But he was on his feet before she reached him. Sorry, he said, and that was all.
Ebon—?
After a long pause, he said, Norindour. I smelled it.
Norindour!
Norindour—so close to the palace. Just outside the Wall. Norindours didn’t come this far from the wild lands. Taralians sometimes. Never norindours.
You’re sure? I—I wouldn’t know.
We’re taught norindour, although they don’t like our mountains—oh, you don’t teach smells, do you? We’re taught taralian, and ornbear, and norindour—well, and human—and, he went on desperately, also stuff like if a drak bush is fruiting or not—it all goes on underground so you can’t see it, you have to know what it smells like because they’re poisonous if they’re fruiting, and they can do it any season although sometimes they don’t for years. . . .
Sylvi could hear how frightened he was—frightened and exhausted—so she didn’t say anything, but put her arms round his neck, and after he’d run through a little more pegasus botany he fell silent. At last he sighed and said again, Sorry. I’m so tired I can’t. . . . We’ll have to walk the rest of the way.
Sylvi had not had a chance to think about how close inside the Wall they had come down; it would be a long walk, and not without its own danger of discovery. But they did it, Sylvi guiding them, both because she knew the grounds better, but also because Ebon stumbled along with his head down, barely noticing anything. She took him right up to the pegasus annex of the palace—as close as she dared. There was a faint flicker of candlelight through the trees, and she thought she could see a smudge of pegasus silhouette. She stopped.
When she stopped Ebon stopped too, and raised his head and looked around. Oh—Syl, go away. We can see better in the dark than you can.
Yes, it was an honour to do you a service, she replied.
When he gave a little humming snort of laughter she felt better. Thank you, he said. Thank you, beautiful human of the bright wings and the matchless sagacity—He stopped abruptly. I’ll have to tell my dad, you know.
Tell him anything you need to. Do you want me to say anything?
No. They know I go out flying at night. I just have to figure out what I was doing out there over . . . over . . .
Stonyvale, she said.
Oh, but—rain and hail—do I know it’s Stonyvale?
She thought a moment. Yes—we were there for a fête. The little girl with a spotted zurcat.
Okay. Good. Thanks. But he didn’t immediately move away, and she could feel the tension in him. She put one hand to his face and rubbed his mane with the other, and he touched her temples with his feather-hands, and they parted.
The next morning when she tried to get out of bed she made a little squeaking noise and fell back on her pillows.
“Lady?” said the attendant who had just set the tea tray beside Sylvi’s bed.
Sylvi lay motionless and then said calmly,“It’s only a bad dream. I’ll get up in a moment.” The attendant bowed and left. Gingerly Sylvi turned over and discovered that most of her left side was one long, angry, midnight-purple bruise. She hadn’t noticed last night: she didn’t even remember falling, only being afraid for Ebon.
Well, I’m not going to be caught out, she thought. She’d just have to be sure neither her mother nor her attendants saw her undressed for the next fortnight or so; she didn’t think she could pass this off as the result of a sudden return of sleepwalking—or if she did her mother would insist on someone sleeping in her bedroom with her. If she didn’t tie her to the bed.
Sylvi was (apparently) deep in her papers when the study door opened and Ahathin came softly in. She looked up, trying to smile as she always did. Trying to pretend that she didn’t know why Ebon was late this morning; he sometimes was late. Ahathin stopped a little inside the door and looked back at her soberly. Suddenly it was too difficult to keep the corners of her mouth turned up, and her smile disappeared.
“Ebon has reported the scent of a norindour—possibly more than one—outside Stonyvale,” said Ahathin.
It was easy to look shocked and horrified—she was shocked and horrified—but surprise was harder. Maybe shock and horror would do. “Oh,” she said faintly.
“He was flying last night,” Ahathin went on, his eyes never moving from her face. “He flies somewhat regularly at night, I believe, but—I believe—it was something of a revelation that he flies beyond the Wall.”
She could think of nothing to say.
“Our king has already sent a company to investigate,” said Ahathin, and paused. Sylvi felt as if her bruises were glowing—that Ahathin would be able to see them too, even under two shirts and a tunic. They began to itch furiously, and she had to twist her hands together not to scratch.
Ahathin took two steps forward and leaned over her study table. He put his hands over her knotted fists—his hands were barely bigger than hers—and said suddenly, urgently, “Child—both you children—be careful. No, don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it. Because I stand at your elbow so often I think you, both of you, forget why else I am there, why else beyond that I am the princess’ tutor, because you do not need me.”
“Ahathin,” she said, distressed, “we—”
Ahathin shook his head. “ That does not matter in the slightest, and I do not think it is rudeness. But it is carelessness. I am a Speaker, and perhaps I hear more than you guess. And if I hear anything at all, then it is possible that others may hear something too.”
She wanted to shout at him, Would it be so terrible if we were found out? If it was known we went flying together? But she remained silent because she knew the answer: Yes, because it was forbidden. Yes because if they tried to claim that they had not been expressly forbidden to go flying together it would mean they were irresponsible children. And yes because everything about the unprecedented strangeness of their relationship was risky, because some people were frightened by strangeness. Because some people listened to Fthoom.
There was a knock on the door. Ahathin stepped back from the table and became his normal self again, small, faintly rumpled, mild, ordinary, nearly invisible, except for the fact that he was tutor and Speaker to the princess. “Come,” she said, and one of her mother’s women entered, bowed first to Ahathin, and then a much deeper bow to Sylvi: “A change of schedule, princess, because of this news your pegasus brought. . . .”
CHAPTER 9
They still flew after that, but less often, and it was increasingly difficult. More than once they saw a party, torch-lit, riding or walking swiftly with the unmistakable purposefulness of someone bringing news to the king, or going on the king’s urgent orders. Ebon had been forbidden to fly beyond the Wall—I nearly got grounded completely, Ebon said. I said it would spoil my project, and Gaaloo said I should have enough sketches—unless I was being negligent, I shouldn’t need to fly around at night any more.
Oh no! This had been what she’d been afraid of.
Oh yes. But I pointed out that it was a little unkind to ground me when I’d brought them useful news.
Once when she was younger—before Ebon—Sylvi had found a silver penknife that her father had lost, found it somewhere she was expressly forbidden to be. She had stood with the beautiful, treacherous thing in her hands, not deciding what to do—she already knew she would take it to him and tell him the truth—but nerving herself to do it.