The White Gryphon v(mw-2

by Mercedes Lackey

  Amberdrake had pulled out all his most elaborately beaded and embroidered robes in anticipation of this; Winterhart would have been in some sartorial difficulty if it hadn’t been for Lady Cinnabar. The Lady, it seemed, had used all of her old court gowns as padding on the floor of her floating-barge when planning for the evacuation of Urtho’s Tower. That was clever of her, and reasonable given that fabric for padding was not a high priority and that her gowns were not made of stuffs that could be used as bandages or other useful articles. The clever aspect was that she had packed her gowns in a way that allowed her to retrieve the robes and dresses unharmed. “All” of her court gowns comprised a formidable number, and most of them were utterly unsuitable for the life of a Healer in a half-finished city.

  Not all of the gowns were still pristine, and the lighter the fabric, the more it had suffered from wear and the intervening decade. Winterhart, however, was smaller than the aristocratic Cinnabar, and even those articles showing signs of wear or weakness at the seams could be cut down for her and look new. Jewel and Corvi had spent most of the sea voyage frantically—but delightedly—retailoring those gowns to suit their new owner. There was nothing a hertasi enjoyed more than costume-making, and there had been little enough of that during the war with Ma’ar or the search for a new home. Even Gesten had gotten into the act, much to the amusement of Skandranon.

  So now Winterhart could put on as fine a display as Amberdrake, wearing her elaborate gowns with all the aplomb of the lady of nobility she had once been. The difference was, now she was not suffering under the expectations of her high-ranking family; now it was Amberdrake who was under the careful scrutiny of countless critical eyes, and she who needed only smile and whisper a bit of advice unless she chose otherwise.

  She was enjoying it; Amberdrake was quite sure of that. He thought about Winterhart with a wry smile as he looped string on his fingers, preparatory to making a cat’s cradle. She was enjoying the luxury and pampering she had not had in decades. For the past ten years she had done all of her own chores, her own cleaning, her own cooking—or rather, she had done those things with the help of Gesten and Amberdrake. For years before that, she had lived the rough life of a trondi’irn in Urtho’s army, a healer and tender of Urtho’s gryphons, a post where there were few luxuries and no pampering. Even Urtho himself had lived a life positively austere by the standards of the Haighlei Courts.

  “Is Silver Veil able to visit us this afternoon?” Winterhart asked suddenly. Amberdrake covertly searched her face for any hint of jealousy, but to his relief, there didn’t seem to be any signs of it. He would not have been at all surprised to discover that Winterhart was jealous of The Silver Veil. His mentor was one of those fine-boned, ageless women who, once they achieve maturity, seem to hover at an indefinable perfection until they are very old indeed. Her hair had turned silver in her teens, and she had capitalized on what might have been a handicap for someone in her profession by growing and cultivating it until it reached the floor, making it the trademark that had become her name. She was as strikingly graceful and beautiful now as she had been when he knew her, and it would not have been unexpected for Winterhart to react with jealousy at the inevitable bond between astonishingly beautiful mentor and student.

  “What do you think of her?” he asked cautiously, looping another strand. “Your own opinion, not what you think I want to hear.”

  “I like her,” Winterhart said thoughtfully, her gaze turned inward for a moment. “If you can say you ‘like’ someone as self-contained as she is, that is. I want her to like me, and not just be polite to me, and that’s not just because she is your old teacher and your friend. I like to listen to her talking; I think she is fascinating. I hope that I may age as gracefully.”

  Amberdrake nodded; it was a good observation. ‘To answer your question, she said she wanted to come to our suite this afternoon, if that is all right with you.”

  “When everyone else is taking a nap, which is a good time for northerners like us to get together and pretend we are accomplishing something even though we aren’t,”

  Winterhart chuckled. “I thought that was so absurd when we first arrived here, for everything to stop at the height of the day—but now, I can’t imagine even trying to get anything done when it’s so horribly hot. Even Windsong takes her nap without arguing now, and I thought that was nothing short of miraculous.”

  “But it’s the perfect time of day to socialize,” Amberdrake pointed out, verbally, since his fingers were weaving and unweaving intricate knots. “Especially if little ‘why-mama’ is chasing dream-butterflies. And if we northerners can’t bear to sleep during the day when we should be getting work done, at least we can keep each other company.”

  Gesten appeared in the doorway, as if on cue. “Windsong is asleep, and Silver Veil is here, Drake,” he said. “Would you prefer the sitting room or the garden?”

  Amberdrake raised an eyebrow at Winterhart, signifying that it was her choice. After all, his hands were tied at the moment. “The garden, I think,” she replied after a moment. “I hope the fountains in the pool will make it cooler than the sitting room.”

  By now, as always, even the cool stone of the floors was not helping cool the air much. It was always like this; shortly after noon, the heat began to collect, and it weighed down the very air until the sun neared the west-em horizon.

  Gesten shrugged. “They’re supposed to, so they tell me,” the little hertasi said philosophically. “I’ll have Jewel tell someone to send up the usual refreshments.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d serve us yourself, Gesten,” Amberdrake said before Gesten could leave. “I don’t think we’re likely to say anything dubious, but it’s hard to tell how the Haighlei would translate some of our conversations or mannerisms.”

  Gesten nodded and went off to attend to all of it; no need to elaborate with him. They all knew that the so-attentive servants were reporting whatever they saw and overheard to their superiors, and possibly to masters besides their superiors. That might have been the reason for Winterhart’s choice of the garden as well; the sound of the fountains would cover any conversation from more than a few feet away.

  Discretion, discretion. Still, this is better than facing the Haighlei warships. They were on sufferance here; how much, perhaps Silver Veil could tell them. That was what she had implied when she asked for this meeting; that she could tell him more about their position here, now that the delegation had settled in.

  Winterhart smiled as Amberdrake showed off the finished cat’s cradle, then she slipped off the side of the bed and smoothed down her skirt. Amberdrake unraveled the elaborate finger and string sculpture, rose to his feet and straightened wrinkles out of his robes. Together they made their way to the tiny garden in the center of every suite of rooms. The Palace sprawled out across the Royal Compound, rather than being built in the vertical as Urtho’s Tower had been. It was a vast complex of suites connected by corridors, with tiny gardens everywhere, as if they had been scattered like seeds and the Palace had been built around them. Every garden had one huge tree growing in the middle, shading everything, and most had more of the same ubiquitous fountains and pools that their own garden had. The theory was that this allowed more air to flow through the rooms, and the falling water cooled the breeze further. Since there was no need to worry about heating this vast pile, there was no need to build so as to conserve heat.

  Their garden was mostly water, a complex of fountains and connected pools with a fabulous collection of water-lilies, water-irises, and flowering reeds to set off the fat fish in their armor of red and black, gold and white. Their tree was a huge giant, towering far above the roof three stories above, and shading the entire courtyard perfectly. Gesten had set a low wooden table and three upholstered lounges out in the flagstoned midst of the pools, and Silver Veil was already there, wearing a thin gown of finger-pleated linen with gold ornaments on her arms and bare ankles, trailing her fingers gracefully in the water. Feeding th
e fish, perhaps? They were always greedy for crumbs. She rose as they approached. Her thin, delicate face was suffused with pleasure.

  She kissed both of them on the cheek, impartially, and they all took their seats as Gesten arrived with cool beverages and slices of fruit arranged artfully on a plate. At the moment, the earlier breeze had died away to nothing, leaving only the heat and the babble of water; Winterhart picked up a fan made of woven palm leaves and created a breeze of her own. The palm-leaf fans woven into fanciful shapes were another Palace fixture; servants left stacks of them everywhere.

  “Does it ever get cold here?” she asked, a little desperately, as Silver Veil followed her example with a fan shaped like a spade blade.

  Silver Veil shook her head, and her silver hair followed the motion. “Never; in the deep of winter it is sometimes very cool during the night, but only so that one wants a brazier of coals in one’s bedroom, and perhaps a light blanket. I never thought that I would long for snow before I came here.”

  “Well, we of White Gryphon have snow enough in winter for you,” Amberdrake replied, “if you can get leave to come visit. You would be very welcome.”

  But Silver Veil only sighed. “I fear not,” she said reluctantly. “I am one of Shalaman’s Chief Advisors, you know; there is only Truthsayer Leyuet and Palisar, the Speaker to the Gods, besides me.” She coughed delicately. “I fear that their advice is rather biased in some areas. I would rather be here to counter them, so to speak. In fact, that was why I wished to speak with you both, now that you have had time to settle in and view the situation.”

  “Oh? I am flattered that you would hold our welfare in such esteem, Lady,” Winterhart said carefully.

  Silver Veil laughed; it sounded like one of the fountains. “So discreet, Winterhart!” she exclaimed, with no hint of mockery. “From what northern court did you spring? It took me years to learn such discretion.”

  “Some are born with such grace,” Amberdrake replied quickly, to save Winterhart from the question. Nevertheless he was enjoying the exchange, for this was like some of the conversations he had shared with her in the past, during the few moments of tranquillity during their flight from Kiamvir Ma’ar’s forces. Now, however, the conversation was better, because it was between equals, not world-wise mentor and overstressed pupil. I would not want to repeat that time for any amount of money, but I am glad to have experienced it, in a peculiar way. Certainly I am grateful for the privilege of learning from her.

  When all was lost to him, she had taken him in. When he was adrift, she found him the avocation best suited to his talents. Who else would have done such a thing?

  Silver Veil bowed her head in ironic acknowledgment of the truth of his answer. “Well, here and now comes the time to leave a certain amount of discretion outside the garden, and speak frankly, northerner to northerner, friend to friend.” She leaned forward, her violet-gray eyes darkened momentarily. “I need to give you some small idea of the world you have blundered into.”

  “It baffles me,” Amberdrake confessed. “I am not certain how to act, and I find myself doing nothing rather than chance an incident.” He looked to Winterhart for confirmation, and she nodded.

  Silver Veil fanned herself quietly. “Your instincts must be guiding you correctly,” she told them both, “For that is the safest thing to do here; nothing. Had you noticed anything odd about the Court itself? Physical things, I mean; things that seem familiar, but antique.”

  Amberdrake frowned, for he had, although he could not name precisely what had set off those strange feelings of familiarity at one remove. But Winterhart was quite certain.

  “There are strange echoes of our past here,” she said. “I see it in the clothing, some of the customs, even some of the food. But none of it is like the North we left.”

  “Precisely,” Silver Veil said, with a nod. “It is like the North of years, decades, even centuries ago. That was what gave me the key to understanding these people. They both abhor, and adore, change.”

  Amberdrake shook his head. “I’m not sure I understand,” he began.

  Silver Veil interrupted him with a gesture of her fan. “The Haighlei are a people who avoid change at all cost. Their own customs go back in an unbroken line for hundreds of years. To them, our way of life with its constant changes and readjustments is one short step below blasphemy, for if the gods wanted men to change, would the gods not decree it?” She shrugged. “The point is, they not only hate change, it is mandated against by their holy writings. Change comes as the gods decree, when the gods decree.”

  Winterhart frowned. “But if that’s the case, how is it that customs of ours have ended up in practice here?”

  “A good point.” Silver Veil looked pleased. “That is one reason why change, with all the attraction of the forbidden, is very appearing to many of them. And the answer to how change comes to them is this; someone, at some point, understood that without some changes taking place, this society would rot from within. So at some point in the past, the holy writings were modified. There is a celebration connected to an eclipse that takes place once every twenty years. The more of the sun that vanishes, the more change can be integrated into the society. Thereafter, however, it does not change, except for deep exploration of the details. That is why you see things here that have only been written about in our lands. And that is why the office and position of kestra’chern were established here in the first place.”

  “But it is the kestra’chern of a hundred years ago that they imitate?” Amberdrake hazarded.

  “More like two hundred or more, the kestra’chern who were the pampered and cultured members of the households of the very elite, and never seen by the common folk at all.” She pointed her fan at the two of them. “You are on sufferance here; you embody change. Only if Shalaman accepts you and adds you and your presence here to the Eclipse Ceremony will you be actually accepted by the Haighlei as a whole.” She flicked her fan idly at a blue fly blundering past. “You don’t have many friends here. The Speaker to the Gods is firmly against your presence. Others are curious, but fearful of all the changes you represent.”

  He nodded, slowly. “I understand. So the question becomes, how do we persuade others over to our side?”

  She shook her head, and her jewelry sang softly. “Gentle persistence. It helps that you have Skandranon with you; he is such a novelty that he is keeping peoples’ minds off what you folk truly represent. I was accepted because what I am fell within the bounds of what they had already accepted. You must tread a careful path, Amberdrake. You dare not give offense, or give reason for the Haighlei to dismiss you as mere barbarians.”

  “What else do we need to know?” Winterhart asked urgently.

  “Mostly that the Heighlei are very literal people; they will tell you exactly what they mean to do, not a bit more, and not a bit less.” She creased her brow in thought. “Of course, that is subject to modification, depending on how the person feels about you. If you asked one who felt indifferent toward you to guard your pet, he would guard your pet and ignore the thief taking your purse.”

  Amberdrake nodded, trying to absorb it all.

  “What can you tell us about this Eclipse Ceremony?” he asked.

  Silver Veil smiled.

  “Well,” she said, with another wave of her fan, “Obviously, it begins, ends, and centers around the Eclipse. . . .”

  Zhaneel found the hot afternoons as soporific as any of the Haighlei, and usually followed their example in taking a long nap. Even the youngsters were inclined to sleep in the heat—her Tadrith and Keenath and Winterhart’s energetic girl Windsong. Well, since the twins had been born, she had been short on sleep, so now she might have a chance to make it up at last. Let Skandranon poke his beak in and around the corners of this fascinating Palace; while it was this hot, she would luxuriate in a nest of silken cushions, or stretch her entire length along a slab of cool marble in the garden.

  She was doing just that, when one of the servants en
tered, apparently unaware of her presence. The twins were asleep in the shade, curled up like a pair of fuzzy kittens beside one of the pools, for they liked to use the waterfall as a kind of lullaby. The servant spotted them and approached them curiously, then reached out a cautious hand to touch.

  Not a good idea, since the little ones sometimes woke when startled in an instinctive defensive reaction. An unwary human could end up with a hand full of talons, which would be very painful, since each of the twins sported claws as formidable as an eagle’s. She raised her head and cleared her throat discreetly.

  The servant started, jerking upright, and stared at her for a single, shocked second, with the whites of his eyes showing all around the dark irises. Then he began to back up slowly, stammering something in his own language. She couldn’t understand him, of course, but she had a good idea of the gist of it, since this wasn’t the first time she’d startled a servant.

  Nice kitty. Good kitty. Don’t eat me, kitty—

  She uttered one of the few phrases in his language she knew, the equivalent of “Don’t be afraid, I didn’t know you were coming in; please don’t wake the babies.”