by Robin Hobb
“A long day,” Tats said into her silence.
His tentative tone wondered if he had angered her by taking a liberty. She swallowed her fury at fate and evened her voice. “A long day, and I’m still sore from being ‘rescued’ by Mercor. I’ll be glad of a warm fire and a bit of hot food tonight.”
As if in answer, the fire suddenly climbed up the heaped driftwood. The glowing light outlined her friends gathering around the fire. Slight Sylve was there, standing next to narrow Harrikin. They were laughing, for long-limbed Warken was doing a frenzied dance to shake a shower of sparks from his wild hair and worn shirt.
Boxter and Kase were twin blocks of darkness, the cousins together as always. Lecter stalked past them, the spines on his neck and back clearly limned against the fire’s light. He’d had to cut the neck of his shirt to allow for their growth. That sight somehow reassured her. Those are my friends, she thought and smiled. They were just as marked as she was. Then she caught a glimpse of Jerd’s seated profile. She was perched on a piece of driftwood, and Greft stood behind her, powerful and protective. As Thymara watched, Jerd leaned back so that the top of her head touched his thigh as she spoke up to him. Greft bent to answer her and for an instant they formed a closed shape, the two of them becoming a single entity that shut out the rest of the world.
Jealousy cut her. It was not that she wanted Greft, merely that she wanted what they had simply taken for themselves. Jerd laughed aloud and Greft’s shoulders moved in a way that echoed her amusement. The others either ignored or accepted their closeness. Was she the only one who still felt a twinge of outrage and unease at what they were proclaiming?
Without thinking about it, she was following Tats toward the fire. “What do you make of Jerd and Greft?” she asked him and then was shocked she had spoken the words aloud. She regretted the question instantly, for when Tats turned his head to glance back at her, he was plainly surprised by her query.
“Jerd and Greft?” he said.
“They’re sleeping together. Mating.” She heard the bluntness of her own words, the anger behind them. “She’s with Greft every chance she gets.”
“For now,” Tats said as he dismissed her comment. And he seemed to be replying to something else as he went on, “Jerd will go with anyone. Greft will discover that soon enough. Or perhaps he knows and doesn’t care. I could well imagine him taking what he could get, while he could get it, and planning to have something better later.” The meaningful look he gave her as he added those last words confused her and made her uncomfortable. Her thoughts hopped like a flea through his words. What was he saying? She tried to lighten the tone of the conversation. “Jerd will go with anyone? Even you?” She started to laugh as she teased her old friend, but the smile froze on her lips as Tats hunched his shoulders and turned slightly away from her.
“Me? Perhaps,” he said roughly. “Is that so unthinkable?”
She suddenly recalled the night that Greft’s words had driven Tats from the fire, and how Jerd had risen and left shortly after that. And the next day, the two had shared a boat, and for several days after that…Understanding suddenly stilled her. Tats spreading his blankets near Jerd’s, sitting by her during the evening meals. How could she not have seen what it meant? Jealousy flared in her, but before its heat could scorch her heart, ice chilled and broke it. What a fool she was! Of course that would be how it was, probably from the very first night they’d left Trehaug. Jerd, Greft, Tats, all of them had discarded the rules. Only stiff, stupid Thymara had assumed they still applied.
“Me, too!” Rapskal announced, materializing from the dark to make an unwelcome addition to their conversation.
“You too what?” Tats asked him unwillingly.
Rapskal looked at him as if he were stupid. “Me with Jerd. Before you, I was. Though she didn’t like much how I did it. She said it wasn’t funny and when I laughed at how messy it was, she said that only proved I was a boy and not a man. ‘Never with you again!’ she told me after that one time. ‘I don’t care,’ I told her. And I don’t. Why do that with someone who takes it so seriously? I think it would be more fun with someone like you, Thymara. You can take a joke. I mean, look at us. We get along. You never take offense just because a fellow has a sense of humor.”
“Shut up, Rapskal!” she snarled at him, proving him very wrong. She stormed off into the darkness, leaving them both gawking after her. Behind her, she heard Tats berating Rapskal and his protests of innocence. Rapskal? Even Rapskal? Hot tears squeezed from her eyes and left salt tracks on her lightly scaled cheeks. Her face burned. Was she blushing? Could she still blush or was it the flush of anger?
She’d been blind to all of it. Blind and stupid and trusting, simple as a child. It was so mortifying. She’d had some doltish idea that because she secretly cared for Tats, he felt the same for her. She’d known she was condemned by what she was to leading a life bereft of human passion. Had she believed that he would deny himself simply because he knew he couldn’t have her? Idiot.
And Rapskal? She was suddenly outraged in so many ways she almost choked. How could Jerd do that with simple, unassuming Rapskal? Somehow what she had led him to do spoiled him for Thymara. His sassy optimism and endless good nature seemed something else now. She thought suddenly of how he slept beside her each night, sometimes warm against her back. She had thought it a childish affection. Now a squeak of indignation escaped her. What had he been dreaming on those nights? What did the others think of their closeness? Did they imagine that she and Rapskal were tangling their bodies at night as Jerd and Greft did?
Did Tats think such a thing of her?
A fresh wave of outrage flooded her. She looked at the fire and knew, despite her wet clothes and empty belly, she would not join her fellows there tonight. Nor would she allow Rapskal to sleep anywhere near her. She whirled about suddenly and went back to her beached boat. She’d take her blanket and sleep near Sintara tonight. Not that she cared about the stupid dragon anymore, but even as uncaring as Sintara was, she was better than her so-called friends. At least she made her lack of feelings about Thymara obvious.
In her absence, Tarman had been driven up onto the shore beside the beached boats. The barge watched her with sympathetic eyes as she angrily pulled her blanket from her pack and took out her stored supply of dried meat. She didn’t want to share a meal with anyone tonight. The temptation of hot food suddenly threatened her resolution. She glanced at Tarman and wondered if Leftrin would allow her aboard to warm herself at the galley stove and perhaps have a hot cup of tea? She ventured closer, looking up at the ship. The captain was strict in maintaining his authority on his deck. None of the keepers boarded without an express invitation. Perhaps she might obtain one from Alise? She hadn’t had much chance for conversation with her since their mishap.
As the thought crossed her mind, she saw the silhouette of a man lower himself over the bow railing and climb awkwardly down the ship’s ladder to the shore. He was thin and did not move like any of the crew members she knew. He stumbled as he stepped away from the ladder and swore softly. She knew him.
“Sedric!” she exclaimed in surprise. “I had heard you were very ill. I’m surprised to see you. Are you better now?” Privately she thought that a silly question. The man looked terrible, gaunt and ravaged. His lovely clothes hung on him, and she could smell that he had not washed himself.
The man turned toward her with a shuffling step very different from the grace she recalled. He looked irritated to see her, but replied anyway. “Better? No, Thymara, not better. But soon perhaps I shall be.” His voice sounded thick as if his throat were very dry. She wondered if he were slightly drunk, then rebuked herself for thinking such a thing. He had been very ill; that was all.
As he turned away from her without any farewell, she saw that he carried a heavy wooden case. That burden was what had made him awkward on the ladder. He walked leaning to one side as if it were almost too heavy for him. She nearly ran after him to offer to help him w
ith it, but she stopped herself. Surely a man would be humiliated for her to see how weakened he was. Best to leave him alone and let him manage.
She set off to find Sintara among the dragons. Her bedroll bounced on her back as she walked. After three steps, she un-slung it and carried it clutched to her chest. The rasp on her arm was scabbed over and healing fast, but the long scratch down the top half of her spine didn’t seem to be healing at all. Elsewhere, her scales had mostly protected her from Mercor’s teeth, but there they had given way. Sylve had first noticed it when she insisted that Thymara take off her shirt so that she could bandage her arm. “What is this?” the girl had asked her.
“What is what?” Thymara had asked her, shivering still.
“This,” Sylve said and touched a spot between her shoulder blades. The touch hurt, as if she had prodded an abscess. “It’s like you cut it and it closed. When did this happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going to let it drain,” Sylve said, and before Thymara could forbid it, the girl had flicked away the edge of a scab. She’d felt warm liquid trickle down her back and turned to see Sylve’s expression of distaste as she dabbed at it. But the scaled girl had spoken no word of disgust as she prodded it and then poured clean water over it and bandaged it. It should have begun to heal. But the cut festered and was swollen and sore and sometimes oozing in the morning. She had nothing to treat it with, and no desire to expose her lizard body to anyone’s scrutiny. It would heal, she told herself stubbornly. She always healed. It was just taking longer this time. And hurting more.
The hunters had not fared well today. She smelled no meat, only river fish cooking on the fire. Once, she had enjoyed fish and regarded it as a rare treat. Now, even as hungry as she felt, she decided her dry meat would be enough.
The dragons were disappointed, too. Several of the big males were roaming the mud spit in a disgruntled way. Ranculos waded in the shallows, as if he might be able to discover more food there. On plentiful nights, the dragons often gathered around the fire with their keepers. They all enjoyed the warmth. But tonight the beasts were hungry and more scattered.
It would have been hard to find Sintara in the dark if Thymara had used only her eyes. But all she had to do was grope along the unwelcome connection she felt to the queen dragon. Sintara was at the downriver spike of the sandbar, staring back the way they had come.
And she wasn’t alone. As Thymara approached, she could hear Alise’s voice raised in gentle reproach. “You sent her right into that, deliberately, with no preparation. Of course it was upsetting to her. I wouldn’t want to stumble onto such a scene without warning. She has a sensitive nature, Sintara. I think you should have more care for her feelings.”
“She can ill afford to be ‘sensitive,’” the dragon replied scathingly.
Thymara halted, straining to hear what else they might say about her. She was becoming quite an accomplished eavesdropper, she thought sourly.
“She is already tough and strong.” Alise boldly contradicted the dragon. “Coarsening her spirit will not make her a better person. Only a harsher one. I think it would be a shame for that to happen to her.”
“It would be more of a shame for her to continue as she is—meek, bound by rules that she did not make, always holding in her words. Among dragons and Elderlings, we knew that every female is a queen, free to make her own choices and follow her own wishes. This is something Thymara must learn if she is to go on serving me.”
“Serving you!” Alise spluttered. “Is that how you see it? That she is your servant?”
She had come a long way, Thymara thought, from those days when her every word to Sintara was framed as a flowery compliment. Now it seemed to her that Alise spoke to the dragon almost woman to woman. She wondered if she had changed that much. Or perhaps it was Sintara, confident enough of them to no longer bother exerting her glamour. Thymara grinned to hear Alise defend her, but an instant later, the woman paid the price.
“Of course she serves me. Or at least she has the potential to do so, if she rises to have the spirit of a queen. Of what use to me is a servant who grovels to other humans? How can she demand the best for me if she is always deferring to them? At one time, Alise, I thought that you, too, might serve me in such a way. But of late, you disappoint me even more severely than Thymara. And I do not see you trying to change. Perhaps you are too old and incapable of it.”
Hurt could be expressed as silence. Thymara suddenly knew that, for she heard Alise’s pain and it drove her out of the darkness. Dropping all pretense that she had not overheard their conversation, she sprang to the older woman’s defense. “I do not know why either one of us would wish to serve such an arrogant, ungrateful creature as you!” she exclaimed as she stepped between them.
“Ah. Good evening, little sneak. Did you enjoy your time lurking in darkness, listening to us?” Aggression puffed out the dragon’s chest, and she seemed almost luminous in her anger. A silvery blue glow surrounded her, setting off the growing rows of fringe on her neck. The dragon’s light struck coppery ripples from the gown Alise wore. It was a breathtakingly beautiful sight, the gleaming copper woman with shining red hair against the silver and blue of the dragon. They were like a scene out of an old tale or a tapestry, and if Thymara had not been so angry with the dragon, her beauty would have captured her. Sintara sensed her wonder and began to preen herself, lifting her wings and shaking them out so that their glow was unmistakable. They were opalescent and larger than Thymara recalled them.
“I grow stronger and more beautiful each day,” the dragon echoed her thought effortlessly. “Those who have said I will never fly will one day eat their words. Only Tintaglia can rival me for beauty and power, and a day will come when that will not be so. I am not ashamed to say so of myself. I know what I am. So why should I tolerate the company of a timid little prey-beast, who bleats and squeaks her pity for herself, who will not even challenge the male who presents himself.”
“Challenge the male…” Alise’s icy voice melted and dribbled away in confusion.
“Of course.” The dragon derided her lack of comprehension. “He has presented himself. He is strong enough and in good health. He follows you, sniffing after your scent. He flatters you and acknowledges your cleverness. You cannot hide from me that you are aware of his desire for you and that you find him attractive. But before you can take him, you should present to him a challenge. For you, there can be no mating flight, no battle in the air as he struggles to mount you and you evade him and test his skills in flight. But there are other ways of old that Elderling males once proved themselves. Set him a challenge.”
“I am not an Elderling,” Alise declared. Silently Thymara remarked that she did not challenge any of Sintara’s other comments. So who was the suitor that Sintara deemed worthy of Alise? Sedric, she knew abruptly. The beautiful Bingtown man who had seemed to be at Alise’s beck and call. Was Alise the reason he had come ashore tonight? Did he hope for a tryst with her? A voyeuristic thrill coursed through Thymara at that thought, shocking her. What was the matter with her? Sternly she refused to imagine them locked and rocking belly to belly as Jerd and Greft had been.
“And I am a married woman.” Alise’s second assertion seemed, not a statement of fact, but an admission of doom.
“Why do you bind yourself to a mate you do not desire?” the dragon asked. Her confusion seemed genuine. “Why do you obey a rule that only frustrates you? What do you gain from it?”
“I keep my word,” Alise replied heavily. “And my honor. We entered into a bargain, Hest and I. In good faith we spoke promises to keep to each other and have no other. I wish I had not. Truly, I had no idea what I was giving up. For scrolls and a comfortable home and good food on the table, I bargained away myself. It was a stupid bargain, but one we have both kept in good faith. So, when all this is done, I will leave Leftrin and my dragons and my days of being alive. I will go home and do my best to conceive an heir for my husband. It is wh
at I promised to do. And if you think me a squeaking and bleating prey-beast in the clutches of a predator, well, perhaps I am. But perhaps it takes a different kind of strength to keep my word when every bone in my body cries out for me to break it.”
Sintara snorted disdainfully. “You do not believe he has kept his promises.”
“I have no proof that he has broken them.”
“No. You are the only proof that he has broken something. You are broken.” The dragon’s pronouncement was delivered heartlessly.
“Perhaps. But I have kept my word and my honor intact.” Alise’s voice had grown more and more ragged as she spoke. As she affirmed her honor, that she would keep her word, she bowed her face into her hands. For a time, she choked in silence. Then thick, painful gasps of mourning escaped her. Thymara stepped forward and hesitantly patted Alise’s shoulder. She had never attempted to console anyone before. “I understand,” she said in a quiet voice. “You are choosing the only honorable path. But it is hard for you. And even harder when people think you are a fool for keeping your word.”
Alise lifted a tearstained face. Impulsively, Thymara put her arms around her. “Thank you,” the older woman said brokenly. “For not thinking me stupid.”
THE RAIN WAS coming down again, harder this time. Leftrin pulled his knitted cap down over his ears and squinted through the darkness and the downpour. He’d had a long day, and all he really wanted to do was settle down at his galley table with some hot tea, a bowl of chowder, and a redheaded woman who smiled at his jokes, and said “please” and “thank you” to his crew’s efforts at courtesy. Little enough, he thought, for a man to ask out of life. As he’d clambered down to the shore and stalked off across the muddy flat, Tarman’s painted gaze had followed him sympathetically. The ship knew his errand, and knew how much he disliked it.