"I do warn you," he continued, "I look altogether miserable when wet. If your romantic inclinations survive the sight of me with my feathers plastered to my skin, they will survive anything."
She smiled, suddenly shy. "I suspect they will survive," she said in a low voice. "Yours may not survive seeing me without a beautiful costume to make up for my otherwise_"
He put a talon across her lips and led her into the bathroom, where they discovered that romance survives a great many trials, and thrives on laughter.
Harperus was still bedridden, many days later; T'fyrr had come to make one of his morning visits.
He had not been the only visitor, but Harperus' second guest had come as the bearer of bad tidings.
The Captain of the Bodyguards left them after delivering his unwelcome news, and if a mans retreating back could signal chagrin, profound embarrassment, and disgust with a situation, his did.
It well should have.
"I cannot believe this!" T'fyrr exploded, once the Captain was out of the suite and out of earshot. Harperus shrugged, philosophically, from the shelter of his huge bed. The bruise on his forehead had faded to an unpleasant pale green and brown, and on the whole he was doing well. But the effects of the self-healing trance_and the exhaustion of handling what had probably been a cracked skull as well as a concussion_were longer-lasting than either of them had anticipated.
"I had actually expected something like this," the Deliambren said with a sigh. "I didn't want to say anything, lest I be seen to imply that Theovere's people are less than competent, but I was holding my breath over it. If a man can be spirited away from a locked and guarded room in the Palace, surely the city gaols are no more secure."
T'fyrr only snarled, and his talons scraped across the floor as he flexed his feet angrily.
No sooner had the man Harperus identified been arrested, taken into custody, and turned over to a city gaol, than he was free again. This time it was nothing so obvious as a guard being seduced. No, the man escaped from a locked and barred cell, and a lace handkerchief had been left in his place.
It seemed that their mysterious female adversary was not above taunting them.
Damn her. Whoever she is. She had to be someone either in high Court circles herself, or with connections there. There was no other way that she could have known that the man had been arrested, much less that he had been taken to a particular city gaol. There were three main gaols, after all, and a dozen lesser ones, never mind the many Church gaols; he could have been in any of them.
"And the King has not called for you once since my attack." Harperus pursed his lips unhappily. "He was displeased by Nightingale? Or is he displeased with your performances?"
"Not at all," T'fyrr replied bitterly. "He made a point of thanking her for coming the day after you were attacked. No, the reason is that he has a new toy to intrigue him; I am no longer a novelty. I have been subverted, it seems, by my good friend Lord Atrovel."
Harperus raised an eyebrow. "I had heard nothing of this," he said. "What new toy? And I thought Lord Atrovel liked you!"
T'fyrr sighed and flexed his feet again. "He does_but he cannot resist a challenge, and the head of the Manufactory Guild set him one. Do you recall that box of yours that plays music? The one that Theovere has hinted he would like?"
"The one that we will not give him because taking it apart would give these people too many secrets we do not want them to have?" Harperus responded. "Only too well. Why? What of it?"
"That is what Lord Atrovel was challenged to reproduce," T'fyrr told his friend sourly. "And he did it, too."
As Harperus' eyebrows shot toward his hairline, T'fyrr amended the statement. "It is not a recording device, nor is it small enough to sit on a table. It would fill_oh, a quarter of the room here. It is entirely mechanical, mostly of clockwork so far as I can tell, entirely human-made, and requires a page to push pedals with his feet, around and around, to power it." He brooded on his mechanical rival. "I suppose it is a kind of superior music-box. It has more than one instrument though, and three puppets to simulate playing them. There is an enameled bird_much prettier than I_that 'sings' the tunes, accompanied by a puppet harpist, flute player, and a puppet that plays an instrument made of tuned bells. It is all instrumental, of course_which means no awkward lyrics to remind Theovere of much of anything."
"You've seen it, then?" Harperus asked.
"How not? It was presented in open Court two days after your injury, with more ceremony than you made with me." T'fyrr stopped flexing his feet; he was cutting gouges in the floor. "It plays exactly one hundred of Theovere's favorite songs, which he can select at will."