Pegasus Read online

  Sylvi had always been a little afraid of the Sword just because it was the Sword. But she wasn’t the king’s heir, and she’d never heard that it was especially severe to anyone but heirs and rulers, so she didn’t really dread the fealty-swearing—not nearly as much as she had dreaded meeting her Speaker. But standing next to her father on her birthday, up on the little platform that was raised even higher yet from the Outer Great Court’s stage so even more people could watch what was happening, it seemed bigger than it did hanging on the wall of the Great Hall. It wasn’t a large sword, for it was intended—and had, in the old days, often been used—as a single-handed battle sword. But it had presence, like a person—like an important person. Like the king. Sometimes her father was just her father, tired and kind and overworked; but when he was the king you knew it. You knew when he changed over too, even if he hadn’t been the king a moment before and was now. The Sword was like that all the time.

  Swearing by the Sword was the second-to-last thing in the ceremony; then Lrrianay would bring her pegasus through the Great Gate and they would meet, and the magicians would blow the binding dust over them and burn herbs and things, and speak some words that no one but other magicians understood, and then they—she and the pegasus—would pretend they understood each other, and she would say her Welcome Excellent Friend speech. Her pegasus would make some of the funny whuffling noises that pegasi did make when they were speaking aloud and which, according to the magicians, was the pegasus version of Welcome Excellent Friend.

  Then the magicians would finish the spell, and blow more dust, and wave their arms around and look grand, and then the banquet would begin, when at least she could get down off the platform and have something to eat and there weren’t any more words she had to remember to say. Although when there were too many people around—which there certainly were today—it was hard even to remember to say thank you: all those people were like drowning. And being polite to people like Great-aunt Moira, who always came to rituals, would be tricky, because she always told you that you’d done whatever you had done wrong, and Sylvi knew she’d have done something wrong, but it was going to be hard to listen to how wrong it was right after it happened.

  Right after it happened. Right after she started to have a pegasus just behind her right shoulder at all important court events for the rest of her life. She was sure she’d trip over her hems even more with a pegasus standing there looking magnificent and supercilious. It had always rather suited her not to know anything about her pegasus in advance, so she didn’t have to think about it, but now that the binding was here….

  She came back to herself staring at the Sword: it was as beautiful as a pegasus, in its own way. Frighteningly beautiful.

  What she had to say during the swearing of fealty was easy: every time her father paused she said “I swear.” She was supposed to say it with her hands on the blade of the Sword. She’d never touched it before, although her brothers all had, long before they had to swear fealty; she thought maybe it was a boy thing, wanting to handle swords, although she put in her time in the practise yards, like them. A sword was a sword: it was a great big knife, much too big for any purpose but killing things, and she knew the stories of it defending the realm in the hand of the ruler. Her father had never gone to battle with it, but she was glad she didn’t even have to carry it on feast-days and during ceremonies.

  Her father pulled it out of its scabbard and laid the blade over his palms, and she put her hands lightly on the blade between his two hands, and her father began speaking.

  She heard him pause, and so she knew to say “I swear,” but she hadn’t heard a word he said, and her own voice seemed to come from queerly far away. She heard him start speaking again, pause again, and again she said “I swear,” her voice echoing in her own ears as if she stood in a huge empty cavern. The Sword didn’t scold her or scorn her but it … it looked, as Danny had said—as her other two brothers had said it didn’t. “Don’t worry about it, minikin,” Farley had said. “It doesn’t bother with us.”

  But it bothered with Sylvi. Its looking seemed to wrap her up all round so that she could no longer hear anything but the indeterminate murmur of her father’s voice, and she could see nothing past its bright blade. She thought it looked at her with surprise and … and … What made her think it was looking at her with anything? Maybe it was just interested to see a girl for a change: the first daughter of a sovereign since her grandmother.

  And then the swearing was over. She had missed counting—she was supposed to say five “I swear”s, and with the last one she was to take her hands off the blade, but she had been looking back at the Sword. Her father moved slightly and lowered the point of the Sword to give her a chance to recover herself and take her hands away—and the Sword released her—she came back into her body, her hands on its blade, with a little start—and did as she should, only a little slowly (Great-aunt Moira was sure to have noticed). He looked at her, half the king making sure the rite was going as it should and half her father, puzzled and perhaps worried, for he had noticed that something had happened. But there was no opportunity to say anything: the Great Gate was opening and her pegasus was entering.

  Her pegasus.

  The one thing she knew of her pegasus was that it was the fourth child of the pegasus king, as her brothers’ pegasi had been the three before. But that was all she knew. Not knowing anything about your pegasus beforehand was supposed to make the binding spell grip and hold better when you finally met. Her heart was beating faster; the pegasi were strange, amazing, almost impossible, entirely unlike anything else in your human life, just by being themselves. Eight hundred years of the Alliance had not weakened the wonder of them. To have one bound to you …

  For a moment all the words of the ritual that Sylvi had memorised drained away, leaving her mind a blank.

  She saw a tall black shape pacing down the length of the Great Court beside the pegasus king, almost as tall as he, but still with colty legs slightly too long for its body. It would be bigger than its father when it finished growing, and Lrrianay was big for a pegasus—bigger than any of his elder three sons—as tall as a carriage pony. She tried to guess its age: her brothers’ pegasi were all within a year or two of their age. She thought this one was probably near her own age too; maybe a little older.

  It was having difficulty taking the slow ceremonial steps beside its father; it kept trying to prance. One of its wings kept twitching half open and then flicking shut again; she wondered if the flowers in its pinions were tickling it, and she resisted (again) the urge to pull at her jewelled collar or scratch her forehead under the slender chain.

  It surged ahead at the foot of the platform, obviously restraining itself with difficulty from bounding up the steps: eagerness to meet her, to find out who she was or to have the ritual over with? Or the pleasure of being allowed to precede your royal father for once?

  She stepped forward to meet it. She supposed it was rather thrilling to be standing in front of the king with everybody looking at you instead of him, but she’d rather be almost anywhere else. Her robes weighed as if they were carved out of stone, her collar was strangling her, and it was difficult to breathe.

  The young black pegasus reached the top of the steps and danced forward, lowering its head to look into her eyes, the wings half-opening toward her (one ill-anchored flower fell out), the tiny alula-hands spreading—

  That’s not till later in the ceremony, pudding-head, she said to herself.

  I know that, said a voice in her head. Aren’t you excited, or are you just a dull stupid human?

  They looked at each other. Sylvi’s mouth dropped a little open, and the pegasus’ nostrils flared.

  I heard that, they said simultaneously.

  You’re a boy, Sylvi said suddenly. There was no reason for her to assume that the pegasus king should have had a daughter for his fourth child because the human king had done so, but she had assu
med since she first understood that she would have her own pegasus that it would be a girl, like her.

  Yes, and you’re a girl, replied the pegasus. I tried to tell them to have my little sister but they said no, I was next, it had to be me.

  Then you knew? said Sylvi, outraged. You’re not supposed to know anything before the ceremony of binding!

  The pegasus’ skin rippled, starting with his shoulders and rustling his feathers; she thought it must be a pegasus shrug, and she was fascinated by the inclusiveness of it: it ran down his back and his forelegs like flowing silk. How little she knew of them, she thought, these creatures she had seen every day of her life—by whose leave her people lived in this country; with whom her people had an alliance that had lasted almost a thousand years. How—it seemed to her now—humiliatingly little.

  That’s just a human rule. I know a lot about you. You ask too many questions and you can’t sit still, and you’re always showing up in your father’s office at the wrong time, so you know more than you should. I thought maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to have a girl if she was another nosy fidget, like me. You’re shorter than I was expecting though.

  Sylvi felt her face grow hot. Her height was a tender subject, and here was this pegasus looming over her.

  Pegasi didn’t loom; they were too fine and delicate. Pegasus bones were hollow, like birds’, and their limbs were so slender the sun almost seemed to shine through them, as when you hold your hand up to a strong light and look at the thin webs of skin between your fingers. And pegasi never just galloped, like horses; any gait faster than a jog and they had their wings spread at least a little, perhaps partly for balance but mainly to absorb some of the shock of the pounding hoofs. Pegasus legs broke easily and, because they were hollow, usually broke badly; although pegasus shamans came rarely to the human lands, there was always a pegasus healer-shaman resident at the palace.

  But Lrrianay’s fourth son didn’t look delicate. He was broad-chested and wide-backed, and his blackness gave him an extra solidity. He gleamed as if he’d been polished all over by many small, light alula-hands, which of course he had been, for the ceremony. The flowers woven through his wings were pale blue and white; through the plaits in his mane, bright blue, white and primrose yellow, and he had a little blue bag around his neck on a golden ribbon. She wasn’t going to tell him he was beautiful—even more beautiful than usual for a pegasus, she thought—which he was, because he was probably vain enough about it already. But she did think it was rather hard that she should have an extra-tall pegasus.

  Their silent conversation had taken less than a minute. No one of the humans had noticed anything unusual; pegasus child and human child often stared fixedly at each other on first meeting. The magicians had come up from the rear of the dais, and now one laid his hand on Sylvi’s right shoulder (she tried not to flinch), and another laid his hand on the pegasus king’s son’s right shoulder and turned them, gently, so that Sylvi’s left and her pegasus’ right, as they faced each other, were presented to the watching crowd. The two kings themselves moved to stand behind their offsprings’ left shoulders. Sylvi’s eyes, for a moment, met Lrrianay’s, and she wondered if he knew that his son had been talking to her, and she to him. And—even more briefly—she wondered just how much he and her father could say to each other.

  Sylvi felt rather than saw the third and fourth magicians approaching, and she had a sudden clear memory of this part of the ceremony when Garren had gone through it; she had been just old enough to realise not only that what was going on was important, but that it would happen to her in a few years too. The third magician held burning herbs in a dish, and he stretched out his arm so that the fumes rose up in the faces of Sylvi and her pegasus, and the fourth magician threw a billow of light fabric over them, so light, or so enchanted, that it remained drifting a little above them, like a cloud, and the pale bars of colour woven into it striped the floor of the dais. But it touched her pegasus’ glossy blackness not at all.

  To her right she heard the fifth magician droning the words of binding. She had always taken the idea of binding literally, and had assumed that she would feel something happening, some tautness, some imprisoning, building between her and her pegasus. She stiffened herself for it, but nothing of the kind occurred. The magician’s voice filled her ears—she wanted to shake her head to rattle the words back out again—and the smoke filled her mouth and lungs, like trying to breathe through a blanket, and eddying, drifting smoke dappled with the colours of the drifting fabric also dimmed and confused her eyes till her pegasus was nothing but a shadow behind it.

  It felt all wrong. It felt as if they were being separated, not bound together. A thought came to her from somewhere: we are already bound. That was why it had to be him, and not his little sister.

  Maybe that is why we can talk to each other. I don’t understand—

  But as she thought this, the fifth magician’s voice rose to a climax, and the third magician flourished the herb-bowl, so that the unburnt herbs and the ashes and embers leaped out of the bowl and fell to the floor of the dais. The embers twinkled against the border of the rainbow fabric but left no scorch marks. Sylvi sneezed, violently, and heard her pegasus sneeze as well. It was good luck to sneeze during your binding.

  The fabric was pulled away and the smoke dispersed as if it had never been. Sylvi blinked in the sunlight and watched it sparkle on the flowers laced through her pegasus’ wings and mane. The magicians gathered round them—too close, Sylvi thought—and blew the spell-dust over them, and when it touched her face Sylvi involuntarily put her hand up to brush it off.

  Then there was a moment’s grace; housefolk discreetly gave goblets to Sylvi’s father and Danacor, who in turn offered them to Sylvi and her pegasus. Sylvi found that she didn’t want to swallow any of the dust and ashes that had got into her mouth; she wanted to rinse her mouth and spit it out. But she knew she couldn’t. She looked up at her father; she wondered if it had been anyone but the king who held the goblet for her if she might have refused. But no. She was still a princess, and she had learnt her part of the ritual very carefully. She sipped the faintly honey-flavoured water and swallowed—with difficulty; it was like swallowing a rock. It stuck in her throat, and then lay heavily in her stomach. Her pegasus swallowed too, but she thought he drank as gingerly as she did.

  Now …

  Better get on with it, said her pegasus. You do remember your words, don’t you?

  Of course I remember, Sylvi said, nettled, and began at once. “Welcome, Excellent Friend, on this glorious day …”

  The end of her dry little speech went “And so I name myself to thee, Sylviianel, princess of the line of Gohasson, daughter of the sixth of that line, Corone IV, and his queen Eliona, fourth child of them I call my parents,” and as she said these words out loud she added silently, I don’t even know your name yet.

  They really don’t tell you anything, do they? I’ve known you were Sylvi forever. My name is Ebon.

  It was not surprising that Sylvi missed her last cue. Trying to give a speech and hold a conversation at the same time would be hard work for anybody under any circumstances—and under these particular circumstances it was also not surprising she could not resist having the conversation. Nor was it surprising that she forgot what the cue was. It just seemed to her—very reasonably—that it was ridiculous that she should be bound to this pegasus before she so much as knew his name.

  But her father, the king, was supposed to say Ebon’s name aloud, which was when she was supposed to hear it for the first time—and while she had learnt every moment of the ritual with painful precision, the ritual had not included that she should find herself able to talk to her pegasus directly. The ritual dictated that her father should say Ebon’s name aloud, and then she would formally kiss (or pretend to kiss) Ebon on the forehead and repeat it. But she forgot to turn to her father. She stepped forward, kissed him (he having lowered his head so
she could) and shouted his name out; the crowd below the dais cheered.

  She didn’t think about what she had done till much later. It was Ebon’s turn now, and he stepped forward and gave the pegasus’ great clarion neigh—far more like a trumpet than a horse’s neigh; hollow bones are wonderful for resonance—and swept his wings forward to touch, or almost touch, his alula-hands to her temples before he gave his own speech, in the half-humming, half-whuffling syllables the pegasi made when they spoke aloud, only she could understand what he was saying in silent-speech. The words were just as stiff and silly (she was rather relieved to discover) as the ones she’d had to say.

  He stopped whuffling and added, I was going to say hee ho, ho hee, your wings are too short, you’ll never catch me, but my dad said he was going to be listening and I’d better get it right. I guess since you can hear too it’s good that I did.

  Sylvi set aside for later the alarming thought that the pegasus king was perhaps listening in on them both, and said, Do you have any idea why we can hear each other? It’s supposed to take years to happen at all, and I don’t think it’s ever like this.

  Not a clue. I know something happens occasionally.... Our dads can talk, sort of. I thought it was mostly stories. Stories about what we wanted to happen instead of what does happen.

  My father says he and your dad have got like a hundred words or ideas or things they can get across pretty well and then everything else has to be built up around one of them and sometimes they do and mostly they don’t. He says it’s like shouting in a wind—you never know what’s going to get through. If you say, “To help you defend yourselves my son is sending a messenger-pigeon with news of our enemies’ victory,” and they hear “help-son-message-victory” they’re going to be looking for the son, not the pigeon, and expecting good news.