Pegasus

CHAPTER 16

On her last night there was another enormous feast, in the same meadow as the feast held for her father, near the border between Rhiandomeer and Balsinland. She stood on the edge of that meadow as the pegasi set up the tables, chewing on a stem of llyri grass, naming the wildflowers to herself, because she knew them now; knew the names of the birds she could hear singing in the trees—recognised the fornol moving not quite silently through the undergrowth. The llyri grass was sweet and succulent, the first shoots of the new season, but she doubted it would give her wings.

This time the tall chair was for her. When the pegasi brought it out from the shelter, rocking on its poles, she said, But that’s my father’s chair. For a wild moment she thought, Perhaps he’s come back for the last night, and felt a rush of emotion so confused it made her dizzy. Those first nights in the pegasus country seemed a century ago; she was almost used—almost—to being a queer upright wingless biped—with hands—among the graceful pegasi. She stood quietly, watching the pegasi setting the chair down and releasing it from its transport poles. Two of them carried it, but another four released the cords and slid the poles free. Aloud she repeated, “ That’s my father’s chair.”

“Tonight it’s for you,” said Hibeehea.

Sylvi turned toward him; she had not heard him approach. You speak human as well as a human. Why—why—

Why don’t I? said Hibeehea. Why don’t I come to your country and become a translator and make everything right between your people and mine? Because I feel ill and faint in your country, so ill and so faint that I can no longer speak your language, and after a day or two I cannot understand it either. This is true of all our shamans—the healers may remain a little longer than the rest of us—Hissiope is unusual in that he can bear up to a fortnight at the palace, but, he says, he pays for this strength by being less strong at home. It seems to us that this is true generally: the stronger our magic here, the weaker we are as soon as we cross the human border.... The last time I came to the palace I could barely fly home again; we had to keep stopping for me to rest.

Then it is true, Sylvi said. It is not just a way of—of speaking. It’s like—it’s like flying or not flying—having wings or not having wings. Our magic and yours is—somehow—antipathetic.

The traditional pegasi nod of agreement was a quick shaking of the head, more like the human gesture of no. Hibeehea first gave a quick pegasi shake and then a slower, human nod. Yes. It is—to us—as clear as—as clear as wings or no wings. Your magic is, perhaps, more like rock, while ours is more like water. And your magicians are very strong. We . . . we seep. Hibeehea smiled, but Sylvi, who had been immersed in pegasi for the last three weeks, could see the strain in him.

A few of us shamans go with Lrrianay when there is some important occasion upon us; I was there for his binding to your father, and for your father’s marriage to your mother, and for Danacor’s name-day, his binding to Thowara and his acceptance as heir. There is always at least one healer present at the palace, but that may be all. We do not stay long, and we do not—talk.

You’ve never—

Admitted it? There is little to admit, in the palace of the human king. I am considered slightly mad for having pursued the learning of your language as diligently as I have done when there is no use for it. In every generation of shamans since the signing of the treaty there are a few who learn to speak aloud as you speak; I found I had a talent for it, and so I went on with it—on and on—hoping that I would find at last some border to cross, some gate to pass through, that, once I had done so, I would have your language as I have my own. This has not happened. I come often to your country—

Sylvi involuntarily shook her head, in human negation and disbelief. Oh, she said, srrrwa, fwif, forgive me, it is only that I have never seen you and I—I have thought I am—am aware of the pegasi who visit us.

You offer no discourtesy, Hibeehea replied. Another of my talents is that of being overlooked when I choose.

With great self-restraint Sylvi managed not to shake her head again, but a faint smile briefly appeared on Hibeehea’s face, and faded at once. I often travel alone, he continued, and I rarely remain at the palace—and I will myself to be disregarded. Mostly I wander through your towns and your countryside, listening to humans talk. It is easier for me outside the Wall.

There are fewer magicians outside the Wall, said Sylvi. The guilds’ offices are by the southeast gate; the Hall of Magicians is at the centre of the palace.

Yes, said Hibeehea.

The Hall of Magicians is at the very centre of the palace, Sylvi thought slowly, and ordinary humans aren’t allowed in it unless there’s some great ritual thing going on.

Every shaman as a part of training and acceptance must go once to your palace, Hibeehea continued. We are still hoping that one day there will be a shaman who can speak to you in your own country.

Then . . . that is why humans don’t come here. It’s the other way around too, somehow. To herself again she thought, I wonder if any magician has ever tried to cross the border? If they are rock while the shamans are water . . . I guess they cannot.

We believe so. It is nothing there is any record of. It is certainly why I was extremely reluctant to agree to your visit. For both your sake and ours. We did not know if you as king’s daughter might bring some unknown, protective human magic with you that would disrupt ours; and we were—I was—very afraid of having to send you home early, weak and ill and confused, and the reaction such an outcome would provoke among your people. I am not unaware of the difficulty your father had in persuading his council and his senate to permit you to go.

Boldly Sylvi said, Then why did you agree?

He didn’t answer for a moment, and she was afraid he would not—and that she had gone too far. He said, I drank water from the Dreaming Sea, and Redfora told me to let you come.

She could not meet his eyes. The pegasi had brought the long table out and fitted the three sections together and set the tall chair at its head. By the time Sylvi had thought of something more to say to Hibeehea, when she turned back to him, he had gone.

At the banquet she found that she stood and wandered, the way the pegasi did. It had been like this at the first banquet, but then it had seemed odd, slightly embarrassing—perhaps slightly rude, as if, as a human, she was behaving inappropriately. This second time it merely was the thing to do: Why would anyone want to sit down for an entire banquet? She wished she could introduce wandering to her father’s state dinners.... At first she thought she was avoiding sitting down because she did not want to sit in her father’s chair; or perhaps that she did not want to be marked out among the pegasi any more than she inevitably was. But she realised she was standing and wandering because she wanted to—because she was more comfortable that way. And her banquet dress, far less crushed by its three weeks rolled up in the bottom of a pannier than she had expected—perhaps some fragment of pegasus fabric magic had worked its way into her clothing bag—made a nice swishing noise as she walked. She remembered that, three weeks ago, the swish and swirl had given her courage.

The pegasi, represented by Feeaha and Driibaa, had given her a siraga, embroidered with ribbons and feathers and small sparkly stones, and specially cut to lie smoothly over human shoulders.

She also realised with an odd little twinge that her strong human hands were useful for a wandering banquet: she could easily carry with her what she was eating or drinking, which the pegasi could not. She had been to many court gatherings where all the humans had goblets or bowls or plates in their hands, and she had thought nothing of it; she thought of it now.

And there were no speeches. Ebon had taught her to say “it’s wonderful,” ifffawafi, which was another kind of all-purpose pegasus thank you, when more formal, precise gradations of thanks were not necessary. The idea is that you’re both what’s wonderful, that it’s wonderful because it’s something between the two of you. We don’t throw it all on the other person the way you humans do.

Sylvi laughed. But if you give me a really nice present, it’s you, it’s not me. I’m just standing there with—with an armful of flowers or a necklace or something, saying thank you.

Ebon said, Don’t be daft. Don’t you think what you’ve done with my present—with coming here—is at least as important as my having brought you—so that it could happen? With a lot of help from Dad. Our dads.

Sylvi said, Hibeehea said that Redfora told him to let me come.

Ebon looked at her. Did she really? There was a long pause. Did she really. I wish we knew what had happened to them....

Yes, she said. So do I. They looked at each other, and both knew what they were thinking: Fthoom would not have discovered any story about Redfora and Oraan.

So Sylvi wound and spiralled her upright, two-legged way among the pegasi, saying ifffawafi. They said ifffawafi back to her, but some of them smiled, and she knew that she was saying it too much; but she couldn’t help herself.

You don’t have to wear it out, said Ebon.

But it’s been wonderful, she said. Scary, she thought. Scary and wonderful. It’s been . . . I don’t know what it’s been. It’s only been eighteen days since my father left. Twenty since we left the palace. It feels like years. She added recklessly, I feel ten years older—twenty.

Well, stop it, said Ebon. I don’t, and I don’t want you older than me. He thought about it. Maybe five years. He rested his nose on her shoulder in a gesture that had become habitual in the last eighteen days. She remembered again with astonishment that she was not supposed to touch any pegasus; she had just had her arm around the queen before Ebon reclaimed her. But it was my idea before the grown-ups stole it and made a big grown-up thing about it. I’m so glad you came. Glad—hiyahaimhia—glad isn’t really good enough. I’m “hiyahaimhia, hya hyama,” I’m glad you came. That you saw the Caves.

Me too, said Sylvi, and raised her hand to put it against his cheek. Me too. I don’t care about the grown-ups.

She was crying again when she had to say good-bye to everyone but the pegasi who would be carrying her back to the human world. She cried over Niahi, she cried over Aliaalia, she cried over Feeaha and Driibaa—she even cried over Hibeehea. Hibeehea’s nose was showing one or two wrinkles as he said, You’re bound to us now, child. You’re bound to the pegasi, not just to Ebon. You have changed the world, you know, little human child. And you’ll be back, if you’re crying for the Caves too.

He sounded so like his shaman self—You have changed the world, little human child—that she stopped crying. But he was still smiling, so she said tentatively, Well, I’m mostly crying for—for the pegasi. For all my—friends.

Ah, then that is easy, he said. For we will come to visit you—yes, I too. I wish to discover how much of the world you have changed. I wish to discover if perhaps . . . Child, listen to me a moment, and he had stopped smiling. Lrrianay may say something like this too, but he is king, and bound to your father, and he sees these things from closer in—almost like a human sometimes. He looked almost grim, she thought, low-headed, his feet braced. We will come to visit your palace now not only for the sake of the Alliance, but because of you. Because you were here, and because you spoke to us. This is a great thing—but it is also a greatly dangerous thing. It is possible that to have sent you home early, weak and confused, would have been more welcome than what has happened. If I may give you my advice, king’s daughter, the advice of an old pegasus shaman, you will tell no one but your father the entire truth about your experience here. And, and he moved his head till his eyes were looking directly and levelly into hers, you may find you cannot tell even him everything.

Eighteen days and twenty years ago she would have turned away hastily, or covered a spurt of anger with court politeness. But it was not eighteen days and twenty years ago, and she said, Yes. I have already taken your advice.

You are a wise child,he said, and to her astonishment he unfurled his wings and swept them forward, and his feather-hands reached out toward her, and the tiny feathery pegasus fingers pressed for a long slow moment against her temples. Good-bye, said Redfora’s voice.

The flight back was unremarkable if—Sylvi thought—you could ever describe flying as unremarkable. There were clouds on the distant horizon but where she flew with the pegasi the sky was blue and bright and the wind was blowing over the mountains toward the palace strongly enough that occasional gusts threw the pegasi’s manes and tails forward, and bounced her in her drai. A month ago she might have felt alarmed; she did not now. Wisps of cloud streamed past like the tails of invisible pegasi—she had a brief daydream of catching one in her hand as it flicked by and a long shining hair remaining in her hand. She stretched her arm out. Niahi had given her a bracelet she had plaited of hairs from her mane, and Ebon’s, Lrrianay’s and Aliaalia’s, and several of the others’. There are even three of Hibeehea’s! she said. I told him what I was doing and asked if I could have one of his! I was very brave! And then he gave me three! Niahi had finished the weaving round Sylvi’s wrist, Sylvi watching, fascinated, at the little alula-hands working so quickly she could not follow what the tiny down-covered fingers did. Your wrists are perfect, Niahi said. We make them for ears and ankles and necks. But I’ve decided human wrists are the best.

Sylvi knew that the feather-fingers lay invisibly against the wing when not in use, pointing forward from the inflexible wrist, like a cap folded down over the leading edge of the primaries, or as if the wing itself were a cape the hand might hold open. But she had never had a chance to stare at a pair of pegasus hands—and Niahi’s were creamy pale, unlike Ebon’s shadowy darkness—working as close to her as her own wrist. The little hands were astonishingly quick and deft. I am not surprised pegasus weaving and embroidery are better than anything we can do, she said as Niahi finished, with a soft feathery pat to Sylvi’s hand. Your fingers are so clever.

Niahi stretched out both hands and spread the fingers. Even like this her hands were barely as large as Sylvi’s small human palms; Niahi’s fingers were less than half the length and width of Sylvi’s, the palm was a dot, and the littlest finger was barely there at all. She had five fingers on each hand—four and a thumb—which seemed to be the most common; Ebon, Lrrianay, Hibeehea and Aliaalia all had ten fingers, although Feeaha and Oyry had only eight, and Hissiope twelve.

Your hands are so beautiful, said Niahi, and stroked Sylvi’s with both of hers. It is not just that they are big and strong; they are—the way they fit together—the proportions are perfect. Ours are so little the joints make them knobbly, and the last joint doesn’t have room to bend very much. And yours are not all covered in hair or feathers, so you can admire them properly, the long finger bones and the fan of bones across the backs of your hands, the long arc of the web between the thumb and first finger, and the littler webbing between the other fingers. And you have wrists that turn and turn—turn in all directions.

Sylvi said, embarrassed, I don’t think we admire our hands much.

You should, said Niahi. If I were a sculptor, I’d want to sculpt human hands. Maybe Ebon will. The—yelloni—what do you say, when it’s around your wrist? Bracelet—will last a long time if you don’t cut it off. Oh—I should have asked—I’m sorry!—you may not want to wear it forever. Here, I can— and she began to tease some of the hair-ends free.

Sylvi snatched her hand away from the little hands, noticing as she did so that there was no strength of resistance from Niahi: it was like drawing her hand through ribbons. I will wear it till it falls off, she said. Niahi gave a little hrooo of audible laughter. That will be a long time!

The flight went on and on as Sylvi thought about seeing her family again—and yet it seemed longer still when she thought of saying good-bye to the pegasi—when she thought of how far away they already were, and how much farther still she was going. For we will come to visit you, she heard, over and over again, in her memory. She also heard Redfora’s voice saying good-bye. She had barely met Redfora, she could not possibly miss her—no, but she missed asking her all the questions she would like to ask another human who spoke to pegasi. She already missed Niahi. She missed her lightness, her laughter, the silent melody of her voice.... The pegasi’s silent voices were as individual as their faces, as noisy human voices. How both simple and cumbersome it would be to talk always with her mouth again; how familiar and crude. How easy and familiar it would be to be a human among other humans again; how awkward and ungainly.... She wasn’t sure if it was the wind tearing water from her eyes.... And soon she would be saying good-bye to all the pegasi.

Even Ebon. Their fathers had demanded this as a condition to letting her visit go ahead, that both their peoples should see that their loyalties were to their own first. It’s not for the pegasi, though, she’d said sadly. I know. It’s for us humans.

There was a long pause and then Ebon had said, Yes. But it won’t be long. I’ll be back almost as soon as it takes you to have one of your baths.

But that’s not right either. I should visit you as often as you visit me! Oftener! You’re apprenticed to a sculptor! I’m just the king’s surplus daughter!

You’re not surplus to us, said Ebon. And—dearheart—you’re forgetting. The Alliance says we visit you.

There was another long pause, and then she said—sadly, drearily—And I can’t fly. You have to fetch me.

There was the Wall.

And there was the palace.

Home.

They circled once over Banesorrow Lake before they came down. They were returning when they had said they would return, so they were expected; but her father wouldn’t be waiting for her, he’d be working, and she could imagine—she hoped she could imagine—the messenger bursting into his office and saying,“ The pegasi! They’re here!” or perhaps “ The princess! She’s back!” The queen, she thought, would be pacing up and down along the outer wall of the Great Court, dictating to a secretary trotting beside her and watching the sky—she’d be the one who sent the messenger.

Sylvi thought, And she ’d see twelve pegasi, with their shining coats and great beating wings . . . and a hammock.

There was a stream—no, a river—of people pouring out of the Great Court gates and into the parkland where the pegasi would land. She could hear some conversation among the pegasi, although—as if it were the wind in her ears that was preventing her—she couldn’t hear what they were saying. But she saw the pause in the human river, and then the bright red-and-gold of the footmen’s formal livery, two pairs of them pacing slowly, and then half a dozen senators in their court dress—she thought she saw Orflung’s broad bright orange sash—oh, dear. Had her father told her her return was to be a state occasion? He must have done, and she had forgotten. But she should have known. She should have known it would be....

There was her father, wearing one of the long sparkly king robes—and even the Sword at his side!—hand in hand with her mother, who was wearing a sparkly queen robe; a step behind the queen was Hirishy. Two of her brothers were there, wearing gold chains round their necks and dress swords at their sides. Danacor was missing. She felt a brief flicker of fear—don’t be silly, she thought, he’s often gone—and then the pegasi were gliding down the last little way—they were cantering with barely a jolt to their passenger—trotting—walking. She pulled her laces free, ready to stand up as gracefully as she could.

One of the footmen had come quickly forward, and he was beside her almost as soon as the drai had fallen to the ground. It was Glarfin, and he was smiling and trying not to smile, because smiling wasn’t grand enough. When he caught her eye, however, the smile broke out anyway, and he mouthed “Welcome home, lady” at her. She grinned and murmured, “ Thank you, lieutenant.” He had a robe over his arm and he unfolded it gravely, and then flung it round her shoulders in a highly practised court attendant’s gesture. Court robes tended to have monumental armholes, so she managed to slip her arms through them without finding herself trying to make her elbow touch her ear, or scrabbling at it like a cat clawing curtains. Glarfin, pretending to do nothing, delicately held the collar till Sylvi had it settled across her shoulders.

The robe, she saw, was one of her mother’s—the one that was Sylvi’s favourite, stitched all over with golden topazes. It had been her mother’s mother’s, and her mother’s mother’s aunt’s, and the aunt’s mother’s, who had also been married to the king. It’ll be too long, she thought anxiously, but it wasn’t; it had been taken up for her. Surreptitiously she wiggled her fingers; the sleeves had been shortened as well. She put her foot out and the hem poured topazes over it; she crossed her arms with a flourish, watching the topazes sparkle and then threw her arms wide again as her mother put her arms around her and whispered, “Welcome home, and happy birthday, darling.” Then her father hugged her too, and for a moment she forgot about both topazes and pegasi, as she felt her parents’ arms around her for the first time in three weeks. Her brothers saluted her formally, Oyry and Poih at their shoulders, but Garren caught her eye long enough to give a quick flick and twist with his left hand, which had meant “let’s run away” to generations of royal children: it was a slight revision of the formal sign of hospitality made to pegasi attending any official gathering.

She saw that Lrrianay, who had flown back to the palace with her drai-bearers, was standing just behind her father’s shoulder, and she was suddenly angry that Lrrianay should always stand behind her father. They were bondmates, and Lrrianay was also king of his people, and no subject to anyone. She swept into exactly the same bow to Lrrianay that she would give to her father, the bow of a princess to a king. Lrrianay gravely returned her bow, and the flowers (somewhat wind-blown) that Niahi had plaited into his mane that morning twinkled at her.

Next the senators wished to be presented to her. She was surrounded by humans—swaying on their queer feet as they walked, their extraordinary quantities of clothing flapping and fluttering both with and counter to their bizarre motion. There were no brown-and-grey-and-gold-and-white horizontal backs to look over, no silky banners of mane and tail for the sun to shine through. And humans were all so tall. Involuntarily she took another step backward—and bumped into Glarfin.

He moved out of her way so quickly no one but the two of them knew it had happened. “My lady?” he said, very quietly.

“Senators,” she hissed. “And everyone is so tall.” The senators were forming a queue; the first would be bowing to her in only a moment.

“I am standing behind you,” said Glarfin. “And I am taller than any of them.”

She suppressed a little hiccup of laughter, but it meant that she was smiling when the first senator was presented. Last of all was Senator Orflung—wearing an orange sash. To him she dared say, “Thank you for asking me if I wanted to go.”

“It was a—valuable experience, think you?” he replied.

“Yes, my sir, I believe it was valuable.”

She had guessed she would be expected to make a few sentences’ worth of speech, and so had spent some of the morning’s flight slowly putting words together while the wind hummed in her ears and the landscape flashed away beneath her—but she was only thinking of having to do it, of being prepared. Yet she hadn’t been prepared: she hadn’t expected footmen and a topaz-sewn robe—and the senators. She hadn’t expected so many swaying, flapping, confusing, chattering humans to greet her return. She hadn’t expected to find humanity so confusing.

Nor had she thought of how strange it would be to be back at the palace again. Most years she visited one or another set of her cousins for several weeks—but then her aunts’ and her uncles’ families were human—like her. Now it was very strange, standing on the Great Court dais to say her few little words, looking out at all the human faces, hearing the human sounds (she had forgotten how noisy humans are; she had forgotten how much noise always speaking out loud makes) and smelling the human smells. She had to concentrate on the words she was saying. (“It was a clear blue day when I left three weeks ago and it is another clear blue day for me to come home on: give me leave, please, to see this as a reflection of everything that has happened.... The pegasus country is beautiful and the pegasi have been nothing but kind and generous to me.”) She had to wrench her mind away from how odd this business of saying a few almost meaningless words to a crowd was—and how she hadn’t done it the night before, her last night in Rhiandomeer. And she had to stop herself, as soon as she had finished speaking (“Thank you all for your welcome; I have missed you all very much”), from looking round for a group of pegasi she could, with Ebon, go and stand with.

Except they were in her father’s palace, and here the pegasi rarely stood in a group; they stood individually, each with the human to whom they were bound. The other five of the six pegasi who had carried her drai, she eventually realised, had not come into the Great Court with her, but had gone at once to the wing of the palace that was the pegasi’s own. The only pegasi here now were bound: Lrrianay, Hirishy, Ebon, Poih, Oyry; four of the senators had pegasi; several of the blood courtiers present did also.

And all these pegasi had stayed well back as the humans greeted the returning human princess; they had, when necessary, bowed, letting their long forelocks sweep forward and not meeting her eyes. She did not try to speak to any of them—she did not think about choosing not to try to speak to them....

She did not dare reach out to Ebon, standing almost beside her, only a little behind her, which is what she wanted to do. But when her father came up to stand beside her again, she reached out for his hand and squeezed it almost desperately. The clouds she had seen in the distance during the flight home seemed to be racing toward her, grey and cold.

When Ebon left the next morning she could hardly bear it.

She knew it was coming; they had said their real good-byes the night before, but she and her father and a few of the courtiers went out in the cool wet dawn to watch the pegasi spread their wings and leap into the air. Usually there was no formal leave-taking, but this time, her father said, was special, and so the humans would see the pegasi off; but he looked at his daughter with worry in his eyes.

It’s only a week, said Ebon. I’ll be back. He sounded subdued, not at all like his usual self.

I know, she said. It’s only a week.

He said, At least you get to sleep in one of your great human beds again.

She’d missed being outdoors under the sky the night before. Her bedroom had felt small and cramped, although the ceiling was better than twice her height above her. She’d leaned on the balustrade that had in a way started it all, the balustrade Ebon had flown in over and landed, skittering, on her bedroom floor, the night of her twelfth birthday, four years and several centuries ago.

She had leaned out as far as she could over it, till the rain ran down her face and made her sneeze, trying to breathe air that wasn’t in a room, thinking that the palace was so huge that even the air around it felt like house air, wondering if she could take a blanket out and sleep in one of the pavilions, knowing that she couldn’t, for the same reasons that Ebon was going home tomorrow. She had to appear completely normal, completely untouched by the last three weeks, completely as she had been when the king had allowed her to leave her human home and visit her bondmate at his home in the pegasi lands. Bondmate, she’d thought. Bondmate or bondfriend—that’s what the pegasi always call it. It’s much better than the silly formal human Excellent Friend.

The Caves had never felt as stifling as the palace did now.

She wondered where Ebon was, if he was asleep. She knew that despite the openness of their annex the pegasi often wandered out into the parkland and on rainy nights might sleep in one of the pavilions. Which was why she could not. It would not matter if she chose an empty pavilion; the humans who had not liked her journey would not like her sleeping as the pegasi slept after she returned. I would not be sleeping as the pegasi sleep, she thought. I don’t have wings to keep me warm; and my neck is too short to let my head be comfortable without a pillow.

She’d grow used to sleeping in a bedroom again—she thought, as the rain ran down her neck and wetted her nightgown—but some of the change in her was permanent, even if she did not know herself which part of it that was. Would she still be able to talk to other pegasi ? Could she risk trying? What if what made the pegasus shamans ill now made her ill? Was there the tiniest, most minuscule, invisible reason for Fthoom’s aversion to any closeness between human and pegasus ? She remembered Dorogin’s eyes....

She did not want to remember Dorogin’s eyes.

She thought of Redfora, and Oraan. For a moment she could taste Redfora’s honey-syrup on her tongue. She had gone back to bed and curled round that taste, that memory, and fell asleep, her wet hair soaking into the pillow.

Now she wanted to ask Ebon which pavilion they’d slept in, the night before, but she didn’t ask. She told herself, if I knew, I would go visit it, and he would not be there.

Yes, she said. With lots of pillows.

And hot water for all those baths, said Ebon. You wouldn’t like bathing in our ponds in winter.

Her father came up beside her and put an arm around her. She touched Ebon’s nose, briefly, barely long enough for her fingertips to register the velvet of it, and one of his feather-hands reached forward and swept over her cheek. Then she stepped back, closer into the circle of her father’s arm, and Ebon turned away and joined the other pegasi—all but Lrrianay, who stood at Corone’s shoulder, for he was staying at the palace. Only Guaffa was carrying anything; she recognised her drai, rolled up and lashed round his neck. The eleven pegasi who were leaving trotted, cantered . . . and flew. She knew it was only her eyes that made Ebon’s leap into the air the most beautiful. The backdraught of their wings brought the scent of their land to her: she had not realised there was a characteristic smell—a grassy, flowery, earthy smell—she didn’t remember noticing it on her arrival there. Perhaps that’s the smell of spring, she thought. What does summer smell like, autumn, winter? I would rather know than have hot water for baths.

Sylvi found that her legs were shaking, and she put her own arm around her father’s waist, to hold herself upright. They remained standing like that for a long minute, Lrrianay standing motionless behind them, till the pegasi had disappeared into the dawn twilight. Until Sylvi was sure her legs would hold her and she could let go, and speak lightly and aimlessly to the courtiers who gathered round the two of them; and she still kept one hand on the back of one her father’s tall hounds, for balance, for the small consolation of warm fur.

She exchanged a look with Lrrianay, but neither of them spoke.

That night again she leaned on the railing of the window Ebon had flown through on the night of her twelfth birthday, leaned out till the air against her face felt cool and smelled of plants, not of wood smoke and laundry soap and furniture wax and potpourri. After a minute or two she sighed, went and fetched a chair, and sat on the railing with her feet on the chair. She was uncomfortably aware of her own body: the way it balanced upright and folded in the middle: the curious position it took to sit on a railing with its feet on a chair. And the usefulness of the strong hands and long bony fingers to clasp the railing.... I’m back, she thought. I’m home. They’re all like me here. She let go with one hand and examined it, spreading the fingers, rotating the wrist to inspect both the palm and the back.

He’ll be here again in seven days, she said to herself. Six and a half. And I’m human, and we’re built like this. We can’t help it.

There was a soft knock on the door. Sylvi dropped her hand hastily, as if she were doing something forbidden; but she seemed to have mislaid the power of human speech. She opened her mouth and no words came. She had spent all day talking and talking and talking.... The door opened gently, and her mother put her head through. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” Sylvi said, surprised into remembering. She slid down off the railing as her mother closed the door behind her and looked thoughtfully at her daughter.

“Not ‘of course,’ ” said the queen. “Not any more. Although I’m not sure when the change happened. Maybe only in the last three weeks.”

Sylvi’s eyes, to her horror, filled with tears. She stiffened against them, and blinked till her eyes burned. Her mother said nothing; she had made a gesture toward her daughter, but drew back again at the expression on Sylvi’s face. At last Sylvi said, “How can everything change in three weeks? Three little weeks.”

Her mother smiled. “Sometimes they change in a moment.”

Sylvi thought of hearing Ebon’s voice in her head for the first time: I know that, he had said. Aren’t you excited, or are you just a dull stupid human? “Yes. Sometimes they do.”

Her mother drifted across the room and sat on the foot of Sylvi’s bed. “Can I do anything for you? Anything to—to help you come home again.”

“Oh,” said Sylvi. “Is it that obvious?”

“That you’re wandering around like a lost soul?” said her mother. “Possibly only to your father and me. And maybe Ahathin; it’s hard to guess what he knows. And Glarfin. He knows everything.”

Ahathin is a magician, Sylvi thought. We are not all bad, Redfora had said: Don’t make that mistake. I wonder, Sylvi thought, what would happen if Ahathin tried to cross the border into Rhiandomeer?

Real life began again tomorrow: real life, including lessons and projects. She wondered what sort of a report she would be expected to provide out of her trip to Rhiandomeer—she’d welcome a plain return to her work on dams and bridges, but she knew she wouldn’t be let off so easily. Danacor would be home tomorrow; he’d been held up in Darkford by a report of ladons. She would be glad to see him; she loved all her brothers, but he was the most . . . she couldn’t think of the word. He had that quality that their father did, that if he was present, then anything that needed to be fixed would be fixed.

Neither he nor her father could fix her—but how would she wish to be fixed? Not even a magician can turn you into a pegasus, so you can sleep in a pavilion and visit the Linwhialinwhia Caves for your feast days, discover if you have a gift for weaving, or sculpting, or paper-making, or story-telling . . . so you can fly. Not even a magician can give you wings. There were several little sky holds on shelves and tables in her bedroom; she kept picking them up and putting them down as if they were an answer to a question, but the wrong answer.

She had spoken only briefly to Ahathin: he had come up to her yesterday evening at the reception before the court dinner, made his magician’s salutation and said, “Welcome home, princess.”

“I am made glad by your greeting,” she said formally, very conscious of Ebon at her shoulder—suddenly made conscious again of the fact that Ahathin almost never wore his Speaker sticks; he was not wearing them this evening.

“That is a very fine robe,” he said. “The topazes are like tiny suns.”

She could feel her heart lift and her face smile as she said, “It is very fine, isn’t it?” But she looked at him as she said it, and even though he was smiling at her she thought, How did he know that was the perfect thing to say? Is it just what anyone would say? Or is it that he’s a magician?

“It hasn’t mattered, this first day or two,” her mother continued. “You’re allowed to be tired. Even your father—even Danny—comes home from a long journey tired. And you’ve done very well—that little speech when you arrived was just right—”

“The robe helped,” said Sylvi hastily, feeling selfish and ungrateful. “It’s the most gorgeous thing—and you know it’s always been my favourite—”

“Yes, I know,” said her mother. “And it’s not worth losing Ebon even for a week, is it?”

Sylvi stared at her mother. “I—oh—well, maybe for a week,” she said, trying to make a joke.

Her mother smiled, but it was an unhappy smile. “I hope we’ve done what’s best,” she said, “your father and I, about you and Ebon.”

Sylvi said as calmly as she could, although her heart was beating frantically, “There’s never been anything to do about Ebon and me, from the day of the binding.”

“Yes,” said her mother. “That’s what we’ve always believed—your father in particular, because of his relationship with Lrrianay. You know I can’t talk to Hirishy beyond ‘I think the day will stay fair’ and ‘the flowers in your mane are very pretty,’ although Minial learnt a pattern she uses for her knitting by asking Hirishy about plaiting ribbons into manes and tails. You can show things sometimes when you can’t say them. But talking to a pegasus has always seemed to me a bit like talking to a tree or the palace—it’s not surprising that we can’t. Their minds and ours work so differently—of course we need Speakers. The surprise is the Alliance.

“But Cory feels passionately that there is something wrong about the fact that we cannot speak clearly to each other—and he believes Lrrianay feels the same. And that they both feel that the future of both our peoples may depend on our being able to talk to each other. . . .”

Sylvi held her breath, but her mother asked no leading questions. There was a fraught silence; the queen stared at her lap, and as the silence went on Sylvi could see her changing her mind about what she was going to say. You weren’t made the youngest life colonel of the Lightbearers without knowing how to deal with awkward situations, even when they were caused by your daughter.

The queen found what she was looking for and smiled reminiscently. “You know the story about Lrrianay being Witness at our wedding?”

Sylvi did. The pegasi of a human couple to be married attend the wedding although they take no active part. Ordinarily the heir would have his sovereign as Witness, but, Corone had said, his mother blesses them twice, she doesn’t have to be Witness too. Corone wanted to make Lrrianay his Witness; the Witness doesn’t have to talk, the presence at the man or the woman’s side is the witnessing. There was a spectacular uproar. The senators all said that it wasn’t that the Witness didn’t talk but that he could if the man’s (or the woman’s) honour was questioned. Corone said that if they were willing to accept an heir so shaky that his honour could be questioned successfully at his own wedding with his mother the queen looking on, they deserved what they got, but if they could find an instance anywhere of the future sovereign’s right to marry and have children being disputed since his family took the crown over two hundred years ago, he would have the first senator as Witness.

Of course they couldn’t find an example—he’d have checked first. The senators turned to the queen, who said that she thought he had a point, that Lrrianay would be an ornament to the proceedings and she wasn’t going to interfere. That didn’t end the matter, but Corone was young and fierce in those days, and Lrrianay was his Witness.

“The entire wedding felt like a battlefield—so I was perfectly at ease, of course,” said the queen,“although I felt a little embarrassed that my Witness was the completely uncontroversial choice of my elder sister. But I’d rather dreaded the enormity of the heir’s wedding. I told Cory I suspected him of inventing a skirmish to make his military bride comfortable, and he said it had been a consideration.” The queen’s smile grew, till Sylvi couldn’t resist smiling back.“What is not generally known, I believe, is that your father and I were awake till dawn on our wedding night . . . discussing the pegasi. Discussing the pegasi isn’t all we did, mind you, but we might have had some sleep if the pegasi and the Alliance hadn’t come into it.

“Fifteen years—and three sons who can’t talk to their pegasi—after we were married, you were born. And now here you are. You can talk to Ebon as easily as you can talk to me.”

“Danacor can talk—has some sense of Thowara,” said Sylvi. “Like Dad. Danny says it’s like a thief breaks into his mind at night when he’s asleep and steals the pegasus words he learnt that day, so when he goes to look for them, the next time he’s with Thowara, knowing they should be there, they’re gone.”

The queen took a moment to answer. “I don’t think Danny’s connection with Thowara is as strong as your father’s with Lrrianay, but that may only be they have not been together for as long. But Cory’s link with Lrrianay is still nothing like yours with Ebon—your binding was like the opening of some great riverwork, and the water poured into the new channel.... And the only disadvantage is that you can’t do without him.”

Sylvi didn’t try to deny it. “And that”—she didn’t want to say one particular name aloud—“some people don’t like it.”

“All those people who tried to stop you going, yes,” said her mother. “But you are thinking about Fthoom, aren’t you? He is not the only one. But he is the worst. If we hadn’t had Fthoom’s creatures whispering in ears, I don’t think the senate would have caused so much trouble.” She hesitated. “I think you had better know: there is a petition collecting signatures in the senate and among the blood asking for Fthoom to be reinstated.”

She had forgotten. Lucretia had told her this long ago, in her previous life, the life before she had been to Rhiandomeer. There were enough people who wanted Fthoom back—Fthoom, who was the most powerful magician of his generation—that there were signatures on a petition to try and force the king’s hand. She wondered if anyone who signed the petition had been to a fête where she had gone with Ebon; if any of those signatures belonged to someone who had asked Ebon a question, or whose child or grandchild or niece or nephew Ebon had given a pony ride. She had forgotten the petition—she had wanted to forget the petition—but she could not forget the look on Fthoom’s face the day after her twelfth birthday, after she’d climbed down from her chair and said No. “Has anyone ever been—unbound?” Sylvi said.

Her mother looked at her in surprise and distress. “I don’t think so. There’s a paragraph in the treaty somewhere about it, but I don’t think it’s ever been used.”

But there’s never been a bond like mine with Ebon, thought Sylvi. “Have you ever heard of Redfora and Oraan?”

“No-o,” said her mother slowly. “Who are they?”

“ They’re a story the pegasi tell,” Sylvi said, who had decided beforehand what she would say in answer to this question. “They’re supposed to be bondmates who could talk to each other.”

“I’d’ve heard if such a story had been unearthed,” said the queen.“It hasn’t. What a pity. It’s just what we want, isn’t it? It’s interesting that the pegasi have such a story and we do not.” She gave her daughter a long look.“Try not to worry. I’m not looking forward to what Fthoom has to say either, because there will probably be something in it we will have to take into account, but those of us who are bound now will stay as we were bound.”

Sylvi’s heart, which had begun to slow down to its normal pace, heard the tone of her mother’s voice and speeded up again. “What about Fthoom?”

“He has asked for an appointment with the king.”

“And you already know what he’s going to say.”

“We know your father’s gamble hasn’t worked, yes. Did any of us ever really think it would?” she added, almost as if speaking to herself. She sighed, and after a moment went on: “Which bears on what you and I need to talk about. Your birthday party is in nine days—two days after Ebon’s return. And you must not only appear utterly, completely normal for the next seven days—exactly as you were before you visited the peg—Rhiandomeer, you must not change by the flicker of an eyelash when you have Ebon with you again, and at your party. And I think perhaps you should not wear your inspiring new robe for all of that time.”

Sylvi smiled at her mother’s return joke. “You said ‘appear,’ ” she said slowly.

“You’ve changed,” said her mother.“You’re not just lost in your own home, you’re not just missing your best friend, you’ve changed. What we need to do is make it appear merely that you are growing up—which you are—and that it has nothing to do with three weeks spent alone with the pegasi. Listening to subversive tales of bondmates who could talk to each other.”

Sylvi was silent.

“What were they like, the Caves?” said her mother hesitantly.

The question had not been asked before. There was—to Sylvi’s ears—an unhappy little silence around it now. Sylvi had been home two days, and no one, not even her father and mother, had asked her anything about her journey. With Hibeehea’s words still in the front of her mind, and dismayed and disoriented about her sense of strangeness in her own home, she had not tried to talk about it. When she came back from her cousins’ she couldn’t stop talking—although Powring and Orthumber and Nearenough and Shirrand, where her various aunts and uncles lived, were very well known to both her parents, and she could just talk, she didn’t have to explain anything. Or avoid explaining anything.

Since she’d been back, this was the first time she’d been alone with either parent. She left her window-sill and sat on her bed next to her mother. She thought about how you weren’t supposed to touch the pegasi, and yet the pegasi touch each other constantly—and her too, while she was with them. She reached out and took her mother’s hand.

Her mother squeezed it and said, “I just said that sometimes you can show when you can’t say the words. The one occasion I’ve ever felt that Hirishy and I were—were in contact somehow, was about the Caves. I’d had difficulty understanding how important they are, and your father was trying to tell me. This was long ago—Danny was a baby. Cory was explaining that the Caves are thousands of years of pegasus art and culture, and more than that: the heart of themselves as a people. I was wrestling with this, trying to imagine it, I suppose, as like our palace only a great deal more so. I looked up and Hirishy was looking at me. As if talk about their Caves—her Caves—was something she could hear and answer. For a moment—just a moment of a moment—I felt I saw the Caves, saw them as Hirishy had seen them, was seeing them in her memory at that moment and was trying to tell me.”

“What did you see?” said Sylvi.

“Nothing I can tell you in a way that will make that sudden flash seem astonishing, which it was. It was so very . . . other. Alien. There are caves in the Greentops, you know, and some of the bigger, deeper ones have decorated walls. But this ...” She threw out her free hand in a there-are-no-words gesture. The pegasi had a specific gesture for “there are no words,” which included a single swift up-and-down tail-lash.

“Full?” suggested Sylvi.

“Full,” said her mother thoughtfully. “Full of . . . full. Yes. And yet . . . it was only one enormous cave with—with knobbly walls, except I could see that the humps and valleys and ridges had been made. There was a pegasus standing on a low earthwork, with a tiny brush in its alula hand.”

“Chuur,” said Sylvi.“When you don’t know someone’s gender. Chuur and chuua. Chuur hand.”

“I thought you heard Ebon in your head, like you hear someone speaking.”

“I do. Mostly. But what happens when they use a word you don’t know? Ebon had to explain chuur and chuua to me.” And had found it strange and tactless that her language called a live, gendered being “it” for want of a better choice.

“Chuur alula hand, then. The wall in front of—of chuua—was beautifully coloured in reds and golds. I couldn’t see if any of the bumps and colours were a picture I might recognise; the flash didn’t last long enough. But the feeling that went with it was extraordinary.”

Sylvi smiled a little. “Yes. That sounds like the Caves.” Good for Hirishy. “The whole last three weeks . . .” She paused. “It was all like that, a little. Like that feeling. That flash. That astonishment.”

“Yes,” said her mother softly. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”