"Few men could ride the birds. They beat back the wilds and became the protectors. They demanded a price for that protection: food and housing and service.
"Fair enough, perhaps, at first! But gradually they raised that price, and a man on foot is no match for one on a bird, so the skymen came to rule all the rest. The protectors became the leaders, and the leaders the lords. Men always seek to rule one another. Birds do not.
"We encouraged the skymen to enslave the bird, and then they used them to enslave us!
"And it served us damn well right!"
Chapter 14
"A boy's best friend is his mother."
JARKADON left King Shadow and the guards indoors and walked out alone across the terrace to where his mother was sitting. She seemed about half the size he remembered, a black elf under a bell tree, staring at nothing across the terraces and parks. Her hair had been cleansed of dye and was now starkly white, her small face like dried bone.
"Good sky to you, Mother," he remarked, pulling up a chair.
She turned and looked at him for a moment, glancing at the clump of papers he held in his hands. "And to you, Son."
"Still moping? You should at least keep your hands busy--sew, perhaps. Or have someone read to you. This just sitting isn't good for you."
"Perhaps I could take anatomy lessons," she said quietly, and went back to watching the horizon again.
He suppressed irritation and made himself comfortable. "I came to ask you for something."
"Why else? I am allowed no social calls."
"Mother!" he said as patiently as he could. "Pay homage to me as everyone else has and your indisposition can end at once."
She did not answer.
He sighed. "I want you to tell me about Schagarn."
That startled her, and her eyes came around quickly. "I was never at Schagarn."
"No, you were at Kollinor. Most of the time."
She frowned and then shook her head. "Your father painted the kingdom with blood to keep Schagarn secret. Ask elsewhere."
He shrugged. "I have news of Vindax."
"What! What news?"
"You will tell me about Schagarn, then?"
Her lip rose in contempt. "Very well. What I can. When did you hear?"
"Two days ago. He is alive."
She covered her face and seemed to pray.
"Apparently. I have a letter supposedly dictated by him, with his signet. So at least his body has been found, and Foan seems to think it is genuine. Here, read it."
"You read it to me," she said. He read it.
She sat for a long time and then said, "So who did that terrible thing?"
He watched her carefully. "Ninomar still thinks it was an accident; but if it was deliberate, then the duke's daughter, Elosa."
Then she wept while he waited impatiently.
She rubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand. "So now you will abdicate and become regent?"
He did not want to annoy her, but he could not help laughing. "Mother! You know me better than that. Foan is burning feathers on his way here. Worried about rebels--and Schagarn. The news of my dear half brother will not be released until the duke's face is available. Just in case of arguments."
She looked frightened. "If you bastardize your brother, then I suppose you do to me what you did to King Shadow?"
"Quite impossible," he said cheerfully. "You wouldn't last nearly long enough for all those things. He did very well, didn't he? Much tougher than he looked. I enjoyed that." He put a hand on her arm. "Mother! I know I have faults, but I'm not the first king of Rantorra to succeed through violence. Yes, some of my friends get a little out of hand sometimes when we are partying, but you are my mother. Even your naughty son has his standards. You are quite safe, I promise you."
She was not convinced. "Your father wasn't."
"He was going to disown me. We'll talk about that later. First Schagarn. What was it all about?"
She turned and spoke to the distant sky again. "Alvo rescued us from Allaban, and the rebels took over. I was called to court, ordered to marry your father--you know all that. We thought Karaman would attack Rantorra next, and your father was preparing for war. Then Karaman made an offer, a truce. Alvo said he thought that Karaman could be trusted to keep his word. He brought him leftward along the Rand under safe conduct, and your father met with him at Schagarn. They agreed that there would be a truce, to last for your father's lifetime--no penetration past Eagle Dome by either side. That was all."
He wondered if he could trust her. "There is no record of a treaty."
"Of course not. Kings do not treat with rebels."
He thought about that. "Why so much secrecy?"
"Kings do not treat with rebels," she repeated. She was hiding something more.
"And Father had a very selective memory for verbal agreements," he said, "so that would be part of it. But it's not enough. You are right about the blood--there are no witnesses left. And a truce could have been made by letter. Why a meeting?"
"Ask Alvo when he gets here," she said.
"No!" he shouted. She jumped. "I want to know now!" he said.
She sighed. "I suppose you should. The history books are faked, too, about Allaban. You think that the rebels were skymen? You think Karaman was a warrior? He wasn't. He was a priest, a sweet little man. There were no skymen on the other side, only farmers and priests and tradesmen. And eagles."
"You're joking!"
"No," she said. "It wasn't a rebellion; it was a religious crusade, preached by Karman." She swung around and looked at him fully for the first time. "The eagles are intelligent!"
"Well, yes..."
"Not smart! Intelligent. Like people. Karaman had learned their language. Most of the fighting was done by the birds alone, without riders."
Jarkadon started to laugh and then saw that she was serious.
"Have you ever tried flying a whole day on a blinkered bird?" she snapped. "While trying to fend off attack? That was how we escaped--our own mounts were fighting against us. Many fled the palace; very few of us made it to Ninar Foan.'"
Her women had told him that this was one of her good days. She had seemed to be recovering her wits. But this?
She guessed his thoughts and smiled. "Just a mad old woman? But that was why the blood. 'My troopers can fight birds,' your father said, 'and they can fight men, but they cannot fight ideas.' He suppressed the heresy."
"Schagarn?"
"Schagarn most of all," she agreed. "Karaman was a much better rebel than negotiator. He offered the truce as the price of a meeting. If he could convince the king, then the eagles would be freed in Rantorra. Of course he proved his point--I knew it all from Allaban, and so did Alvo. He made the birds do tricks and pass messages, anything your father could ask for. There was no doubt at all."
"But Father was not convinced?"
"So he told Karaman, and the truce had been promised. Karaman went back to Allaban, and the birds stayed in the aeries."
"I should hope so!" Jarkadon Said.
"And your father put the far Rand into quarantine, to keep the secret. That is why so few people have traveled between Ramo and Ninar Foan."
"Until Vindax." Jarkadon snickered.
"You have ended the treaty," she said, and smiled at her hands in her lap.
"Shadow ended it! We had a trial--brief, but legal. But you were not at Schagarn."