It didn’t seem to her respectful not to know how to use a sword, having sworn fealty to her king on the Sword. Her mother, a noted swordswoman herself, had been fully on her side about this, although the royal family tradition was that the nonreigning women were archers. Her father had looked at her thoughtfully when she suggested, shortly after her twelfth birthday, that she wanted to train properly with Diamon, to a plan and a schedule, but he had let himself be persuaded. “Your mother wouldn’t let me make any other decision, of course,” he said, “but she says this was your idea.”
“I would have asked you years ago, only I’m so short,” Sylvi said. That on the night of her twelfth birthday she had discovered one enormous advantage to being small had not eased frustration with her situation elsewhere; and her twelfth birthday was also when she had been obliged to begin going to council meetings, which produced a different form of frustration. “All my brothers started when they were seven. I think Danny was taller than I am now when he was seven.”
“My disgraceful heritage, I fear,” said her father. “There is one more hurdle for you: you must ask your unnecessarily tall eldest brother’s permission as well as mine. He will be your king and commander some day and it is his choice where he would have you to command.”
Sylvi opened her mouth and shut it. Opened it again. “He’ll tell me I’m too short.”
The king sighed. “He may. In which case refer him to me, and you will be a lesson for him in allowing his people to make their own decisions, for they will work much harder doing what they feel they themselves have chosen to do.”
Tall Danacor visibly had his mouth open to say “you’re too short” when Sylvi added, “And Dad says that if you tell me I’m too short you’re to talk to him and I’m going to be a lesson in letting your subjects make their own decisions.” Whereupon Danacor stopped looking like a pompous prig and more like a young man who still sometimes found being the king’s heir rather a strain.
“Okay.” He smiled a little. “Diamon is pretty short himself. I think he likes short people best. First time you knock him down I’ll—I’ll give you a sword.”
She had still not attained such a height of glory, although on a good day she could make him take a step backward he hadn’t meant to take. Four years ago it had been a matter of principle that she wanted lessons in combat, and Sylvi, as she crossed swords or staves with Lucretia or Diamon or any of the others, or as she released her arrow or fired her crossbow bolt or rode at the large straw bolster (on wheels, to make hitting it more interesting), told herself it was still only a matter of principle that she should learn the arts of war. There had been skirmishes many times before, since Viktur and Balsin had come through the Dravalu Pass; with humans beyond the borders of her father’s realm, and with taralians and norindours, ladons and wyverns within it. Some of those skirmishes had been fierce enough and lasted long enough to be called wars.
“There is a theory,” Ahathin had once told her, “that we are here in a kind of—nexus, a crossroads, a meeting place of force and power. That there is a reason why we are so plagued not merely by taralians and norindours, but that ladons and wyverns, which should not be natural to our climate and geography, are drawn back here. That it is this convergence that attracts rocs. And …”
“And pegasi,” interrupted Sylvi, not wanting to think about rocs or magical convergences. “The only pegasi there are are here, are ours.”
“Yes,” said Ahathin. “So far as we know, the pegasi that are a part of our lives are the only pegasi anywhere.”
“Then we had better keep them alive, hadn’t we?” said Sylvi.
“Yes. Yes, we had indeed.”
That’s what it is like at a crossroads, Sylvi said to herself. They were only having a bad season, an unsettled year—or two years, or three. Nothing to do with a princess and her pegasus, or with Fthoom. The Alliance did live, visibly, in the bond between her and Ebon. Let them exploit that….
Especially if it included seeing the Caves, she told herself honestly, the night before they were due to leave. Her head was still ringing with the good wishes (and the good advice) of all of those who had come to the medium-sized dinner in her and Ebon’s honour that evening—ringing as well, she felt, with all the things that had not been said, mostly by those who had continued to oppose her going, but whom her father had thought it was politic to invite to the dinner to send her off.
She was not going to be able to sleep. If her ears were ringing with other people’s words, her mind was ringing with her own. She paced her bedroom restlessly; she had packed and repacked and re-re-repacked what she was taking with her; changed her mind dozens if not hundreds of times about the individual gifts she was bringing. She had had the various choices laid out on a shelf in her wardrobe, where she could be indecisive without troubling any of her attendants. Would the pegasus queen like the gold chain, or the silver and gold one better? Was the little mother-of-pearl bowl—light enough for pegasus hands—really grand enough for Lrrianay, even with the sparkle of tiny diamonds in a ring below its rim? Grand—oh, grand was another of those cumbersome, confusing human things, like choosing the clothes to take with her to make her look like a princess. What did you give people who didn’t want anything?
Since she was at that end of the room, she opened her wardrobe and stared at the things she wasn’t taking. I am not changing my mind again, she thought, as she stared at the embroidered ribbons she wasn’t taking for Ebon’s little sister. They were extremely pretty, but Sylvi thought bringing human embroidery to a pegasus was probably like giving farm boots to a dancer. She thought of her farmer uncle Rulf telling her how his eldest son, who had never cried about anything, cried the first time he saw pegasi, flying with the sunset gilding their wings. Sylvi couldn’t remember the first time she’d seen pegasi; for her at the palace they’d always been there. But she was going to be alone with them for almost three weeks; alone with creatures so beautiful and strange that they made a little boy cry for their beauty and strangeness.
Her eyes drifted to a glint from farther inside the wardrobe. Until a few weeks ago her practise gear had all hung on a peg in the armoury, but a few days after Diamon had told her that pound for pound she was tougher than her brothers, he had come up behind her at the end of their session together, as she was shrugging out of her extremely beat-up leather breastplate. Her sword was already rubbed clean of dust and dirt and hanging up, but he lifted it down again and once she was free of her armour, handed it to her. Puzzled, she grasped the familiar hilt and accepted the scabbard with the other hand. She’d graduated to a real sword a few months ago, even if it wouldn’t have been much more than a dagger in Danacor’s hand; Diamon said that he’d known the young woman who’d last carried it, and that it had been responsible for the deaths of at least two taralians. Lucretia liked to tease her that it was the sword that young Razolon had run his first Speaker through with; it was probably almost old enough, although very plain for a sovereign’s heir, even a twelve-year-old one.
“Take it back to the palace with you,” said Diamon. “Time you started learning to live with it. The sword is your weapon, clearly, just like it’s your mum’s, and a soldier or a princess should be ready. You don’t want to have to come pelting out to the armoury when the battalion of rocs is sighted.” He smiled, but his eyes were serious.
No sword practise for three weeks, she thought. No thumping and being thumped, and getting dust up your nose and in your eyes; her pony would be baffled but pleased by an unexpected three weeks’ holiday; her father’s dogs would be less pleased that she didn’t appear to take them for walks…. At least no council meetings, she thought. She would miss Nanthir’s next report from the Kishes—but she’d also miss the Chaugh ambassador’s daughter’s birthday. She was going to be all alone….
I’m going to see the Caves, she thought, before her courage failed her. The Linwhialinwhia Caves. The Caves that I’ve been longing to s
ee for years—that I’ve known—known—that I never would see. I’ll probably even get to taste fwhfwhfwha.
Eventually she climbed into her bed and lay stiffly down. Last night in a bed for three weeks, she thought. Last night indoors. I hope it doesn’t rain all the time.
There would be hundreds of people to watch them set out tomorrow—far more than at any mere village festival. There was no centuries’-old traditional script for this occasion either. “Be your father’s daughter,” her mother had said, smiling. “And try not to worry too much.”
Sylvi gave a little gulp of laughter. “Well, that’s not being my father’s daughter!”
CHAPTER 11
It was a fine clear day for flying, the sky blue and very far away in that come-chase-me way that always made Sylvi especially yearn for wings—and almost no wind, at least not on the ground. She had learnt, by flying with Ebon, that what was going on a few spans straight up might be quite a bit different from what was happening standing on the ground, but the few wisps of cloud she could see didn’t seem to be moving very fast. There were three draia—one for luggage, including gifts—and twenty-two pegasi to carry them, plus a dozen more who would fly with them.
They collected themselves in the Inner Court, those who were going, where the private good-byes and good wishes would be said: the pegasi, her father and mother, Hirishy, Danacor and Farley, and Thowara and Oyry—Garren and Poih were on patrol, and Lrrianay would meet them on arrival—and half a dozen human attendants, including Fazuur, Minial and Ahathin. But there were more pegasi than humans. It felt very strange to be outnumbered … and she was soon to be alone with … She looked at Ebon, who was looking at her. Ebon had never given any sign of minding being far more outnumbered than she was now when they went to a festival, but she wondered what he might think about it that he had never told her. And he had never been alone with … Again she stopped her thoughts.
She glanced around; a good half of these pegasi she didn’t recognise. Several of them were noticeably broader and sturdier than the average, although none was bigger than Ebon. They all seemed bigger to her today than they usually did. Once her father left, and she was … She silenced her thoughts yet again. The Caves! Think about seeing the Caves with Ebon.
All of these pegasi, when they caught her eye, nodded, and said, “Fwif,” which was an honorific like “lord” or “lady.” She nodded back and said, carefully, “Wheehuf,” which was a polite greeting like “good day, sir” or “good day, madam.” The pegasi rarely used gender specifics, which was one thing she didn’t have to try to learn; wheehuf would do for everyone. And it was one of her better pegasi words; not only was it one of the harmless ones that everyone knew and could remember from one day to the next, she could say it without Ebon making faces. She had said this to him a few days before and he’d wheeled his ears mockingly and replied, Choose the mountain you have to fly over, as they say. I don’t want to wear myself out.
The crowd was waiting in the Outer Great Court—no, the crowd began in the Outer Great Court. A Silversword major had informed the king that much of the huge space inside the Wall was full of humans wanting a glimpse of the historic event, many of whom had travelled a long way for the opportunity. As a result the human king had asked and the pegasi agreed to fly one complete circuit inside the Wall before heading northeast toward the Starclouds. Sylvi discovered that she was trembling. She walked out through the high wide arch on her father’s arm, with the queen and the heir behind them. The crowd roared, and the sound was bewildering. She didn’t understand; what were they roaring about?
Her father had stopped in the gateway, so perhaps he hadn’t noticed her involuntary recoil. Old stories came into her mind and she thought, They sound as if they’re seeing off a war party. She gave a convulsive shiver and her father squeezed her arm against his side and murmured, “Courage, young one; be glad of their enthusiasm. Be glad of all those village fêtes you went to, and all the pony rides Ebon gave the littles, because they’re part of the reason you’re going today—because all these noisy people thought you should.” He lifted his other hand and waved and, after a moment, so did she. The crowd was divided into two parts, and between was a long clear straight path stretching as far as she could see: for the pegasi to gallop down, carrying the draia.
The pegasi came through the arch behind them. Human servants were carrying the already-loaded luggage drai, and they set it down, spreading out and then lifting the loops of rope that went round the pegasi’s necks; but the pegasi themselves, with their tiny feather-hands, fastened and checked what on horses would be cruppers and belly bands: there were two shamans per drai, to ensure that the ooffhaloah worked as it should. The draia for herself and her father lay over the pegasi’s backs; the pegasi slipped them off, where they lay in unrecognisable little huddles on the ground. Even knowing what Ebon had told her about the ooffhaloah, even knowing that the pegasi had to be able to use their wings and their legs freely in flight and therefore the passengers needed to hang below their carriers’ feet—Sylvi had perhaps been betrayed by her forbidden knowledge of flying because she said at once, shocked, when she’d first heard of the prototype human-carrying drai, “But what about landing?”
Even after almost four years’ practise, she and Ebon didn’t always get it right, and she was lying free on his back with no ropes to complicate the issue. She realised what she’d said and blushed so violently she thought she could feel her hair frizzle in the heat, but several of the humans also present laughed and her father said mildly, “Well spotted, Sylvi.”
Pegasi did carry other things this way, and when they glided down toward landing they leaned against the ropes—their harnesses were asymmetrical to take this odd strain—till they were horizontally taut, to lift the baggage, whatever it was, above ground level, and the carriers said their words to hold it there. It still took a good deal of practise for a team of pegasi to learn to do this reliably and accurately. Their very best teams were carrying the king and his daughter—and there were the six shamans flying with them to strengthen the holding words.
Ebon was one of the six pegasi carrying the princess. How did you manage that? Sylvi had said, very impressed, the evening the names of the carriers—the doorathbaa—were read out.
Ebon, unusually for him, took a few seconds to reply. Well, he said at last. I pleaded and pleaded and pleaded and pleaded and begged and begged and nagged and whined and whinged and so on like that. I really didn’t think I was going to make it. And then I thought I can’t not make it, so I went on begging and being a pain in the neck and the rear and all four legs and forty wings. They won’t take you unless you’re grown, you see, although I’m bigger than Traa or Maoona. Dad, who never gets cross, said to me once that I could mess up the whole trip if I kept on about it and I thought about that, and about telling you you couldn’t come after all because I’m a … a … hafwuffab. What do you call someone who is really irritating and stupid?
Fool, dolt, nitwit?
Eah. All of those. But I thought about it some more and I couldn’t not do it. I think even Dad got it finally. That I wasn’t just being … I don’t know. But what happened is that Guaffa—he’s the one who—who takes care of the doorathbaa—there’s another word, clafwha, which is being the head of something when you’re not the head of something. You humans don’t seem to do it—your heads head. But Guaffa is the clafwha of the carriers, the doorathbaa. Guaffa cracked, thank wing. I’d been pestering him as much as Dad. He told my dad that if it was okay with him and I could do it he’d have me. And Broraakwha kind of wanted not to do it because his hrmmhr is about to pop with their first baby and he was sure it would happen while he was gone.
So Guaffa took me out with a rope around my neck and his and a beastly great boulder in the drai—I swear it was half a mountain, heavier than you’ll ever be unless you bring some of those stone heads you walk down your wall on in your pockets—but I wasn’t going to fa
il so I didn’t. I think we flew to the end of the world and back. I was never so tired in my life but I wasn’t going to tell him that. All Guaffa said was “I can see why they call you Stone-Carrier” but he took me. Then I had to learn all this team stuff—and I had to learn it fast. Once they’d taken me, though, there was no more question and they just drilled and drilled me. It’s all tricky but landing’s the worst. Well, landing’s always the worst. I was kind of hoping I’d get some ideas about our landing problems but I didn’t, and I don’t think any of the holding words would do anything, they might make it harder to roll if you fall. I haven’t had any special training for ooffhaloah either. Never mind. I’m third rope on your drai and that’s what matters.
Ebon was kneeling by his rope-loop now. A single pair of human hands could pick up even a thick rope easily, but the pegasi’s alula-hands were too weak. It took two pegasi to lift a rope loop, and the pegasus whose neck the loop was to lie round would kneel as well, to make the effort less. Once the rope was settled, the pegasus would stand while the rest of the harness was fastened and fiddled with till the fit was perfect. They did it so gracefully there seemed no anxiety or hurry to it—no forced allowance for weakness—and they did it quickly. It seemed almost a dance, perhaps a cotillion, or a sort of high-level musical chairs, because all the pegasi who weren’t being or hadn’t yet been fastened into the harness helped with the harnessing, pair and pair, till the last six were harnessed by the six pair who were not carriers.