by Robin Hobb
'Mother, please! You know that Sophie Meldar is my friend. And Sedric has always been kind to me. He's a very nice young man, with prospects of his own.'
Her mother had scarcely noticed her words. 'Oh, Alise, you looked so lovely together. Hest Finbok is the perfect height for you, and when I saw the pale blue of your gown against the royal blue of his jacket, well! It was as if you'd both just stepped out of a painting. Did he speak to you while you danced?'
'Only a few words. He's a very charming man,' Alise had admitted to her mother. 'Very charming indeed.'
And he was. Charming. Intelligent. More than handsome enough for all ordinary purposes. And wealthy. On that night, Alise had been unable to divine what on earth Hest wanted of her. She had been unable to think of a single thing to say to him while they danced. When he had asked her what she did to pass the time, she told him that she enjoyed reading. 'An unusual occupation for a young lady! What sorts of things do you read?' he had pressed her. She had, in that moment, hated him for asking but she had answered truthfully.
'I read about dragons. And Elderlings. They fascinate me. Now that Tintaglia has allied with us, and a new generation of dragons will soon grace our skies, someone must become knowledgeable about them. I believe that is my destiny.' There. That should betray to him how hopelessly unsuitable a dance partner she was.
'Do you?' he had asked her, quite seriously. His hand pressed the small of her back, easing her into a turn that seemed almost graceful.
'Yes, I do,' she had replied, effectively ending his small talk. Yet, inexplicably, he had asked her to dance yet again, and smiled silently at her as he deftly led her through that evening's final measures. As the last notes of the music died away, he had held her hand perhaps a moment too long before releasing her fingers. She had been the one to turn and walk away from him, back to the table where her mother waited, pink-cheeked and breathless with excitement.
All the way home in the carriage, she had listened, baffled, while her mother gloated. The next day, when the flowers arrived with a note thanking her for dancing with him, she had thought he was mocking her. And now, three months later, after ninety days of being besieged by his deliberate and carefully waged courtship of her, she still had no answer. What did Hest Finbok, one of the most eligible bachelors in Bingtown, see in her?
Alise forced herself to admit she was deliberately dawdling. She tidied away her sketches and notes with a scowl. She had been working with information from three separate scrolls, trying to divine what an Elderling had truly looked like. She knew she would not be able to get back to her work again this afternoon. With a sigh, she went to her mirror, to be sure that no errant smudge of charcoal remained on her face or hands. No. She was fine. She wasted just a moment looking into her own eyes. Grey eyes. Not snapping black eyes, nor yet placid blue nor jade green. Grey as granite, with short lashes, above a short, straight nose, and a wide, full-lipped mouth. Her ordinary features she could have tolerated, were they not dotted everywhere with freckles. The freckles were not a gentle sprinkling across her nose like some girls had. No. She was evenly dotted, like a speckled egg, all over her face and on her arms as well. Lemon juice did not fade them and the slightest kiss of the sun turned them darker. She thought of powdering her face to obscure them and then decided against it. She was what she was, and she wasn't going to deceive the man or herself by dabbing on paint and powder. She patted at her upswept red hair, pushing a few dangling tendrils back from her face, and spent a moment making the lace of her collar lie flat before she left her room to descend the stairs.
Hest was waiting for her in the morning room. Her mother was chatting with him about how promising the roses looked this year. A silver tray set with a pale blue porcelain pot and cups rested on a low table near him. Steam from the pot flavoured the air with the delicate scent of mint tea. Alise wrinkled her nose slightly; she did not care for mint tea at all. Then she controlled her face with a pleasant smile, lifted her chin and swept into the room with a gracious, 'Good morning, Hest! How pleasant to have you come calling.'
He rose as she approached, moving with the languid grace of a big cat. The eyes he turned toward her were green, a startling contrast to his well-behaved black hair which, in defiance of current fashion, he wore pulled back from his face and fastened at the nape of his neck with a simple leather tie. Its sheen reminded her of a crow's folded wings. He was attired in his dark blue jacket today, but the simple scarf at his throat echoed the green of his eyes. He smiled with white teeth in a wind-weathered face as he bowed to her, and for just that moment, her heart gave a lurch. The man was beautiful, simply beautiful. In the next moment, she recalled herself to the truth. He was far too beautiful a man to be interested in her.
As soon as she had taken a chair, he resumed his own seat. Her mother muttered an excuse that neither one paid any attention to. It was her pattern, to leave them in one another's company as often as she decently could. Alise smiled to herself. She was certain her mother's vicarious imaginings of what she and Hest said and did in her absence were far more interesting than the reality of their quiet and rather dull conversations. 'May I offer you more tea?' she asked him politely, and when he demurred, she filled her own cup. Mint. Why would her mother have chosen mint when she knew that Alise disdained it? As he raised his own cup to drink from it, she knew. So that her mouth and breath would be fresh, if Hest should decide to steal a kiss.
She inadvertently gave a tiny snort of scepticism. The man had never even tried to take her hand. His courtship had been painfully free of any attempts at romance.
Abruptly, Hest set his cup down on its saucer with a tiny clink. Alise was startled when he met her eyes with something of a challenge in his glance. 'Something amuses you. It is me?'
'No! No, of course not. That is, well, of course, you are amusing when you choose to be, but I was not laughing at you. Of course not.' She took a sip of the tea.
'Of course not,' he echoed her, but his tone said that he doubted her words. His voice was rich and deep, so deep that when he spoke softly, it was sometimes hard to understand him. But he wasn't speaking softly now. 'For you've never laughed, or truly favoured me with a smile. Oh, you bend your mouth when you know you should smile, but it isn't real. Is it, Alise?'
She had never foreseen this. Was this a quarrel? They'd scarcely ever had a real conversation, so how could they have a quarrel? And, given her complete lack of interest in the man, why should his displeasure with her make her heart beat so fast? She was blushing; she could feel the heat in her cheeks. So silly. What would have been fine and appropriate in a girl of sixteen scarcely was fitting for a woman of twenty-one. She tried to speak plainly in an effort to calm herself, but found herself falling over the words. 'I've always tried to be polite to you — well, I always am polite, to everyone. I am not a giggling girl, to simper and smirk at every jest you make.' She found a sudden curb for her tongue and forced herself to claim the higher ground. 'Sir, I do not think you have any grounds to complain of my behaviour toward you.'
'Nor any grounds to rejoice at it,' he replied easily. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. 'Alise, I've a confession to make to you. I listen to gossip. Or rather, I should say that my man Sedric has a positive knack of hearing every rumour and scrap of scandal that Bingtown ever breeds. And from him I hear the tale that you are not happy with the courtship, nor pleased at the prospect of attending the Summer Ball with me. According to what Sedric has heard, you would rather be in the Rain Wilds, watching the sea serpent eggs hatch into dragons.'
'The serpents hatch from dragon eggs,' she corrected him before she could stop herself. 'The serpents weave cases that some folk call «cocoons», and in the spring the new dragons emerge from them, fully formed.' Her mind darted frantically. What had she said and to whom, that he had come to know of her other plans? Ah, yes. Her brother's wife. She had commiserated with her over the wasted ticket money, and Alise had carelessly replied that she wished she were going on her jour
ney rather than to the ball. Why on earth had that stupid woman repeated such a thing; and why had Alise ever been so careless as to utter it aloud?
Hest leaned forward in his seat. 'And you would rather witness that than attend the Summer Ball on my arm?'
It was a blunt question and suddenly it seemed to deserve the bluntest possible answer. She thought she had accepted her fate, but now a final spark of regret blazed up as defiance. 'Yes. Yes, I would. Such was my intent when I purchased a ticket on a liveship bound up the river. But for you and the Summer Ball, I would be there right now, sketching them and taking notes, hearing their first utterances and watching Tintaglia as she ushered them into the world and up into the sky. I'd witness dragons come back into our world.'
He was silent for a time, watching her very intently. She felt her blush deepen. Well, he had asked. If he didn't want the answer, he shouldn't have asked the question. He steepled his fingers for a moment and looked at them. She fully expected him to rise and stalk, insulted, out of the door. It would be a great relief, she told herself, for this mockery of a courtship to be over. Why, then, did she feel her throat tightening and her eyes begin to prickle with tears? He kept his gaze on his hands as he asked his final question. 'Dare I hope that the chill of your displeasure over the last few weeks has been a result of your disappointment in missing your trip rather than a disappointment in me as a suitor?'
The question was so unexpected that she couldn't think of an answer for it. He continued to regard her with a direct and enquiring glance. His lashes were long, his brows perfectly shaped. 'Well?' he prompted her again and her thoughts suddenly snapped back to his question. She looked away. 'I was very disappointed not to go,' she started huskily. Then she amended it, 'I am very disappointed not to be there now. It is not just a once in a lifetime occurrence; it is something that will never ever happen again! Oh, there may be other hatches — I fervently hope there will be other hatches. But none like this, none like the first hatch of dragons after generations of absence!' Abruptly she set down the cup of horrid mint tea with a clatter on the saucer. She rose from her chair and went to stand at the window, looking out over her mother's cherished roses. She didn't see them.
'Others will be there. I just know it. And they will sketch it and write of what they see, at first hand. Their knowledge will not come from musty bits of calf-skin with faded letters in a language no one knows. They will study what happens there and they will become known for their learning. The respect and the fame will go to them. And all of my studies, all of my years of puzzle-piecing will be for naught. No one will ever think of me as a scholar of dragons. If anything, they will think only that I am the dolly old woman who mutters over her tatty old scrolls, rather like Mama's Aunt Jorinda who collected boxes and boxes of clam shells, all of the same size and colour.'
She halted her tongue, horrified that she had just revealed such a thing about her family. Then she clamped her jaws tightly. What did she care what he thought? She was sure that sooner or later, he would realize that she was an unsuitable bride and be done with her. He would have trifled with her just long enough for her to lose her single opportunity to make something of herself, to be something besides the old maiden aunt living off her brother's charity. Outside the window, the world basked in a summer that was full of promise for everyone else. To her, it was a season of opportunity lost.
Behind her, she heard Hest give a heavy sigh. Then he took a deep breath and spoke. 'I… well, I am sorry. I did know of your interest in dragons. You told me of it, yourself, the first night I danced with you. And I did take it seriously, Alise, I did. I just didn't realize how important it was to you, that you actually wanted to study the creatures. I'm afraid that I have been thinking it was just some eccentricity of yours, just an amusing hobby perhaps that you had taken up to occupy hours that I, well, that I hoped I might soon fill for you.'
She listened, caught between amazement and horror. She had wanted someone to recognize her studies as more than an amusement, but now that he did, she felt humiliated that he knew how serious she was about them. It suddenly seemed a foolish, no, an almost insane fixation rather than a legitimate study. Was it any better than letting oneself obsess about clam shells? What had she to do with dragons, what were they to her, really, other than an excuse not to engage with the life fate had given her? She felt first hot, then faint. How could she have ever imagined that anyone would consider her an expert on dragons? How foolish she must appear to him.
She had not turned to him nor made any reply. She heard him sigh again. 'I should have known that you were not an idle dilettante, waiting for someone else to come give shape and purpose to your life. Alise, I apologize. I've treated you badly in this regard. My intentions were good, or so I thought them. Now I perceive that I have been only serving my own ends, and trying to fit you into a space in my life where I thought you best should go. I've experienced the same sort of treatment from my own family, so I know what it is to have one's dreams trampled.'
There was so much emotion in his voice that she felt shamed by it. 'Please,' she said in a small voice. 'Please, don't let it concern you. It was an idle fancy, a cobweb dream that I have built too large. I shall be fine.'
He seemed not to hear her. 'I came here with a gift today, thinking that perhaps I might persuade you to think better of me. But now I fear you can only see it as a mockery of your true dreams. Still, I pray you will accept it, as small reparation for what you have lost.'
A gift. The last thing she wanted from him was a gift. He'd brought her gifts before, the expensive lacy handkerchief, a tiny glass vial of fine perfume, fancy candies from the market, and a bracelet of seed pearls. Gifts that were all the dearer, procured as they were in a time of war. Gifts fit for a young maiden, gifts that had seemed to mock her, a woman on the verge of spinsterhood. She found her tongue and made it move to say the right things. 'You are too kind to me.' If only he could understand that she meant the words with her whole heart.
'Please, come back and sit down. And let me give it to you. I fear you will find it more bitter than sweet.'
Alise turned away from the window. After staring out at the bright day, the room seemed dim and uninviting. Until her eyes adjusted, Hest was just a darker silhouette in the gloomy room. She didn't want to sit down near him, didn't want to take the chance of his reading on her face what she truly felt. She could make her voice obey her; it was harder to keep the truth from her eyes. She took a deep breath. She hadn't cried, not a single tear. There was that to be proud of. And the man in the chair might represent the only other path fate was now offering her. She didn't, she couldn't believe in him.
But for now, the dictates of society directed that she must feign that she did. She would not make herself any more of a fool before him than she already had. She fixed her mind on the thought that whatever she might do or say to him now might become the humorous little tale that he told at a dinner years from now, when he had a true and appropriate wife at his side to laugh sweetly at his story of a foolish courtship before he'd met her. She schooled her face to a calm expression; she knew she could not manage to smile pleasantly yet, and walked with a measured step back to her chair. She sat down and took up her cooling cup of tea. 'Are you certain that you would not like me to freshen your tea for you?'
'Absolutely certain,' he replied brusquely. The beast. He wasn't going to let her find refuge in polite small talk. She took a sip from her own cup to cover the flash of anger she felt toward him.
He twisted in his seat, retrieving a leather satchel from behind it. 'I have a contact in the Rain Wilds. He's a liveship captain who sails up there frequently. You know about the excavations at Cassarick. When they first found the buried city there, they were quite elated. They thought it would be like Trehaug was, with miles of tunnels to excavate and treasures to be found in chamber after chamber. But whatever disaster buried the Elderling cities was far harsher to Cassarick. The chambers had collapsed rather than merely filling with
sand or mud.
As of yet, little of anything has been found intact. But a few items were.'
He opened the satchel. His brief introduction had focused all her attention on the satchel. Trehaug was the major city of the Rain Wilds, built high in the trees in the swamp land. But below it the Rain Wild Traders had found and plundered an ancient buried Elderling city. Similar mound formations at Cassarick near the serpent's cocooning beach had seemed to promise a similar buried treasure city. Little had been heard since the trumpeting of the discovery, but that was not unexpected or unusual. The Rain Wild Traders were a short-spoken lot, keeping their secrets close even from their Bingtown kin. Her heart sank at Hest's news. She had dreamed of them uncovering a library or at least a trove of scrolls and art. In her dreams, she had been there, lingering after the dragon batch, and she had imagined herself saying, 'Well, I've studied everything I could lay my hands on from Trehaug. I can't translate all of this, but there are words I can pick out. Give me six months, and perhaps I'll have something for you.' They would have been dazzled by her knowledge and grateful to her. The Rain Wild Traders would have recognized her worth; a translated scroll was worth hundreds of times the value of an undeciphered one, not just in terms of knowledge but in trade appraisal. She would have stayed on in the Rain Wilds, and been valued there. So she had imagined it a hundred times in her darkened room at night. On a summer afternoon, here in the parlour, her dream faded to a child's self-indulgent imagining. It had, she thought again, all been a dream built of vanity and cobwebs.