by Jo Walton
He weighed the merits of the two maidens for the next hour’s walk. Before he reached home he had decided, for reasons he called charitable, that he would offer for Selendra. Haner was going to the home of an Illustrious, to high society and fashionable life. She would have every opportunity to meet possible husbands. Selendra would be going to a country parsonage like his own, only as suppliant rather than mistress. (Surely he need not worry about her excessive liveliness if her brother Penn, who knew her so much better, thought such a life suitable for her.) He would be rescuing her from penury, or near-penury. Her dowry would not be much, but it would nevertheless be a pleasant addition to the thin layer of gold that padded his undercave. If he acted soon, before Penn took her away, Penn’s opposition would not count strongly. It might even be possible to persuade Selendra to agree to an immediate romantic elopement where he would sweep her off without waiting for formal consent and sort out the details later. Penn would not withhold the dowry in those circumstances. How convenient it would be to be married. A parson’s wife can fly, except of course on Firstday, which would make bringing supplies up through the mountains very much easier.
By the time Frelt was quenching his thirst in his chilly parsonage he had the whole of the next ten years clear in his mind, beginning with trudging all the way back down the road again tomorrow to speak to Selendra before she left for Benandi with Penn.
7. AMER’S PLEA
Penn had passed on Frelt’s good wishes for the journeys to his sisters in Avan’s presence. Avan, waking early the next morning and flying down to the meadows to bring back a beef for breakfast, was therefore astonished to see Frelt making his slow way down the road over the mountain. A night’s sleep had not changed Avan’s feelings about the forthcoming lawsuit, nor had it made him feel better disposed to the parson who had decided for his brother-in-law against him. All the same, it is much easier to bear the weight of a grudge in the evening than on a fresh summer morning, so Avan flew over, the beef clutched between his claws, and greeted Frelt cheerfully enough.
“What a beautiful morning,” he called.
Frelt had woken full of his new resolution, and had walked the footsore miles back over the mountain pondering his best approach. He had not noticed the sparkling dew, except as a damp inconvenience, nor the glorious sun, except as a source of too much light, nor the familiar beauty of the towering crags. He had to crane his neck to look up at Avan, gliding carelessly through the blue sky from which Frelt was barred. He did not envy the young dragon, or he told himself he did not, but he would have liked some acknowledgment of the sacrifice he was making, or at any rate the effort it entailed. “Veld made the world for our use, but Jurale in mercy added the beauty,” he recited piously.
Avan was as religious as the next young dragon with his way to make in the world—which is to say that he held many traditional beliefs which he had never paused to examine, attended church because it would have seemed strange not to, rarely paid much attention when he was there, and found piety out of the pulpit thoroughly misplaced. If pressed, he would have been forced to stand with those who held that religion should be restricted to Firstday, though he would in all other ways have shunned such radical company. He was no free-thinker, but the place religion held in his life could be described as traditional rather than spiritual. He enjoyed the familiar Firstday service because it was familiar rather than because it was a service, and he made sure to attend a church in Irieth where the parson was famous for keeping his sermons short. This sanctimonious response to his greeting thus brought back all his irritation with Frelt. He said no more, banked his wings, and prepared to fly back up.
“Stay,” Frelt called. Avan paused and circled, already much higher and drifting farther up on an updraft. He looked down inquiringly. “I am coming to pay a call on your family,” Frelt said, of necessity shouting to be heard.
“I can’t stop you,” Avan said, giving way to rudeness, but under his breath. “You know the way,” he said, more resonantly, and flew off to warn his sisters.
Selendra and Haner had been up late the night before attempting to comfort each other for the loss of their father. It was not the first loss their family had suffered, but the other losses had happened when they were so young as to leave them almost untouched. Their mother had died shortly after they were hatched, they scarcely remembered her. They were not yet truly aware how much they had missed her guiding hand in their upbringing. Avan’s clutch-mate, Merinth, had been lost before they were of the age of understanding. They had seen misfortune come to other families, and thought they had come to know through his long illness what their father’s death meant. It was only now that they realized that there is nothing that can really be a preparation for death.
The beautiful morning that had lightened Avan’s heart seemed almost mockery to Selendra, that the sun could shine when her father was dead and she was so soon to be separated from everything she loved. She left Haner asleep in the sleeping cave they had shared since they were hatched, and went sadly down to the kitchens to arrange breakfast. Amer was there, clucking over the depleted stores. “We’ve let it go badly, ’Spec Sel, over your father’s illness. But if you’re all to leave it’s probably just as well, who would want to leave stores to Berend and that arrogant husband of hers.”
It would have been appropriate for Selendra to have reproached her servant for speaking so freely, but Amer in her long service to the family had been allowed such privilege that it did not even occur to Selendra to do so. Though she could have recited maxims by the hour about keeping servants in their place, she had never thought to apply them to Amer, who had come to Agornin when Bon Agornin married and stayed to tend all the dragonets as they grew. “I dare say Illustrious Daverak would have turned up his snout at our preserves and smokes if we had made them,” she said, colluding with Amer and encouraging her. “I hate to think of him having our beautiful home.”
Amer shut the almost empty cupboard and turned to Selendra. “Will you take me with you to Benandi?” she asked.
Selendra hesitated. “Haner wanted you to go with her. I’ll have Penn, you know, while she will have only Berend.”
“I’m very sorry for ’Spec Haner, and I wish I could do something to help her, but I’m thinking about myself now,” Amer said. “I’m an old dragon and I’ve served your family a long time and your mother’s family before you. Please let me come to Benandi.”
Faced with this determination, Selendra couldn’t insist. “I don’t know if Penn will allow it. I don’t know if he could afford it for that matter. It’s good of him to take me in, I don’t know if he can manage you as well. He couldn’t manage Haner. I’ll certainly ask him as strongly as I can, but I can’t promise.”
“I’m a hard worker, you know I am, and one more servant is a different matter from a sister.”
“He has a wife,” Selendra said, remembering. “Her name is Felin. I met her only at the wedding, and briefly, I don’t know her at all. She may have her own ideas about what servants she needs, and I’m sure they don’t include my having my own attendant.” She laughed at the thought. “Me with a personal attendant, like a very grand dragon. Like Berend.”
“I’d be happy to be that, and you deserve to have your scales burnished as much as other maidens, but you know I’ll turn my hands to whatever is necessary. I’ll scrub the cave if they need that, and you know I make good preserves and medicines.” Amer’s hands were held out before her like a beggar pleading.
“She may have her own ideas about managing servants, about tying down wings very tightly,” Selendra warned.
It has been told already that Amer’s wings were hardly bound tighter than Penn’s. It should further be admitted that on occasion during their father’s illness, Selendra and Haner had allowed Amer’s wings to be unbound entirely so that she could fly out to gather healing herbs. Let those who throw up their wings in horror at this consider that Amer had returned and was serving the family even now and had not taken t
he opportunity to fly off into the mountains and take up a new life.
“I can bear having my wings bound as tight as anything, it isn’t that, and I’d be sure of that with Berend. What scares me is if they keep me at all. Those idle servants from Daverak were talking when you were in the undercave, and maybe they were just talking to try to frighten me, but they didn’t sound that way, talking about how Daverak eats the servants when they get old.”
“Eats them against their expressed intention?” Selendra asked, her dislike of Daverak making this easy enough to believe.
“Eats them before they’ve died,” Amer said, and then caught up with herself when she saw Selendra’s horrified expression. “Not quite as bad as that, no, not eating them alive but killing them to eat as if they were weakling dragonets.”
“How terribly wasteful,” Selendra said. “No, it can’t be so, his parson wouldn’t allow it,” Selendra made her voice much more definite than she felt, to reassure the old servant as she quoted, “There must be no killing of dragons except after a challenge or in the presence of a parson, for the improvement of dragonkind—meaning the weakling dragonets, not a servant who isn’t as fast as she used to be.”
“Parsons don’t see everything. There are corrupt parsons too, who might look away, and who’s to say the Illustrious Daverak doesn’t have one of those?” Amer looked imploringly at Selendra.
“I’ll do whatever I can to persuade Penn to let you come with me,” Selendra said.
Just then Avan came in, ducking his head to avoid the doorway. He had the beef slung across his arms. “I went out to bring back breakfast,” he said, smiling.
“Oh bless you,” Selendra exclaimed. “I’ve let supplies get very low.”
“No use getting it in for Berend,” Avan said.
“That’s just what Amer was saying,” Selendra said. Avan gave Amer a look that warned he was by no means as indulgent with servants as his sisters. She ducked her head obediently and took the beef from him.
“I met Blessed Frelt on my way,” Avan said. “He’s coming to pay a call on the family, he says. I have no idea what he wants—I thought we’d seen the last of him. I think father was right to quarrel with him, he’s such a prig.”
“Well we can’t quarrel with him before breakfast,” Selendra said.
“More’s the pity,” Avan said.
Amer let a snort of laughter escape her at this. Avan frowned, and even Selendra looked at her reproachfully, as if to ask if this was how she would behave in the Blessed Penn’s house. Amer heeded the warning look and began jointing the beef neatly, saying nothing, keeping her place.
8. A PROPOSAL
Selendra felt it necessary to go down to welcome Blessed Frelt. It so happened that this duty had never fallen to her before. When her father and Frelt were still upon good terms, before his ill-fated offer for Berend, Selendra had been a mere dragonet and Berend herself had always welcomed him. Since then his visits had been few and formal, and he had either been shown in to Bon Agornin by Amer, as if he were a stranger, or even worse met with threats upon the threshold. “Amer, keep on with the breakfast, and make sure it is suitable for a visiting parson,” she said, sternly. “Avan, if you could inform Penn and Haner of our visitor I would take it kindly.” She then checked herself rapidly for stray spots of blood, brushed her front scales hastily, and hurried down towards the lower gate. Such were the preparations of the maiden Selendra as she went to receive her first proposal of marriage.
Frelt was delighted to see Selendra bustling down to greet him. He had wondered a little, after Avan’s abrupt departure, if he might be treated as badly by the children as by the father. He had remembered Penn’s behavior to him the night before. Much as he hated it, he knew that if he wished to be on terms with the family he would have to admit that he was wrong. He had been unsure if he would be able to see Selendra at all. In the course of the night, he had convinced himself it was Selendra he wanted, and he now half-believed that he had been in love with her for some time. A farmer had shown him through the lower door, and he made his way slowly up through the narrow corridor, squeezing himself unpleasantly at times with some more concern for the burnish of his scales than might be thought appropriate for a parson. So when he saw Selendra coming down, the smile he gave her had much of genuine pleasure in it, along with a little of the pride that was his strongest quality.
“Blessed Frelt, how may we serve you?” Selendra asked. “Would you care to take breakfast with us?”
“Thank you, Respected Agornin. I should be delighted.”
Selendra turned and the two of them made their way up towards the heights of the establishment. When the corridor broadened so they could walk abreast, Frelt immediately took advantage of this to come up to her side. He smiled at Selendra again, hoping she noticed the strength and evenness of his teeth. She did not smile back, but regarded him gravely. “Is there anything wrong?” she asked. “We were not expecting to see you today.” The only thing she could imagine might have brought him was the irregularity over the funeral, which she knew her brothers would not want to discuss with any stranger, least of all Frelt.
“Respected Agornin, nothing is wrong, nothing at all. I just came once again to pay my respects to your family and to see if I might serve you in your time of grief.” This speech was so bland it could have been made by any parson to any recently bereaved young maiden, but Frelt softened it with another smile, this one much less natural.
Selendra took him literally, and was confused. “We welcome you, of course, but my brother Penn is still here if we needed a parson, and the funeral is over and I don’t see that there is anything you can do.”
“I came to pay my respects to you, Selendra,” Frelt said, whirling his dark eyes at her a little in a way that was quite unmistakable. “As you are going away soon and there is little time, I did not want to wait.”
For all that Frelt was a country parson, he had spent some little time in society in Irieth, and he usually considered himself a more sophisticated dragon than those around him. He knew this was not behavior that would be condoned by society, and this was not at all how he had behaved when he had made an offer for Berend. But time was not on his side, and he wanted to seize his opportunity. They would soon be returning to the drier and more inhabited portion of the establishment and he did not know when he might have time alone with Selendra again. Also, he had been thinking so much and with such concentration on his plan that he had almost forgotten that Selendra had never thought of him in the light of a lover, indeed that she had seldom thought of him at all. He wanted to have matters arranged between them before he began to speak to her brothers.
Selendra stopped dead, unable to misunderstand him, and most especially the use of her personal name, but so completely astonished at his declaration that she could no longer control her legs. Frelt, not anticipating this, took another step and almost tripped over her tail.
“Do you think you might come to care for me?” Frelt asked, recovering himself, leaning close to her, looking into her eyes and putting his claw on her arm.
For Selendra this was close to a nightmare. No male dragon but her father and brothers had ever been so close. The corridor was dark and confining, and more than slightly damp. She had never known Frelt well, but she had always disliked him, thinking him nothing like good enough for Berend. He leaned closer still, leaning on her, well aware that she was a maiden dragon and could be awakened to love by such closeness. He had intended to use argument, but now that he felt her close, he was almost overpowered himself by the scent of her.
Selendra felt her wings rising, though there was no room for them. They brushed the cobwebs at the top of the passage. She clapped them back to her sides, and in so doing she regained the use of her senses and could back away from him a step or two.
“I am sensible of the honor you do me, but my answer is no,” Selendra said, delivering the set speech all maiden dragons are taught to deliver, but in terrified tones. “Ne
ver speak to me of this again,” she said, as firmly as she dared, backing slowly away from him.
“I have a fine parsonage in the mountains, and am parson of six demesnes,” Frelt explained, ignoring her denial, knowing all females refused the first time. “If you married me you would be mistress of your own establishment, and you would not have to leave the countryside you love. Parsons’ wives are not forbidden to fly.”
“I said no,” Selendra said, turning and scurrying away from him up the passage, letting her words drift back to him on the wind of her passage. “I hardly think you know what you are saying, sir. You do not know me and cannot mean to seek my person in marriage. You once loved my sister Berend, I know.”
“Oh, that was long ago when you were but a dragonet. Before I saw your beauty I loved your sister as the shadow of what you would be.” Frelt was rather proud of this speech, which he had prepared on the way over the mountain, in case she might refer to his earlier wooing. He wished he could deliver it in better circumstances—Selendra was scuttling away from him as fast as she could, and he had difficulty keeping up, so that he almost had to shout, and could not be sure she heard.
“My answer is no! Please do not bother me further,” Selendra begged, all but crying, running with little leaps of flight whenever the ceiling was high enough. Frelt pursued her as fast as he could, but with bound wings he was at a disadvantage.