that for a moment she faltered_
Then she recovered, so quickly that she doubted anyone in her audience noticed, or thought the break was more than a dramatic pause. But out there, striding across the empty dance floor, wings swept dramatically back behind his shoulders, was_
T'fyrr!
It had to be him! It was not just the wings, the feathered body, the raptorial head_it was the costume, the way that closely wrapped fabric fell in particular folds that she remembered, the color of the fabric itself. It was also the color of his feathers, a rich grey-brown with touches of scarlet on the edges of his primaries and tail feathers. Nightingale had a peculiarly good color memory; she was able to match even greys and beiges without having a swatch of the fabric in question with her. She knew, from all of her years as an observer of nature, that no two birds were exactly colored alike; there were subtle shadings of tone that enabled someone who watched them a great deal to tell them apart. Surely that was the same with the Haspur_