'Every parent deserves some time without the young,' she heard, just as clearly as if the kyree was her own Companion. 'They are too tired to get into mischief that I cannot distract, and anything that wishes to harm them will have to come at them through not only me, but all the defenses of the Vail. And, I suspect, the large white hooved ones.' Hydona gave in; Elspeth readily understood her reluctance to have the gryphlets out of her sight, considering all that had happened to them, but the kyree was right. If the little ones weren't safe here, none of them were. They rose to their feet, folded their wings tightly against their sides to avoid knocking anything or anyone over, and took their leave.
Darkwind led the way up and down yet another path; this one ended beneath one of the enormous trees she had only glimpsed through curtains of bushes and vines. There were quite a few Tayledras gathered beneath it, but for the first few moments, all her attention was taken up by the tree itself.
Simply put, it was so large that an entire house could have been built within the circumference of its trunk. A curving staircase had been built around it, leading up to a kind of balcony three stories above the clearing.
Soft lights hung from the bottom of the balcony, preventing her from seeing anything above that level, but she had the feeling that the staircase continued upward. When she shaded her eyes and peered upward, she caught sight of other, fainter lights near the trunk, half-obscured by the enormous branches. The Chronicles had once referred to the Hawkbrothers as the 'tree-dwelling Tayledras,' and she knew that Darkwind lived in a kind of elaborate platformed treehouse. So it looked as if that was the norm for the Hawkbrothers, rather than a concession to danger.
At least now she knew why they made a point of cultivating those enormous trees.
Such marvels could SUPPORT not one but several dwellings.
When she turned her attention back to the gathering, she discovered that most of the Tayledras here were dressed very like Darkwind; in relatively 'plain' clothing, and with hair either cut or bound up to be no longer than just below the shoulders, dyed in patterns of mottled brown and gold. They looked more like the Shin'a'in than the mages did and it wasn't just that their hair wasn't white...It's because they're scouts, fighters, she realized, after a moment. Like Darkwind, they couldn't wear clothing that interfered in any way with fighting movements, nor could they afford to indulge themselves with elaborate hairstyles. Like Darkwind, they had a certain economy of movement; nothing dramatic, nothing theatrical-nothing done just for the effect. There were strong, well-trained muscles under those silken tunics, hard bodies that saw furlongs of patrolling every day.
She felt herself relaxing further in their presence, even before Darkwind began introducing them to her. These were people who, although they were familiar with magic, had very little to do with it; they were somehow more down-to-earth than the mages in their sculptural robes.
And they were more like Heralds than anyone she had met yet.
She took careful note of the names as they were introduced to her, the habit of someone born into politics. Winterlight and Stormcloud, Brightmoon and Daystar, Earthsong, Thundersnow and Firedance-she matched names with faces, with smiles shy or bold, with personality quirks. Darkwind had explained the Tayledras habit of taking use-names, names that described something of what the person was like. She had to admit that it wasn't a bad system; it was much easier to match a name with a face when Winterlight (one of the few scouts to grow long hair) had a thick mane that when he was persuaded to unbraid and unbind it, looked like moonlight pouring down on snow-when Daystar was as sunny of disposition as the twins-and when Firedance was always in motion, never quite still, mercurial in temper and bright with wit. She wondered if she ought to take a use-name as well, though it shouldn't be hard for them to remember Elspeth, Skif, Gwena, and Cymry. Four names were easier to remember than an entire Clan-full.
'These are the k'sheyna scouts,' Darkwind said, when he'd finished the introductions, confirming her guess that there wasn't a mage among them. 'Not all of them, of course; we still have a full patrol out tonight.
But enough for now, I think; any more of us, and you would be overwhelmed with names and faces.' She smiled, but said nothing. This wasn't the time to point out that she'd coped with four times their number at ordinary state dinners.
True, she had Talia's and Kyril's help, and the nobles and dignitaries didn't look quite so alike...'You are lucky, Els-peth,' the young fellow called 'Stormcloud' told her. 'Truly. We are in festival gear now. If you were to see us tomorrow, you might find it hard to tell one from the other.' Earthsong nodded vigorously. 'There is a tale among Outlanders that we are all mage-born copies of a single Tayledras.'
'I can see how they would think that,' she replied after a moment of consideration, imagining them all garbed in Darkwind's drab scouting clothing, with their hair bound up against snags. If the women-already slender and athletic-bound their breasts, it would even be difficult to tell male from female. 'Of course, I'm sure you don't do a thing to encourage that now, do you?' She was pleased when they laughed at her sally; sometimes the most difficult thing about dealing with a new people was finding out what they considered funny. And as she had discovered on her own, knowing what made someone laugh was the surest shortcut to making him your friend.
'oh, no, of course not!' Firedance exclaimed, eyes wide and round with mock innocence. 'Why would we ever do anything like that?' The others laughed again at his disclaimer, then settled themselves back where they'd been before Darkwind brought her into the clearing.
'We were just having some music and a little dancing,' Earthsong said, as he picked up a flat drum. 'We thought you might like to see and hear some of it, so we asked Darkwind if he'd go pry you away from the gryphons.'
'Not that we're great artists,' Winterlight spoke up quietly, 'But we do enjoy ourselves, and I think music is better than any amount of words at telling people about each other. A language that needs fewer words.'
'That's what our Bards say,' she replied, looking for an inconspicuous spot to put herself, and finally giving up and taking a seat on one of the tree's enormous roots.
Winterlight gestured in agreement, and picked up something that she didn't recognize; a trapezoidal box strung like a harp. He set it on his lap and pulled a couple of hammers from under the strings, then glanced at Earthsong. The young scout evidently took that for a signal; he began to produce an elaborate rhythm on his flat drum with a single, double-ended stick; Winterlight listened for a moment, then joined him, not by plucking the strings as Elspeth had expected[, but by striking them deftly with the hammers. Within a few moments, others had joined in, either on instruments of their own or simply by clapping. Some of their instruments were things that Elspeth recognized; most weren't, with sounds that were not-quite-like anything she knew.
The music was far from unpleasant. There were unexpected bellsounds in the rhythm, a wailing wind instrument that added an unearthly element like a singing hawk's scream, and the occasional whistling improvisation by one of the scouts. It was quite infectious, and she found herself clapping along with it.
It wasn't much longer before the Tayledras got up to dance. Here was another difference between the
