‘Thank you, brother.’ Nikolas pulled him into an embrace. Dion felt prickly hair on his face as his older brother planted a kiss on his cheek.
‘Go.’ Dion laughed, pushing him away. ‘Go to your wife and son.’
Nikolas lurched across the room to join Helena, who was impatiently waving a hand for him to come over. She had a necklace of tiny iron rings in her hands and together she and Nikolas fastened the chain around Lukas’s neck; soon a circular amulet imprinted with the bull of Balal was proudly displayed for all to see.
As the parents united around the boy, Dion smiled. But then he felt a gaze on him and saw the magus’s dark eyes looking at him from the very center of the hall. Their eyes met before the old man nodded.
Dion’s smile faded as he reflected on his own naming ceremony.
He was now old enough to know that the magi and his family would have been discussing him behind closed doors. Even at the tender age of seven it was already clear that Dion wasn’t a natural warrior like Nikolas. He’d somehow managed to cut himself on the dull edge of a child’s sword and he’d always been afraid of large groups of hoplites, with their sharp spears ready to kill and steel helmets hiding their faces. He did have skills: he was good with horses and liked to ride; he was clever with numbers and could add, subtract, and multiply better than his much older brother.
Gold wouldn’t have been appropriate, for it was Nikolas who was heir to the throne, and Dion didn’t exhibit the natural charisma that would have made him the leader of other boys his age. Copper was out of the question: the last thing King Markos wanted was a musician or a craftsman for a son.
So the magi chose silver.
But when the magus circled the diamond and gave Dion his name, calling him to the silver, Dion wouldn’t come.
It had been an awkward moment. Eventually, King Markos had picked up the newly named Dion and taken him to the magus.
With loud conversation now filling the banqueting hall as the musicians took up their instruments and the festivities resumed, the magus continued to stare. The silver chain, with its amulet bearing the symbol of Silex, felt uncomfortable on Dion’s skin, as if it didn’t belong.
14
As the night progressed, the guests became more raucous, until finally, in ones and twos, they begged their leave, departing after a final congratulation offered to the proud parents. Eventually only the royal family and Peithon remained, though the magus was still present, waiting on the king’s permission to leave. They all sat in a circle of benches drawn up close together in the center of the room, the white chalk now smudged by countless feet crossing to and fro.
In a lull in the conversation, the old magus, seated a little apart, turned an inquiring gaze on the king. It was tradition that at the end of every family banquet would come a story for those still awake. Often the storyteller would be Markos or Nikolas, but on this occasion the king had requested that the magus honor them with a tale.
‘Magus,’ Markos said with a nod, ‘I believe now is the time, should it suit you.’
The magus moved his bench a little closer to the circle. ‘Which story would you like to hear, sire?’
The king turned to Nikolas and Helena, now seated together, with Lukas on his father’s lap. With Nikolas’s thick black beard and broad-shouldered frame he looked every inch the king-to-be, while the beautiful blonde woman beside him was the model of a future queen.
‘Lukas?’ Nikolas said, never tiring of using his son’s new name. ‘What tale would you like to hear?’
Warm and comfortable in his father’s arms, his fear of the magus now somewhat diminished, Lukas spoke up boldly. ‘I want to hear about King Palemon and the eldren.’
The magus tilted his head at the king.
‘Very well,’ Markos said.
The stooped old man cleared his throat and looked down, before casting his eyes on the people seated in front of him. The silence grew for a time, broken only by the faint crackle of the last embers in the hearths.
Finally, the magus spoke.
‘Long ago, our people, and all other people, fought a terrible war with a race separate from our own, those we call the eldren. Where we are sometimes dark-skinned and sometimes light, the eldren are universally pale. Where we have brown hair and blonde, the eldren have hair of silver. Where we are strong workers, able to mine and shape metal, the eldren are thin and weak, and because they hate the touch of metal, they carry no steel or bronze weapons. But’—the magus let the word hang in the air for a moment—‘they can change their shape.’
Lukas shivered in his father’s arms, his eyes fixed on the magus.