It's probably too early, but I'd like to start rewriting the Court of Gilded Birds.
It was glorious summer in the palace, though spring chill and dampness lingered on the city walls: and the only thing dying at the heart of the royal labyrinth was the king. But it was a patently unremarkable death, feverish, undignified, and mildly depressing. It marked the end of a feverish, undignified, and mildly depressing reign. The courtiers were resigned to waiting it out in mostly respectful silence; they amused themselves in the meantime with noonday catnaps, mediocre poetry, and cool sherbets imported from the northlands.
All but one, that was. He was not really a courtier in any case, for all that he was a member of the court. He had bare artisan's quarters on the highest story of the east wing, the tiled walls knocked out to make room for floor-to-ceiling windows, that no noble would have dreamed of living in. And while the courtiers were waiting, he was working. Oh, yes.
"I sometimes think you are too enamored of your birds," his friend said, on that sweet summer's day.
"Hmm?" he said, his focus elsewhere: the drugged and docile thrush laid out before him. One graceful, curving wing was splayed out against the lacquered wood of the table, and he ran his thumb against the line of the feathers, considering the ruffle of quills bent away from skin.
"Yes, quite so," Lord Altic sighed. He dipped his spoon into the glass of sherbet at his elbow and licked fruit-stained ice off its rim. "I don't know how you can stand it, measuring them all day long. Especially in this heat."
"It is what I'm paid for," Kymnir said absently. He broke off one of the smaller feathers, little more than a wisp of down, and frowned at the jagged white line in the translucent calamus where he had twisted it.
Altic waved a dismissive hand. "You are paid to make imitation birds that act as if they lived, but no one asked that they be accurate in aspect."
There were two sorts of bird that the young man kept in his sunny comfortless rooms, you see: those of flesh and those of metal. Both sang, when the whim took them that way, and the songs at least were hard to tell apart.
"There is no other way to make them but accurately," Kymnir said, which was a harmless and incomplete lie. It was a pity Altic didn't gossip enough that it would get spread around. "Every detail matters; get too many wrong and they'd fall apart like the real thing even as they act like the real thing."
"Lying witch," Altic said good-naturedly. "Sorcery is not so logical. No, you just like measuring things."
"That too," he conceded.
"Hm. Sendre says you should get out more."
"She's trying to tell you that you should get out more," Kymnir said.
"Why else would I be sitting here?" said Altic.
"The pleasure of my company?" He let the ridge formed by his fingers fall back, smoothed down the crooked barbs carefully.
"Hah! An obsessive bird-maker whose idea of a lunch break is mocking me about my wife is not what I call pleasurable company."
"I can't help it," Kymnir said, feeling the way the bones and veins of the wing shifted when he pressed them. "There's so much to mock."
"You unkind soul."
"She really threw you out this morning, hmm? I haven't seen you in a week, I was starting to wonder whether she'd murdered you for the crime of, oh, I don't know, sticking your head in the nurseroom every five minutes."
"Very funny. She told me if I didn't go out I'd pace us right out of carpet," Altic said, morosely. "And then the physician chimed in, worse yet."
"There's nothing less healthsome than a nervous and quite useless husband around," Kymnir said, in his best knowledgeable tones. "How is she, anyway?"
"Tired, still," Altic said. He had shadows under his eyes: rare in this weather, which made spoiled young men and women languid, mornings and most afternoons frittered away on silk sheets--not that it was otherwise in winter, Kymnir thought, dryly, but then of course in summer the sheets were not so sticky afterwards. "Better than she was."
"And your son?"
"Loud."
Kymnir grinned. "Your mother wouldn't be pleased to hear you so flippant about your house's new heir."
"My mother--" Altic began, then cut himself off and changed the subject. "I forgot, she--Sendre I mean-- wanted to know what you're working on now."
"A thrush," Kymnir said, letting the gaping wound in the conversation pass.
"Who for?"
"The regent."
Kymnir placed a miniature ruler along the diagonal of the wing, marked down the length, and became aware that his friend was staring at him, long-stemmed spoon paused halfway to parted lips.
"The regent?"
"The regent who will rule until Prince Bastien comes of age," he said patiently. He remembered, a little late, that Altic had been born and bred loyal to his technical liege when he took in the man's slightly uneasy expression. His friend had a face like an axe, and discomfort sat strangely around his wide mouth, more obvious than humor or the slow-burning anger that sometimes showed up after a little too much quality time with his mother. Not a sight Kymnir hoped to ever see again, that last.
"It seems rather blasphemous," Altic murmured, "to be thinking of a man's replacement while the man himself yet breathes."
"Blasphemous?" Kymnir said, pinching the thin webbed skin around the joints of the wing. There was no way to simulate the effect exactly, but he could use fine wire cords stretched across steel ribs like bone spars to produce a similar one. "He has a kind of consumption, in the advanced stages. He will not outlive the night. Messages will already have been sent to his chosen, as you say, replacement a project like this requires at least three days of intensive work--which you are not helping, by the way -"
"Measuring cannot be intensive," Altic protested. "Merely mind-numbing for everyone but you."
"- and I'd like to have it done in time for the investiture. Hence I am starting it now."
He located his compass and positioned its arms so that the V of them forked the thrush's shoulder, heedless of the scratches twin points left in the gloss of the tabletop. Altic watched him from where he was lounging on a low-backed sofa, pensive, his chin on his hand.
"I am a commoner," Kymnir said, when he was finished notating the angle of the wingset in narrow scientific script. "I don't know the king. I don't have a particular interest in knowing the king posthumously."
"No, I suppose not," Altic said. "He was an--unpleasant man."
"Yes."
"The king, though."
"That too, yes."
"My family has always--"
"Yes."
"And everyone is waiting for him to end."
"Yes."
"It must be the heat," Altic said, glumly.
Also, does anyone have name suggestions? Anyone? Because I fail at pronounceable made up names and at this rate I'm just going to resort to French.
All but one, that was. He was not really a courtier in any case, for all that he was a member of the court. He had bare artisan's quarters on the highest story of the east wing, the tiled walls knocked out to make room for floor-to-ceiling windows, that no noble would have dreamed of living in. And while the courtiers were waiting, he was working. Oh, yes.
"I sometimes think you are too enamored of your birds," his friend said, on that sweet summer's day.
"Hmm?" he said, his focus elsewhere: the drugged and docile thrush laid out before him. One graceful, curving wing was splayed out against the lacquered wood of the table, and he ran his thumb against the line of the feathers, considering the ruffle of quills bent away from skin.
"Yes, quite so," Lord Altic sighed. He dipped his spoon into the glass of sherbet at his elbow and licked fruit-stained ice off its rim. "I don't know how you can stand it, measuring them all day long. Especially in this heat."
"It is what I'm paid for," Kymnir said absently. He broke off one of the smaller feathers, little more than a wisp of down, and frowned at the jagged white line in the translucent calamus where he had twisted it.
Altic waved a dismissive hand. "You are paid to make imitation birds that act as if they lived, but no one asked that they be accurate in aspect."
There were two sorts of bird that the young man kept in his sunny comfortless rooms, you see: those of flesh and those of metal. Both sang, when the whim took them that way, and the songs at least were hard to tell apart.
"There is no other way to make them but accurately," Kymnir said, which was a harmless and incomplete lie. It was a pity Altic didn't gossip enough that it would get spread around. "Every detail matters; get too many wrong and they'd fall apart like the real thing even as they act like the real thing."
"Lying witch," Altic said good-naturedly. "Sorcery is not so logical. No, you just like measuring things."
"That too," he conceded.
"Hm. Sendre says you should get out more."
"She's trying to tell you that you should get out more," Kymnir said.
"Why else would I be sitting here?" said Altic.
"The pleasure of my company?" He let the ridge formed by his fingers fall back, smoothed down the crooked barbs carefully.
"Hah! An obsessive bird-maker whose idea of a lunch break is mocking me about my wife is not what I call pleasurable company."
"I can't help it," Kymnir said, feeling the way the bones and veins of the wing shifted when he pressed them. "There's so much to mock."
"You unkind soul."
"She really threw you out this morning, hmm? I haven't seen you in a week, I was starting to wonder whether she'd murdered you for the crime of, oh, I don't know, sticking your head in the nurseroom every five minutes."
"Very funny. She told me if I didn't go out I'd pace us right out of carpet," Altic said, morosely. "And then the physician chimed in, worse yet."
"There's nothing less healthsome than a nervous and quite useless husband around," Kymnir said, in his best knowledgeable tones. "How is she, anyway?"
"Tired, still," Altic said. He had shadows under his eyes: rare in this weather, which made spoiled young men and women languid, mornings and most afternoons frittered away on silk sheets--not that it was otherwise in winter, Kymnir thought, dryly, but then of course in summer the sheets were not so sticky afterwards. "Better than she was."
"And your son?"
"Loud."
Kymnir grinned. "Your mother wouldn't be pleased to hear you so flippant about your house's new heir."
"My mother--" Altic began, then cut himself off and changed the subject. "I forgot, she--Sendre I mean-- wanted to know what you're working on now."
"A thrush," Kymnir said, letting the gaping wound in the conversation pass.
"Who for?"
"The regent."
Kymnir placed a miniature ruler along the diagonal of the wing, marked down the length, and became aware that his friend was staring at him, long-stemmed spoon paused halfway to parted lips.
"The regent?"
"The regent who will rule until Prince Bastien comes of age," he said patiently. He remembered, a little late, that Altic had been born and bred loyal to his technical liege when he took in the man's slightly uneasy expression. His friend had a face like an axe, and discomfort sat strangely around his wide mouth, more obvious than humor or the slow-burning anger that sometimes showed up after a little too much quality time with his mother. Not a sight Kymnir hoped to ever see again, that last.
"It seems rather blasphemous," Altic murmured, "to be thinking of a man's replacement while the man himself yet breathes."
"Blasphemous?" Kymnir said, pinching the thin webbed skin around the joints of the wing. There was no way to simulate the effect exactly, but he could use fine wire cords stretched across steel ribs like bone spars to produce a similar one. "He has a kind of consumption, in the advanced stages. He will not outlive the night. Messages will already have been sent to his chosen, as you say, replacement a project like this requires at least three days of intensive work--which you are not helping, by the way -"
"Measuring cannot be intensive," Altic protested. "Merely mind-numbing for everyone but you."
"- and I'd like to have it done in time for the investiture. Hence I am starting it now."
He located his compass and positioned its arms so that the V of them forked the thrush's shoulder, heedless of the scratches twin points left in the gloss of the tabletop. Altic watched him from where he was lounging on a low-backed sofa, pensive, his chin on his hand.
"I am a commoner," Kymnir said, when he was finished notating the angle of the wingset in narrow scientific script. "I don't know the king. I don't have a particular interest in knowing the king posthumously."
"No, I suppose not," Altic said. "He was an--unpleasant man."
"Yes."
"The king, though."
"That too, yes."
"My family has always--"
"Yes."
"And everyone is waiting for him to end."
"Yes."
"It must be the heat," Altic said, glumly.
Also, does anyone have name suggestions? Anyone? Because I fail at pronounceable made up names and at this rate I'm just going to resort to French.