No one asked Sylvi directly about the odd change in the ritual, but she could assume everyone had seen Fthoom’s face afterward—many of them would have heard his outburst—and seen the king dismiss him as if he were a stableboy. Magicians used to performing in rituals tended to have deep, sonorous voices, and Fthoom’s was especially so: but no one shouted at the king. If there had been any chance that her mistake would be forgotten—those not immediately concerned with pegasi by being bound to one usually had only a vague notion of the peculiarities and pitfalls of the system—Fthoom had seen to it that it would instead be a subject of intense interest. She might have hoped that the interest would fade as soon as this day was over, but her father had told Fthoom to speak to him tomorrow, which meant the morning court.... She heard voices rise at the ends of sentences, and saw people who had been in earshot of the question turn their heads to look at her. At her and Ebon.
Ebon had stayed near her for most of that long afternoon. He didn’t mind being stared at as much as she did. Well, they’re not my people, you know, he said. I’d mind if you were at one of our five-seasons festivals and everyone was staring at me and you. Although I’m not looking forward to what old Gaaloo is going to say later. Gaaloo was one of Lrrianay’s cousins, bound to one of Eliona’s sisters. Reesha was here for her niece’s binding, although she rarely came to the palace, but Gaaloo was one of Lrrianay’s courtiers and often came in his train. Gaaloo can talk the hind legs off a unicorn.
Are we supposed to stay together? Sylvi said anxiously.
Haven’t a raindrop’s idea in a hailstorm, said Ebon cheerfully. I’ve never been to one of these things before. You tell me.
Sylvi shook her head. Children don’t attend bindings unless it’s someone like your brother, and I was still too little for Garren—my youngest brother’s—to notice much.
Figuratively and literally: too short to see what was going on, except when Danny let her sit on his shoulders. That was before he’d been through the acceptance of the heir, and didn’t always have to be part of important rituals with their father, and had more time for his little sister. But she’d been taken away soon after the ritual—although her mother had sent one of the housefolk after her with a plate of the banquet food. She thought about it a moment. It’s funny, though, isn’t it? That nobody told me what I—we—were supposed to do afterward. They’ve been drilling me silly in the sign-language for years of course—it’s one of the first things I remember, trying to learn the sign-language. Maybe we’re supposed to stand around and say things like, “Nice day, isn’t it? But I believe it will rain tomorrow.” Sylvi made a creditable effort to say this in sign, and one or two huffs.
Ebon made the noise like a whinny with a hiccup again. I didn’t know pegasi laughed, she said. Well—out loud. Where humans can hear them.
Ebon shook his head so that his already-magnificent mane (pegasus manes didn’t usually come in fully till adulthood) whipped back and forth. The plaits were coming out fast, and it rained flowers. She bent to pick them up.
What a lot of old bores we are with you then, he said, but he said it with less than his usual vigour.
Maybe you don’t find our jokes funny, said Sylvi sadly.
There was a pause, and he answered soberly, I think we’re all too worried about getting along. It’s hard to know what to say to you. Especially since we mostly can’t.
You don’t, said Sylvi. Worry about what to say.
Well, I’m hopeless, said Ebon, recovering his spirits. Everybody says so. You can’t have been drilled any sillier in signing than I was in signing and manners after they decided I had to be your pegasus. Think of the breath stoppings and the heart burstings and the dumbfoundings if they’d had any idea we’d be able to talk to each other!
She’d laughed—she couldn’t help it—and too many people turned to look at her: at her and Ebon, standing a little apart from the rest of the crowd at that moment and only making half-hearted and erratic attempts at signing to each other. And yet she’d laughed. At what?
Silence fell, and the king, as if idly, as if his feet just happened to be taking him in the direction of his daughter, joined them, and with him came Lrrianay. Shortly after this the queen, equally idly, ended her conversation with some cousins, here from the other side of the country for the princess’binding, and drifted over with Hirishy, whereupon the king wandered away again. No more silences fell, but Sylvi didn’t laugh out loud again either; nor were she and Ebon left to stand by themselves again.
She lay in bed now, staring out the window. Her nurse always pulled the curtains closed, last thing before she blew out the lamp and after she made sure Sylvi was in bed instead of hiding somewhere with a book on hawks or a bridle she’d decided needed a different colour browband. After a few minutes, as soon as Sylvi was sure the nurse was really gone, she got up and pulled the curtains open again.
She had always felt shut in behind walls and doors; she was notorious for going for long tramps over open countryside even in the worst weather. Her father’s dogs tended to jump up hopefully when they saw her, because she took them for longer rambles than her father had time to do. One of the best things that had ever happened to her was when her mother declared that she no longer always had to have a nurse or a groom or a courtier go with her—but she did have to have either a dog or a pony, and she had to tell her mother first exactly where she was going. She wondered if Ebon liked to go for long walks ... well, not very likely, was it? He had wings. Who would walk who could fly?
But that wasn’t true. They did walk, he had told her. Flying is tiring, he said. Of course we walk. We walk more than we fly. He had told her too that, while their land centred on the Linwhialinwhia Caves, as Balsinland centred on the palace within its Wall, the pegasi did not live there. This made sense to Sylvi; to the extent that she understood ssshasssha at all, it made the Caves sound like a kind of very large library with pictures instead of books. And she preferred the outdoors herself.
The pegasi spent most of their time wandering through the high wild meadows that were their private country—as specified by the treaty—and foraging, and sleeping out of doors wherever the end of day found them; although they grew and tended certain crops for food, paper, dyes and paints, and weaving. These were planted around the shfeeah, which Sylvi tentatively translated as a kind of small village, where the craftspeople lived, and where other pegasi stayed for a time to help with the crops. The story-tellers and shamans roam with the rest of us, but the sculptors stay near the Caves.