He reached over to Shadow's already cramped hands.
"Take them two at a time. Two fingers straight: that'sBa.Bend the first one, that'sBe.Bend it more, that'sBo.Now first finger straight and bend the second, that'sNa.Nine of them:Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So.So you take the eight two at a time makes four--right? and nine ways to make the two. That word for 'egg' I showed you...no, like this...that'sSaneNEso.'Egg' isSaneNEso!"
"Why? I mean, why theBostuff?"
Potro looked impatient. "Because people remember sounds, not shapes. So Gramps says and he invented this.SaneNEsois easier to remember than what you're looking at. So you learn the sounds and then make the shapes, or watch the shapes the birds make and remember the sounds and what they mean. It's easy once you get the hang of it. That water word, remember this? That'sBoboNEsa-beseSEna-sosoNAbo."
"I don't suppose you could just teach the eagles to read, could you?" Shadow asked.
The twig arms were folded over the wickerwork chest. "You want this lesson or don't you?"
"Yes, please."
"Then don't be silly. B'sides, how would they write back? Now let's hear it:Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So."
"Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, Se...Sa..." said Shadow.
"No!Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So."
Five minutes later Potro jumped up. "That's the first lesson. I'll just confuse you if I do more. You learn the sounds and the shapes and we'll start words tomorrow. And work those fingers; they're really bad. Worst I've seen. 'Scuse me."
He glanced up and flickered his hands at the sky, then ran down to the perching wall and scrambled on top of it. A second later a huge feathered shape swooped past him and he was gone. Shadow stifled a cry and then relaxed as he saw the bird soaring away, one foot down with Potro sitting on it, holding on to the leg, his own skinny legs sticking out in front. In a few minutes bird and friend had vanished into the sky.
And at Allaban most of all there was little wizened Karaman himself. Retired farmer, he said, and even more retired priest, but he was father confessor to the whole country. Everyone came to consult him: the politicians and the priests and the neighbors and the birds. He had no title and no office, and yet nothing seemed to be decided without him. His quiet smile was everywhere and for everyone, calm and understanding. "A quiet, earthy man," Ukarres had called him, and Ukarres had known him much better than he had implied.
But let him start talking about the birds and then the zeal showed. Shadow met it first on his thirteenth day in Allaban. The two of them and a few others were sitting on Karaman's porch, drinking cider and planning Shadow's trip to Ninar Foan. A couple of Karaman's older grandsons were going to accompany him as translators, for Shadow had not yet progressed far in bird talk. Rescuing IceFire was going to be easy, they agreed. They could stay out of sight in the hills until the eagles reported that there were no men in the aerie, then just go and get her--she already knew they were coming.
Delivering Vindax's letter would be trickier. If Ukarres or Elosa--or even the duke himself--got hold of it, then it might vanish without trace. Ninomar would not suppress it, nor would the countess, but they might be gone already, and obviously accidents could happen to anyone around Ninar Foan. Shadow would have to make sure that many people knew about that letter. That meant attracting attention--and attention meant danger.
It was Karaman himself who suggested that Shadow stand on the perching wall beside IceFire. That would impress! And have NailBiter hover in the updraft below, he said. If Shadow had to leave in a hurry, NailBiter could catch his sling in midair.
Shadow gulped. Was an eagle capable of that? he asked.
He provoked an explosion. The quiet old man suddenly became the prophet, words pouring from him as he stamped up and down the porch. From the expressions on the others' faces, they had heard it all many times before, but it was new to Shadow--this was the rhetoric that had toppled the throne of Allaban.
"Capable? They are as smart as you are, if not smarter! Stop thinking of them as animals! They are people!
"It is their world, not ours! You have only to look--they were made for it and we are not. They ruled it and enjoyed it untrammeled until men came.
"How could they have understood? They saw us come and start killing their game, their food. At first there would be little of that, and perhaps at first they did not mind, for they are generous. But then men started putting up fences and sowing crops, and there was no more game there. And men started breeding livestock! How could the birds have known that those were property? They have no property except their eggs. They could not have understood that those beasts were not there for the taking like all others. They cannot hear our words; men did not see that their combs were speaking. The fault was ours, for they have no hearing, but we have sight. But neither understood, and it was war.
"Then men discovered that a hooded bird is helpless. How? Perhaps that was wisdom from the Holy Ark. Perhaps it was just a lucky chance discovery--lucky for men.
"They had soared the whole world--an eagle can stay aloft for days, did you know that? Male and female together, singing of their joy and of beauty. There are many things you cannot talk about with an eagle: unrequited love, or interior decorating, or music, or cooking, or taxes. They think our minds unbearably cluttered. But try beauty! Try philosophy! Honor...duty...joy...loyalty...logic! And they have more than a hundred different words for 'wind'--they taste the wind, play in it, dance in it, use it. They are spirits of the air itself. We chained them to the ground!
"They use time as we do not. They are at once incredibly faster than we are and incredibly slower. Your NailBiter and his mate probably chose each other within a few minutes of first sight--and they will still be bonded when your grandchildren are old. They can pass information a hundred times faster than we do, yet they can take days to discuss a single kill. They count to eight--eight points on a comb--and it is their pride to have eight great-grandchildren, neither more nor less. But they have insights into mathematics that we cannot comprehend, into space and time.
"But we hooded them, blinded them! They soared no more. A captive bird lives hooded or blinkered or chained...or doing what a rider tells it. Their captivity is more cruel than we impose on our fellows in dungeons, for they can see and talk with their free brethren and yet may never join them.
"Their cawking is sacred to them, yet we pen male and female together and so force our choice upon them. We feed them drugs to make them breed, for sex is not a drive with them as it is with us--copulation is merely a deliberate act of child making, as we might build a house. They think us insane about mating, yet it is a private thing to them also, and we give them no solitude.
"We treat them as beasts, and they are people, and we made them slaves."
The cracked old voice rose to a shout.
"And our punishment was to be made slaves ourselves!