Sylvi rubbed her face in a gesture she realised she ’d learnt from her father. She took her hand down and looked at it as if it didn’t belong to her. “But we have to listen to Soronon going on and on. Who cares that magician apprenticeships are down three percent this year? Or that rituals requiring magicians are up five percent in Hillshire? Can’t he just submit the report and anyone who wants to know can read it?”
“Poor old Soronon. Farley calls him Snore-on. But it’s not entirely his fault—everyone’s really jumpy because of what happened with Fthoom, and Snore-on doesn’t want anyone to think the magicians’ guild is hiding anything.”
“I know everyone’s jumpy. Even the Sword is.”
Danacor looked startled. “The Sword?”
“Oh, well,” said Sylvi. “I mean, it flickers. It flickers blue all along its edge sometimes, so it almost looks like it’s moving. Like Fralialal’s wings in the mural. Especially when we’re in the Great Hall and it’s hanging on the wall—it almost looks like it’s going to leap out of its stays. If someone’s going to jump I’d rather it were Fralialal, but if the Sword would make Snore-on stop talking I’d be all for it.”
But Danacor was looking at her oddly.
“What’s wrong?” she said. “It does flicker—doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Danacor. “But most people don’t see it. Not even the magicians. Usually only Dad and me.”
Sylvi stared at him, a prickle of cold moving up her spine.
“Don’t spread it around that the Sword’s awake, okay?” Danacor said, trying to sound as if he were talking about something of no importance, and failing. “It’s ...” He stood up abruptly and went to look out the window as if he’d heard someone call his name. He turned back again. “It’s never good news.”
Sylvi attended court and council meetings, took her hours in the practise yard under the master-at-arms, bowed to people in the corridors and tried to accustom herself to the fact that there was almost always someone with her now. At first she had thought that was just a part of having turned twelve, of being bound, of being a princess with her first adult responsibilities. But the tall, expressionless footman who’d thrust her behind him when Fthoom had roared at her—and whose name, she learnt, was Glarfin—had seemingly been assigned specially to her. And there was something familiar about Lady Lucretia, who had replaced the lady who didn’t like her relationship with Ebon ... which she remembered the day she saw Lucretia gleefully driving her opponent against the wall in the practise yard. When Lucretia waited on the princess, she was always wearing a dress, and had her hair beautifully done up, but Sylvi had been watching her chasing people around the practise yard for years. She’d never asked her name, although she was very aware of her. She measured her own progress against whether she was ready to ask for Lucretia as a sparring partner. Not yet.
It was the day after she’d seen Lucretia getting the better of a man half again bigger than she was that she took a long, thoughtful look at Glarfin, and said, trying not to sound accusing,“You stand like a soldier.”
“I was a soldier, lady,” said Glarfin.
“Sylvi,” said Sylvi. “If you were a soldier, why are you a footman?”
“I was wounded,” said Glarfin.“It took a long time to heal. They did not think I would make a soldier again, but I was not good at being invalided out and doing nothing. So they made me a footman.”
“Wounded,” said Sylvi. “But you used to lift me onto my cushions.”
“You never weighed anything,” said Glarfin, “and I healed better than they expected. But I had found I liked being a footman, and sleeping in my own bed every night.”
“But you still stand like a soldier ... and ... and you react like a soldier,” said Sylvi, remembering the day after her twelfth birthday.
“I was well trained, lady,” said Glarfin.
“Sylvi,” said Sylvi. “You’re not an attendant—you don’t follow me around to open doors and bow and make sure everyone knows there’s a princess nearby—you’re a guard.”
“I’m sorry, lady,” said Glarfin.
“Sylvi,” said Sylvi.
“I cannot call you Sylvi any more than I can help reacting like a soldier,” said Glarfin.
“Like Lucretia is a guard. How many of you are there? Lieutenant,” added Sylvi.
“I do not use lieutenant any more,” said Glarfin.
“I don’t use lady except with strangers, or in court,” said Sylvi.“How many of you? Not Celia, I think—snakes make her scream. Guridon? Alsa? Orooca? Minni? Pansa?”
Glarfin didn’t answer.
“Pansa, I think,” said Sylvi. “Her reflexes are really good. Maybe Guridon. Maybe Alsa. Certainly Lucretia. Well, lieutenant?”
Glarfin sighed.“Why would I know, lady?”
“Because you would,” said Sylvi. “And also because there must be some kind of rota, and you’d need to know who else is on it.”
“Perhaps you could take this up with the king, lady,” said Glarfin.
“Perhaps I will take it up with him later, lieutenant,” said Sylvi. She thought of her father, raised her chin and stared at Glarfin, trying not to think about how quickly she would develop a crick in her neck. She considered crossing her arms, but her father never crossed his arms, so she didn’t.
After a moment Glarfin said, “You are very like your father, lady. Very well. It is the five of us you have named who are the core of it. Danis or Colm is usually at your bedroom door overnight.”
She’d been sure she was right, but it was still worse to have it confirmed. And she hadn’t known about the night guards. “Is Ebon guarded too?”
“There are extra patrols around the pegasus house, yes,” said Glarfin. “But King Lrrianay did not wish Ebon to be singled out, and there are extra patrols all round the palace since the ladon was found in Riss.”
Riss was a village two leagues from the Wall. It had been known since Sylvi’s grandmother’s day that ladons—and probably wyverns—had returned to the wild lands, but sightings of them had continued to be agreeably rare. Sylvi had been in court the morning that the report had come in, and the queen, who had just come in to the horseyards from chasing norindours and heard the news from the stableboy who was walking the messenger’s horse, paused only long enough to change her saddle to a fresh horse, reorganise her squad and send a note to her husband what she was doing before she rode straight back out again. The king had sent a note back to the horseyards that the next time the queen reappeared they were to take her saddle away from her even if there was a sighting of forty-six rocs over Banesorrow Lake. And Sylvi knew about the extra patrols: she and Ebon had a much harder time going flying because of them.
But what she disliked most was the realisation that she was being protected not only from anyone who might want to ask her inappropriate questions about the pegasi, but from actual physical harm. She had wanted to believe that even Fthoom hadn’t meant anything by his gesture that day in the king’s receiving room, beyond that he was angry at not getting his own way about something. She could guess that all her guards were wearing a variety of glamour-neutralising and magic-disabling charms. She stared at Glarfin’s uniform, but the charms wouldn’t be anything you could see.
She wouldn’t be able to browbeat Ahathin the way she had just done poor Glarfin; she wondered what Ahathin might tell her if she merely asked him what charms he kept in his pockets that he hadn’t done before her twelfth birthday—what guard-magic now followed her—whether a guild spell-maker had been engaged to do the work. If so, he was a good one, because she couldn’t feel it plucking at her, nipping at her heels, haunting the shadows at the corners of her eyes.
She could feel herself drooping. She wasn’t really like her father.
“I’m sorry ... Sylvi,” said Glarfin with an obvious effort.
“Thanks,” said Sylvi, and smiled.“You can call me lady when there’s anyone else around, okay?”