by Jo Walton
“Tradition would be with Illustrious Daverak,” Frelt said.
Penn dipped his wings, acknowledging this. “But we are not talking about tradition but my father’s desires,” he said.
“Expressed how?” Frelt asked.
“In writing to me and in person, to me, to Avan, and to Illustrious Daverak when he first began to fail, and to me here today in the undercave. Berend and I, and Illustrious Daverak as Berend’s husband, all being well established, should each take one bite only, and leave the rest for our brother and sisters, who need it more.”
“He wrote and talked about his wealth only,” Illustrious Daverak said, looking scornfully about the undercave where Bon Agornin’s scant wealth lay under his body among the slime and the fallen scales. “His gold, such as it is, not his body.”
“He may not have been clear in his writing,” Penn said. “I understand now how you came to be mistaken. But he was very clear today.”
“What did he say, exactly?” Frelt asked, enjoying himself hugely.
Penn turned his mind back and recalled his father’s exact words. “It was I who mentioned it,” he admitted. “My father was a little troubled and I thought he was worried about our sisters and brother who are not yet well established, and I sought to put his mind at rest by reminding him of the good provision he had made.”
Frelt had resented his exclusion from the deathbed, and now that he learned Bon Agornin had been troubled he resented it more. He would have rejoiced in the occasion to torment Bon at the last, as Bon had insulted him badly over the affair of Berend. He did not especially like Illustrious Daverak, but all at once he felt he detested Penn, who had robbed him of his true place and of the eyes that he had looked forward to consuming. “If he did not say it himself in specific words, then I am afraid tradition must rule,” he said.
“What he said amounted to an assent to what had been agreed before,” Penn insisted.
“Exactly what did he say?” Frelt asked, smiling in a most unpleasant way that exposed his teeth. “If you can give me every word he said on his deathbed, then maybe I can judge. As it is . . .” He let the words trail off with a twitch of his wings.
Penn struggled with himself a moment, then let his wings fall. He could not repeat every word of his father’s, not only because of Bon’s disgrace, but because he had heard his confession, which by the old laws must never be revealed to anyone, and by the new understanding must never be done by any parson.
“Then tradition must rule,” Frelt said.
Illustrious Daverak tossed the half-eaten leg in the direction of Frelt. He stepped around Penn, ignoring him completely. With both front claws he tore open Bon’s side, exposing the liver. “Come here, children,” he called, and the three dragonets ran through Frelt’s legs in their eagerness to gain the treat their father was offering.
“No, stop, I insist,” Penn said.
But they did not stop, and before Illustrious Daverak and the dragonets left, the liver had been entirely consumed. Frelt took the dropped leg and gnawed on it, smiling at Penn all the time. Penn’s eyes were still whirling wildly, but he did not say a word.
Then Berend came in, walking delicately as always. She sighed at Penn, and he knew she must have heard the whole quarrel and wondered how she would act. She bent and took one bite, but one very large bite, from the breast. It was a bite that satisfied both what Penn had said and her husband’s insistence. She could say to Penn that it was one bite, but she could also say to her husband that she had consumed the greater part of the breast. It was a most diplomatic bite, and Penn, despite himself, was awed at her grasp of such nuance.
Berend bent and took up a gold cup she had always admired, for she had now changed her mind about staying the night and wished to return to Daverak as rapidly as possible, to avoid as much further unpleasantness as she could.
She smiled and followed after her dragonets, making way for the others.
Penn almost wept as the three less established of Bon’s children came into the undercave, for there was now less than half of their father’s body left for them to share.
2
Some Far-Reaching Decisions
5. AVAN’S LAWSUIT
We have been robbed,” Avan stormed, “robbed of our inheritance, robbed of what our father fully intended us to have, and I will not stand for it.”
“There is no way in the world of ripping it back out of Illustrious Daverak’s belly,” Selendra remarked.
“I would if I could, and that big bite from Berend’s, too,” Haner said. Her sister’s bite, so diplomatically intended, angered Haner far more than her brother-in-law’s indulgence. Illustrious Daverak was an Illustrious, after all, while Berend was by birth no better than she was. Such power there is, even in these days, in the title of Illustrious, at least to young maidens and the more impressionable farmers.
As can be seen, all three of the younger sibs had fed, if not gorged, upon their father’s body, and were feeling the strength and courage such feeding brings. They were gathered on the High Ledge, as if they meant to plunge off and fly out into the void, though they had no such intention. They had come there to bid their sister farewell. Berend and her entourage had already departed for Daverak, the Illustrious and Illust’ flying, and the others following below in a carriage. Haner, who had been intended to go with them that very night, had begged to delay her departure. To this, Berend, in her urgent desire to be gone, had encouraged her husband to agree. Illustrious Daverak had made a show of reluctance, but all knew it was a show, as he would have to return to take formal possession of the establishment in any case and could easily escort Haner to Daverak at that time.
The thin skin of politeness over the deep wound of anger had held for the departure. As soon as the Illustrious Daveraks had left, Penn accompanied Frelt down to the Parson’s Door, to bid him farewell and hasten him away. The other three remained where they were, anger breaking through calm, looking out at the view they knew so well and were so soon to leave behind them forever.
The sun was setting in a blaze of cloud away west down the valley, turning the curves and meanders of the river to flame, still bright enough for them to need to shield their eyes with their outer lids. It was the last day of the month of Highsummer. The crops were well grown in the square fields, spread out like a green and gold patchwork beneath them, outlined by the ragged hedgerows. Here and there they could see low buildings, tiled in mellow red, byres for the beeves and sties for the swine. They could see no abode of dragon, for the farmers of Agornin lived, by long custom, in their own section of the Dignified’s establishment. Hidden birds were singing their sunset song, answered by the cry of the occasional muttonwool on the lower slopes of the hill. Berend and Daverak, flying south with the high winds, were almost out of sight already. Their carriage followed the road south towards the distant arch of the bridge.
“At least we shall have the gold,” Haner went on after a moment.
“What there is of it,” Avan said. The gold had been counted and divided and valued at about eight thousand crowns worth for each of them. “And gold is a great deal easier to come by than dragonflesh for someone in my position, or yours either. I dare say Father let you have a little occasionally, but that’s not likely to continue.”
“Penn won’t have it to give,” Selendra said, sadly, but fully intending to defend her priestly brother.
“And as for you, Haner, we’ve all just seen an example of Daverak’s generosity,” Avan said. “Why, I wish I could take the two of you to Irieth with me, but it’s just impossible. If I ever become established I shall send for you at once.”
The sisters gazed out at the countryside, eyes whirling slowly. “That’s kind,” Sel said at last. “But you won’t change your mind about staying here?”
“It would be madness,” Avan said. “If I were twice as long I might risk it, circumstances being what they are. That was what our father hoped for in the long term, bless his bones, but he did not live
long enough. As it is, I have told you, it wouldn’t work at all.”
“But you would have the weaklings,” Haner ventured. “You could grow.”
“There aren’t so many weaklings in a demesne this size. Would you have me be a Dignified like Monagol, plunging down after every birth to take a dragonet whether there is a weakling or not, saying the family can’t manage so many? That’s no way for an honorable dragon to behave. There’s no need for that. Though when I think about what Daverak did I could flame him to a crisp.”
Both his sisters recognized this as an idle threat, for they knew their brother would have no flame for many years. Haner’s silver eyes filled up with tears, for it was an expression of which their father had been very fond. Even with Bon Agornin it had been words far more often than deeds, but, as she whirled away the tears, Haner could just make out the scar in the cornfield where her father had flared up at a recalcitrant farmer five or six years before.
“I’ll tell you what, though,” said Avan, with a great clap of his wings. “I could take him to law.”
“To law?” Haner asked, astonished. “Wouldn’t that be terribly expensive?”
“You said yourself that we have the gold,” Avan said. “We have the right on our side. I have a letter from my father clearly stating that we three were to share what he left. Illustrious Daverak could be made to—”
“To what?” interrupted Sel. “He cannot give us back what he has taken, and how could he make restitution? Where is he to get the body of a full-grown dragon to give us? It’s hardly such a crime as they’d execute him for it, even if we wanted to leave our sister a widow and her children fatherless.”
“The courts do give the bodies of those who are executed and not owed to the victim, to restitution in such cases as ours,” Avan explained, lifting off the ground a little in his excitement. “They wouldn’t execute Daverak, of course not, but they’d make him pay gold through his snout and assign one of the spare criminals to us. If they found for us, that is. Daverak would pay. We could not fail.”
“How much would it cost?” Selendra asked, bringing her brother back down to earth with a bump. “You said yourself that the gold is not much. Our shares may be barely enough to provide dowries for me and for Haner, though not if we wish to marry rich dragons. You have the means to make a living, and to prosper, we maidens do not. That gold and our own persons as we are are all we have. I would rather have the gold than the flesh if it came to it.”
“Lawsuits are expensive, true, but it will not be above my share,” Avan said, settling back to the ledge a little shamefacedly. He had amassed some gold already, which he could add to his inheritance. “I was not thinking of asking you to contribute.” What he had said about gold being easier to come by in Irieth than dragonflesh was true, but this last statement was a polite fiction. He had calculated that the lawsuit would cost what the three of them had inherited. But sitting on the familiar ledge with his two beautiful sisters he knew he did not in the least wish to rob them of their prospects.
“Wouldn’t it be better to ask him politely for some compensation first?” Haner asked.
“Penn tried politeness and it got him nowhere. No, a firm legal letter is what it will take, and if that isn’t enough, then bring him before the courts to extract our due.” Avan felt seventy feet long as he said this, the bold protector of his sisters, a dragon to watch out for.
6. FRELT’S INTENTIONS
Blessed Frelt’s parsonage lay perhaps ten minutes’ flight east of Agornin, over the mountain. Because of the geography of the underlying terrain this meant two or three hours’ walk for a sturdy dragon. If Frelt had been offered a night’s rest he would have refused it, but he felt it a little high-handed of the clan to throw him out with no more refreshment than the well-gnawed leg Daverak had tossed him in the undercave. In any well conducted funeral the parson was given fruit and beer in addition to his rightful consumption of the eyes of the deceased. As he bade a dry but polite farewell and eyed the upward road that was his way, without so much as a drink of water, he felt he was paying a high price for his earlier victory.
Penn kept his farewell to Frelt as brief and as formal as possible. He had observed Berend’s haste to remove her household, and had a certain amount of sympathy for it. He was generally a peace-loving dragon himself, he hated rows and explosions. Even before he became a parson he had rarely initiated any combat. The last thing necessary now was a long lingering that would feed the flame of animosity. Penn knew himself well. After six months or a year in his own parish, with his own wife bringing him meals he liked to eat in his own snug dining room, he would be able to endure the sight of Blessed Frelt and even Illustrious Daverak with equanimity. At the moment, it was all he could do to bid Frelt go in the name of the gods without ripping him limb from limb.
“And you have a good journey back to Benandi,” Frelt said, with heartiness Penn distrusted.
“I will be staying here for a day or two, then escorting my sister Selendra back with me,” Penn said, curtly but unavoidably.
“Only Selendra?” Frelt asked. “What is to become of Haner?”
Penn’s vision closed in on Frelt and he felt his claws flex involuntarily. The implication of Frelt’s question, that the family might abandon Haner to her own devices, filled him with anger. Then he remembered his father’s confession. A dragon whose father had eaten his siblings has little right to object to a suggestion that he might abandon his own. “Haner will be living under the protection of the Illustrious Daverak in future,” Penn said, calmly and evenly as befit a parson.
“Then wish them both a pleasant journey from me too. May Jurale see that none of you become weary and thirsty on the way.”
“Thank you,” Penn said, though he understood perfectly well that Frelt hoped to be provided with more refreshment for his own little journey. Let him drink from rainpuddles, Penn thought, as he smiled and raised an arm in polite parting ritual.
Fuming, Frelt set off along the rocky way. It would be quite dark before he reached home, and he had dismissed his servants for the day before he set off. How he wished he had a wife to wait up for him and prepare meat and refreshing fruit for his return. He could afford one. He had inherited only a very small store of gold from his parents, but his parish was a prosperous one and he had no expensive habits. He had gone into it all carefully seven years before when he had made suit for Berend. There was no doubt he could afford a wife, and dragonets, if they were not too many. A wife would be a great benefit to him. Yet when he had been disappointed he had not tried again. He had been too busy feuding with old Bon, and besides, there hadn’t been anyone in the district pretty enough to catch his eye. He was too discriminating, he thought, walking on, his tastes were too refined. His first choice had become an Illust’. He could not be expected to settle after that for some farmer’s daughter, or, worse, some Dignified’s daughter twice his age and beginning to toughen under the chin. Yet since Berend’s marriage those had been all the district had to offer. Maybe he should go to Irieth one spring and see the maiden dragons displayed by their mothers on the marriage market, pick out one for himself. They might all say they wanted an Exalted or an August or an Eminent and would settle for an Illustrious, but there were more maidens than Augusts to please them. He knew plenty of them would be glad of a wealthy parson, with a good living, thirty feet long, and already starting to accumulate something to pass on to his children.
He trudged onwards, uphill, the setting sun warm on his back. He did not resent the red cords that bound his wings. He was proud of them, proud of his own endurance of them. Some parsons, he knew, would have considered this circumstance enough to remove them to fly home. Frelt prided himself that he did not, that his inner piety was reflected in his outer obedience to every letter of the law. There were still a few parsons in Tiamath who flew every day, who wore cords only when they preached, and he condemned them as did every right-thinking dragon. They were few, but there were many who wore cords u
ntil circumstances were difficult, until the cords started to chafe, until they had a long uphill walk across mountains. Frelt condemned them equally. Parsons were immune and therefore they had their wings bound in red in sign of it, and therefore they walked. He did not hold with the extremists who said everyone should walk on Firstday, though he did think walking to church was good manners, unless the journey was too difficult. But parsons should walk, all the time, even when inconvenient, and this Frelt diligently did. He wished he had someone with him to be impressed, or someone waiting for him at home to bring him a drink and admire his fortitude and exclaim over the distance he had walked. A wife. Berend was lost to him, but he needed a wife.
For the first time he thought of Berend’s sisters. He had never paid them much attention. When he had courted Berend they had been mere dragonets, and there had been little interaction between the parsonage and Agornin since they had grown up. He had hardly seen them except in church. Yet today he had noticed them, and they were both pretty and of marriageable age. He held his memory of them before his eyes as he walked on. Selendra had perhaps a touch brighter maidenly gold than her sister, and he thought her eyes were a little sharper, violet, like Berend’s. Haner was definitely paler and dreamier, with silvery eyes. He hesitated for a moment, foot outstretched. Might not a quieter dragon suit him better as a wife? He would want home comfort and admiration, not drama and excitement. But liveliness often went with endurance. He wanted a wife who would give him dragonets and live on as his companion, not fade away and leave him widowed after her first clutch.
Selendra, then. He stepped on, carefully, for the sun was down and the road was darkening. Yet Selendra was the one who would go with Penn, while Haner was to join Berend’s establishment. Haner’s connections would favor him, while Penn might oppose a match out of anger over today’s decision. It was, in retrospect, a foolish decision, he realized. If he had thought of marrying one of the maidens ahead of time it would have been in his interest to decide with Penn and make sure they were given their fair share of flesh. As a parson he would have enough for his wife, but no abundance. He thought of little green Lamerak and shuddered. That dragonet should be culled, not indulged. His sister had been a pale gold, with only the faintest green blush. He should have decided against Daverak and let the younger ones eat, then Haner and Selendra would have been better nourished and grateful to him. Too late now. He would have to rely on the gratitude they would feel at being married and given their own establishment instead of living as poor relations.