Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

  The Borderlander nodded at Ileth, which was as good as a reassuring arm around the shoulder from other men, and he and Catherix moved off uphill. Catherix found a little hummock of land and launched herself into the air. Ileth liked watching dragons at any time, but taking off was her favorite. She loved that first crack! of wings catching air. She watched Catherix spin up into the air, dragon’s head intently studying the landscape as her body pitched about it.

  With the dragons settled as comfortably as they could be in and about the barn, Serena opened her own rolled kit. It was interesting that she packed like Ileth, rather than employing baggage like the other dragoneers. Ileth wondered if she came from a nautical family.

  “Let’s see you in your best,” Serena said.

  “You’ve seen it. It’s the same dress all the novices and apprentices wear.”

  “Then what’s all that?”

  “It’s my music box, spare sheaths and such for dance.”

  “Oh dear, well, we’ll have to do something.”

  Serena went to work rooting around in her own collection. She found a collar and neckplate with fancy lace that Ileth could wear over her shirt. “I put this under my formal tunic for a feminine touch,” she said. “It will hide that man’s shirt-top. Try not to spill wine on it.”

  “Don’t you wish to wear it?”

  “I can get by with about anything . . .”

  Ileth wondered if that made her a better envoy from the Charge of the Serpentine. She had this way of making you comfortable around her and throwing you a little off-balance that Ileth was beginning to appreciate.

  “I’ll avoid wine.”

  “Do you object to powders and such?” She extracted a little case, like a flatter jewelry case, that opened to reveal a rather poor mirror, but it served.

  Ileth had learned a little from the Baron’s daughters at Chapalaine about how to apply such things.

  “Only a little. Never had money for that sort of kit.”

  Serena chuckled. “Oh, you can still powder up even if you’re nothing but purse-bottom. Many’s the night I’ve had in Sammerdam or Tyrenna with just some soot smeared around my eyes.”

  Ileth watched her work. The transformation was startling. Her eyes looked larger, more emotive; they drew you. “In the north painting yourself is . . . is—”

  “I know. We’ll just do a little at your eyes. You’d be surprised how intimidating it is to some men. That’s my great vice, men. Can’t stay off them.”

  “You?”

  “You know, like they say of the captains, girl in every port? I knew a man or two in most of the big cities. I’m a dragoneer, why not? There are some who are drawn to me because I’m an oddity. I don’t let that happen so often as I have to be more respectable representing the Charge; I’ve had my fun with that and it’s done. Now there’s just my consort in Sammerdam—”

  “You have a consort?” Ileth didn’t know such things existed for women.

  “He’s not expensive. It’s freeing. I get a presentable, attentive, and mannered man out of the deal. I never feel like he’s trying to get a dragon to show up to entertain the neighbors.”

  As they worked and chatted, the men returned and changed for dinner, using a horse-trough pump to wash up. After a few words about the cold, they took turns working each other’s faces with razors.

  “I can’t bear a cold-water shave,” Amrits said, as Dun Huss wetted him with the towel Dun Huss had had his razor and soap rolled up within.

  “Good for the skin,” Dun Huss said.

  Ileth found watching the men shave each other fascinating. Intimate, even a little affectionate, but without eroticism, like a couple of little boys peeing on a snowball together.

  After they were done, Amrits rubbed his chin. “Blasted unfair. You’ve the better shave thanks to my hard work; the honorable up there will think I’m the slapdash.”

  “Who are you trying to impress? The wife? I’ve only seen one old woman about in the kitchen.”

  Amrits rubbed under his chin and gave Dun Huss a disgusted look. “He knew I was coming so he hid all the good ones. Reester all over again.”

  With the delicate lace collar installed hiding the fact that she was wearing a men’s work shirt, and a sweat-stained and worn one at that, and her thick overdress with its not-at-all-delicate straps, Ileth worked her hair as best as she could in the poor little mirror of Serena’s case. She did like what Serena had done with her eyes. In better clothes she would have felt the equal of even Santeel.

  The party departed for the house, avoiding the dragon footprints that had punched through the frost and found mud. They circled to the front so they might make a proper entrance.

  “They’ve no children and you’re not to bring them up,” Dun Huss quietly warned. Ileth nodded. Not having children underfoot would be a pleasant change from Galantine lands.

  Dun Huss wore the same dress uniform she’d seen when she was sworn in as a novice. The only decoration on it tonight was his old novice pin. Dath Amrits was gorgeous in new velvets and the latest in trousers. The men hung up their swords in the hall as soon as they entered; a family servant helped them with their cloaks and discreetly checked to make sure no one had mud or horse leavings on their boots.

  “The Governor hopes you don’t mind being received in the dining room. His wife prefers to sit.”

  “Of course.”

  The Governor’s great house felt very old and crowded, compared to all the light and air she’d known at the elegant house in the Galantine Baronies during her internment with the dragon Fespanarax. The only room of a size worth mentioning downstairs was the dining room, long and spacious and opening on the upstairs where an empty gallery looked down. It was the hub the house had been built around. Ileth liked the look of the sitting room at the front. She’d glanced in as they passed; it felt warm and had upholstered chairs with a good window looking out on the lane up to the house.

  In the dining room Ileth smelled wood oil and flowers. It featured a long, broad table that could easily sit twenty if the diners didn’t mind crowding. Then there was a largish gap between the table and fireplace where you could gather, standing, or arrange chairs about the fire for talk.

  The Governor, his wife, and two servants in plain black awaited them by the fire. The chairs had been shifted from their usual spots—Ileth could see impressions on the rug—so the visitors could warm themselves by standing by it. The Governor’s wife was seated.

  Ileth, though she’d lived much of her life in the North Province, had never even seen the Governor or his carriage or however he went about. She knew he rarely left his working residence at Stavanzer. Business went to Governor Raal; he did not go to find it. He had an exaggerated, bony face with a prominent nose and ears that made Ileth think of a puppet, though his eyes were gentle and friendly, and the wiry frame of a man who was physically active. He stood next to his wife’s chair with both hands on it, as if caught in the act of helping her into it and pushing it comfortably close.

  Lady Raal (as Ileth soon learned she was called) was beautiful, but delicate. Ileth thought her an indoor flower of a person. Her shoulders—bare shoulders at dinner were in style at the moment, so both Ileth and Serena were decidedly out of fashion—and hands didn’t suggest much activity.

  Ileth noticed that the Governor’s wife sat in a chair with an elegantly knitted shawl draped casually over her legs. The dining room chairs all had high, arching backs and wide arms; even in Galantine lands she thought they would be impressive. But there were extra pillows propping the Governor’s wife up.

  “Fresh faces in Stesside,” Governor Raal said. “You’ve made us very happy.”

  “We don’t often entertain at the country residence,” Lady Raal added. “We hope this exception is as pleasant for you as it is for us.”

  Ileth warmed to them. Some of the unaccount
able anxiety at this meeting disappeared up the chimney, vanishing with the chill. It was good to hear the familiar tones of the north again, though they were softened a bit by good education.

  Dun Huss took over the job of introducing Telemiron’s riders. “Charge Deklamp’s wingman Serena you’ve met before, and to complete our party is one of our promising apprentices, Ileth. She was lately on a commission in Galantine lands and had some memorable experiences there.”

  Governor Raal nodded at Ileth, but his wife leaned so that she could see around Dun Huss. The movement made Ileth realize she was hiding, which wouldn’t do for a Dragoneer of the Serpentine. She stepped out, realizing she was blushing and wishing her hair weren’t such a fright. She performed her best obeisance.

  “See, the object of your kind interest is healthy and thriving,” Dun Huss said.

  “We were relieved to learn the Rari hadn’t snatched her. That was the fear of the lodge-keeper, a retired naval captain who devotes himself to charity now.”

  Charity! Ileth could spoil the dinner with stories of the Captain’s charity.

  “Please, sit,” Lady Raal said. “The soup is ready to be served.”

  The dining room was pleasant enough, not at all stuffy thanks to the opening above and doors at either end, but dark, lit by the fire and a few candles. The wooden floor was old and creaky, but perfectly clean. The walls were simple wood panels, unadorned, which was strange as most houses in the Vales arranged as many paintings as they could on every wall, but these were bare unless you counted the carefully stained burls-and-knots decoration. The plates were equally simple, but Ileth noted they had a fine golden rim about them.

  The Governor pushed his wife’s chair close to the table and the men sat as soon as all the ladies were settled. The Governor himself poured everyone wine, starting with his wife and then moving down to Ileth and Serena. When his own glass was full he sat down.

  “Find favor,” he said, raising his glass. His wife murmured the same.

  Ileth thought that was a good sign. It was the homey sort of a toast given up north at the start of a new venture, or before a trip or voyage. Dun Huss glanced at her and Ileth tried to put encouragement in her eyes.

  “Fi . . . find favor,” she repeated. She just touched her lips to the rim but didn’t drink, not wanting to risk the borrowed collar.

  Her stutter cued the men and Serena to repeat the Governor’s words. They drank. Except for Serena, who just raised her glass. The man who’d met them in the hall appeared with a tray of soup. The Governor and his wife looked at their guests expectantly. “Please, go ahead.”

  Amrits tried the soup. “Excellent. Not just saying that because I have an appetite from flying, either. Excellent! May I ask?”

  The Governor sampled his. “Fall vegetables, squash, some chicken broth, creamed. Our cook is a wonder with creams and sauces. Galantine, originally.”

  “She fled the—the late unpleasantness, decades back,” his wife added.

  “We’ve tried to get her to train a younger girl, but she seems to think once she gives up all her tricks and secrets we’re going to send her off.”

  Dun Huss was almost finished with his soup. “This is very good. So you never finished the story of this lodge-keeper. Usually a lodge-keeper getting a ward out the door and into a position is considered a success. Ileth occupies an enviable position. I would think he’d count her as one of his greatest achievements.”

  “I understand he’d arranged a position for her,” the Governor said.

  Ileth suppressed a snort. Arranged. Meaning he’d found Ileth a job, pocketed whatever money had been handed over to secure her employment and travel expenses, and having drunk it didn’t have the ability to offer restitution to whatever great house she was to go into as a cook or a maid.

  “We have so many orphans,” the Governor continued. “Hard times. Rari raids. A husband and father is taken, the wife seeks work elsewhere and lodges the children until she can send for them. The expected letter never comes.”

  “Tragic,” Dun Huss said. “But there is a solution.”

  “Yes, well, it feels like—it feels like pushing all my coin into one pot at the gaming table. My father was a great one at the gaming table, and the family is poorer for it.”

  Ileth’s suspicion that this visit was to plan an operation against the Rari—strange that it was being done so soon after her interest in Annis Heem Strath’s old plan—resolved into certainty. Had she put a bug in Dun Huss’s ear about it with her queries? It didn’t seem likely that Traskeer would have brought it to anyone’s attention, given his opinion of her. But then he had disappeared to his old haunts at the Assembly.

  “When you gamble,” Ileth said, speaking slowly and carefully to leave her brain and tongue no room to betray her, “there’s no way to change the odds.”

  Governor Raal looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted horns. Dun Huss made a small settling motion with his hand. “We encourage our younger dragoneers to contribute,” Dun Huss said. “Sometimes we in the older generation benefit from the courage and enthusiasm of youth.”

  “I like my table free of political matters,” Lady Raal said. “Perhaps we can move on to the meat.”

  The dinner proceeded through roast lamb shank and a turkey pie and finished with a baked cherry dish with a crust on top. Amrits tasted politely and gave his slice of cherry pastry to Ileth. Ileth was happy to eat her fill. The only thing she didn’t touch was the wine. Serena did not have wine either but drank two glasses of water, complimenting their hosts on the water.

  “Then our tastes are alike,” Governor Raal said. “I believe the Stess’s source is the best spring in the north.”

  The men stood to excuse themselves, and the Governor’s wife, when solicited by her husband as to how she felt, insisted she wasn’t a bit tired and would like a little peppermint tea to settle her dinner and hoped the men wouldn’t abandon them too abruptly to continue their discussions. They could have music.

  “If there’s music, perhaps Ileth could dance for us,” Dun Huss suggested. “Nothing overly expressive, please, Ileth, you’ve just had a large dinner and we don’t want to upset your digestion.”

  “Yes, I would like to know about dragon dancing,” Lady Raal said. “My cousin in Zland mentioned it in a letter. I believe she saw an exhibition that was a sensation.”

  While Ileth removed her boots and lamented the state of her stockings, the all-purpose servant opened one of the wood panels revealing a sort of deep closet and pulled out a keyboard-chest. The Governor himself sat on a bench produced by the servant and tested a few keys.

  “Will a parade step do?” Governor Raal asked.

  Ileth nodded.

  “She does this alone, without a partner?” their hostess asked as Ileth bounced lightly, flexing her knees and warming up.

  “Yes. The dragons find the movements and the music relaxing.”

  Ileth felt everyone’s eyes on her.

  “No need to be so nervous, dear,” Lady Raal said.

  Governor Raal started in on a parade step. He faltered a little at first but soon warmed to the instrument. Ileth, mindful of Dun Huss’s instruction, hardly lifted her knees more than was needed to bring her toes to ankles and do little kicks and side steps. She did go up on the balls of her feet and rotated, kicking to the points of the compass to help her in each quarter turn.

  The Governor stopped playing for a moment to applaud. “Oh, that was precisely done! Truly! Why, you seem to float as though the air is water!”

  “This is rather sedate,” Amrits said, drinking Ileth’s untouched wine. “In front of a dragon there’s more spinning and leaping about.”

  Ileth’s dancing had an effect on the Governor’s wife. Her eyes were wet. “How lovely. How accomplished! But what sort of torture chamber are you running on the Skylake, sirs? She has a scar as wide as
a knitting needle on her eyebrow and her nose has been broken! Do you send girls into battle?”

  “Accidents,” Ileth said. Her nose had been broken long before she passed through that red side door into the Serpentine. The Captain’s wards had a lot of accidents.

  The men stood, saying they would adjourn to the drawing room, but only after Governor Raal turned his wife’s chair and pushed it closer to the fire. Ileth noted that the chair legs each wore little socks to make it easier to move about on the wood floor. He settled the blanket on her lap again and they clasped hands.

  “I think the answer must be yes,” she told her husband.

  Ileth could just see the legs and shoes of the dragoneers in the next room through the big shared fireplace as the men sat down, attended by that all-in-one butler who’d met them at the door.

  An old woman with her hair tied up in a scarf Galantine fashion brought in tea, and Ileth and Serena moved a pair of more comfortable upholstered chairs close to the fire. Ileth tried to lean close to the fire so she could hear what was being said in the next room, but they were burning pine logs that snapped and cracked over the low voices of the men.

  Fortunately, Serena did the talking, as instructed. Ileth restricted her conversation to one-word appreciative remarks about the tea.

  “You needn’t be reserved, Ileth,” Lady Raal said. “We’re as warmly republican as any family.”

  Ileth smiled in response, vexed because she thought she caught Dun Huss saying something about the interval a dragon needed to replenish the fire-bladder. She’d much rather be in with the men.

  “As hostess, I shouldn’t mention such things, but the cost of sugar has become terrible, quite terrible. The Governor tells me it is because of the Galantine duties on river trade up from the coast. My dear sweet tea used to be such an affordable indulgence.”

  “Too bad we can’t drink dyes and gems and copper out of the Azures,” Serena said.

  “When I was a little girl it all used to go out through the north. I remember the warehouses. I used to play in my father’s warehouse before the fever. Like a rabbit warren, so many tunnels between the crates where only I could fit.”