Great Burning : 48

Suak and Klane had a truly unique bond. Only Klane understood how intelligent an alegoyle could be, and how much it could learn. Perhaps too, Suak himself was a particularly clever specimen. In any case, when they had played and trained together in earlier years, Klane had taught Suak to find Lucalle when he gave a specific repeated whistling instruction. He had worked with Lucalle to teach her to recognise his own faithful alegoyle and not to be afraid of it, and Suak recognised the bond between the three of them and in time he came to treat Lucalle with the same respect he offered to Klane. The final flowering of this teamwork was a method for simple communication. Suak would submit to allowing a small strip of coloured cloth to be tied around his left leg. Flying from one to another, the cloth would be removed by the receiver. Although she did not read, Lucalle and Klane devised a system of simple signals based on the way the cloth was knotted and marked. They had a small repertoire of prearranged messages both had memorised, so that Suak could be their go between.
That is how the queen and her consort met alone at sunset near the old ruins on the north bank of the river Aber, just as they had agreed they would do in response to a specific cloth message. It was a town abandoned long ago after a Great Burning and it had no name anymore, which was as the Vow of Earth decreed it should be.
Klane had forgotten quite how beautiful Lucalle was. The queen was dressed in fine formal clothes, richly resplendent and a reminder of her royal status. She did not look best pleased, for they had parted under a cloud.
“The wanderer, returns,” Lucalle said with a cool eye. “What do you want?”