Robin McKinley - Pegasus

To the Wonder-Mods [1] Does anyone recognise you without your capes? :

Ajlr, B_twin, Black Bear, Gryphyn,

Ithilien, Jodi, Maren and Southdowner,

with love from a grateful hellgoddess

Because she was a princess she had a pegasus.

This had been a part of the treaty between the pegasi and the human invaders nearly a thousand years ago, shortly after humans had first struggled through the mountain passes beyond the wild lands and discovered a beautiful green country they knew immediately they wanted to live in.

The beautiful green country was at that time badly overrun by ladons and wyverns, taralians and norindours, which ate almost everything (including each other) but liked pegasi best. The pegasi were a peaceful people and no match, despite their greater intelligence, for the single-minded ferocity of their enemies, and over the years their numbers had declined. But they were tied to these mountains and valleys by particular qualities in the soil and the grasses that grew in the soil, which allowed their wings to grow strong enough to bear them in the air. They had ignored the situation as without remedy for some generations, but the current pegasus king knew he was looking at a very bleak future for his people when the first human soldiers straggled, gasping, through the Dravalu Pass and collapsed on the greensward under the Singing Yew, which was old even then.

They sat up quickly when seven pegasi circled the meadow above the pass and flew down to investigate. The journal of that company’s second commander still exists in the palace library: a small, worn, round-cornered, hand-bound book, slightly bowed to the shape of the pocket it was carried in. He reported the historic meeting:

We had but just come through thee final rocky gate, and had sett ourselves down in thee shade of a strange great tree, which had short soft spikes or needles all along its branches, and no leaves; when swift-moving shadows fled briefly between us and thee sunne, but against thee wind. We looked up in haste, for rocs are not unheard of, and I had raised my hand to give thee signal for thee archers to string their bows. We saw at once that these were no rocs, but still I held up my hand, for they were nothing else we knew either; and they clearly had seen us, and did approach.

But these creatures are nothing like rocs except they do also possess wings; they are like nothing I have ever seen, except perhaps by some great artist’s creative power. They are a little like horses, but yet far more fine than any horse, even a queen’s palfrey; they are a little like deer, except that deer are rough and clumsy beside them; and their wings are huge, huger than eagles’, and when thee lowering sunne struck through their primaries, for as they cantered toward us they left their wings unfurled, thee light was broken as if by prisms, and they were haloed in all thee colours of thee rainbow. Several of my folk came to their knees, as if we were in thee presence of gods ; and while I told them to stand and be steadfast, I did tell them gently, for I understood their awe.

The pegasi were happy to make a treaty with the humans, who were the first possibility of rescue the pegasi had had, and the humans, dazzled by the pegasi’s beauty and serenity, were happy to make a treaty with them, for the right to share their mountainous land; the wide plateaus, which ran like lakes around the mountaintop islands, were lush and fertile, and many of the island crests were full of gems and ores.

The discussions as to the terms of the treaty had had to be held almost exclusively through the human magicians and the pegasi shamans, however, who were the only ones able to learn enough of the other’s language to understand and make themselves understood, and that was a check to enthusiasm on both sides. “Is it not, then, a language, as we understand language?” wrote the second commander, whose name was Viktur. “Does it encompass some invisible touch unavailable to humans, as a meeting of our hands in greeting, or a kiss between dear friends? What can we not grasp of it, and why cannot our magicians explain this lack to us?”

Sylvi’s tutor, Ahathin, had brought Sylvi to the library while they were studying this portion of the annals. Ordinary people needed a sheaf of special permissions to look at anything half so old, frail and precious as the second commander’s journal; Ahathin, as the princess’ tutor, had merely made the request, and when the two of them appeared at the library door, the head librarian himself bowed, saying, “Princess, Worthy Magician,” and led them to the table where the journal already lay waiting for them—with an honour guard of the Queen’s Own Lightbearers standing on either side of the table. The queen was the library’s governor. Sylvi looked at them thoughtfully. They were wearing their swords, but they were also wearing hai, to indicate that they could not hear anything she and Ahathin said to each other. There were two kinds of hai: the ceremonial and the invested. The ceremonial ones just hung over your ears and looked silly; invested hai had been dedicated by a magician and really stopped the wearer’s hearing. You couldn’t tell by looking at them which kind they were. Sylvi had often wondered how hai-wearing guards were going to protect anything if they couldn’t hear anyone coming. Was there a protocol for when an honour guard wearing ceremonial hai could stop pretending they couldn’t hear?

Sylvi tried to concentrate on what she was reading. She liked reading better since Ahathin had become her tutor; she would still rather be outdoors with her hawk and her pony, but it was thrilling, in a creepy, echo-of-centuries way, to be looking at Viktur’s own journal. She was allowed to touch it only while wearing the gloves the librarian had given her, and there were furthermore these odd little wooden paddles for turning the pages. But she had—carefully, carefully—turned all the pages over, back to the very beginning, to look at Viktur’s signature on the flyleaf: Viktur, Gara of Stormdown, Captain of the White Fellowship, who do follow Balsin, Gara of Mereland, All Commander of His Companies. Most of the curly handwriting was still surprisingly black and sharp against the pale brown flyleaf. A tiny faded arrow, almost invisible, had been drawn just before Balsin, and the word King written in above, and the Gara of Mereland following had been struck out. “Gara?” said Sylvi.

“Lord,” said Ahathin. “A gara is below a prince and above a baron. It is a rank no longer much in use.”

“Then Viktur was pretty important,” said Sylvi. “Balsin was only a gara to begin with.”

“Viktur was important. Some commentators say that Balsin would not have made king if Viktur had not supported him—that perhaps Balsin would not have been able to put a strong enough company together to come this far through the wild lands, nor to drive our foes out of it once they arrived. That perhaps our country would not have been created, were it not for Viktur.”

“Stormdown and Mereland—they’re here .”

“ The original Stormdown and Mereland are in Tinadin, which is Winwarren now, where Balsin and Viktur originally were from. They’d won a famous victory for their king—who now wanted to be rid of them before Balsin started having fancies about being king of Tinadin. Everyone is very clear that Balsin was very ambitious; and, of course, he had the Sword. It was apparently worth it to their king—whose name was Argen or possibly Argun—to lose half his army to be rid of Balsin. Argen married the daughter of the king Balsin defeated, so presumably he thought he could afford it.”