The shouting died. There was her father, standing in front of Fthoom; Sylvi had not noticed him step down from his chair. She had never seen him look so angry. Even Fthoom subsided a little, and the two magicians who held him dropped their hands.
The king waited till there was perfect silence again. It came quickly, because he made the silence by his expectation of it. Then he reached out one steady hand and plucked the magician’s spiral off Fthoom’s head. There was a gasp, and Sylvi felt the atmosphere in the hall move and change. She leant against Ebon’s side and was glad of the support, and not sorry that the tall footman was still standing near her.
The king dropped the spiral as if it were rubbish; it tinged against the stone floor, and the thready chime of it went on too long, as if it had a voice and was protesting its treatment. “There is no defence for raising your hand against the king’s daughter; there is no defence for the raising of a hand to anyone met in the king’s private room.
“You are hereby removed from the council of magicians which serves the king, but you are not relieved of all your duties to us. You will, as quickly and scrupulously as you can, beginning now, search all the histories in all our libraries, till you have found and documented every reference, every notation, every marginal scratch, in all the chronicles, royal, theurgical and laic, of free speech or friendship between human and pegasus; and then you will bring the list to the king—and be you sure that the citations are correct and complete to the last syllable, the last full stop—and the royal council, the magicians’ council, the senate and myself shall read it, and consult over it, and decide if there is any foundation in the charge you brought before us today.
“I believe that the one thing that has come out of this—extraordinary—meeting this morning is an awareness that we have, perhaps, been careless about the critical relationship between human and pegasus, careless in our resignation that no better bond than what we are accustomed to can exist. The king agrees with you that his daughter and Lrrianay’s son suggest a different way. But the king’s view, and indeed hope, for that way is diametrically opposed to your own. Bring what the histories can tell us both, and the councils will decide whose concept of the way forward has more merit.
“The king is prepared to consider the possibility that your outburst arose from a dedication to the well-being of our country too profound for restraint; but he is only barely prepared so to consider it. You may leave us. Now.”
Fthoom stood for a moment longer, swaying a little, like a tree that has felt the final stroke of the axe and will fall to earth in the next moment. And then he knelt, not carelessly this time, but heavily, and he needed Kachakon’s hand under his elbow to regain his feet. Another footman had opened the door, and he turned toward it. As he turned, his eyes swept across Sylvi’s face and paused there briefly; as his eyes met hers she saw how much he hated her, and she thought that if he had held her eyes even a moment longer he might have turned her into a slime-mould or a newt after all. Again she was glad for Ebon, and for the not-quite-expressionless footman—for Ahathin—and for her father. But she wished—just for a moment—that she wasn’t a king’s daughter, even if that meant she would not have met Ebon.
Fthoom stood now as if recalling his strength, and he walked away from them as Fthoom always walked: grandly, arrogantly, although his head looked strangely low and bare rising above the wide unyielding frame of his cloak. He disappeared through the door and was gone.
The king turned to his daughter. Ebon dropped his protecting wing and stepped back; out of the corner of her eye she saw Lrrianay cross behind her father and put his nose to Ebon’s cheek, and she wondered what the pegasus king might be saying to his fourth child; but then her father put his hands on her shoulders and her attention was all on him.
“My darling,” he said quietly, and sighed. “What a mess we seem to be in. But if you are ever again moved to tell a powerful magician he is a fool, to his face and in public, would you please warn me in advance?”
“Oh—I—”
“No, you did extremely well. I am proud of you—and proud of all those library slips I signed. I admit I had not considered—er—arguing with Fthoom. But—well.”
He removed one hand long enough to beckon to the footman who had thrust Sylvi behind him. “I want to think it was an unnecessary gesture, but I thank you for your protection of my daughter.”
The previously expressionless footman turned a deep crimson maroon and swallowed hard; footmen are not accustomed to their kings addressing them as “I” and using the familiar form of “you.”
“Thank you, lord,” he muttered, and Sylvi could guess he was trying to decide whether he should kneel or not. She was very interested; she had always, before today, disliked him, because she thought his expressionlessness meant that he didn’t approve of her, or pitied her for being so short that she had still needed, at ten years old, a footman to lift her up and put her on a stack of cushions so she could sit at dinner with her family like a normal person. She couldn’t remember having heard his voice before.
Her father could guess the footman’s confusion of mind too; he laughed, and the hand he had used to beckon with he now laid on the footman’s shoulder. He had to reach up to do it, for the footman was a tall man; again Sylvi was mystified at how her father lost none of his majesty by being short. “Will you fetch us wine?” said the king. The footman’s face cleared, and he turned away from them with visible relief.
“Dad,” said Sylvi wretchedly, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I—of course I didn’t mean to make the mistake, but I’m sorry I blurted Ebon’s name out like that yesterday.”
The king shook his head. “The mistake doesn’t matter; it’s why you made the mistake that matters—that you and Ebon can talk—really talk—to each other. Just as well, I think, that we knew from the first.” He dropped his hand. “It is just you and Ebon, is it not? You hear no one else, and no one else hears you? Lrrianay and Miaia say they cannot hear you.”
“Yes,” she said, trying not to sound relieved: what if someone overheard them talking about flying? “It’s just me and Ebon.”
He nodded and paused momentarily, then went on more briskly: “You can be spared the rest of this scene; I am not free yet, but you and Ebon may go in a moment. Listen to me first, however, Sylviianel: listen to me carefully.”
Her father only ever called her by her full name at formal and ritual occasions. “Oh—Dad—my lord—”
“No, child, listen. You needn’t my-lord me, and you have done no wrong. But you must listen as closely as you have listened to anything in your life. If anyone—anyone at all—but myself, your mother or Danacor asks you what Ebon says to you about anything, or if you would ask Ebon a question for them—tell me at once. Anyone: your ladies, your practise-yard partner, a senator making conversation at court—even Farley and Garren, although I will have woken them up to the situation before the end of today, and they won’t—anyone. Do you understand?”
“Ye-es, my lo—Father.”
“We’ll decide later what use we might put you and your bondmate to—if you agree so to be used. For now you have but yesterday turned twelve, and you are not only the king’s child, you are under the king’s protection”—for a moment the king in him was very clear indeed, strong and sharp as the blade of the Sword.
There was movement at the edge of her vision. Her father glanced that way. The room was still crowded, but almost everyone was now standing as stiff and still as statues. Kanf had his arms crossed; Orel was biting her lip; Cral was staring at the ceiling. But Danacor was speaking—Sylvi blinked—with a colonel of the Skyclears, the sovereign’s heir’s own regiment; it was this man’s arrival who had caught her and the king’s attention. He was wearing his sword and badge over his ordinary clothing, which meant he’d been pulled out of his private hours to attend to the king’s heir’s summons immediately. Sylvi did not want to think about this.
“He hates me,” she said, very quietly—so quietly she was not sure her father would hear her. “Fthoom.”
“Yes,” said her father, as gently as he could. “I’m afraid so. You are a terrible threat to him, my darling, by being what you are—and that was before you spoke out against him in the king’s receiving room in front of an audience, and that in spite of the glamour he was using. I almost threw him out for that; it’s forbidden, of course, in any court or council; it is typical of the man that he thought he could get away with it.”
“He’s not a Speaker,” she said, still half not understanding and half not wanting to understand.
“He is a member of the Speakers’ Guild,” said her father. “But he did not wish to be tied to the position of personal Speaker.” He smiled without humour. “Fortunately he was too young when the Speaker to the queen’s heir was chosen—and too established when it was Danacor’s turn. But, my darling, if there were no necessary but incomprehensible pegasi, how constant and immediate to our royal lives would our magicians be? The magicians who maintain the Wall do so in secrecy.”
Which would not suit Fthoom at all, thought Sylvi.
The footman returned at that moment with a tray with three goblets and three low bowls on it. He offered it first to his king, who took up one goblet; another footman materialised to lift one of the bowls and hold it for Lrrianay. The second goblet went to Danacor, who now came to stand beside his father and sister, wearing much the same worried expression the king was wearing, only it was much starker on his young face; the second bowl went to Thowara. And then the third goblet came to Sylvi—she peered into it: the water was barely pink with a spoonful of red wine—and another footman took the third bowl to Ebon.
He flattened his nose and took a brief sip for politeness: Eeeugh, he said. What is this stuff?
Watered wine, said Sylvi. It’s always watered—maybe not this much—except at really big or important parties or occasions or events or things, even for the grown-ups. I like water with loomberry juice better, but you have to make a fuss to get it.
Ebon took a second sip. Does not improve on acquaintance. You should drink our—he made a pegasus noise that sounded like “fwhfwhfwha”—it’s much nicer.
Upon a murmur from the human king, six more footmen had followed the first, bearing many more goblets and a few more bowls, and wine was offered to everyone in the room, human and pegasus. When the footmen came to the magicians, Kachakon and Gornchern, who were still standing next to each other, were first: Kachakon quickly picked up a goblet, Gornchern only after several seconds’ delay. The king was binding them together against Fthoom; closing Fthoom out of a new alliance which included the princess and her pegasus. He would have less talking to do after they had drunk together—and one did not refuse a drink offered by the king. She could see Kachakon’s hand was shaking, and that Gornchern drank his wine as if it burnt him. She thought, He would have gone with Fthoom, but he remained so that he can tell Fthoom what happened.
The king bent to kiss her forehead. “You may go,” he said, speaking so that no one would hear but herself. “I do not deny you your friend, nor do I ask you not to speak to him. But I do ask you: try not to behave in any way that anyone looking on could mark as different from the relationship of any bound human and their pegasus—and do not answer any questions. Do you understand?”
No flying, thought Sylvi, and gulped. “Yes, Father.”
CHAPTER 7
They went flying anyway, of course. They couldn’t help it.
Lrrianay had given Ebon almost exactly the same orders as her father had given Sylvi. Do you suppose they’d already discussed it? said Ebon that morning the human king had stripped the magician’s spiral from Fthoom’s head. They’d just been released from attendance on their fathers; Sylvi took a deep breath as one of the footmen bowed them out of the receiving room, as if it was the first time she’d been able to breathe properly since she went in. Even Ebon was subdued as they walked soberly across the inner garden toward the more open parkland beyond the Outer Great Court. It occurred to neither of them to question that they wanted to stay together. They would be together as much as they could from the moment of their meeting.
No, said Sylvi positively. They’re just both kings. And fathers. And they’ve been friends for forty years, even if they don’t talk much.
Mmmh, said Ebon. In forty years what will we be like?
That was the first time either of them asked that question, although it became a regular one between them—less as a question than as a way of stopping a conversation that had drifted toward an undesirable topic such as the number of taralian sightings, or that the queen was now riding out with a scout troop almost as often as she would have if she weren’t both the queen and officially retired. Or the rumours of Fthoom, and of the schism in the Magicians’ Guild; or the way Sylvi could recognise the magicians and courtiers who did not like her relationship with Ebon by the way they avoided her. One of her attendant ladies had been replaced; she hadn’t asked why, because she thought she knew the answer: Fgeela had had a tight, hard expression any time she saw Sylvi and Ebon together.
Sylvi didn’t know when In forty years what will we be like? became code for Can we please stop now? But she knew it had.
That first time Ebon asked it, they had just come through the Great Arch, and the statue of Queen Amarinda was to their left, surrounded by weeping pear trees, like courtiers. Sylvi had always liked that statue; Amarinda had a hawk on her fist. On their right was the statue of Queen Sisishini, looking proud and elegant, but with her wings watchfully half raised. As she and Ebon came through the arch, Ebon was on Amarinda’s side and Sylvi was on Sisishini’s. As she turned her head to look at Ebon she seemed to meet Amarinda’s eyes. Amarinda looked at her mildly, but Sylvi felt she was saying, Well? And what will you do with what has been given you?
As if on some prearranged agreement, they stopped as soon as they were on the far side of the arch, out of sight of the palace so long as they remained close to the park hedgerows. They looked at each other—Sylvi thought Ebon’s eyes flicked briefly over her shoulder, perhaps to meet the gaze of Sisishini—long enough for Ebon to slash his wings out and in, and for Sylvi to pick up and put down one foot like a restless horse. But their imaginations failed them. They had still known each other less than twenty-four hours.
Race you to the cherry tree, said Ebon after the silence had begun to grow uncomfortable.
Race you? said Sylvi indignantly. You’ll win!
I promise not to win by very much, said Ebon.
Sylvi giggled—and set off running, Ebon trotting nonchalantly at her side.
Three years later, they were still using their old idiom: In forty years, what will we be like? In ten, twenty, thirty-seven years what would they be like? Fifteen years old was already worlds beyond twelve; it was, in fact, harder and harder to go on not imagining adulthood. When Sylvi turned sixteen she would take her place in the council—and Ahathin would no longer be her tutor.
“And you don’t need a Speaker,” he said, “although for the purposes of the royal bureaucrats who need someone’s name to write in the blank space, I should be honoured to retain the title.”
“Oh, but I will need an adviser!” said Sylvi.
“There will be many folk clamouring to be your advisers—” began Ahathin.
“Yes, I know,” Sylvi put in hastily. “I would like to appoint you my adviser on advisers.”
“Very well, my lady,” said Ahathin. When he said “my lady” he was serious. “Subject to your father’s agreement, I accept.”
Being a grown-up was something that happened to you whether you were ready or not; she and Ebon had each watched three brothers cross that threshold. Farley and Oyry were recently returned from a diplomatic visit to Peshcant, in the hopes of reminding them that if taralians, and possibly worse, were breeding in the wild lands between the two countries, then Peshcan
t was also at risk. Garren and Poih had been making a tour of the locations in the Kish and the Greentop Mountains that the queen had felt needed regular patrolling; there were now several semipermanent camps where soldiers could be stationed. And Danacor and Thowara had been visiting Lord Gram, who had a daughter who might become the next queen.
(“She has a good head on her shoulders,” said the present queen, “but she’s a terrible shot, and worse with a sword. She’d make a superb quartermaster. But who are we going to marry Farley to? He’s the one needs settling.”)
Sylvi finally managed to talk to Danacor about how strange everything had become. Danny had less and less time to talk to anyone but messengers and ambassadors and administrators and agents, and occasional aggrieved ordinary subjects dogged enough to stay the course through the lower functionaries and insist on speaking to the king or his heir. But she thought he might understand what it was like for her—he’d been through the ritual of the sovereign’s heir, which had to be even huger and scarier than having the most powerful magician in the country hate you.
She’d told Danacor about the Sword looking at her, and he’d said, “Unlucky for you. Neither Farley nor Garren got the full treatment. Dad says the Sword has sleepy days and wakeful days. I got a wakeful day, but the heir usually does. So did you, I guess. I don’t know why, except you never know with the Sword.” He grinned at her. “Maybe it was surprised to see a girl. But you know—the ritual of binding to your pegasus really counts for something. Unlike, say, the Exaltation of Water.”
The Exaltation of Water was famous not only in their family but among most of the country. It was supposed to be a rite to honour the water that flowed through the kingdom and to ask that it continue to flow as it did, bright and clear and lavish—the country had many fine rivers, which provided not merely drink and washing but the running of many wheels to produce power—but in practise it had degenerated into a yearly epic water fight. A royal family with three boys in it had set the tone for so many years that by now, when all three boys were theoretically grown, the small-excited-boy version of the rite continued to prevail. Even Danacor forgot himself during the Exaltation of Water. Sylvi, as soon as she’d been old enough, joined in enthusiastically, and had no desire to see it revert to a few discreet sprinkles and some wet feet. This enthusiasm was shared by all the small, medium-sized and large boys who lived not too far from the mouth of the Anuluin, where the ritual was held, who could easily attend year after year, as well as many of their fathers—and mothers, sisters and sweethearts.
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