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  So the mystery was solved, here in far-off Allaban.

  Karaman sighed. "It was my fault, I suppose, or at least I was the excuse."

  "She betrayed her husband and her king at Schagarn?"

  "Not there, but nearby. And I find it hard to think of it as a betrayal, Shadow. I suppose I am a romantic, or was then. They were a tragic couple. He was noble, she was royal. He was handsome, she was beautiful beyond legend. They were as much in love as two human beings can be, like eagles, yet doomed to have only a few precious hours together and then be forever parted.

  "It was supposed to be a political meeting. Her father had just died, and she claimed to be queen of Allaban, so I had asked for her to be included. Aurolron had refused, saying he would speak for her as husband and as overlord. I had agreed to that. But after our business was over, after the king had left Schagarn and we were supposed to be leaving at first watch, Foan took me aside and said he had made arrangements. I said it did not matter now; he insisted, and I suppose I guessed. There were many guards, you can be sure, but they were watching the aerie and the stables. The two of us slipped away on bicycles to another house, not far off."

  Shadow's knuckles were white as he gripped the cider mug, his alcoholic haze vanished like a burned leaf.

  "There was no one else there except our host," Karaman said, gazing away into space and time. "No servants around. She gave me her word on the treaty without taking her eyes off Foan. The host tactfully suggested that he and I take a stroll. Soon I said I was weary and wanted to rest before our long journey began. Would he take me back to Schagarn? He did, and when we all arose at three bells, the duke was back also. So I suppose it was my fault. I suppose it happened, having seen the prince. Was I being deliberately nasty to Aurolron, I wonder?"

  "Where was this exactly?" Shadow demanded.

  "Oh, a lovely spot," Karaman sighed. "One of the old, old castles, fallen into humble straits as a local manor house. Set in a wooded dell with a tiny pond in front of it...ivy and gables and wild flowers...a storybook couple in a storybook setting. No, it could not have been betrayal. It was love, and surely love can justify itself."

  The king's letter had said:his background is relevant.The king knew, then, and had been telling the duke that he knew.I think you owe me this.

  "There is a dove cote and a rose tree in the courtyard?" Shadow asked. "The doves sit on the gables and purr?"

  Karaman turned to stare at the tears on Shadow's face. "You know it?"

  "Hiando Keep," Shadow said. "I also was conceived there."

  And at Allaban there was Potro, who was the youngest of Karaman's many grandchildren, a collection of bones aged around three kilodays, wearing nothing but skimpy shorts and burned almost black by the sun, his hair bleached white and flying loose in a comic parody of his grandfather's. He whirled everywhere around the homestead without pause like a young eagle himself, flashing teeth and filling the air with impudence and laughter.

  He was, Karaman said, as good a bird speaker as any, and the very day Shadow arrived, after he had been tended and rested and fed, Karaman led him out to sit on the grass under the trees. Then the old man seemed to snatch Potro out of the sky and sent him over to give Shadow a lesson.

  "Right!" Potro said, sitting down cross-legged. "Eight points on a bird's comb, okay?" And he put his hands together and held up a row of skinny fingers, with his thumbs folded down.

  "Right."

  "You don't happen to play the flute do you?" Potro asked.

  "Not that I recall."

  "Pity. I'm teaching a flute player, and he finds it easier." The words poured out, as they spilled from the birds themselves. "So each point on the comb can be bent left or right or straight up, right? That's as good as we can do. I mean the birds can do sort of in between, but that's more shade of meaning, if you know what I mean, like being funny or so on. I can read a little of it, but even I can't do it much.

  "So our fingers won't bend backward. We have to do straight for left and a little bent for straight up and bent a lot for right. Try that. Gawrn, you're stiff! So eight points for a word, a one-syllable word. This means 'egg.'" And he arranged eight fingers.

  Shadow muttered under his breath and let his fingers be adjusted.

  "Of course they don't hold it like that--they run it from front to back, and then the next word is starting before they've finished, the last one. Back to front for a question. And that's one-syllable words. Now, the word for 'water' has three syllables: this, this, and then this."

  "You're too fast for me."

  "That'sslow!" Potro said. "Way slow! I mean, they have to learn to slow down; your NailBiter is too fast for me yet, and even Gramps can hardly get what he says. He'll learn. But when you came over the pass, he'd probably been talking to the wilds before you even saw them. And in a minute or two, he'd have told them who he was and you were, and where you'd come from and where you were going and all about himself back to the egg. They can say more in a minute or two than we can talk in a day--If they want to, of course. They prefer to sing about it. Like they make up great long, long poems, and then they can take a whole day to say what a pretty hill that is, or something. Gabby, they are, but gawrn, can they go when they want to!"

  He reached over to Shadow's already cramped hands.

  "Take them two at a time. Two fingers straight: that'sBa.Bend the first one, that'sBe.Bend it more, that'sBo.Now first finger straight and bend the second, that'sNa.Nine of them:Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So.So you take the eight two at a time makes four--right? and nine ways to make the two. That word for 'egg' I showed you...no, like this...that'sSaneNEso.'Egg' isSaneNEso!"

  "Why? I mean, why theBostuff?"

  Potro looked impatient. "Because people remember sounds, not shapes. So Gramps says and he invented this.SaneNEsois easier to remember than what you're looking at. So you learn the sounds and then make the shapes, or watch the shapes the birds make and remember the sounds and what they mean. It's easy once you get the hang of it. That water word, remember this? That'sBoboNEsa-beseSEna-sosoNAbo."

  "I don't suppose you could just teach the eagles to read, could you?" Shadow asked.

  The twig arms were folded over the wickerwork chest. "You want this lesson or don't you?"

  "Yes, please."

  "Then don't be silly. B'sides, how would they write back? Now let's hear it:Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So."

  "Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, Se...Sa..." said Shadow.

  "No!Ba, Be, Bo, Na, Ne, No, Sa, Se, So."

  Five minutes later Potro jumped up. "That's the first lesson. I'll just confuse you if I do more. You learn the sounds and the shapes and we'll start words tomorrow. And work those fingers; they're really bad. Worst I've seen. 'Scuse me."

  He glanced up and flickered his hands at the sky, then ran down to the perching wall and scrambled on top of it. A second later a huge feathered shape swooped past him and he was gone. Shadow stifled a cry and then relaxed as he saw the bird soaring away, one foot down with Potro sitting on it, holding on to the leg, his own skinny legs sticking out in front. In a few minutes bird and friend had vanished into the sky.

  And at Allaban most of all there was little wizened Karaman himself. Retired farmer, he said, and even more retired priest, but he was father confessor to the whole country. Everyone came to consult him: the politicians and the priests and the neighbors and the birds. He had no title and no office, and yet nothing seemed to be decided without him. His quiet smile was everywhere and for everyone, calm and understanding. "A quiet, earthy man," Ukarres had called him, and Ukarres had known him much better than he had implied.

  But let him start talking about the birds and then the zeal showed. Shadow met it first on his thirteenth day in Allaban. The two of them and a few others were sitting on Karaman's porch, drinking cider and planning Shadow's trip to Ninar Foan. A couple of Karaman's older grandsons were going to accompany him as translators, for Shadow had not yet progressed far in bird talk. Rescuing IceFire was
going to be easy, they agreed. They could stay out of sight in the hills until the eagles reported that there were no men in the aerie, then just go and get her--she already knew they were coming.

  Delivering Vindax's letter would be trickier. If Ukarres or Elosa--or even the duke himself--got hold of it, then it might vanish without trace. Ninomar would not suppress it, nor would the countess, but they might be gone already, and obviously accidents could happen to anyone around Ninar Foan. Shadow would have to make sure that many people knew about that letter. That meant attracting attention--and attention meant danger.

  It was Karaman himself who suggested that Shadow stand on the perching wall beside IceFire. That would impress! And have NailBiter hover in the updraft below, he said. If Shadow had to leave in a hurry, NailBiter could catch his sling in midair.

  Shadow gulped. Was an eagle capable of that? he asked.

  He provoked an explosion. The quiet old man suddenly became the prophet, words pouring from him as he stamped up and down the porch. From the expressions on the others' faces, they had heard it all many times before, but it was new to Shadow--this was the rhetoric that had toppled the throne of Allaban.

  "Capable? They are as smart as you are, if not smarter! Stop thinking of them as animals! They are people!

  "It is their world, not ours! You have only to look--they were made for it and we are not. They ruled it and enjoyed it untrammeled until men came.

  "How could they have understood? They saw us come and start killing their game, their food. At first there would be little of that, and perhaps at first they did not mind, for they are generous. But then men started putting up fences and sowing crops, and there was no more game there. And men started breeding livestock! How could the birds have known that those were property? They have no property except their eggs. They could not have understood that those beasts were not there for the taking like all others. They cannot hear our words; men did not see that their combs were speaking. The fault was ours, for they have no hearing, but we have sight. But neither understood, and it was war.

  "Then men discovered that a hooded bird is helpless. How? Perhaps that was wisdom from the Holy Ark. Perhaps it was just a lucky chance discovery--lucky for men.

  "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."

  --Very ancient proverb

  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."
<
br />   "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.