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To Thee, meek Majesty! soft King
A Pair of Silver Doves The Dove of the Temple simply had no time. One would think, given the small army of flock boys assigned to wait on his every whim, from bringing him his dinner to washing his hair, that he, Eothan, would somehow manage to string two minutes together to call his own. "I expect you'll have them," Pytir said, when Eothan mentioned, in passing, that for the past four weeks had had been unable to relieve himself without it being worked into a schedule of some sort. "After the Festival is over." "After the festival is over it won't do me any good in the slightest." Eothan pulled the circlet of beaten platinum wings from his brow, letting his hair fall down around his face in a shining dark cloud. "I'm the first Dove since Alveron himself, and I'll probably be the last, once they get wind of what Osprey's got lined up for me and for whatever poor bastard comes after me." The two songbirds were hurrying down the long corridor that spanned the distance between the main temple entry and the inner rooms of the temple, shivering over the clatter of their footsteps and the cold wind outside. Even in the tightly chinked stone passages of the temple the torches and lamps were dancing in the breeze, swaying with the boughs of evergreen hanging from the arches and filling the air with the smells of lamp oil and pine resin. "I'll be singing from now until thaw." "You can't expect it to simply pass by unnoticed." Pytir was, if possible, even colder than the Dove, his black fur cloak wrapped fiercely around him, the pale skin that so suited his Lark colors flushed red with cold. He at least was dressed in his customary tunic and boots, but Eothan had just finished Evensong, and even the wrap Pytir had been waiting to give him could not help the fact that the Dove was wearing little more than a drift of fabric and his collar. "Not when they've actually got you to show off and have had you long enough to know what to do with you." "My first year there was hardly anything for me to even sing." Eothan sighed down at his circlet. "Plenty of tradition for you and Rey, naturally, but not a damn thing to do with the Dove. I swear Osprey's spent every year since then thinking up ten more cycles for me to solo." "He'll come up with something worse," Pytir said, taking the steps to the songbird chamber two at a time, "If we're late for dawning song tomorrow. Honestly I don't really mind, so long as I get a hot bath and a warm bed and a cup of tea within the next hour." Eothan made a noise in his throat that was decidedly unmusical, and tripped, sandals flailing, over the Thrush, who had been standing in the doorway waiting for them. "Where have you been?" Rey demanded, raking back the heavy golden hair that hung in such an artful twist over his shoulder, and that Eothan had disrupted by colliding with him. "I've been waiting for you ages." "Getting tomorrow's set listings from Osprey," Pytir said, like a dirge. "We got three more buckled on us, I'll have you know, and none of them are a plate of honeycakes." "Three more?" Rey lifted his eyebrows. "What for? We had four each already." "There's been an heir to the throne born." Eothan's legs folded under him, fortunately onto a large brocade pillow. "This evening, in point of fact, which is why Osprey held us up after Evensong. So now we have another cycle each on the great unification of Alfir and Valos, and how princess Tharis is the symbol of all that, and her shining cloud-pale hair of Alfir nobility, and her blue eyes of the kings of Valnon, and blah blah blah blah blah. I'm sure she will be greatly impressed by all this, and might even make the royal effort to burp up." Eothan fell backwards onto his pillow, tossed his circlet in the general direction of a small lacquer table, and missed. The platinum wings and their dripping pearls fell with a demure splash in the bathing pool. "Damn," Eothan said, blandly. "Cloud-pale hair?" Rey said, twitching a smile at Pytir, "Just like our frosted Alfir Larkspur, hmm?" "Frosted," Pytir agreed, from the bottom of a cup of the tea he had found steaming quietly on a brazier waiting for him. "It doesn't get this cold in Clarie." "I should fish my wings out of the bath before I step on them in the morning," Eothan said, without making the least motion to do so. "Only that I can't actually make myself move." "Pity." Rey inspected his nails. "Tribute's in, and if you didn't want that set of colored inks you got from the papermaker, I was going to trade you that ebony fruit knife for them." "Tribute?" Eothan sat up, blue eyes sharp as he worked something out. "Our tribute for the festival! That's it!" He was up and into his room in a flurry of sandals and twilight colored silk before the other two songbirds could inquire as to what, precisely, had set him off this time. "Shall we go and see what he's into?" "Mrr." Pytir agreed, draining his cup. "Now that I can feel my toes. It's like a tomb in the corridors." That the Dove was simply mad never crossed their minds. They knew full well he was mad, it was just a matter of in which particular way at the moment. But, as Rey had pointed out once, being sane wasn't needed for the Evensong, and it had to be a fair trade for the fact that Eothan could sing like nothing else since Alveron had walked the earth. "No," Eothan said, to a large stack of exquisitely tailored under-tunics, and to a carved shell quill holder, and a bottle of almond-scented hair oil. "No, No, No." "I'll take it if you don't want it," Rey said, sweeping the bead-curtain aside. "Except for the almond-oil, it gives me a rash." "I want it, so don't go getting any ideas." Eothan scowled at the pile of rich gifts on his floor: tribute from the citizens of Valnon for the upkeep of their songbirds, due every year at Festival of the Stars. "I'm looking for something for someone else, that's all." "Oh really, you don't have to get me anything," Rey said, waving a hand. "Unless, like I mentioned, those inks--" "Someone else?" Pytir said, without asking directly, and knelt to straighten a stack of scrolls Eothan had disrupted in his searching. He glanced sidelong at Eothan through the tendril of hair that would never stay properly raked back. "What did you have in mind?" "Nothing that's here." Eothan sat back on his heels. "Nine fires of Hasafel, if I had had even a moment to myself I could have written him a song, but even that's not what I want, there's nothing quite right--" "Are you sleeping with a Godsword?" Rey asked, without preface. Eothan stared at him. "What?" "You're sleeping with somebody," Rey said, "I was just wondering if it was a Godsword. It's the sort of thing you'd do." He crouched down between the two of them. "I thought it might be Lord Trevlene, since he was on leave here for so long and always came to Evensong, but you never seemed interested in him--" "I don't know what you're talking about," Eothan said, his blue eyes going dangerously dark as he sifted through his tribute without seeing any of it. "It's Festival of the Stars, everybody gives presents to us and to each other, what's wrong with me wanting to give one to somebody?" He spun suddenly on the Thrush. "And what business is it of yours? You're sleeping with Pytir." Pytir became suddenly intensely interested in a pair of tooled leather boots. Rey was unmoved. "Of course I am," he said. "It's no secret. And it's not like I was going to go tattling to Osprey or anything, I was just wondering." "You can keep wondering," Eothan said, and did something violent to a fur coverlet that had never once wronged him. "You don't have to bite my head off--" Rey began. "He's not sleeping with a Godsword," Pytir said, to the pair of boots, and stopping what was turning out to be a first-rate fight. "He's sleeping with the Temple's Wing." The silence was absolute. Eothan's mouth worked without any sound coming out of it. Rey made an indistinct gurgling sound that died before it could mature into anything usefully coherent. Pytir slogged ahead. "You are, aren't you. I know you go sneaking off most nights, and you go through the courtyard and the garden, which is unguarded, and the only place that could take you is to the Birds of Prey tower, or to the Wing's chambers." Eothan made a visible effort to keep his eyebrows on his face. "I could be sleeping with Osprey. Or Shrike. Or... or anybody." "But you're not." Pytir allowed himself a small smile. "All right," Eothan sighed, knowing he was beaten. "All right. Not that it's any of your business. And before you say anything, nowhere in the code is it written that the Dove shall not keep company with the Temple's Wing." "Mostly because there's never been a Dove before," Pytir's smile matured into a sly grin. "And even if there was, I wouldn't have said anything. Is he as lovely as they say? He must be. What's he like? What do you want to give him?" "Yes," Eothan said. "And he's actually very quiet, and sad, and he can't be much older than us. And if I knew what to give him we wouldn't be having this conversation." "I've thought it must be like that, being the Wing. Nobody ever really sees you, and you never sing anymore." Pytir considered. "I don't know what sort of gift would suit him." The Lark turned to the Thrush. "What do you think, Rey?" "With the Wing?!?" Was all Rey managed to get out, after considerable effort. "Keep up, Rey," Eothan grinned. "We're ten measures ahead of you." Rey shut his mouth with a snap, and turned on his heel to leave the room. He took four paces, turned back around, picked up the inlaid box with its phials of crimson and blue ink, and stalked to his room, bead curtain rattling behind him. "Don't worry," Pytir said. "He won't tell, he's just frosted that I didn't tell him I knew." "Thanks." Eothan sank down, face in hands. "I don't know what to do. I can't buy anything, and even if I could, what would I get?" Pytir considered. "Do you think he's lonely?" "When I'm not there," Eothan said, "I know he is. Sometimes even when I am there." The Lark was thoughtful, chewing his lip. "I have an idea," he said. "Get out of your temple dress into something warmer, and put on your cloak." "You're amazing." Eothan said, a half-hour later as they stopped to part ways in the corridor. "Remind me never to underestimate you." "Hurry," Pytir said. "You'll be short sleep enough as it is, and Osprey will have a stroke if you're out of voice tomorrow." "He can have one," Eothan shook his head in amazement. "Pytir--" "Go!" Pytir hissed, shaking his head. "Thank me tomorrow. If we have a moment." He turned and hurried down the corridor back to the Songbirds' chamber. Eothan shifted the small shape hidden inside his tunic, and turned and ran the other way. Shadows dogged his footsteps. It was truly late by now, and Eothan was too rushed to use his customary caution, instead running flat out and hoping Osprey wasn't in the mood for a late night stroll. The side door to the garden was unlocked and Eothan pushed it open, gasping at the sudden cold. Snow was falling, big thick flakes that hung in his eyelashes. Eothan took the gravel path halfway up, walked through a stand of holly trees thick with berries, searched out one brick exactly identical to the other hundred limestone bricks in the section of wall, pressed it, and emerged, snow melting in his hair, in the private chambers of Lateran VIII. The Temple's Wing had been reading, a glass of wine half-drunk on the table by the fire, another one full and waiting. He looked up, unsurprised, at the songbird who appeared so suddenly in his room. He was not as beautiful as rumored and Pytir wondered, being far more so. Eothan somehow managed to forget, whenever he was not standing immediately in his lover's presence, exactly how unearthly he seemed. Remarkably enough for the most powerful man in Valnon, he looked no older than the seventeen-year-old songbird, and possibly even some years younger. "I'm sorry I'm late." The Temple's Wing set his book aside. "I wasn't expecting you at all. I saw your cycles for tomorrow. All twenty-seven verses. Osprey is more prolific than usual this season." Eothan glanced at the extra glass of wine. "You weren't expecting me?" Lateran folded his hands in his lap, smiling the smile that somehow always kept Eothan from asking what a mere boy who did not seem old enough to have finished his term of service was doing being the Wing. "I knew you would be coming, all the same." He stood, gesturing to the fire in the grate. "Come and get warm." Eothan shifted the ball of warmth against his skin and hoped his cloak would hide the suspicious lump. The fire was warm, the rooms of the Temple's Wing made of more wood and less stone than the temple proper, close and comfortable and inviting. Lateran settled back into his chair. "I'm glad you came. This is the longest night, it seems, of the whole year." "You should sleep more than you do," Eothan said. "It would pass more quickly." "I don't like to sleep." Lateran demurred. "I know," Eothan said. "Why is that?" "Are you sure you can spare me your time?" Lateran said, thoughtfully twisting the signet ring on his forefinger. "Tomorrow is the day of the Festival, and you will have twelve days on the dais after that. Surely you need your rest." "I needed to see you more," Eothan said, crossing the crimson and blue carpet to kneel by Lateran's chair. "And don't even think of sending me away. It's not easy to sneak out. I wish you could simply have me stay here." Lateran reached out, brushing the Dove's snow-cold cheek. "I fear that time will come all to soon. Do not hasten through your song. It will not last forever, as you think it will." Eothan opened his mouth, not even sure himself what he was going to say to that. He never found out, because his tunic chose that precise moment to meow. The Wing of the Temple blinked. The Dove was sheepish. "Um. I brought you a present," he said. "A present?" Lateran asked, as Eothan reached into the fold of his garment and pulled out a small kitten, his fur the blue grey of smoke against a midwinter sky, blinking sleepy blue eyes. "I thought... I thought you could use the company," Eothan for once seemed out of words, holding the kitten awkwardly as it tired to get out of his grasp, squirming and mewing and chewing his fingers. "It was Pytir's idea, really, apparently the kitchen mouser had a handsome young suitor a few months ago." "Hrm," Lateran said, and lifted the kitten with his deft, delicate fingers, as if it was a pearl, or a sheet of ancient music of indeterminate taste. The cat immediately stilled under his touch, purring loudly. He considered making off with Lateran's signet ring, but gave up after a few abortive tries, and tended to one paw in need of some immediate grooming. "He likes you," Eothan said. "I knew he would. He was the smallest one." "It has been a long time," Lateran said, as the kitten clambered into his lap and began contentedly kneading the heavy fabric of the Wing's wine-colored robe. "I never thought of keeping an animal. They have such short lives." The kitten tucked his nose into his tail, and went to sleep in a cozy fold of Lateran's sash. "It would be good for you." Eothan said, smiling to see his gift so well-behaved. "Since I cannot be here all the time." "Would you wish to?" Lateran said, sounding for once like the age he looked. "Away from the dais, from your song?" "You are my song," Eothan said, and put his head down next to the kitten, his cheek against Lateran's knee. "All the song that I want. And I would sing you... at dawning... at noontide... at evening..." The Dove's voice dwindled, his chest rose and fell in a long deep breath, several days of exhaustion, a purring cat, and the warmth from the fire having a quick and insistent effect. Lateran laughed, a small stirring in his chest, at the songbird and the kitten asleep on his lap. "Nothing of you was ever expected, my dovelet," he said, and brushed Eothan's dark hair back from his sleeping face. "Nothing at all." The fire cracked to itself, murmuring contentedly. In the streets there was silence and snow-borne wind; Lateran could, if he listened, feel it moving in the dark beyond the fires of the temple and the streets of his city, past the gates of the palace where a newborn princess lay, dreaming quiet dreams at her mother's breast. In his long memory there was another fire, and a colder night, and a voice at once lost and painfully near at hand, pointing out the stars overhead and their names, the three birds of heaven, and the festival that went with them. His hand slowed in Eothan's hair, went still. Lateran closed his eyes, letting the song of his heartbeat draw back from the night that was passing well enough without his hand to guide it. He slept, content enough, for this night, to let those same unblinking stars keep watch. ~owari~ |