Page 51 of Beyond

“If you carve a line into my table, I will put that apple somewhere very unpleasant,” Isla said, giving him the side-eye.

He moved the second apple a little farther away from the first and put the knife between them in a straight line. “So, the sun directly overhead means that it is noon here—” he pointed to the place on the first apple where the knife touched it. “But what would it be here?” He moved his finger to a spot on the apple in front of where the knife was.

She tried to envision it. It was hard, but eventually it dawned on her. “Uh. Morning?” she hazarded.

He nodded. “And here?” He moved it to behind the knife.

“Afternoon?”

“And that’s how mages discovered the world is round and the sun goes around it, because nothing else makes any sense,” Jonaton confirmed. “When we were able to create Gates that went a very long way, we began to realize that when we stepped through them, although we thought no time had elapsed, if we were going east or west, the time was either later or earlier than it was on the other side of the Gate.”

“But why do days and nights happen, then?” she asked.

“A very good question. And the answer is that the sun travels east to west, really slowly, so for us on the world, we get night and day.” He cocked his head at her. “Didn’t you learn this in school?”

“I didn’t go to school,” she confessed. “I had a tutor, and all he taught me was how to read and write and figure. This wasn’t in any of the books I ever read.”

“Well, all right. I suppose this is something that only mages and people doing things all over the Empire really have to reckon with,” he admitted. “It isn’t as if most people go through very long-range Gates all that often.” He handed her the first apple, and took the second, and began carving off bits to eat. “Anyway, what we call Absolute Noon is when the sun is directly over the Capital City. So, if it’s breakfast here, it’s halfway to luncheon where Kordas is, so you see the difficulty.”

He didn’t say the difficulty of what, because someone might be scrying on them, but now she knew this was why it was going to be hard to communicate with Kordas. Isla’s Mindspeech was only one-way, and wouldn’t reach that far in any event. Yes, both Kordas and Isla were mages and could mutually scry each other, but they had to establish a time, and they had to be sure neither of them was being scryed on.

“But this means the people on the Regatta boats lose two whole candlemarks of daylight going to the Capital,” she said. Which was a reasonable thing to say, and if anyone was scrying them, would give a reason for why they were discussing time changes.

Jonaton shrugged, pursed up his mouth, and in an ever-so-slightly-prissy way said, “And that is a small price to pay to serve the Emperor.” Then added in a more normal tone, “It’s also why people get up long before dawn to line up at the Gates for the barge parade. You’ve got a choice, really. If you’re an early riser, you get into place soonest, you have a good chance your barge will make the crossing in the early morning, and you get home before too much of the day is gone. Remember, you get those two candlemarks back when you get home. Or if you are counting on an early rush of boats, you wait until late afternoon, you cross before sunset at the Capital, and you’re back home in time for supper.”

“And if you don’t give a shit, like me, you get up, you stock your boat with beer, you get in line, and you get home when you get home,” said Hakkon, taking the apple out of Jonaton’s hand and eating it, seeds and all.

“Hey!” Jonaton objected. Hakkon reached past him, grabbed another pair of apples from the bowl, kissed one, and gave it to him.

Jonaton took it, the scowl on his face turning to a smile at the kiss.

“Did you know the world is round?” Delia demanded of Hakkon.

“Is it?” he responded.

“Of course you know. I’ve told you often enough!” Jonaton scolded.

Hakkon shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “Does that make the wheat ripen faster? Does it keep my horse from throwing a shoe? No? Then it doesn’t make any difference to me, and there’s no reason for me to think about it.”

Delia turned back to Jonaton. “Then why do the seasons happen?” she demanded. “Why do the days get longer, then shorter, then longer again? How—”

“Oh, you make my head ache with your questions,” Jonaton replied. “Some of us think it’s because the sun bobs up and down a little, like north to south, so when it’s bobbed furthest away from somewhere on the world, it’s colder. That’s the Dancing Sun concept. Ask Ponu. Better yet, ask Koto. He’s the star-minded one, and he loves it when he gets to show off what he knows.”

Hakkon shrugged, as if to say, Don’t ask me, I don’t know and I don’t care.

She might have pestered Jonaton anyway, but Isla caught her eye, and when her sister rose, she rose. As she had expected, Isla drew her into that little alcove of a room and shut the door.

“As I expect you guessed, Kordas and I need to find a way to work out a time when we know neither of us can be scryed so that we can scry each other. Are you familiar with that little leather note-case that Beltran has on him?” Isla asked.

“I should,” she said, with a bit more sting to it than she’d intended. “I made it for Kordas and he gave it to Beltran.” That had been …well, a little embarrassing. She’d been hard in the throes of her first love of Kordas and she had put a lot of work into that case, embroidering the Crest of Valdemar into the soft glove-leather of the case, then hand-stitching the rest of the case herself. And Kordas had looked at it, said, “Thank you, Delia, this is exactly what I’ve needed for Beltran!” and given it to his Herald and secretary with a smile.

Humiliating. But what could I do without further humiliating myself?

Isla nodded. “Good. Then do you think you can place a note in that case by reverse-Fetching it?”

She groaned a little, because that was going to be another long-distance try, and … well, it would be as hard as personally pushing a wardrobe up the steps of a tower to the top by herself.

But then, what was everyone else doing? The equivalent, of course.