by E. E. Knight
“Don’t tire yourself, madam,” Severan said.
“I know my limits. I am simply expanding them, Severan. Ileth, would you walk with me in the garden a little? I’d like your support if I tire.”
She seemed so energetic Ileth could have taken her for having been taking Santeel’s snuff, but she puffed a little and slowed once they passed over the back threshold.
Out in the garden and alone, Ileth feared a questioning about the tomato soup, but the lady of the house had other concerns.
“Ileth, I have what I hope you will consider good news. I’ve spoken to my husband and he agrees, a companion closer to my own age and interests along the lines that the young Dun Troot suggested would be better. I’ve spoken to him about returning you to your dragons.”
She seemed to be expecting thanks, but they’d pulled her away from the Serpentine by means fair and foul. Of course she didn’t know her husband’s real purpose. Then again, Lady Raal had been kind to her mother, and to her. She could thank her for that. “Thank you. You are the best of women, Lady Raal.”
“I should think you would want to leave the north. We understood you were forming an attachment to Astler at Sag House. I know you’ve never said anything about it to either of us, but some in that house were convinced enough of its existence to let us know in an approving fashion. I am sorry, for them and for you.”
“He was . . . kind. I’d just as soon not talk about him.” The emotion in her voice was real this time.
Lady Raal turned toward a bench and they sat. “That’s better for both of us.” She let Ileth collect herself before proceeding.
“We are thinking of perhaps adopting a boy, so as to carry on his Name. My husband likes you, but, how did he put it, he says you’re like a wild bird that would fret and die in a cage. He’d hoped you might grow to like it here, take up a new life, and allow him to fulfill a promise he made to your mother, but it seems you’ve found your destiny elsewhere. Can your mother look down, and see her daughter comfortable and happy in those smelly caves?”
It was Ileth’s turn to feel faint. She was a good woman. Worth the risk she and Dun Huss had run. “Comfortable? No. It’s not often comfortable. But happy. Very, very happy, Lady Raal.” Laughter mixed with her stutter as she spoke.
“All he asks of you now is that you and he present yourselves before a magistrate and agree on paper that as there seems to be not the slightest similarity between the two of you, a blood connection is impossible, and both of you quit any claim to one. All those other letters shall be forgotten. Destroy them. Even old scandals sometimes stick.”
Ileth’s mood turned sour. What a coward that man was. Letting his sick wife carry out his dirty business. She wondered if that Galantine Baron hadn’t had a point when he talked about republics being governed by graspers rather than nobles who were expected to behave, well, nobly. At this point she’d happily swear out a statement that he wasn’t her father and sign it with her own blood. Gods, the Captain was a better man sloppy drunk and crying over his lost ships.
“I hope you will visit now and then. Once you have your own dragon,” Lady Raal said. “Perhaps if you accommodate my husband in his wishes to let this connection wither, he could exert himself on your behalf and show an interest in your advancement.”
Ileth felt dirty at the suggestion. She’d come this far on her own, no help from Governor Raal or anyone else. “There’s no need of that. I’m happy enough to return to my duties.” She wondered if she’d be kicking herself for those words in four more years as her apprenticeship began to run out. Well, four years was a long way off.
* * *
—
She begged an extra day or two at Stesside from Dun Huss so that she might take care of this statement of the Governor’s.
“Mnasmanus doesn’t mind mutton and is enjoying the change of scenery. He’s trying to win over those horses, and once he sets to something, he likes to see it through. But are you sure you want to sign something like that, Ileth? We’re ankle-deep in letters from him about claims to ‘his daughter.’ You might wish for an inheritance of money, even if you don’t have one of blood.”
“I don’t know how all that works, but couldn’t he just declare that none of his property was to go to me in the event of his death?”
Dun Huss wasn’t the sort of man to shrug, though he gave the impression one had occurred. “I suppose he could.”
“Or we could just fly off on Mnasmanus and let him twist in the wind.”
“Maybe you are his daughter after all. I would think the Serpentine would like to have a little leverage over a provincial governor, particularly this one,” Dun Huss said.
“Do you know which dragoneers were here when he sent them off?”
“Almost twenty years ago? I wasn’t even an apprentice then. I was digging ditches for the gas lighting system as a novice. Someone else will have to help you with that.”
She decided to leave it at that, for now. As a change of subject, she brought up Lady Raal’s recovery. “Where did you get that medicine? I thought you were going to give him a plausible fake. It wasn’t a powerful stimulant, I hope.”
“It was dragon blood, of course. Straight from Mnasmanus’s neck-vein.”
She tried to form words. It wasn’t her stutter this time, it was shock. Hael Dun Huss, the best exemplar and upholder of the traditions and laws of the Serpentine—giving out dragon blood?
“Ileth, do you really think I’d let a sick old woman suffer? Give flavored tinctures of nothing like some back-alley Sammerdam quack? When dragon blood can do wonders? I talked things over with Mnasmanus and he thought the risk minimal enough. She’s beyond childbearing age, at least as I understand such matters.”
“I . . . I . . . I don’t know what to say. But why tell me?”
“You’ll understand, someday. You’re the future of the Serpentine. I’d like to leave it, as we all must, in the right hands. With the right ideals.”
With that, they quietly packed up and left. Ileth placed a note thanking Lady Raal for the hospitality of her table and grounds, explaining that Mnasmanus felt he should be looked at by one of the Serpentine physikers, as one of his wounds had recently opened up again.
As she and Dun Huss took their things out and attached them to Mnasmanus, it made Ileth think of Galia’s elopement from the Baron’s estate.
Now that the matter of the dragon blood had been resolved, Ileth had one last duty in the north that was much on her mind. She didn’t know quite how to bring it up . . .
“What is it, Ileth?” Dun Huss asked, interrupting her imaginings of how she could request such a favor from Mnasmanus and his dragoneer.
“How did you know I wanted to ask you something?”
“Your mouth tightens and your lips disappear when you’re working up to a speech.”
“Do they really?”
“Truly.” Dun Huss smiled. “It’s a tell. Not as bad as poor old Dath, but I’d advise you not to gamble over cards. Let’s have it.”
“It’s like this. Last summer, I had a conversation about flowers with a gentleman . . .” It all came out. The silver coin. Beggars. Her promise that she hadn’t kept. Flowers for a dance. Astler and the grieving Comity.
“Hear that, Mnasmanus? She’s forbidden to set foot on the soil of Sag House ever again. Presents a difficulty.”
Ileth counted out the coins in her purse. Governor Raal had given her a travel allowance for going about the north, and Lady Raal had sometimes given her pocket money during her stay at Stesside, not realizing just how cheaply the Governor’s daughter was used to living. “Is this enough, you think?”
“More than Mnasmanus can carry from the Sammerdam market.”
Ileth bowed her head. “I feel terrible asking you two for such a service. So much flying.”
Dun Huss put his hands on her shoulders. “I
leth, look at me.”
She met his gaze.
“I’ve known you, what is it? Has it been three years? Through a duel with a man twice your size who wanted to kill you, through a fire in the Serpentine Cellars, over a year as a Galantine prisoner, a disfigurement . . . I could go on. I’ve never once been of real service to you, though I’ve wanted to do you some great favor since you battled your way through your oath with the whole Serpentine staring at you. Nothing would please us more than to finally be of assistance.”
Dun Huss looked at the dragon. “What do you say, friend?”
“He seemed a fine young man,” Mnasmanus said. “I would be happy to oblige.”
Ileth sniffled. Growing up, Ileth had been jealous of the little girls who could go running to their fathers and sob out their troubles into a comforting chest. She’d gone seventeen years now without that, so she could, with pride, go on for the rest of her life without.
But she was sorely tempted at that moment to give in.
Instead she took a deep, refreshing breath of the Stesside air. “Thank you, sir. Thank you both.”
* * *
—
The flowers on Astler Aftorn’s grave the next morning became a matter of local legend in the Headlands, with the story being told as far away as the Freesand and south beyond the Chalk Cuts. Like most legends, every year it grew a little. How exactly someone managed to get what was practically a cartful of fresh blossoms of every type and color, none of which could be found within dozens of leagues of the Headlands, atop the fresh mound of soil without leaving a print or track anywhere near was a matter of much conjecture.
The supernatural was suspected. Perhaps a token of esteem from the gods. A message that prosperity would return, that no more families would be torn apart by slave-hungry pirates. Everyone had their own conflicting explanation. It didn’t help that the Sag House girl, the dead boy’s cousin, agreed that each and every version she heard was true.
* * *
—
If Ileth had been pleased and proud the last time she saw the Serpentine from dragonback, this time she had to blink away tears. How could gray be such a lovely color? She put her arms around Dun Huss from behind and pressed her face into his muscular back. She even cried a little.
“Thank you. Thank you, sir,” she said.
“Thank Mnasmanus. He’s probably set a distance record in the last day or two.”
“I’ll devote myself to dancing for him full time, if he wishes.”
“Wouldn’t do me any good,” Mnasmanus said over the wind. “I’ve next to no sense of smell.”
“Your hearing makes up for it,” Dun Huss laughed.
Mnasmanus didn’t try for a cave landing. Like Dun Huss, he was doctrinaire. He landed on the Serpentine road just short of the Pillar Rocks, as ideal a landing according to Serpentine doctrine as one would wish.
It was coming on toward dinnertime and the Long Bridge and road had groups of twos and threes heading to the up end. They paused, moved to the railing of the Long Bridge, and solemnly turned left or right to face the dragon as he walked to the Beehive, Dun Huss walking beside and Ileth trailing behind.
“Eyes on Mnasmanus of the Serpentine,” a dragoneer shouted across the Long Bridge. Those standing drew themselves up. “Render victory honors!”
As Mnasmanus walked past, the assembly to either side saluted one by one as the dragon’s head broke their precise noseline. Ileth was suddenly unsure if she should join the line of people to either side. She just tried to measure her pace and put on a solemn expression, but a smile kept breaking out.
Home.
* * *
—
Of course she had to report to Traskeer that she’d returned. She washed up, changed into her ordinary overdress, and went to dinner in the Great Hall. More than a few welcomed her back. She was no Name, yet many of the apprentices and wingmen seemed glad to see her again and inquired about her health and the north. It made her flush with pleasure.
She asked about Traskeer and heard he was catching up with his index, having only just arrived yesterday after reporting the events of the campaign to the Assembly.
Ileth filled a tray with soup and bread and brought it to him.
She knocked, he answered, and she found him on a two-seat couch that had been added to his office since she’d last visited. The fabric on the seats was worn and he couldn’t stretch out comfortably, but he did have his feet up. He had that greasy-sweat, washed-out look Ileth remembered from the first time they met.
“Ileth,” he said flatly. “Run away again?” he asked.
“Released, sir. I brought you soup.”
“I know some of our company get flux every time they visit Sammerdam. I seem to be the only one who reverses the complaint. I feel healthy as Master Justice in the city, and then as soon as I return here, I’m stricken anew.” He sniffed at the soup, tasted it, and went to work with the spoon. “Thank you. Is there salt?”
“Sorry, sir, forgot it.”
He moved the letters and notes he had on the table so Ileth had room to set down the tray.
“It can’t be the water, I’m careful to drink spring water in copper pots. I wonder if it’s the cooking lard. My digestion seems sensitive to grease.”
“You could commission your next new apprentice to a study of the kitchens.”
“Not a bad idea. The Committe of Public Health had a fellow who maintained that bad food kills more people in the Vales every year than accidents. Speaking of commissions, did you learn much about Raal’s role in the Republic’s order of things? Any new insights into the powers and limitations of the office?”
“Hardly, sir. He had me keep his wife company at the family home.”
Traskeer dipped some bread in the soup and chewed thoughtfully. “Yes, I remember Santeel saying something about that. She had a very clever idea, by the way, and harried Dogloss like a crow about it. Something about that old striped dragon naming you his heir and therefore having adopted you. You were legally his daughter and the Governor therefore couldn’t have actionable cause or whatever the legal term is because of precedence. Dogloss said you already being at his residence would make things difficult. She was trying to get money together to bring a case.”
Ileth didn’t know what to make of that. Of course once Santeel got her teeth into something, she was like a wardog on a sword arm.
“I did learn coup.”
“Did you? You know, the Charge and Dun Huss play a decent enough game, and that wingman, the one with the art patch of the thistles on the back of his riding rig. If we could just get a few more, we might set up a league. I believe Captain Tellence of the Guard plays. We’d need a league secretary to record positions at the finish. You’d do admirably, you’re prompt and accurate. Salt excepted.”
“Couldn’t I play, sir?”
“In a competitive sense? Women don’t go in much for coup, I’ve found.”
“Let’s have a game, then.”
He smiled. “Excellent suggestion. That would clear my mind of the cobwebs of updating the index. As visitor, I’ll let you have the first move.”
They set up their array. Traskeer tut-tutted at her captain/tower ratio when she revealed it when the starting screen was pulled away. “Three towers, Ileth? You’ll find it limits your attack.”
The game began. She’d had plenty of time to brood over arrays at Stesside. She had set hers up defensively, in Lady Raal fashion. But you had to conform to your enemy’s array too if you were to play the grinding game Lady Raal favored, and there was always a weakness. Ileth, with first move, nudged some infantry forward to defend her forward tower in the triangular array. It was the obvious defense against his now-revealed array. Traskeer, taking advantage of their placement next to his lone fortress, moved his cavalry and a captain far forward to exploit the side that wasn�
�t covered by Ileth’s war machine.
Ileth brought out her dragon from its position next to a fortress and destroyed a cavalry piece. Traskeer’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “That’s no way to play the Hedgehog Defense, Ileth. You’ll need your dragon at a crisis to counter mine. He’s way over that side of the board now.”
He brought up more cavalry to lock her dragon down, surround it, and destroy it. She sent out her cavalry to support it. He brought up the war machine that would doom her dragon next turn.
And she sprang her trap. Her cavalry, instead of protecting her dragon, swung around to his now-exposed flank and took a captain and some infantry, unmoved from their initial position in his array. He had no choice but to use his war machine on the cavalry. Her dragon escaped the not-quite-closed vise and took his lone fortress. Now he had to bring up his dragon to attempt to trap her dragon again so the war machine could get it next turn, and her infantry came up in relief of the dragon, using the mobility provided by starting their move adjacent to a fortress, and destroyed the captain he’d initially brought forward with the cavalry that remained next to it.
“Coup, sir,” Ileth said.
Traskeer gaped. “Coup! In six moves.”
“Is that unusual?” Ileth said.
“I did . . . I did not expect such aggression from a girl of sixteen.”
“Seventeen, sir—just.”
“I think perhaps you were born with a strong masculine aspect. Your favoring of short hair reveals it.”
“If only a strong masculine aspect prevented a woman’s monthly flux, sir. I could do without that discomfort.”
“Ileth! A decent woman doesn’t talk of such things to anyone but her mother or husband.”
“I’m sorry, sir, it’s my masculine aspect. I’m also sorry for taking advantage of a sick man. This one was so short, I don’t feel as though we had a decent game.”