Read His Majesty's Elephant for Free Online

father’s sleeve and dug in her heels. He came to a halt. “Father,” she said, “don’t give Gisela the Talisman.”
    His brows went up. He was not angry. He never lost his temper with his children unless they gave him strong cause.
    Nor had she surprised him. “So you heard that, did you? You’ll all be getting something. I thought you might be more partial to one of the infidels’ horses. There’s one, the bay with the white foot—”
    Oh, that was temptation, but Rowan was not to be distracted. “I don’t want the thing. I just don’t want you to give it to Gisela.”
    â€œJealousy’s a sin, you know,” her father said.
    Rowan stamped her foot. “I’m not jealous! I just—”
    â€œYou don’t want me to give the relic to Gisela. Why? It’s very much her sort of bauble. She’ll take better care of it than anyone else would. Even,” he said, “you.”
    He was laughing at her. And she was forgetting that she was a woman now: she heard her voice spiral up to a whine. “Father! The Caliph gave it to you.”
    â€œAnd he’ll be delighted to know that I thought enough of it to give it to my daughter.”
    â€œYour favorite daughter.” Rowan did not mind that. Gisela was an idiot, but she was the kind of idiot people could not help but be fond of. “She’s not going to keep it, Father. She’s going to give it to—somebody.”
    Her voice caught on the name. She bit her tongue trying to say it, or anything that would tell her father enough to make him listen.
    The Emperor did not seem to notice. “I’ll tell her not to give it away,” he said.
    â€œYou shouldn’t give it away at all,” said Rowan.
    For a moment she thought she had him. He actually looked as if he was listening; now, please God, he would ask her why she was so insistent, and please God she would be able to explain.
    The moment fled. Somebody called his name, an echo down a stair.
    He smiled, dropped a kiss on her forehead, and was gone. She would have had to run to catch him.
    And for what? To tell him that the Elephant had warned her not to let him do this? That a Byzantine had tempted Gisela— he might have listened to that, but then he would have laughed at the thought of Gisela tempted by anything but a veil and a cloister.
    Rowan wished she really were a witch’s child. Then she would know spells and wishings, and ways to make the blind see.
    But she was only Rowan. She had wanted to be that. Wanting and being, she was beginning to think, were not at all alike.
    oOo
    Gisela had the Talisman. She wore it to dinner with her best gown, the blue silk from Byzantium that made her look more silvery-fair than ever. The relic glowed on her breast, gold and crystal and the bright droplets of jewels.
    And nothing happened. No lightnings leaped out of the golden rondel. No devil came to take it, Byzantine or otherwise. It hung on its chain like any other jewel, larger than most and stranger, but no shudder of magic in it.
    It was all foolishness. As for Kerrec, with all his frets and fears—he was the worst fool of all. Talking with the Elephant, of all things. Even Rowan knew better than to believe that.
    oOo
    For a month and more, the quiet went on: long slow dreaming days and brief warm nights. On the eve of Midsummer Rowan went back to the orchard, daring herself to do it, but the only company she had there was a flock of sparrows.
    The Caliph’s men went back to their own country. The Byzantines stayed, but Rowan kept out of their way. She kept watch on Gisela. As far as she ever saw, Gisela did not meet with the Byzantine named Michael Phokias, nor with any other man.
    On a night so warm and still that even the moon seemed to be asleep, Rowan crept out of her bed in the women’s hall. She had her own room back again at last, and it had a window that opened on the courtyard, but