Shadow

    Frowns did not suit her lovely face. 'Sleep first, Shadow. You'll go to sleep in the sky.'

    'No,' he said firmly. He picked up the spoon and forced some of the meat into his mouth. Then more. He started gulping it down, suddenly aware of being famished.

    Feysa vanished as silently as she had come.

    'Who is that, Shadow?' It was a boy sitting across from him who spoke, but when he focused the face out of the background haze, it was Elosa, chalky and hollow-eyed in her flying suit. He had not realized that she was there.

    'That's Feysa,' he said. 'You haven't been to bed, either, have you?'

    She shook her head. 'If you can do it, then I can.'

    He slowed his eating, partly from table manners and partly because he knew he was being stupid to hog so fast.

    'You fly like a man, lady.'

    'Is that a compliment?' she asked.

    He could still smile, apparently; he hadn't known that. 'It was intended as one. I'll rephrase it. You're a wonderful skywoman, lady. You look in better shape than any of us.'

    She smiled back coyly. 'Then I'll accept the amendment and thank you. Now, who is Feysa?'

    He bit into the tough roll. The coffee was beginning to work. 'She's a lady's maid.'

    'She doesn't act like a lady's maid,' Elosa said, frowning.

    Shadow took another bite and chewed to gain time, studying her. She was obviously exhausted, as they all were, but he was honestly impressed by her courage and stamina--those could compensate for a lot of woolly- headed romanticism. Elosa was hill-bred--there was granite inside that elfin form. Perhaps he owed her a little wisdom.

    'At court, and under her own name, she outranks both the countess and Lady Ninomar,' he said.

    Elosa studied his face gravely. 'Explain.'

    He shrugged. 'The countess is the prince's mistress, right?'

    Obviously she had not known that, and a trace of color crept into her pale cheeks. He outlined a little palace politics.

    'And Lady Ninomar?'

    'Well, the countess obviously could not travel alone, so Lady Ninomar came also. Not his real wife, I shouldn't think.'

    Elosa bit her lip and said nothing.

    'And two ladies cannot travel without a lady's maid. So Feysa. There happen to be three main factions in the palace at the moment, and each one got to place a lady in the party. It was all carefully planned.'

    'Spies?'

    'Certainly,' Shadow said. 'Reporting what the prince says, who he favors, spying on each other. Some of the men are spies also, of course.'

    'I see.' She looked very prim and suddenly very young again. 'And whose mistress is Feysa?'

    'Mine.'

    Now she truly turned pink. 'Nice for you.'

    'Yes and no,' Shadow said. He was deathly tired, and suddenly his bitterness overflowed in a torrent. 'I had no say in the matter. I was told that the lady in question was coming and I would service her as required. Very practical--if she were assigned to anyone else, there would be arguments over precedence. Furthermore, I have no time to myself, as the others have--I attend the prince three watches out of three. So the others can find their own entertainment. Vindax was quite blunt--he did not want his bodyguard getting too horny to think straight.'

    'That's disgusting!' Elosa snapped.

    'I agree,' Shadow said. 'At the palace it works the same way. The countess--whoever she happens to be at the time--comes at third watch to the royal bedroom. She is always attended by a maid, who sleeps in the anteroom--where I sleep. I tried to complain and was told to shut up or I would cause a scandal. Sometimes they're very pretty. I understand that I'm regarded as a great improvement on my predecessor, so now they roll dice for me. Flattering, isn't it?'

    Elosa turned very red and said nothing.

    'As Shadow I have no life of my own, lady. My body functions are part of palace politics, I'm a naive little country boy, and I don't approve. I rapture the ladies provided, but I don't approve.'

    'Why are you telling me this?' she demanded angrily.

    He took a long draft of coffee, watching her. 'Because I think you could benefit from some truths about the court. If you get the choice--stay away from it.'

    She tossed her head, but before she could speak a voice behind her said, 'Leave us, Elosa.'

    Vindax!Shadow's heart jumped and then sank again. It was only the duke, bristly and sore-eyed like all of them, hair tangled and clothes filthy. He sank down on the stool his daughter had left and nursed a mug of coffee. Vice-Marshal Ninomar materialized at his side. Then a tapping noise sounded behind Shadow, and Ukarres hobbled up. Some days he seemed more crippled than others, and this day he was using two canes. Despite his haggard senility, he alone looked as though he had slept within living memory.

    That left only one missing, and in a moment Vak Vonimor, the rubicund eagler, hurried in to join the meeting.

    'Rorin's back, Your Grace,' he said. 'That's the lot.'

    Shadow's stew bowl was empty, polished, and he thought he could eat more, but it would put him to sleep.

    'I suppose the big question,' he said, 'is whether we extend farther or quarter the same ground yet again.'

    The others glanced at the duke.

    'No,' he said. 'First we're going to take a break. The men are past their limits; we all are. Why we haven't had accidents, I don't know. Even the birds are exhausted, and I've very rarely seen that in my life. Sleep for men, rest for birds. In another watch we'll start again.'

    'I have to agree,' Ninomar said in his fastidious, military fashion. His close-trimmed mustache was drowning in encroaching stubble.

    'And I say we fly one more patrol,' Shadow said firmly. 'He's been two days out there. If he's lying injured, then every hour counts. While we sleep, he dies. No, we keep going.'

    'Shadow?' said a voice like leaves blowing over stone.

    'Seneschal?'

    'Have you ever known a man to survive a batted bird?'

    'No,' Shadow admitted. 'But it can happen, and this is no ordinary man.'

    'You're looking at one,' Ukarres whispered. 'It happened to me. I survived. No--half of me survived...sky sickness. They said I was lucky; I have often wondered about that. I have very few parts that work properly. I hurt all the time.'

    'But,' Shadow said, and then stopped.

    'It was my fault--I should have noticed. SkyBreaker was his name, appropriately. He went down. Then up. Then down. Then he sauntered back to his roost as though nothing had happened, and they lifted me off and I screamed for three days. Believe me, lad, you may be doing your prince a kindness by not looking anymore.'

    Shadow was carefully not thinking those thoughts.

    'Look at the odds, Shadow,' the duke said quietly. 'You almost blacked out in the first few minutes. Most likely he died in that cloud, and we don't know which direction WindStriker took out of it. If the prince was alive after the cloud, he almost certainly died in the next hour--up and down as Ukarres says. The bird probably dropped from exhaustion when the batmeat wore off--she's old, remember, and had been thrashing hard. In that case he was killed on impact, or else he's been lying unattended for two days. There are very few places around here where a man could survive that, even if he was uninjured to start with.'

    Shadow banged his fist on the table, but the stone made no sound. 'We have to find him! Dead or alive!'

    Foan nodded patiently. 'But admit it--we're looking for his body. We can't risk living men to find a body. We must break it off for at least a full watch.'