A Gathering of Wings (4 page)

“It’s beautiful,” Malora tells the elder brother of Zephele and Orion, and kisses him on the cheek.

Above the canopy is a vaulted ceiling into which a mosaicist has inlaid a duplicate of the design in Honus’s bedchamber. Sparkling with tiny golden tiles, it has an orange
sun flaming at the center. Orion flings open the doors at the foot of the bed and Malora sees by torchlight a wild tangle of rose and honeysuckle and trumpet vine, fragrant in the cooling night air.

Honus clears his throat. “The garden wants taming,” he says.

“I like it,” Malora says. As she looks around, she is conscious of her friends’ eager eyes on her, but there is no need for her to feign delight. The builders, under Orion’s direction, have thought of everything: a wardrobe, shelves for her boots, and a lantern centered on the headboard so she can read in bed, another pleasurable habit she has acquired in Mount Kheiron. On the wall next to the bed, there is even a hook for the black-and-white braided rope that was once her father’s: her one essential tool for training horses. There is everything in her new house, she thinks, except a marble convenience and a bathing tub.

Lifting her long braid, she sniffs, thinking she had better bathe before she offends her dinner guests. She takes her fleece robe from the wardrobe where it hangs next to her wraps and tunics and trousers, checking to make sure that there is a cake of lavender soap in one pocket and one of lime-scented soap in the other.

But Zephele waylays her, beckoning mysteriously.

The centaur’s braided tail swings before Malora as she follows Zephele out into the garden. Down at the bottom, under its own broad blue-and-white-striped canopy, a tub sits on platform.

“Carved from malachite,” Zephele says with pride, “to
match your lovely Otherian eyes and your memorial necklace.” Malora wears the necklace every day. With its single polished malachite stone, it once belonged to her mother, Thora.

Malora goes over and discovers that the tub is filled with hot water, fragrant with rose mingled with lavender.

“I added the juice of two lemons because Honus says it soothes aching muscles,” Zephele says. “And surely your muscles must ache from hefting those hideous huge hammers all day. No fear of running out of hot water, either. There’s a sun-heated cistern on your roof, and another in the shade of those trees over there for cold.”

On the other side of a painted screen is a marble convenience. No more squatting in the bushes. Malora drapes her robe over the chair, set before a table with a gilt-framed looking glass. On the table is a pale blue bottle. Without uncorking it, she knows what it contains: the scent Orion concocted for her, Breath of the Bush. Also on the table is an array of brand-new silver-backed brushes. She fingers them admiringly.

“You are not to use those on the boys and girls, no matter how much you are tempted,” Zephele chides her. “They have their own brushes now.”

In the bush, Malora and the horses shared her hairbrush until the bristles were worn to nubs. Malora sighs happily as Zephele unbraids her hair, which falls to her waist and is the reddish color of the rocks of the Ironbound Mountains.

In the mirror, she sees Zephele wrinkling her nose. “You smell like a Pantherian buffalo hunter,” her friend says.

“Have you actually ever
smelled
a Pantherian buffalo hunter?” Malora asks.

“No, and I don’t care to, thank you very much,” Zephele replies. “Although I must admit I would very much like to
see
one. I suppose I will eventually, when my grumbleguts father finally consents to letting me visit Kahiro.” Zephele gives Malora’s hair a final raking with her fingers, then backs away. “There now. I will leave you to your ablutions. I promised I would help Honus and West in the cook tent.”

“Where is Sunshine?” Malora asks.

“Sleeping,” Zephele says cheerfully. Zephele is notorious for refusing to let her little yellow-furred Twan do very much at all for her. Since the Twani like to sleep, Zephele believes it is good to let hers have as much sleep as she likes.

“Can you guess what we’re having tonight?” Zephele asks.

“Barley Surprise?” Malora says.

Zephele grins. “That, my dear, has to be the evening’s least surprising detail, but I did make sure that West prepared us a creamy pood for dessert made with hazelnuts!”

When Malora emerges from her bath sometime later, bathed, scented, and wrapped in a green silken robe woven by Theon and embroidered by Zephele with purple flowers, they are all seated at the table waiting for her, the three Silvermane siblings and Honus.

“Where is Neal?” Malora asks, glancing pointedly at the empty bench.

Orion says, “Featherhoof has two new Highlander recruits he is hosting for an overnight in his hut prior to a camp-out in the bush, one of them being our cousin Brandle.”

“Brandle will take one look at the fence Neal made from animal vertebrae and skulls,” Honus says with a chuckle, “and go running back to the Heights.”

West goes around the table, offering food.

“Featherhoof says he has quite the challenge before him. He says Highlanders are sorry specimens,” Zephele says, “and haven’t I always said as much? My dear brothers excepted, of course! But I do think our father is taking this Founders’ Day promise a little too far, don’t you?”

“All I know,” says Theon, helping himself from the serving dish, “is that I haven’t seen our father this happy since …” He trails off, flicking a look at each of his siblings.

“Since before we lost Athen?” Zephele finishes for him.

Theon flinches at her boldness. “Well … yes,” he says.

The eldest of the Silvermane children, Athen, disappeared years before Malora came to Mount Kheiron. The centaurs believed him to have been the victim of a hippo attack. Malora has never said anything to any of them, but she has walked the river and swum and bathed in it daily and there are no hippos in this stretch of the Lower Neelah.

Orion says, “I agree with Theon. Father seems quite pleased with the way things are going.”

“But what about all these disputes?” Zephele says. “Today, the line of complainers wound clear down to the temple!”

“Perhaps
because
of this he is happy,” Orion says. “Father feels that nothing clears the air so well as a good argument.”

“I agree with your brothers,” Honus says to Zephele. “Medon seems to be in his element. He has single-handedly brought about what is, so far, a bloodless revolution. I predict he will go down in centaurean history as the Great Unifier.”

“The Great Grumbleguts is more like it,” Zephele mutters. “I think it’s very unfair. How can we have true equality when our father continues to look the other way while Flatlanders violate one Edict after another?”

“Flatlanders aren’t held to the same standards as Highlanders,” Malora speaks up.

“That might have been well and good in the past,” Zephele says, “but it’s hardly fair for Flatlanders to begin to enjoy the privileges of Highlander life without having to abide by the same Edicts that bind us.”

“Well put, Zephele!” Honus says, beaming with professorial pride. “But tell us, which Edicts do you believe they are violating?”

“Some of them carry weapons,” Zephele says.

“Only those on the Peacekeeping Force,” Orion says. “And they are authorized to do so. And in the outlying townships where wild animals are known to prowl.”

Malora, who is busily shoveling Barley Surprise into her mouth, pauses. No one has authorized her to own the knife she has just made in violation of Edict Three. Then again, she was excused from covering her head in observance of Edict Seven. While Malora has not gone out of her way to violate the Edicts, neither has she adhered to them.

“What about reading?” Zephele says. “Can your average Flatlander, apart from Neal Featherhoof, read even his own name, let alone write it? You are a gifted teacher, dear Honus, but you can’t very well be expected to teach them
all
to read and write.”

“We are recruiting more new teachers from among the Highlanders every day. I am in the process of teaching the
teachers, which leaves the two of you to study independently,” Honus says, cocking an expectant eyebrow. “Which I assume you are doing with the assiduousness I would expect from you both.”

“Oh, I am assiduousness itself!” Zephele says with an innocent widening of her eyes. Zephele is fiercely intelligent, but unlike Malora, she has no great fondness for lessons. “Still, you must admit that it may take years to bring about universal literacy.”

“I learned to read and write in days,” Malora says.

“Well, you’re different,” Zephele says. “You’re one of the People, and the People invented literacy and all sorts of other arcane pursuits. Plus, you’re the last human, and your dear little head is probably jam-packed with all manner of wisdom, like some sort of rare, sole-surviving plant pod, crammed with precious seeds.”

Malora swallows hard. She isn’t sure she likes this image of herself.

“And what about Edict Six?” Zephele goes on. “I’m told the workers in our own vineyard tap the vats and help themselves to flasks of spirits, and that the tasters actually
swallow
the wine they are sworn to spit out. Neal himself says they all eat meat every chance they get. And I have also heard,” she adds, her voice lowering to a scandalized whisper, “that married Flatlanders have been known … 
to swap mates
!”

“Now
that
, Sister, is a patent falsehood,” Orion says in a stern voice. “It’s malicious Highlander gossip, and I’m surprised you have stooped to such depths.”

“No, you’re not in the least surprised, Brother,” says
Zephele with a blithe wave of her hand. “Because flighty minds such as mine thrive in the shallows.”

“For reasons that elude me, you only
pretend
to be shallow, Sister,” Orion says.

“Besides,” Zephele comes back at him, “how do you know the rumors aren’t true?”

“Because Neal tells me so.”

“And since when is Neal Featherhoof the fount of truth?” Zephele says. “He might be the captain of the Peacekeepers—and, Kheiron knows, the light of our father’s life—but he’s a Flatlander, born and bred, and his fealty is to his own kind. I wouldn’t put it past him to cover for his philandering fellows. Or to help himself to the favors of some nubile Flatlander wife.”

“Zephele,
really
!” Honus says. “Sometimes I wish you would put that fertile imagination of yours to more constructive uses. Still, it may be time for a careful review of the Edicts. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them could do with a little amending or even suspension. The Fourteenth, in particular, given the troubles in the north, may be the first to go.”

Malora scans the suddenly grim faces around the table. By troubles, Honus means the attacks on Dromadi trade caravans en route from the west to Kahiro. The raids are believed to be perpetrated by a band of wild centaurs, an allegation at which the Apex scoffs. When the Apex scoffs, his subjects scoff, including Malora. Besides, her idea of a wild centaur is Neal Featherhoof. The Empress of the Ka has requested an armed escort comprising representatives from all the nations, which the Apex has so far refused to join. Malora listens with
only half an ear; talk about the world beyond Mount Kheiron interests her little. Mount Kheiron is her world now.

Orion says, “If the Fourteenth Edict against bearing arms goes, we might as well bid farewell to all of them.”

“I am simply saying,” Honus continues, “that events may require us, in the not-far-distant future, to modify our views and laws. It is worth considering that other hibes indulge in spirits and stimulants, eat red meat, and take up arms—and they live in relatively harmonious and civil societies. Perhaps, in their ways, better balanced than our own.”

“If you were not a scholar and an Otherian,” Orion says, “I would suspect you of entertaining treasonous ideas.”

“If I am guilty of anything it is of open-mindedness, Orion,” Honus says with a small smile.

“In that case, I hope my father closes
his
mind to your counsel,” Orion says, his voice chilly.

“Is there pood to be had?” Zephele asks, in an obvious attempt to change the subject.

Malora is relieved when the conversation turns to the upcoming Harvest Jubilation, which will be the first ever attended by both Highlanders and Flatlanders.

After they have eaten the hazelnut pood, washing it down with wildflower tea, Zephele rises from the table and trots out onto the portico. She returns carrying a package wrapped in crinkly blue parchment.

“The first treasure for your very own collection,” Zephele says, handing the package to Malora.

Malora unwraps it to find a small exquisite statue of a horse carved from black stone. Engraved on its back are a series
of stripes that radiate from his shoulders back to his haunches in perfect symmetry, scars left by the Leatherwings.

“Do you like it?” Zephele asks breathlessly.

The onyx horse has inset eyes made from sapphire. “Sky,” Malora murmurs softly, stroking the black stone.

“I commissioned the finest sculptor in Mount Kheiron to carve it,” Zephele says.

“Thank you, Zephie.” Malora places the object on the shelf next to the books Honus has given her: the collected poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a copy of
Puss in Boots
illustrated by Fred Marcellino, the writings of Epictetus, Judith Krantz’s
Scruples, The Cat in the Hat
(a book with pictures, the first book she ever read), and a novel entitled
Pride and Prejudice
, which Honus has recommended highly. Then Malora makes her way around the table and hugs each of her friends in turn. “Thank you all so very much. You are very kind to me, and I’m honored to have you as friends.”

“I believe that’s our cue to go and let Malora enjoy her new home in peace and quiet,” Orion says, rising from the bench.

When her guests have all taken their leave and West has cleared the table and retired to his tent, Malora fetches the flask of Breath of the Bush. She climbs up on the mattress and sprinkles the canopy, perhaps too liberally, for the gift of the statue has made her miss Sky with a sudden, sharp longing.