Андреа Хёст - The Pyramids of London

“Ask Mi Jiang if he would please come here,” Princess Leodhild said.

I‑i‑EE!the triskelion hummed, and vanished.

“Sorry for crashing in, incidentally, and towering all over the place,” Princess Iona said, snagging a marzipan-iced cake as she turned to examine her mother’s guests. “Everyone, let’s sit down. I’m Iona, but you probably guessed that.”

Princess Leodhild tsked. “Execrable child. But this is someone I should introduce you to anyway: Dama Arianne Seaforth, the new Keeper of the Deep Grove.”

Princess Iona had bitten off half of her cake, and swallowed it in an unwieldy gulp. “You’re Comfrey’s accident?”

“Our connection certainly wasn’t deliberate,” Aunt Arianne said. “These are my nieces, Eluned and Eleri. I’d introduce my nephew, Griff, as well, but he seems to have escaped with most impressive speed.”

Horrified, Eluned looked about, but it was true. Griff was gone.

“Shy around strangers?” Princess Iona asked.

“I suspect it’s the puppy.” Aunt Arianne was matter-of-fact.

Straightening indignantly, Princess Celestine said: “How could anyone be afraid of something as tiny as Falinis?”

“Tiny?” Princess Iona selected another sweet treat and gestured with it toward her mother and the docile puppy. “Look at the size of those paws. He’s going to be enormous. And that’s not even counting his death-hound colouring, and being named for…what was it Luc? High King Lugh’s invincible hunting hound? The nephew’s got good sense, keeping clear.”

“He doesn’t like animals,” Eluned said, uncomfortably. “He never has, ever since he was a baby.”

“Bitten by something?” Princess Iona slowed her cake consumption in order to make a long study of Eluned’s right arm.

Princess Leodhild gave her eldest daughter a quelling look, then said: “Toroco!”

A second triskelion, this one red and gold and perhaps a handbreadth larger, popped into being. O‑o‑O!

“Round up a stray boy-child,” Princess Leodhild said. “Match this hair colour.”

She nodded at Aunt Arianne, who sat very still as the triskelion—its movements very like a hummingbird—darted toward her, bringing with it a wave of warmth. The triskelion were true creatures of the sun, and the mere presence of the largest could inflict terrible burns. Even the small ones were not something you wanted near your hair.

Then it was gone, trailing its song as it whirled across the gardens, and passing on its way its blue and white fellow leading a tall, thin man who could be none other than the Queen’s Consort, Mi Jiang.

His was a famous story. In the earliest days of airship travel, before she became Sulevia Seolfor and Queen, Tanwen Gwyn Lynn had led the crew of the Palthas on a grand flight all the way around the world, to prove that it was possible. The Palthas had flown close to the Dragon Empire of Yue—a realm like Danuin surrounded by walls to prevent trespass, although Yue used light instead of mist. A flight of young Yue dragons had met and briefly escorted the airship, and one of them had seen then-Princess Tanwen and loved her from that moment.

Eluned had enjoyed several rather fanciful books about Prince Jiang’s quest to find out who his love was, the many years it had taken to win his father’s permission to follow her, and the astonishment felt by all Prytennia when it had received an embassy from such a fabled and magnificent land, presenting the now-Queen with one of the sons of the Emperor of Yue, as a gift.

Had the Tuatha Dé been deliberately echoing this story, giving Princess Celestine a pup with a famous name and exceedingly unlucky colouring? For, while Queen Tanwen had accepted Mi Jiang as a guest, and eventually taken him as a lover, he had never shown any sign of being a dragon. Some said that his father had forbidden him his true shape as the price for pursuing his heart, but there had long been talk that the ‘gift’ was instead an elaborate insult, vengeance for an airship flying too close to well-guarded borders. That the Emperor of Yue had sent not his son, but his gardener.

Eluned couldn’t guess what the truth was, or even if Queen Tanwen cared either way, for Prince Jiang was an extraordinarily beautiful man: elegant, dark eyed, with a fall of silken blue-black hair that he had passed on to his daughter. And such ineffable presence, as he stepped into the pavilion and inclined his head to Princess Leodhild, that Eluned wished desperately to have never heard such phrases as ‘Hoozie Fake’, and the other even less nice things said about the Queen’s consort.

“A fair afternoon to you,” he said, arresting their motion to rise with the tiniest movement of his hand. “How may I assist?”

Princess Leodhild briefly explained, and carefully handed the puppy over. Falinis again raised his head, making Eluned feel as if the puppy had understood every word said, and was politely making eye contact.

“By no means an ordinary animal,” Prince Jiang said. “But not on first examination inimical. Instead, this seems to be a true gift, a valuable companion. You wish for him, then, child?”

“Very much, Father.” Princess Celestine’s response was restrained and measured, all sign of her previous restlessness smoothed away. “There are strings, I am sure, or at least mischief intended. But I will not hold his marking against him.” She hesitated, and her careful formality fell away as she exclaimed: “It would hurt him.”

“Then I have no objection,” Prince Jiang said, and smiled at the effervescent delight his daughter attempted to contain, before inclining his head again to Princess Leodhild. “Forgive me, I must return. My staff are enjoying a minor crisis.”

With the ceremony that seemed imbued in his every action, Prince Jiang handed Falinis to his daughter and departed. The blue and white triskelion ceased whirling around the ceiling of the pavilion and dropped down to I‑i‑EE?at its mistress. It was joined by its red and gold companion, whirling up with an O‑o‑O!that by its very tone announced success.

Eluned’s relief as she looked around for her brother faltered immediately when she spotted him on the path to the tower belonging to the Sulevia Sceadu, talking animatedly to a striking woman with pale skin and wavy dark hair. It could only be Crown Princess Aerinndís.

Working to hide her dismay, Eluned glanced at Eleri, but her sister hadn’t yet noticed the approaching pair. Princess Aerinndís had a forbidding reputation, and was not smiling as she listened to Griff burble on—no doubt telling her all about her own tower, and the unusual gaps left in a structure that looked as if it had been braided rather than built.

Aunt Arianne stood up, and Eluned surreptitiously tugged Eleri to join them in making their bows. Princess Leodhild may have abandoned formality, but Princess Aerinndís did not seem so disposed, studying them expressionlessly before inclining her head a bare fraction in acknowledgement.

“My apologies, Highness,” Aunt Arianne said, after Princess Leodhild had made brief introductions. “I was not paying enough attention.”

“No matter.” Princess Aerinndís’ husky voice held a note of indifference. “Our mutual acquaintance has presented himself for a conference.”

“Comfrey’s here?” Princess Iona was not at all awed by her older cousin’s glance. “Can you send him to us when you’re finished with him? Tete wants him.”

Tete—Princess Tethané—hadn’t spoken at all. She was Griff’s age, and was considered a not very ‘satisfactory’ princess. Rumour had it she couldn’t talk at all, and had to be carefully controlled, but all Eluned could tell of her beneath the floppy yellow sun hat hanging over her eyes was that her hair was cloudy like Melly’s.