A Gathering of Wings (7 page)

Honus explains what they need. Cylas listens with his usual attentiveness. When Honus finishes, the cobbler says, “You wish me to appropriate the horns of a goat, approximately the same size and shape and color as your own quite distinguished pair?”

Honus nods. “Yes, and find a way of affixing them to a band—I am thinking one made of tortoiseshell—that fits over the crown of Malora’s head and can be well concealed beneath her hair,” he says.

“This would be a disguise,” Longshanks says softly, “for Malora to wear on the streets of Kahiro.”

Honus nods. “Just so. To the milling crowds it will appear as if she were a relative of mine. A faun maiden. My daughter.”

Always the daughter, Malora thinks. Thora, her mother, would think her in very good hands with Honus.

“An excellent notion,” says Cylas. “I go to Kahiro once a year, to study the fashions and derive aesthetic inspiration, and every time, I feel positively menaced. Hold on to your nubs, too, for I don’t know who’s cleverer or more bent on picking your pocket: the tradesfolk or the thieves! However,” he says, clearing his throat, “there is the not insignificant matter of her
uncloven
feet, not to mention her ankles.”

Malora glances down at Honus’s trouser-clad legs, which are differently jointed at the ankle and in this respect more horselike than human.

“I have thought of that,” says Honus, “which brings me to my second request. And that is a saruchi.”

“A saruchi?” Malora asks. “What is that?”

“Ah yes! The wildly popular sheKa fashion,” Longshanks says. “A wrap for the lower body of the female two-legger. It wraps around the waist and drapes to the ground.”

“But how am I to get around in such a garment, let alone ride a horse?” Malora says.

“You will learn, just as your lady forebears did so long ago,” Honus says. “You might even find it has its advantages.”

“But aren’t strangers bound to see my feet
beneath
this saruchi and notice that I have no cloven hooves?” Malora says doubtfully.

“The saruchi will cover your feet. Besides,” Honus adds, “staring at the feet of sheKa is considered disrespectful, so most have trained themselves not to stare at the feet of any female bipeds. Besides, they will see the horns on your head and most of them will assume the rest. I will have to coach you how to walk, of course,” he adds, “but one thing at a time.”

Honus turns to Longshanks. “We are leaving at daybreak tomorrow on a mission of utmost importance. Can you help us, my old friend, by expediting this order?”

“I will set aside all other jobs. I should have the saruchi, the headdress, and the holder for the knife ready by this evening,” the cobbler says.

Honus turns slowly to Malora with an upraised eyebrow.
“The knife?”

“A tool,” Malora says, blushing.

“For cutting cheese and twine and bread,” Longshanks says smoothly.

“I see,” says Honus, unsuccessfully concealing a smile.

“I made it in the shop as a special project,” Malora tells him. “It’s much sharper than the butter knife I borrowed from you.”

“That is excellent news, indeed,” Honus says. “This way, when we are accosted by brigands on the road to Kahiro, you won’t have to resort to
buttering
them to death.”

It is his favorite joke. Malora responds with a laugh and wonders whether laughing at a joke she doesn’t find funny constitutes a white lie.

At dawn the next morning Malora stands outside the big paddock. She is dressed in buckskin trousers and the new boots with the ankle-sheath, a white cotton tunic, and a wide-brimmed impala-skin hat, with the black-and-white braided rope slung over her shoulder. She has already made her rounds, said her good-byes to the boys and girls, and assembled those horses she will take with her. She has decided to bring only mares, because they are more intelligent and
have greater stamina, and she wants no equine flirtation going on. Besides, when she finds Sky, the mares will be her gift to him.

Lightning will be her principal mount. Malora has tacked her up with a bit and a bridle and a saddle that Longshanks made from cow leather and bone, with cow-leather stirrups and saddlebags. In one bag, she has packed an extra pair of suede trousers, three tunics, and the long pale-blue saruchi Cylas made for her. The other bag contains
Pride and Prejudice
, a silver-backed hairbrush, and the goat-horn tiara. Cylas adjusted it several times, but the tortoiseshell band hurts her head, so she does not intend to wear it until they reach the outskirts of Kahiro. In addition to Lightning, she is bringing Light Rain and Charcoal. Light Rain will be her second mount—leaving Bolt to enjoy Max all to herself—and Charcoal will serve as a packhorse because she and Raven, the horse that Honus will ride, are inseparable. Malora has tacked up Raven with Honus’s sidesaddle.

Malora is just going over some horse-keeping details with West when Neal and Dugal Highdock arrive, followed by Orion. Neal and Dock carry bows and sheaths of arrows on their backs. Neal also carries a sword in a scabbard on his belt, whereas Dock carries a coiled bullwhip made of rhino hide. Orion is unarmed.

“Thank you for coming,” Malora says to Dock.

“My pleasure to serve,” he says gruffly.

A centaur of few words and fewer smiles, Dugal “Dock” Highdock is small but tough and stringy. He has scarred brown flanks, and the hair on his head stands out like tufts of
white cotton. Dock walks with a hitch in his right hind leg where a crocodile savaged him.

Honus is the next to arrive, riding in the back of a wagon piled high with supplies. Pulling the wagon is a team of two stout Beltanian draft horses driven by Lemon, who has replaced West as Orion’s Twan. Lemon’s mate (and Zephele’s Twan), Sunshine, sits next to him in the high seat.

“How will Zephele manage without you?” Malora asks Sunshine. She says this to be polite, since Zephele rarely calls upon her Twan to perform services.

“Ah, but Zephele is coming, too!” Zephele says, stepping out from behind the wagon. She is wheeling a cart containing a painted wooden chest and a tapestry bag that is bulging at the seams.

Neal cuts short his discussion with Dock and says, “Zephele is not going
anywhere
but back to the House of Silvermane, where she belongs!”

“I respectfully beg to differ, Captain Featherhoof,” Zephele says, her dimpled chin held high. “Last night, Herself and the Apex approved my request to join the expedition. Feel free to march right up the mountain and ask them yourself if you don’t believe me. I persuaded them that it was high time I visited Kahiro, and they both agreed, as well they should, since I have only been begging them for the privilege since the day I turned ten. How exciting it will be, not just to visit Kahiro but to do so with one of the People in disguise! I wonder if I should wear a disguise as well? Unfortunately, as we learned at the last jubilation, it is difficult, nigh onto impossible, to disguise a centaur as anything but a centaur.”

Sunshine has climbed down from the seat and tugs unsuccessfully at the handle of Zephele’s trunk.

“Don’t strain yourself, my dear,” Zephele tells the Twan. “It took three of our stoutest Twani to load it in there. I’m sure it will take at least three to unload it. Unless one of these muscular young bucks will volunteer for the job?”

Neal ambles over and stares down at the trunk. Then he looks up into the wagon, which is already loaded to the point of toppling. He strokes his chin thoughtfully as if making a serious assessment.

“Show me what’s in this chest,” he says.

Drawing herself up primly, Zephele replies, “Kheiron shuns your impertinence! My garments are none of your concern.”

“Oh, but didn’t your father explain to you how it is?
Everything
about this expedition is my concern,” Neal says.

Zephele holds out for a fleeting moment, then relents. “Oh, very well!” she says, yanking open the trunk. Shimmering garments spill out as if they had been waiting for their chance to escape.

“Tell me, Zeph, are there any
sensible
garments—suitable for the rigors of the bush—in among this frippery?” Neal asks, poking the point of his sword into the jumble, causing some garments to slither onto the ground like colorful, silken snakes.

“The sensible garments are in the satchel,” Zephele says huffily.

“I’m encouraged.” Neal stuffs the clothing unceremoniously back into the trunk, slams the lid, and thumps it. “Leave
the trunk here, Zeph. We’ll make room on the wagon for the satchel.”

“But—” Zephele starts to protest.

“Zephele Silvermane,” Neal says to her, softly but distinctly enunciating each syllable of her name, “let us agree on this at the outset. This is an expedition into the bush. I am the captain of this expedition. I will say what you can and cannot do. It is not a matter of fancy. It is a matter of safety—often as not a matter of life and death—which is why you will do
exactly
as I say and endeavor not to protest, contradict, or wheedle me into granting you your every whim, however much your adoring father and mother and brothers and cousins and friends have all accustomed you to getting it since the day you were born.
My way
is the law, is that understood?”

“Very clearly,” Zephele says, looking thoroughly abashed, her eyes cast downward.

“Good! It’s settled then. Let’s find room on the wagon for this satchel,” he says to Sunshine.

Then Zephele puts in timidly, “If I might first request a single boon, Captain?”

Neal folds his arms across his chest. “What?” he asks flatly.

“I should like to transfer just
one
of the frivolous wraps into the bag I’m taking.” She hastens to head off his objection. “I will need something to wear when we get to Kahiro, where the sheKa, I am told, dress in the very latest fashions. Surely you wouldn’t want the daughter of the Apex of Kheiron to stagger into Kahiro looking like a Suidean slattern, now would you?” she asks, eyeing him from beneath her velvety lashes.

“As if such a thing were even remotely possible,” Neal says, throwing up his arms. “Choose one piece of finery and we’ll be on our way. And make it quick. We have a good twenty days of travel ahead of us.”

Zephele catches Malora’s eye and winks.

When Malora first approached Mount Kheiron from the south, it went from not being there one moment to filling her sights the next. But the terrain to the north, except for the mountains to the west, is as flat as a piece of pounded iron, and Mount Kheiron remains at their backs almost the whole of their first day, as if reminding them that if the bush proves too daunting they can still about-face and go running back to the Land of Beauty and Enlightenment.

Neal and Orion lead the way, followed by Zephele, Malora, and Honus walking three abreast. Behind them roll the Twani in the wagon, hitched to the back of which are Light Rain and Charcoal, with the bullwhip-wielding Dock bringing up the rear.

They tread the well-worn path that traders have traveled for generations making the journey from Mount Kheiron to Kahiro. The Lower Neelah flows sluggish and brown on their left, and the Hills of Melea rise like a wall to their right, changing colors with the position of the sun. Zephele spends so much time swiveling her head to look behind her that she might as well be walking backward, Malora thinks, and finally tells her so.

“But Mount Kheiron is so small, Malora! Look at it compared to this great, wild vastness!” Zephele says, her voice filled with something Malora has never heard in it before.
Fear? Or perhaps simply respect for something she has not conquered, and never will be able to, with her beauty, her charm, or her status as the daughter of the Apex.

“It
is
small,” Malora agrees thoughtfully. For herself, she is content to be on the back of a horse and is surprisingly happy to be in the bush again. Why was she so afraid of returning? Perhaps just as absence from the bush made her fearful of it, returning to it has restored her confidence. And then there is the anticipation of finding Sky, which thrills her.

“I’ve spent my whole life in that small place,” Zephele muses.

“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re finally getting away from it,” Malora says. The fact is that since Malora’s arrival, Mount Kheiron has become her entire world, too. The thought that Mount Kheiron will be waiting for her when she returns fills her with a sense of comfort and security. That she will be bringing Sky with her makes it all the more exciting. Both worlds—the wild world of the bush and the civilized one of the centaurs—she is now able to move about in and inhabit.

“That you survived out here—in fact, positively thrived!—for as long as you did only increases my deepest respect and admiration for you,” Zephele says. After a brief silence, she adds, “One only has to look down to see that death is everywhere.”

Malora looks down. Zephele is speaking of the bones and skulls littering the trail.

Honus is so stimulated, he slides from his saddle constantly to gather specimens for his collection: kudu horns, rabbit and impala skulls, porcupine quills, sparkling rocks,
and feathers of all kinds. Honus’s slipping from the saddle is Malora’s cue to shout ahead to Neal to call a halt. Honus hands Malora Raven’s reins and then retrieves the specimen that has caught his eye.

After the fifth halt, Neal circles back and says to Malora in a low voice, “With all due respect to the Learned Master, and I personally don’t care if we stop a hundred times, but this trip is, I understand, a matter of some urgency to
you
. I’m sure if you were to remind Honus of this fact, he would curb his naturalist’s ardor.”

“Don’t worry,” Malora says. “Tomorrow he’ll be so saddle-sore he won’t be able to dismount without a great deal of pain.”

Neal nods and grins, then rejoins Orion, who—like the Peacekeepers—wears a wide-brimmed straw hat, while Zephele has turned in her centaurean maiden’s cap for a bright pink head scarf. The Silvermanes have gone Flatlander in the bush, Malora thinks wryly.

Zephele’s enthusiasm for the wonders of the bush is as boundless as Honus’s, although she restricts herself to pointing and asking questions. “What is that sweet little flower over there?” she asks.