"There's nothing we can do," Shadow said. "Except decide what to call their firstborn--IcyFingers, perhaps? Or Hotfoot?"
The groom guffawed, and Lady Elosa switched from woe back to fury.
Shadow walked over to the courting couple; they were much too intent on each other to be a threat to him. He checked to make sure that his bird had not injured his leg, and he removed the useless leash--the ancient staple had come out of the wall. NailBiter offered a tasty beakful of offal; IceFire gulped it and nibbled playfully at his comb.
Shadow refastened NailBiter. The bird needed no special liberty for his wooing, for it would be a long time in human terms before the two got around to consummating their union. Then he slipped back through the bars as more birds came soaring in.
Lady Elosa was still raging. "Careless oaf! Why did you not check that staple when you tethered your bird?"
"Did you check yours?" Shadow asked, tiring of this tantrum thrower.
She gasped. "Insolence! My father will have you flogged!"
Shadow was not afraid of the duke, but the king was another matter. "Will he so? But it is your father's responsibility to maintain this aerie. NailBiter belongs to His Majesty, who has breeding plans for all his birds. He will certainly judge the case himself. Perhaps he will have your father flogged."
She was too outraged to reply.
More birds arrived, carrying a couple of troopers and the countess, Lord Ninomar, and the lithesome lass who professed to be his wife. Those two had both caught goats. Where was Vindax? The aerie was filled with laughter and the clattering of shackle chains.
The groom was openly grinning now--with Vindax's grin. "My lord?" he asked diffidently. "That was a magnificent kill you made, if I may say so." He had Vindax's charm, also.
"I'm not a lord," Shadow said. "And you certainly may say so." He smiled. "I didn't see it myself--I had my eyes shut."
The kid looked at him carefully, wondering if he was serious. "Would you mind explaining how you did it, sir? How can you control a bird at that speed?"
"I don't try to," Shadow said. "His reflexes are so much faster than mine that it would be stupid, like fighting with the flat of an ax instead of the edge. That's my opinion, anyway. We saw you try and fail, and the prince asked if I could do it. Well, I could barely see the cliff from that height, but NailBiter obviously thought he could make the strike. So I gave him the signal and let him try."
NailBiter had dropped like a house.
Elosa frowned. "Father says that an eagle carrying a man is very different from an unloaded one. If you don't keep control in the heat of the chase, then its instincts will fly you both into the ground."
Ninomar and the others had started to approach and then stopped to stare in astonishment at Rorin.
Shadow shrugged. "I'm sure your father is very knowledgeable, lady, and I admit that most trainers follow him. But some don't! After all, NailBiter has never flown without a burden. Even on his first glide, I suppose he bore a pack. So I have always just made sure that I chose the prey and the locale, and then let him teach himself to hunt. He hasn't gone after moles yet." But he had almost turned his rider's hair white a few times. "Perhaps you or your groom can answer a question for me, though."
"What?" Elosa demanded.
He nodded to the cawking pair. "How do eagles tell unpaired females? Could NailBiter have known? Did he do what he did just to impress your IceFire?" They had been very high, and it seemed incredible that even eagles could have eyesight that good. And how much risk had NailBiter taken?
Before he was answered, Ninomar and the countess came over. The prince's WindStriker landed at last, and three others. The troopers were removing saddles and helmets.
"Lovely kill, Shadow!" Ninomar said.
"Thank you, Vice-Marshal," Shadow said. "Countess, may I have the honor of presenting..." He was unpracticed at formal introductions but eager to unload this minx. The countess took charge. Rorin stepped back, noticing now how he was being studied, uneasy at the untoward attention. More birds came in to perch.
Then, at last, Vindax. "Beautiful kill, Shadow."
"Thank you, Prince." Shadow moved into place behind him as the countess began her introduction.
"Your Highness, may I--"
"Bastard!" Lady Elosa screamed, and fainted.
"It isn't possible!" Vindax said for the fourth time.
The floor below the aerie was divided along three sides into stalls for humans, primitive stone boxes, most containing only a leaf-filled mattress. Someone had attempted to furnish one in a style more fitting for royalty, with a bed, a small rug, and drapes on door and window. And even that was remarkable, thought Shadow, when all of it had probably been flown in on birds' backs over the wild and barren landscape. Now the prince was slouched on the bed, glaring furiously, and Shadow leaned patiently by the doorway.
They had put the hysterical Elosa in the care of the women. They had interviewed the terror-stricken groom and sent him off under guard. Now they were trying to make sense of it all.
Tuy Rorin had admitted to being the keeper's bastard and to looking very like him. He had gone so far as to give an opinion that the prince was even more like him. Elosa's shock was now explained--but how to explain the explanation?
Laughter drifted in from the stairwell. The courtly gentlefolk of the royal party had scorned the little castles and towns they had met at the beginning of the trip; they had complained and grumbled. As the habitations had grown more humble and conditions worse, the complaints had increased. The first of the lonely and primitive post aeries had shocked the courtiers speechless, but thereafter their attitude had changed. They saw themselves then as heroes, pioneers. The journey would not last forever, and they could dine out at court on the strength of their stories; they would be experts in hardship, seasoned campaigners. Now they seemed almost to relish the worst, greeting each new privation with black humor and joyful predictions of even bleaker things in store.
"It is just not possible!" That was the fifth time.
Then Vindax looked up at Shadow. "My parents were married on the kiloday of Father's accession, of that I am certain. I was born on 1374. The siege of Allaban was somewhere around 750 or 760..."
"745 was the day Foan reached the palace," Shadow said. "I heard Ninomar saying so when we were talking about it in Gorr."
"So they got back to Ninar Foan around 765 or thereabouts? It doesn't matter..." Vindax was very pale, a gleam of sweat on his forehead. This was no ordinary paternity problem they were discussing--this was the succession. "I'm sure Mother has told me that she stayed about a hectoday there, so say 865 was when she and the others set out for Ramo. Foan went with them for a very short way..."
"That's still five hectodays before I was born!" he shouted.
Shadow put a finger to his lips. "He has never been to court?"
Vindax dropped his voice. "Never! I asked why, of course. All I was told was that his post was here, defending the frontier." He frowned. "It is odd, isn't it? The frontier's been quiet ever since--Karaman has never tried to attack Ninar Foan. You'd think the premier noble of the realm would have visited the court at least once in...in my lifetime."
His distress was painful, and Shadow wished he could think of some comfort to offer. "Isn't Foan a relative, a distant one?"
Vindax shrugged. "Just about every peer in the kingdom has some royal blood in him." He pondered for a moment. "He's the great-great-grandson of Jarkadon IX, my great-great-great-grandfather. That makes us third cousins, once removed."