But how could he have been attacked? How could anyone have gotten in to him, past his devices, to attack him?
They ran past rank after rank of statuary, taking the quickest path to the Deliambren suite. Past animals, past famous generals, past mermaids_up the stairs to the fourth floor and past guildsmen, past famous Bards, past farmers_oh dear, there is one with his favorite piggy at his feet! she thought distractedly_past the Allies of the Twenty Kingdoms_
And there was the door to Harperus' suite, now guarded by a pair of the King's personal bodyguards, who let T'fyrr and herself past without so much as a challenge. T'fyrr flung himself inside immediately. But she stopped at the door and caught the attention of one of the guards, one she thought she recognized from the King's suite. "What happened?' she asked shortly.
He looked down into her eyes, his own as flat and expressionless as blued steel. Finally he opened his thin, grim lips and answered.
"Someone broke in here last night while Envoy Harperus was with the High King. They_there was more than one_were ransacking the suite when the Envoy came in and found them still there. His devices had stunned and captured one of them, and the others were trying to get him free. When the Envoy surprised them, they clubbed him and fled. The Envoy is still unconscious. The High King has put his own personal servants in place here, since the Envoy's assigned servants have disappeared and might even have been in collusion with his attackers."
"We have the one the device caught in custody," the other guard said at last. "The Envoy regained consciousness long enough to tell us what had happened, how to free the man, and to ask for Sire T'fyrr, and then collapsed again."
She might have thought she was imagining a faint tone of disapproval that T'fyrr had not been here when Harperus asked for him, except that she sensed the disapproval as well as heard it. She simply nodded with dignity, and said, "Sire T'fyrr and I were attacked by nine armed men in the city last night. We were some time in being tended to and unable to send word to the Palace. It seems that someone would like to harm the High King's foreign allies."
Then she passed on through the doors into the Deliambren suite, knowing that the Bodyguards were far more than mere soldiers, and knowing that what she had just said would be recounted, with exact tone and inflection, to the High King's Spymaster. And whether that mysterious gentleman served Theovere only, or served some of the Advisors as well, there would be no doubt that she and T'fyrr were well aware of what their attackers were, if not who.
It was a risk to reveal that, but it was an equal risk to seem unaware of their situation. Perhaps this would make their enemy a bit more wary.
But for right now, she was grimly certain that Harperus had better have someone at his side who was his friend, guarding him. The King's bodyguards might help so long as whoever was after Harperus tried to pass the doors, but they wouldn't be of much help if an attacker were one of the King's servants, or came in by some other means.
The suite didn't look a great deal different from theirs, except in one small detail. Harperus had none of the "Deliambren sculptures" around the suite. That might explain why Tyladen didn't know about the attack.
Yet.
Nightingale passed through the reception room and into Harperus' bedroom, where there were two more guards at the door. T'fyrr had already settled at Harperus' bedside, displacing a servant; Nightingale bit her lip, then reached out to touch the Deliambren's bruised brow and hummed a fragment of the healing chant under her breath.
But she emerged almost immediately from her brief trance with a feeling of profound relief. "He'll be all right," she told T'fyrr, whose tense shoulders and twitching tail signaled his own worry and fear. "He's healing himself; he doesn't even need me to do anything. That is why he went unconscious again. He has a concussion, but when he wakes it will have been taken care of. I'm going to your suite to get something; I'll be right back."
T'fyrr started up at that, and she knew what must be in his mind. "If anyone got into your suite last night, it won't matter," she pointed out. "Whoever was behind this was probably behind the attack on us, and he knows where we were. After Harperus was attacked, the King's men probably checked all the suites to make sure no one else was hurt, so even if the attackers got into yours, Nob is surely all right."
He sank back down on his stool, and nodded. "Nob is all that I care about," he said, a bit hoarsely. "Anything else can be replaced, and most of it is not mine, anyway. Things can be restored; people cannot."
She hurried out, running as soon as she reached the hallways, picking up her skirts like a child so that she could run the faster.
Despite what she had told him to reassure him_thank the Lady we can't read thoughts!_she was by no means sure that she would find either the suite or Nob intact. In the excitement, the guards might not have thought to check. Nob could be lying with his skull cracked in the bathroom of the suite or in his own room even now.
But as she pushed the door open, Nob came flying out of the bedroom with a cry of relief to see her, and the room seemed intact.
"T'fyrr is all right," she said, and gave him the short version of the attack in the streets_and then, for the benefit of Tyladen's listening devices, a short story of the attack on Harperus. Nob had known that there had been an attack on someone, for guards had come checking the other suites as she had suspected they might, but he had known nothing more than that one of the envoys had been hurt. He hadn't known which one, and he'd been afraid to leave the suite to find out. He hadn't known what to do; his training in etiquette hadn't covered this sort of situation, and he was afraid to act without orders.
But now that T'fyrr was back he had someone to give him orders, which put his world back in place again. Nightingale gave him the first of those orders, on behalf of his master.
"Have someone bring T'fyrr his breakfast in Harperus' suite," she said, "then you bring him fresh clothing. He'll want you to stand guard over Harperus while he uses the envoys bathroom. He still hasn't had much of a chance to get completely clean after those bravos attacked us."
Nob nodded; his eyes were full of questions, but he was too well-trained to ask them. Nightingale was not going to say anything; it wasn't her place. Whatever T'fyrr wanted him to know, T'fyrr would tell him.
"I will perform for the High King, as usual," she told the boy. "We will hope he will find me a satisfactory substitute. I'll be going there as soon as I get my harp in tune."
As soon as Nob was out of the room, she locked the door and gave a much more detailed accounting of everything for the sake of the listening devices. "That is all we know now," she said. "I presume we will find out more when Harperus awakens. In the meantime_"
She stopped herself; after all, what could she suggest that was of any real value? "In the meantime, I will substitute for T'fyrr with the High King, unless I receive orders from the King to the contrary. I will not be back to Freehold for the next day or so."