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  "A woman!" he exclaimed. Then he smiled. Oh, that smile! "I beg pardon...a lady." He did not bow--but then, he was royalty, so that must be correct. "A lady bearing a message?"

  She dropped to one knee and bowed her head so that her hair fell over one shoulder.

  "I...I am Elosa, daughter of the keeper, Your--"

  "The devil you are!" the prince said.

  She looked up in surprise. His eyes had narrowed in sudden wariness. "And what message can possibly require so highborn and so beautiful a courier?"

  No, she was not going to tell him about Ukarres's stupid plot. He had plenty of guards with him; he could not possibly be in any more danger at Ninar Foan than he was always in at court. He was her destiny! She would not be cheated. Her father would not come--he would be too busy searching for her around Koll Bleek. The prince would not send her home alone; he would order her to stay here over third watch, and tomorrow he would see what a fine skywoman she was. If her father wanted to warn him away again afterward, well, at least he would have had a chance to get to know her properly.

  "I just came to say that you are indeed welcome to Ninar Foan, Your Highness."

  CHAPTER 3

  "Sow trust to reap loyalty."

  --Proverb

  THE crown prince was ten days ahead of his official itinerary when he arrived al Vinok. He had been eight days ahead of it at Gorr and five behind at Sastinon. His progress, in short, had been unpredictable--and that was Shadow's doing.

  Flying in itself was dangerous. A flight along the whole length of the Rand was especially perilous because of its duration and because much of the country was poorly settled by men and well inhabited by wilds. For a prince to attempt such a trip was very close to folly; the inhabitants of savage lands tend to have long memories for injustice, real or imaginary. Rebels might plot political advantage; brigands might dream of ransom.

  What was needed, Vindax had long since decided, was something he had flint met as a child in the palace school. He had not then known what it was, only that a few of the more humbly born seemed to have already developed some different way of thinking. He ran into it again when he went through the motions of enlisting in the Guard in order to gain flight training. No one was deceived into believing that he was an ordinary recruit, but one benefit was that he came to know a few young men from outside the aristocracy.

  Once again he discovered this unfamiliar way of looking at the world, that he eventually analyzed as an ability to see it as it really was and not as it should be, plus a willingness to make it into what it might be, not what it ought to be. Eventually he put a name to it: common sense. And he discovered also that common sense did not flourish among the rituals of courtiers or the rule books of their bureaucrats.

  Just knowing that it existed did not impart it, however. He was an aristocrat himself, and he could not think that way. But when he conceived his journey to Ninar Foan, he knew at once that he must include some of that common sense among his baggage. It was for that reason that he had scandalized the family, the council, and eventually the whole court by insisting on appointing a commoner as his new Shadow.

  Tongues wagged and heads were shaken, but he had his way. At the banquet that followed the dubbings, the topic displaced even the queen's health.

  And the very next day, that same commoner set the court on its ear a second time.

  Shadow had spent an entire exhausting watch absorbing information under the restless eye of the crown prince. He had greeted first bell with relief, expecting that the worst part of his day must now be over, but it was not to be. Now he was living the life of a public personage, one which could not be divided as neatly as that of lesser mortals into periods of work, play, and sleep. The next item on the agenda, he learned with horror, was dinner with the king and queen.

  The monarch lived a very public life, and such private gatherings were rare. How the two Shadows fared at them depended on the king's mood--they might be excluded, or ignored like furniture, or treated as family members--but this occasion was designed to evaluate the new appointee, and there were six places laid around the table. It was an intimate affair, employing only six footmen, two butlers, and enough gold plate to establish a barony. The table stood on a secluded terrace, well shielded by shrubbery and flowers, shaded by tinsel trees. It overlooked the palm garden but could not itself be overlooked by anyone. In Ramo, most events took place outdoors, in the constant gentle sunshine.

  The king was being gracious, dressed in the plain white garb that he preferred. The queen was being even more gracious in a gold gown which did not suit her pith-hued complexion; she inquired politely after Shadow's dear mother, whom she had obviously confused with some other lady. She also tended to drop things and forget what she was saying in midsentence.

  Jarkadon was a younger version of the king and an older version of the obnoxious child Shadow remembered, wielding a humor like a skinner's knife. His seventh kiloday was only six days off, and there was some discussion of the state hall, but the diners had barely reached the soup course when the king displayed his interest in birdflesh by remarking, "And what mount will you fly on your journeying, Vindax?"

  The crown prince glanced sideways. "Shadow? Your advice?"

  Shadow choked in the process of tasting Vindax's soup. "I think agility would not be advisable, Prince--it would merely make it harder for the rest of us to cover you. A flying rock--probably a mature female. Certainly nothing which could outfly NailBiter."

  "NailBiter?" The king's frown chilled the air. "You do not propose to fly cover on our son with that terror?"

  Awash with despair, Shadow faced that gaze of blue ice. "Yes, Your Ma--King. He and I are a good team. I should be less comfortable on a strange bird, and I can hardly practice now without neglecting my other duties." But he had just lost hope.

  Vindax was amused. "Which is more important, Shadow?" he asked. "NailBiter or your lunch? I shall remain here. The palm garden is directly below us. If you think you can convince us?"

  Shadow rose and left in silence.

  By the time he had visited the prince's apartment and donned a flying suit, he had worked up a heady dose of anger.Show the bastards!He stormed into the aerie, and NailBiter, he thought, brightened at the sight of him, turning his head to glare even more ferociously than usual. His comb rippled and reddened, and he fluffed his glassy bronze plumage, but he was not pleased at the unusual tightness of the saddle girths.

  Bird and rider plunged from the roost. The palace was well located on a rocky plateau flanked by no less than three updrafts, and Shadow had no problem gaining altitude, as he studied the royal palm garden far below and planned his trajectories. Then a simple knee movement folded NailBiter's wings, and they dived...open wings to level out...skim between palms...off into the far-side thermal. A few such passes and he had the trees well placed and could start being fancy, folding in the bird's wings for narrower passes, until he was flashing at full attack speed between trees which he could have touched with outspread arms. It was simple insanity, and yet he felt strangely unmoved by the danger. He had already lost his life the day before, had he not? Word was spreading, courtiers pouring into the palm garden to watch this spectacular suicide.

  On one pass he banked NailBiter and looped back the way he had come, flying his eagle like a sparrow. Show the bastards.

  Then he tried a couple with his hands in the air, NailBiter blinkered and blind, guided only by his rider's legs. He was running out of ideas. Should he try to steal the dinner off the royal table?

  How many passes did they need? He had made his tenth or twelfth and was climbing once more in a thermal when a guard challenged him. Shadow recognized the heraldry on the uniform--this was the Honorable Ja Liofan, a cocky young bastard who couldn't put an arrow in a barrel if he was leaning on it, and obviously the only guard not smart enough to recognize Shadow or ignorant enough to interfere.

  Liofan was higher and behind and had his bow drawn, but troopers were trained
to escape from such predicaments, and NailBiter could identify the threat by instinct. A swerve, a few beats of the bronze wings, a bank--and the positions were reversed.

  Shadow was unarmed, but his mount was not, and a touch of boots against thighs was enough to bring down the great talons and launch an attack. Liofan gaped in horror and dived, NailBiter close behind. The two birds hurtled over the palace, less than five lengths apart, Ja Liofan probably measuring his life in seconds. He twisted around to shoot--and the arrow went ludicrously wide. He swerved again...lost air...and the deadly talons were closer still...back down across the palace rose garden, barely skimming the trees...Any guardsman who tried what Shadow was doing would be instantly cashiered. If he lost control, then he was going to commit a very fast murder.

  Now Liofan was in full flight, his bow discarded, his screams quite audible. NailBiter's comb was dark crimson with the rage of bloodlust, and Shadow no longer needed to direct him, was rather fighting to hold him back from closing, the bird throbbing in frustration, bewildered by the conflicting signals. Far out above the city, Shadow drew ahead and turned his prey and drove him back over the palace once more. NailBiter closed within a length, and Shadow was almost ready to blinker him and pull off, but then the gap widened slightly--NailBiter had seen the joke. He was still just young enough to enjoy the sort of game that young wilds played. His comb faded to a more reasonable color and began rippling gently--and the astonished Shadow could relax. Suddenly it was easy. All he needed to do then was keep the contest as close to the palace as possible. He drove his hapless quarry a half dozen times over and through the palm garden until finally the devastated Ja Liofan ran out of air, landed his bird in a bush, and the game was over.

  NailBiter had shown he could be controlled. Back at the aerie, Shadow rubbed his comb until the eagle quivered like an earthquake, and then broke more rules by rewarding him with a mutebat.

  When he returned to the royal quarters, the king rose and shook his hand--an extraordinary honor. "Magnificent, Shadow," he said. "We have not seen a display like that in many kilos." He was about to pull off a ring, the standard royal gratuity, and then paused. "No, we shall issue a renunciation, freeing Hiando Keep from taxes for a kiloday."

  Shadow stammered his thanks; his father would bless him with raptures. It was astonishing that the king would remember the name of his father's house. Vindax was frowning.

  "Such an anticlimactic ending," Jarkadon mourned. "After all, it was only a trooper."

  Vindax made no comment on the affair, not even when he and Shadow withdrew. Even now the prince did not retire for private relaxation or recreation; he sent instead for Lord Ninomar, vice-marshal in the Guard and hence the third-ranking military officer in the kingdom. He was also commander of the crown prince's flight. A ruddy, wiry little man of about fifteen kilodays, with the self-confidence of impeccable ancestry, he sported a bristly red mustache which clashed oddly with his thinning brown hair. He had apparently been called from table, for there were crumbs in the mustache, but his uniform was a tailor's masterpiece, glittering with decorations. Shadow wondered how good his flying might be, but then, breeding was more important than skill.

  This was a formal audience. The three men remained standing in a corner of another terrace flanked by mosaic walls and a marble fountain, with guards, aides, and other observers safely out of earshot behind windows.

  "You have had time to prepare your plans for the journey to Ninar Foan?" Vindax asked.

  "Certainly, Your Highness." Ninomar smugly produced a sheaf of papers and proceeded to read them. He read them as though he had never read them before.

  Vindax listened with an impassive face, Shadow with steadily increasing horror. His estimate of his own life expectancy slid from a hectoday to almost zero. This would be self-inflicted carnage.

  At the end the prince nodded. "Impressive," he said. "You seem to have thought of everything." He turned his head slightly. "Shadow, have you any comments?"

  For a moment Shadow was not sure if this was a mere formality, and then decided he had better not treat it as such.

  "A few, Prince. The twelve spare birds...even the Guard never attempts to move more than three spares at a time."

  "That is not in the regulations!" the vice-marshal snapped, reddening.

  "Nevertheless it is the practice," Shadow replied. "And even three are too many. Spares are the commonest cause of accidents. I should take none. The size of the party...true, the Guard will sometimes fly in troops of fifty, but control is hard to maintain in an emergency."

  Vindax was still silent, so Shadow plunged ahead. "We shall not be a flight of skilled troopers, for--with all respect to your entourage, Prince--many will be civilian. To fly in drill spacing..."

  "Perhaps hunt spacing," Ninomar conceded.

  "Wider still--range or greater. Space is our best defense for the prince. And that is my business, Vice-Marshal."

  Ninomar's face grew as red as his mustache, but Vindax remained impassive. Shadow tore and savaged the marshal's plans to a shower of feathers. The problems of provisioning and perching so many in a poor countryside...no more than six troopers, and not the moguls and scions named by Ninomar, but able young archers, competent also to tend the birds...paired birds so far as possible, with only a few singles for communications if needed...one lady's maid was plenty...the itinerary to be flexible and not advertised except in general terms...

  No point remained unblunted, no facet unscratched. The marshal was crimson and beyond speech by the end--he knew what rank this insolent stripling had held until the previous day.

  "Thank you, Shadow," the prince said. "I had envisioned a larger retinue, though. The numbers were mine."

  "Then divide it into three, Prince, flying a watch apart."

  "No," Vindax said thoughtfully. "A small group may even impress more by demonstrating confidence, and your point on provisioning is good. What of baggage, if we have no spares?"

  Shadow was beginning to feel more hopeful. "I was thinking only of your personal safety," he said tactfully. "Certainly we could use a small advance party, perhaps several, two or three men in each." That was so obvious that he hadn't thought of it himself until then. Damn, he had had no time to plan! "They of course could take spares, inspect accommodation and security..."

  Vindax nodded gravely. "My Lord Marshal, I accept your proposal..."

  Lord Ninomar took a deep breath.

  "...with the few amendments which Shadow has suggested. Possibly he may offer further advice in future."

  The crumbled remains of Ninomar departed--even his decorations seemed to have lost their shine. Then Vindax broke the rules by spinning right around to look at Shadow, still frowning.

  "Feel any better now?" he snapped.

  It was trust absolute: Shadow was to have supreme command.

  Yes, it felt better. All in all, Shadow decided, that interview had tasted as good to him as the mutebat had to NailBiter.

  Chapter 4

  "Don't put all your eggs in one nest."

  --Skyman humor

  AND so, sixty-four days later, Shadow had brought Vindax safely to Vinok and almost to Ninar Foan--

  "What rank is Shadow?" the girl demanded. She was red as a half sun, raging at having mistaken him for the prince, and he wondered how so tiny a form could contain so much anger.

  "No rank, lady," he said. "I fly cover for the prince. But NailBiter needs to eat sometimes, so today I was advance scout." He tried a smile, but it died unanswered. "We saw two unexplained visitors arrive ahead of us--"

  "How can you have no rank?" she snapped. He thought that in calmer moments she would be quite attractive, almost a beauty, and she had none of the buckteeth or other deformities which had worried Vindax. She qualified politically; physically she might very well satisfy his need for a royal breeding partner.

  "I am just Shadow. I fly cover for the prince, bird fodder." She opened her mouth to argue, so he added, "By birth I am a commoner, lady."<
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  That helped not at all--she had knelt to him. Why the rage? She was not the first to have made the error, for the subtleties of court insignia were little understood in these remote parts, but no one else had taken it so hard. And the starry eyes had not been for him, obviously.

  The horizontal sunlight was cut out momentarily as an eagle came in to perch. This was the second stranger, then, the failed hunter, and he had found easier prey, for a vicunya hung from the great beak.

  "Who's this, lady?" Shadow demanded.

  "My groom. And you address me as Lady Elosa, or my lady: not just lady!"

  "Not me," Shadow said. "They have special rules for me. Come along, I must check him for weapons before the prince gets here."

  She stalked along beside him angrily. The groom had come through the bars and was looking for a hooding pole so he could pull back his bird's blinkers to let her eat. He flashed Elosa a huge grin.

  "Got one!" he crowed. He was very young and no obvious threat.

  Then he saw Shadow. He shied, whipped off his helmet, dropped his goggles, and made a deep bow.

  "Who the hell are you?" Shadow demanded. The nose, the eyebrows, the whole face and the build--it was uncanny.

  The lad went pale under his dust streaks and windburn. "Tuy Rorin, Your Highness, groom to His Grace--"

  "I am not the prince," Shadow said, and almost added,"But you are!"

  Of course there were innumerable royal bastards floating around Rantorra. Perhaps one of those by-blows had been banished to the far end of the realm and this was some impoverished descendant, a royal cousin.

  "Oh! Beg pardon, my lord," the boy said, but his eyes flickered momentarily toward Elosa and then downward to hide a smile.

  "Attend to your mount, groom," Shadow said. Then he roared:"NailBiter!Oh, crap!"