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.