"Well, yeah, yer do be observant," the man all but whispered, a secretive expression on his face. "I'll give you that. But I were never Icarii-bred, no sir, not me. I claim no such pretensions!"
"You have Icarii features. You must have Icarii blood in you."
The old man grinned slyly. "I do share my face and blood with your proud Icarii, man, but I'm not one of your flighty lot."
Axis narrowed his eyes, his hand now resting on the hilt of his sword, but he said nothing.
The wizened old man seemed not to care. "Call me Da," he said. "It's as good a name as any."
It was no name at all Axis thought. "Da" was the peasant word for father.
Da pointed a gnarled ringer at the mare. "And she be Sal."
"Well, Da," Axis said. "You are a strange man —"
Da giggled, rocking back and forth on the bale.
"— and I would know more of you. And of your pretty brown Sal." Axis had still not relaxed his grip on his sword hilt. There was only one thing he was sure of, and that was that this old man was not who he pretended to be.
Da put a finger to his pursed mouth, in a parody of thought. "Who do I be? And who do be Sal?"
Axis shifted, annoyed. The man's affectation of country language was starting to grate.
"I do be a father," Da said.
Father?
"I do watch over my children."
Axis said nothing.
Suddenly the old man dropped his peasantish affectation, and looked Axis directly in the eye.
"I do the best for my children," he said, "even when they demonstrate consummate stupidity. That, I swear, they got from their mother."
Axis was caught fast by the man's eyes, fierce and angry now.
Far away he heard Urbeth roar.
Da laughed. "From their mother, aye."
Axis went cold. His hand dropped away from his sword. "What do you want?" he said.
"To give you a gift. To give the Icarii a last gift ... and still a gift of flight, methinks."
Axis was numb, still not quite believing whom he was talking to. "A gift?"
'"Er." The man-sparrow nodded in Pretty Brown Sal's direction, then turned his eyes back to Axis. "It's not the first horse I've given you, you know."
"Which —"
"Belaguez."
And now Axis truly did go cold. He had acquired — there was no other verb to express it —
Belaguez when he had just been appointed BattleAxe. One of the Axe Wielders had reported that there was a grey colt tied up in the palace courtyard, with no explanation save for Axis' name engraved on the small brass plate sewn into the colt's halter.
When Axis had walked into the courtyard to see for himself, a small sparrow had been foraging for insects in Belaguez's forelock. When Axis had attempted to brush it aside, the sparrow had jumped onto his hand and run chattering up his sleeve to his shoulder before finally flying off.
Then, absorbed by the magnificent colt, Axis had paid no attention.
Now, he finally managed to recover his manners.
"I thank you," he said, moving around Sal so he could bow in the sparrow's direction.
The sparrow, still wearing its vaguely man-Icarii form, smiled gently, accepting Axis' obsequiousness as his due. If only CrimsonStar had been as polite and deferential as this man!
"Belaguez was ... is a special horse," Axis said.
"And he was for a special man. Men. You and your son both."
Axis looked back to Sal. She was nuzzling her velvety nose about his hip pockets, as if she might find a carrot there.
"But now your son's got the starry boy, and you need another. Take Pretty Brown Sal."
And then the sparrow repeated himself, although Axis did not notice. "She's my final gift of flight to the Icarii, as to all the peoples of Tencendor."
Axis ran a hand down Sal's neck and over her shoulder. She was only a small mare — barely high enough to carry him — but she had a deep chest, fine strong legs, and an intelligent eye.
