'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!
'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.
