The king shook his head. “The mistake doesn’t matter; it’s why you made the mistake that matters—that you and Ebon can talk—really talk—to each other. Just as well, I think, that we knew from the first.” He dropped his hand. “It is just you and Ebon, is it not? You hear no one else, and no one else hears you? Lrrianay and Miaia say they cannot hear you.”
“Yes,” she said, trying not to sound relieved: what if someone overheard them talking about flying? “It’s just me and Ebon.”
He nodded and paused momentarily, then went on more briskly: “You can be spared the rest of this scene; I am not free yet, but you and Ebon may go in a moment. Listen to me first, however, Sylviianeclass="underline" listen to me carefully.”
Her father only ever called her by her full name at formal and ritual occasions. “Oh—Dad—my lord—”
“No, child, listen. You needn’t my-lord me, and you have done no wrong. But you must listen as closely as you have listened to anything in your life. If anyone—anyone at all—but myself, your mother or Danacor asks you what Ebon says to you about anything, or if you would ask Ebon a question for them—tell me at once. Anyone: your ladies, your practise-yard partner, a senator making conversation at court—even Farley and Garren, although I will have woken them up to the situation before the end of today, and they won’t—anyone. Do you understand?”
“Ye-es, my lo—Father.”
“We’ll decide later what use we might put you and your bondmate to—if you agree so to be used. For now you have but yesterday turned twelve, and you are not only the king’s child, you are under the king’s protection”—for a moment the king in him was very clear indeed, strong and sharp as the blade of the Sword.
There was movement at the edge of her vision. Her father glanced that way. The room was still crowded, but almost everyone was now standing as stiff and still as statues. Kanf had his arms crossed; Orel was biting her lip; Cral was staring at the ceiling. But Danacor was speaking—Sylvi blinked—with a colonel of the Skyclears, the sovereign’s heir’s own regiment; it was this man’s arrival who had caught her and the king’s attention. He was wearing his sword and badge over his ordinary clothing, which meant he’d been pulled out of his private hours to attend to the king’s heir’s summons immediately. Sylvi did not want to think about this.
“He hates me,” she said, very quietly—so quietly she was not sure her father would hear her. “Fthoom.”
“Yes,” said her father, as gently as he could. “I’m afraid so. You are a terrible threat to him, my darling, by being what you are—and that was before you spoke out against him in the king’s receiving room in front of an audience, and that in spite of the glamour he was using. I almost threw him out for that; it’s forbidden, of course, in any court or council; it is typical of the man that he thought he could get away with it.”
“He’s not a Speaker,” she said, still half not understanding and half not wanting to understand.
“He is a member of the Speakers’ Guild,” said her father.“But he did not wish to be tied to the position of personal Speaker.” He smiled without humour.“Fortunately he was too young when the Speaker to the queen’s heir was chosen—and too established when it was Danacor’s turn. But, my darling, if there were no necessary but incomprehensible pegasi, how constant and immediate to our royal lives would our magicians be? The magicians who maintain the Wall do so in secrecy.”
Which would not suit Fthoom at all, thought Sylvi.
The footman returned at that moment with a tray with three goblets and three low bowls on it. He offered it first to his king, who took up one goblet; another footman materialised to lift one of the bowls and hold it for Lrrianay. The second goblet went to Danacor, who now came to stand beside his father and sister, wearing much the same worried expression the king was wearing, only it was much starker on his young face; the second bowl went to Thowara. And then the third goblet came to Sylvi—she peered into it: the water was barely pink with a spoonful of red wine—and another footman took the third bowl to Ebon.
He flattened his nose and took a brief sip for politeness: Eeeugh, he said. What is this stuff?
Watered wine, said Sylvi. It’s always watered—maybe not this much—except at really big or important parties or occasions or events or things, even for the grown-ups. I like water with loomberry juice better, but you have to make a fuss to get it.
Ebon took a second sip. Does not improve on acquaintance. You should drink our—he made a pegasus noise that sounded like “fwhfwhfwha”—it’s much nicer.
Upon a murmur from the human king, six more footmen had followed the first, bearing many more goblets and a few more bowls, and wine was offered to everyone in the room, human and pegasus. When the footmen came to the magicians, Kachakon and Gornchern, who were still standing next to each other, were first: Kachakon quickly picked up a goblet, Gornchern only after several seconds’ delay. The king was binding them together against Fthoom; closing Fthoom out of a new alliance which included the princess and her pegasus. He would have less talking to do after they had drunk together—and one did not refuse a drink offered by the king. She could see Kachakon’s hand was shaking, and that Gornchern drank his wine as if it burnt him. She thought, He would have gone with Fthoom, but he remained so that he can tell Fthoom what happened.
The king bent to kiss her forehead.“You may go,” he said, speaking so that no one would hear but herself. “I do not deny you your friend, nor do I ask you not to speak to him. But I do ask you: try not to behave in any way that anyone looking on could mark as different from the relationship of any bound human and their pegasus—and do not answer any questions. Do you understand?”
No flying, thought Sylvi, and gulped.“Yes, Father.”
CHAPTER 7
They went flying anyway, of course. They couldn’t help it.
Lrrianay had given Ebon almost exactly the same orders as her father had given Sylvi. Do you suppose they’d already discussed it? said Ebon that morning the human king had stripped the magician’s spiral from Fthoom’s head. They’d just been released from attendance on their fathers; Sylvi took a deep breath as one of the footmen bowed them out of the receiving room, as if it was the first time she’d been able to breathe properly since she went in. Even Ebon was subdued as they walked soberly across the inner garden toward the more open parkland beyond the Outer Great Court. It occurred to neither of them to question that they wanted to stay together. They would be together as much as they could from the moment of their meeting.
No, said Sylvi positively. They’re just both kings. And fathers. And they’ve been friends for forty years, even if they don’t talk much.
Mmmh, said Ebon. In forty years what will we be like?
That was the first time either of them asked that question, although it became a regular one between them—less as a question than as a way of stopping a conversation that had drifted toward an undesirable topic such as the number of taralian sightings, or that the queen was now riding out with a scout troop almost as often as she would have if she weren’t both the queen and officially retired. Or the rumours of Fthoom, and of the schism in the Magicians’ Guild; or the way Sylvi could recognise the magicians and courtiers who did not like her relationship with Ebon by the way they avoided her. One of her attendant ladies had been replaced; she hadn’t asked why, because she thought she knew the answer: Fgeela had had a tight, hard expression any time she saw Sylvi and Ebon together.