The White Gryphon

assumed. Believe me, my love, it shows. So go and be your own gracious self, and show me how it is done. After all,” he said with a grin and a wink, “I enjoy gazing at you anyway.”

Like a hawk with the jesses cut, he sent her off, trusting she would return to his glove. And she would, of course, for like a true falconer and his bird, they were partners.

Or perhaps we are more like those Kaled’a’in scouts with their specially-bred birds, the bondbirds, who Mindspeak with the ones they are bonded to. She wondered what the Haighlei would make of those! They had relatively few domesticated animals, and most of them were herdbeasts. No horses, though—

They have sheep, goats, and cattle. They have those misshapen, hairy things that need so little water for riding and bearing burdens in the deserts, and donkeys for pulling carts. Dogs the size of small ponies! A few, a very few, of the Great Cats that have been partly domesticated. No house cats, no horses, no birds of prey. She smiled and nodded and exchanged small-talk with the envoy from the Kumbata Empire, and let part of her mind consider the possible impact that the introduction of each of these domesticated creatures could have on the Haighlei. The cats alone would cause a stir—those huge dogs had been bred to hunt equally large cats, and she could well imagine the delight that the elegant Haighlei would take in the graceful “little tigers” that the adopted Kaled’a’in had brought with them from their homes.

Trade and the possibilities of trade . . . it would be much easier on the citizens of White Gryphon if they could get their hands on proper plows, and not the trial-and-error instruments they had now, made by a weapon-smith who thought he recalled the one lesson he’d had in forging such things, twenty years ago. Proper boats, made for fishing, would save lives if the fishing fleet was ever caught by a big storm. Seeds bred to grow here—and the odd plants that the Haighlei themselves grew to eat—that would not fail in the heat, or sprout too late or too soon.

And in return—horses and cats, for a beginning. Lionwind, the k’Leshya Clan Chief, would be happy to learn of a “proper” market for his riding horses, which just at the moment were, to his injured pride, often trained to harness for pulling carts and plows. After that, there were surely skills they could exchange. Haighlei jewelry, for instance, was lovely and costly, but massive. Not crudely made, but with none of the detail that—for instance—the silversmith who made the Silver Gryphon badges could produce. Would the Haighlei like that sort of thing? They’d certainly admired the delicacy of Winterhart’s ornaments, so they might—particularly if the northern jewelry became a fad item.

Odd. I feel so at home here, as if I were bom for this place and this court, so rigidly structured, so refined in its subtleties. . . . The longer they were here, the more comfortable she felt.

The Haighlei ruled a territory more vast than anyone up north had ever dreamed; two Kingdoms—or Empires, for they had aspects of both—here, sharing the land between the Salten Sea and the Eastern Sea. Four more farther south, dividing yet another continent among them, a continent joined to this one by a relatively narrow bridge of land. The Haighlei called their rulers both “King” and “Emperor” indiscriminately, something that sounded strange to Winterhart’s northern ears.

Another member of the Court greeted her, and Winterhart smiled warmly into Silver Veil’s eyes, oddly relieved to see that she was no longer the only pale face with a northern gown here this evening. Silver Veil wore her hair loose, as always, and a pale gray silk gown that echoed the silver of her hair. “You are doing well, little sister,” Silver Veil said softly. “I have been listening, watching. Amberdrake is respected for his office and his training, but you are acknowledge to be a Power.”

She flushed, with embarrassment as well as pride. “Well, Skandranon has us all bested. He is doing more to impress the Haighlei simply by being himself than I could with all the clever words in the world.”

But Silver Veil shook her head. “You underestimate yourself, my dear. That is your one fault, I think. But be aware that my people do not underestimate you. You are a Power among them, and they will all, from highest to lowest, accord you that respect.”

Then she drifted away on another eddy of the crowd, as the dance of the Court carried them both off to other partners. Winterhart smiled and murmured greetings, and wondered about Silver Veil’s words. She certainly didn’t think of herself as particularly important beyond the fact that she was an envoy . . . but the kestra’chern was right, people were treating her with that sort of deference.

Not as if she were nobly born, but as if she were royal.

As royal as King Shalaman.

The King himself was here, sitting like a stiff statue on a platform about three steps above the rest of the room. He didn’t have a throne, precisely; he sat on a gilded bench, shaped like a lion, with the head at his right and the tail at his left. He wore the pelt of the lion over one shoulder, but the rest of his costume consisted of a robe of a brilliant saffron color, belted with a sash made of thousands of links of pure gold, so finely made that at a distance it appeared woven. His pectoral collar was made to match, with the stylized mask of a lion on the front. He looked neither to left nor to right, and Winterhart found herself admiring him for the fine figure that he presented. It was difficult to believe that he was over sixty; if she had not been assured of that figure, she would have assumed he was a vigorous warrior in his early thirties at most, and that his white hair was due to premature graying—or to the fact that he was also an Adept-class mage, and working with node-magic had turned his hair white.

Evidently he was only supposed to grace these gatherings with his presence, he wasn’t actually expected to mingle with his courtiers. She had the definite feeling, though, that he missed very little, and that what he himself did not notice, one of his advisors would tell him later.

Well, let them tell him that the Lady Winterhart is charming, well-spoken, and utterly opaque.