couldn’t. And it wasn’t the sort of thing you’d ask your Speaker to say for you. Human people often looked different than you found out they were too: Lord Ranruth, for example, one of her father’s councillors, whom she’d been terrified of when she was little, because he was always wearing a scowl. The scowl was short-sightedness: as soon as you got close enough, his big round face broke into an enormous smile. If people and pegasi were different from the way they appeared, mightn’t their Alliance be different too?
Different how? Why was there no ... no feel to it, this great important thing? Why did it seem no more than a silken representation on a banner, this thing that Balsin had called the foundation upon which their country was built? And that made magicians central to their lives? How could it hearten you when you couldn’t feel it?
She’d asked her father shortly after the awful morning that had resulted in Fthoom’s being given his charge, if Fthoom was likely to do it, well, honestly.
The king made a snorting, humming noise rather like a pegasus laugh. “No. But I’ve assigned him a huge number of helpers, which will, I hope, go some little way toward softening the blow of my stripping him from his position in my court and, at the same time, make it harder for him not to do what I asked him to do.” The king looked bleakly into the empty air for a moment and addd, “ The sad thing is that I’ve meant for years—for most of my working life as king—to set that task. Why aren’t there more stories about friendship between human and pegasus? Even your favourite, Erisika, isn’t quoted much beyond that they fought together as why she considered Dlaiali a friend. But there has never seemed to be the time and the people to do it.”
Sylvi had done a quick intensive study of how to avoid Fthoom. This was made easier by the fact he never went anywhere without an entourage, and by the fact that he had the sort of mind that believed that doing something the same way added to his consequence, so he always used the king’s library’s west portal, which was, of course, the grandest. The drawback was that the king’s library was also the country’s largest and grandest library, so he rarely went to any others, allotting any searching, fetching and carrying tasks to his staff. Before the day of her binding Sylvi had learnt to like finding books in the library—you often found other interesting ones on the way to the one you were looking for—but since the day after her binding she preferred to send messages, like her father, and have the material she wanted brought to her.
The queen one day told her that Fthoom had submitted an interim report saying that the work was going well—
“Which means he hasn’t found anything,” Sylvi interrupted. “He’s not going to find anything because he is determined not to find anything! He doesn’t want there to be any record of real communication—real friendship—between humans and pegasi!”
“No, he doesn’t, but if his committee finds such a record, it will be reported,” said the queen. “And don’t forget Cory and Lrrianay—your and Ebon’s relationship may be unprecedented, but friendship between bondmates is not.”
“Dad said he’s always wanted to appoint a commission to do what Fthoom is doing now, and it had never been the right time,” said Sylvi.
“So there,” said the queen. “We’re getting some use out of Fthoom after all.”
Sylvi tried to smile.
“It will be all right, love,” said the queen.“Remember that the longer it takes Fthoom to find nothing—because I’m afraid I agree he probably will find nothing; if there were anything, it would be a favourite bedtime story, not to mention the basis of dozens of plays and hundreds of ballads—the longer Fthoom takes to find nothing, the more used our people will have become to seeing you and Ebon together. The more normal and ordinary it will be.”
It ought to be very normal and ordinary by now, thought Sylvi a little wryly. She and Ebon were very popular guests at fairs and fêtes and festivals and, with Fthoom on everyone at the palace’s minds, she and Ebon were encouraged to accept as many (carefully screened) invitations as they could bear to. Since Ebon reported that his family felt the same way, they accepted a lot of invitations. Ebon was much better about these occasions than