She didn’t want any part of magicians’ business. Magic was the worst of court affairs, worse even than being polite to people who were rude about your height. One of the reasons she had been able to relax her guard around Ahathin was that while he usually had a little charm-thread in a pocket, he’d never done any magic in her presence, and she’d only once or twice smelled it on him. The charm against nightmares had smelled like fresh air and spring; that had been part of why it worked. Most magicians’ magic made her skin hurt.
She ’d never liked Fthoom, who was a patronising bully to everyone but her parents and her eldest brother, but now, looking at him, with the reek of fresh magic coming off him like the reek of fresh blood, she was very frightened of him indeed—even with her father’s arm around her. She wished she were still young enough to wrap herself up in the long skirts of her father’s ceremonial robe and disappear, as she had occasionally done when she was smaller.
She glanced again at Ebon, who was still watching her. The pegasus standing next to him turned his head and looked at her too. She could guess, by the ears and nostrils, that he was saying something to Ebon, but she couldn’t hear anything with either her ears or her mind; and then Ebon began walking toward her. Lrrianay had materialised at her father’s other elbow, and she began to notice the number of people, both two-legged and four-, who were watching the confrontation. For confrontation was what it was.
Fthoom was apparently still trying to decide how to phrase what he wanted to say when Ebon joined them. He put his nose to Sylvi’s ear and blew—very gently. It tickled, and she smiled involuntarily.
Atta girl, he said, and pawed briefly, gracefully, with one forefoot for emphasis.
This minor exchange infuriated Fthoom past restraint. “How dare you!” he said to Sylvi—who cringed against her father as if Fthoom had tried to strike her. “You know it is forbidden to have any contact between your pegasus and yourself before the ritual is performed!” He turned on her father and half shouted, “It is obvious these two have a long-standing—long-standing and inappropriate—relationship! How has this happened!”
Nobody, not even the most powerful magician in the country, publicly accuses the king of misdoing. Very, very gently Sylvi’s father said, “Fthoom, you may speak tomorrow morning in court.”
Fthoom started and stared at the king. He opened his mouth once or twice and then turned on his heel and strode away, across the Court, and out through the Gate. Murmurs rustled through the crowd, and those who had watched other bindings and noticed what had happened and assumed that the slight change had been deliberate now guessed it had not been, and wondered what it meant.
The king sighed and dropped his hand. “Come; let us have something to eat.” He made the come-with sign to Ebon, who bowed his head and followed. Lrrianay bowed Sylvi ahead of him, but he often did; the stiffness with which he did it, she was sure, was not because she was a fourth child and he was a king, but because he was worried too. And he must be very worried, because pegasi were always as graceful as pouring water.
No human was allowed to begin eating at a banquet attended by the human king till the king had eaten something, so the moment Sylvi’s father began to walk toward the tables several courtiers rushed up to him with bowls and plates of dainties. He chose one at random so that his people could begin. Fthoom had vanished and many of the magicians with him; those who remained were more simply dressed and could melt into the crowd. Sylvi could see a few of the Speakers: Fazuur, and Danacor’s Speaker, Moorcath; Minial would be sitting down somewhere, now that the ritual was over, with her knitting bag open at her feet. There was Ahathin: he didn’t approach her—that would be presumptuous in public, unless she asked him to—but he made a quick gesture with one hand, smiled and turned away before she could—or had to—respond.
It took her a minute to remember what the gesture was; it wasn’t one of the basic ones. When she remembered, it was with bewilderment : it was the sign for victory, and historically used mostly on the battlefield or at great state occasions. Ahathin had taught it to her after she’d read about it in some great romantic ballad, and he’d never said “don’t fill your head with nonsense when you can barely remember the fundamentals.” Victory? That was the last thing what had just happened was. And he would have recognised her mistake too. But it was nice of him.
People—other than Sylvi, her father and Lrrianay—began to relax and enjoy themselves. It was a beautiful day with a blue sky and a light fresh breeze. The Outer Court had been scrubbed and scrubbed for the birthday and binding of the king’s child, and its pale stones gleamed almost opal in the sunlight. The old stones were already nearly as silky as a pegasus’ shoulder (Sylvi guessed) from generations of scrubbing, and Sylvi always ran her hand along one whenever she was close enough to do so—sometimes her mother sent her with a message to her father, or Diamon, or vice versa, and she’d run round the perimeter of the Court so she could touch the stones, instead of straight across the centre. Today much of their surface was covered with ribbons and banners, and she had to stay in the centre of the Court and be a princess. The food was plentiful and excellent, and the king moved among his people, smiling and apparently carefree and, with the Sword at his side, very kingly indeed. The pegasi were all gracious and dignified, and those who knew a little of the sign-language spoke to them and were answered politely; occasionally a Speaker (easily identified by the Speaker’s sticks worn on all formal occasions) was applied to for assistance.
Sylvi tried to pretend to be calm and self-possessed too. She knew she wasn’t doing a very good job of it, but she hoped that everyone around her would assume she was tired, or shy, or unused to court events—all of which were true. And she was worried because she knew her father was worried—she tried to force the memory of Fthoom’s angry face out of her mind, but she couldn’t forget the sound of her father’s gentlest voice saying, “You may speak tomorrow morning.” She was even worried that she knew Lrrianay was worried. The stiffness with which he had bowed to her could merely be the grand manner due to a formal event, but she knew it wasn’t. But why did she know? Pegasi had always been nearly as opaque as statues to her before.
Before Ebon.
CHAPTER 5
By the time she could creep off to her room and be alone, Sylvi was so tired that when she closed her eyes she still saw the crowd in the Court, moving, eating, laughing, talking—looking at her, wondering who she was and who she was growing up to be—painstakingly making conversation with the thirty or so pegasi who had come with Lrrianay and Ebon, whose shining coats sparkled more brightly than any of the jewels in the humans’ dress. As she grew more tired, it had seemed to her that the sprinkling of pegasi in the crowd of humans made some kind of pattern—if she could just rearrange them a little—that dark bay pegasus should be a little closer to the Court wall, and the white one should move nearer the centre, and that clump of humans near the Gate needed to be lightened, maybe by Oyry and Poih, who were wasted where they were standing among the chairs, gravely attending to—oh, horrors—Great-aunt Moira.