The Shining Falcon

But Finist's crisis-born energy had chosen that moment to desert him. Had he not grabbed frantically at the side of the wagon, the prince would have simply crumpled. The driver hastily threw a supporting arm around him.

«You're hurt!»

«No. Just… bruised a bit. And weary. I've had a… strenuous day.»

He let the driver help him into the wagon, and they started off. The nervous horse was very willing to move on, even managing a lumbering sort of canter. Finist clung to the wagon's seat and winced every time they hit a hole, but despite the jolting—or perhaps because of it—he found himself thinking clearly once more.

Now, this was odd: a driver with a shabby caftan and a wagonload of vegetables worries not that he's been attacked by robbers, but that those robbers might have been sent by a much more dangerous foe… A driver, for that matter, who speaks to those robbers in a cultured, educated voice…

Finist found himself thinking about those vegetables. After all, he had expended an alarming amount of energy, and he'd best restore it as soon as possible.

«Ah, would you mind if I helped myself to a carrot or two?»

The driver gave him a startled look. «No, of course not.»

But Finist paused, uneasy at the man's new uneasiness. «Is something wrong?»

«Oh, no.» The man was a bit too quick with that. «I was only wondering what a man whose voice shows breeding is doing wandering all by himself in the middle of the forest.»

Ah. «I could wonder the same thing about you," the prince murmured, and saw the driver tense.

«I live here," flatly. «And you? Where are you from? The west? No? Not from any of the cities? Stargorod, perhaps?»

This last was said with such cold emphasis that Finist looked at him in bewilderment, wondering for an uncomfortable moment if the man was quite sane. «No. My home's to the east. Why?»

For an instant their glances locked. Then the man turned away, as though relieved and embarrassed. «No reason, no reason. It's just that I… have a family. I worry about them lest— Never mind. Young man, I haven't properly thanked you for the rescue. You handled that branch like a trained warrior.»

Caught in the middle of a carrot, Finist could only mutter something noncommittal, and the man chuckled.

«If you're that hungry, come home and dine with me on something more filling than roots!»

«Oh, gladly!»

But now the driver was shaking his head. «Odd… Did you see that falcon, attacking almost as though it knew what it was doing?»

Finist shifted his weight uneasily. «Nesting birds will attack humans.»

«But the color of it!»

«There are albino animals. I suppose a falcon, too, could be — "

«No, no, it wasn't white, I saw it clearly! Its feathers were actually silver!»

Finist pretended to be deeply engrossed in his carrot, knowing all too well how intolerant and fearful of magic people tended to be outside of his own lands. They rode in silence, the driver stealing quick, curious glances at him.

«Lost your weapons, eh? And your possessions?»

«You… could put it that way," the prince answered carefully.

«This wasn't your first encounter with robbers, then.»

«Let's just say I haven't been fortunate lately.»

«Ah.» The driver hesitated, then added, «I am Ivan Mikaelovich," which was so common a name as to be almost surely false. Not, Finist told himself, that it's any of your concern.

«And I am Fin — " He stopped in mid-syllable, belatedly remembering caution.

«Finn, is it?» The man waited, but when Finist gave him nothing more, he added tactfully to no one in particular, «There's many a son of noble blood not, ah, recognized by his father; many a son cast loose to find his own way.»

If that was what he wanted to think Finist—the result of some lordling's illicit affair‑it was as good a disguise as any. The prince smiled vaguely. «So they say.»

«Off to see the world, are you?»

«In a manner of speaking.»

«Might I ask where you were headed?»

That struck Finist as wryly funny. Remembering the words he'd so lightly tossed to Semyon, back in Kirtesk, the prince started wearily to laugh.

«Where was I headed? Why, wherever the wind took me!»

Chapter XV Glimpses

As the captain of the palace guard warily approached the throne, the throng of courtiers in the vast audience chamber fell silent, so silent that the click of the man's bootheels echoed loudly against the marble floor. Prince Svyatoslav of Stargorod saw the man wince at the sound and hesitate, and he frowned, tensing angrily.

Now, why does he wear such a hangdog expression? Unless he's failed me? Aloud, the prince said sharply, «Well, man? What news?»

«Akh… My Prince, we searched everywhere, but I— We…»

«Out with it! Did you find the man or not?»

The captain took a deep breath, then, like a man rushing to his doom, confessed, «No, my Prince. We did not. In fact, we found no trace at all of either the boyar or his daughters.»