[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
they were swift, and a second river flowed above it a river of fresh, cool air. Nightingale
moved as slowly on the bridge as she could, stretching out her moment of relief.
On the other side, the manufactories gave way again to housing, but fortunately for
Nightingale's peace of mind the people here lived in better conditions than those near the
slaughterhouses.
There were more of those pre-Cataclysm buildings, in fact, given over to living
quarters rather than manufactories. These had more windows, and from the look of
things, the ceilings were not as high, granting more levels in the same amount of space. In
between these older buildings, newer ones rose, not quite as dilapidated as the tenements
on the other side of the river, but by no means in excellent repair. These newer buildings
huddled around the old as if for support, as if without those grey bulwarks they could not
stand against wind and weather.
Nightingale tried to imagine what this area might have looked like before the wooden
tenements were built, but had to give up. She just could not picture it in her mind. Why
would people have put so much open space between the buildings, then build the
buildings so very tall? Wouldn't it have made more sense to lay everything out flat, the
way a small village was built? That way everyone could have his own separate dwelling,
and one would not be forced to hear ones neighbors through walls that were never thick
enough for privacy....
Ask anyone who has ever spent the night in an inn with newlyweds in the next room
.
Well, there was no telling what the ancestors had been thinking; their world was as
alien to the Twenty Kingdoms now as that of any of the nonhumans. Nightingale certainly
was not going to try to second-guess them.
However, this area would be a good one in which to start her search. However much
she disliked the crowding, she could hide herself better in a crowd than in more exclusive
surroundings.
At the first sign of a tiny cross street, she pulled the donkey out of the stream of traffic
and into the valley between two buildings, looking for a child of about nine or ten, one who
was not playing with others, but clearly looking for someone for whom he could run an
errand. Such a child would know where every inn and tavern was in his neighborhood,
and would probably know which ones needed an entertainer.
And people think that children know nothing....
Nightingale kept her back quite stiff with indignation as she pulled her donkey away
from the door of the Muleteer. Her guide a girl-child with dirty hair that might have
been blond if one could hold her under a stream of water long enough to find out sighed
with vexation. It was an unconscious imitation of Nightingale's own sigh, and was close
enough to bring a reluctant smile to the Gypsy's lips.
"Honest, mum, if I'd'a thunk he was gonna ast ye pony up more'n music, I'd'a not hev
brung ye here," the girl said apologetically.
Nightingale patted the girl on one thin shoulder, and resolved to add the remains of
her travel-rations to the child's copper penny. "You couldn't have known," she told the
little girl, who only shook her head stubbornly and led Nightingale to a little alcove holding
only a door that had been bricked up ages ago. There they paused out of the traffic, while
the girl bit her lip and knitted her brows in thought.
"Ye set me a job, mum, an' I hevn't done it," the child replied, and Nightingale added
another mental note to make this girl the first of her recruits. Her thin face hardened
with businesslike determination. "I'll find ye a place, I swear! Jest was it only wee inns
an taverns ye wanted?"
Something about the wistful hope in the girl's eyes made Nightingale wonder if she had
phrased her own request poorly. "I thought that only small inns or taverns would want a
singer like me," she told the girl. "I'm not a Guild musician, and the harp isn't a very loud
instrument "
"So ye don' mind playin' where there's others playin' too?" the girl persisted. "Ye don'
mind sharin' th' take an' th' audience an' all?"
Well, that was an interesting question. She shook her head and waited to reply until
after a rickety cart passed by. "Not at all. I'm used to 'sharing'; all of us do at Faires, for
instance."
A huge smile crossed the child's face, showing a gap where her two front teeth were
missing. "I thunk ye didn' like other players, mum, so I bin takin' ye places where they
ain't got but one place. Oh, I got a tavern-place that's like a Faire, 'tis, an' they don' take
to no Guildsmen neither. Ye foller me, mum, an' see if ye don' like this place!"
The child scampered off in the opposite direction in which they had been going, and
Nightingale hauled the donkey along in her wake. The girl all but skipped, she was so
pleased to have thought of this "tavern-place," whatever it was, and her enthusiasm was
quite infectious. Nightingale found herself hoping that this would be a suitable venue, and
not just because her feet hurt, she was wilting with the heat, and her shoulders ached
from hauling the increasingly tired and stubborn donkey.
She also wanted to be able to reward this child, and not have to thread her way out of
the neighborhood the little girl knew and hunt up a new guide. The streets were all in
shadow now, although the heat hadn't abated; much longer and it would be twilight. She
would have to find at least a safe place to spend the night, then; it wasn't wise, for a
stranger to be out in a neighborhood like this one after dark. In a smaller city she
wouldn't have worried so much, but she had heard of the gangs who haunted the back
streets of Lyonarie by night; she was a tough fighter, but she couldn't take on a dozen
men with knives and clubs.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]