by Robin Hobb
Harrikin suddenly spoke up. “I wouldn’t want to just sink down in the muck of the river bottom. I’d give myself to Ranculos. I want everyone here to know that now. If something does befall me, give my body to my dragon.”
“Same for me,” Kase said, and predictably Boxter echoed him with a, “Same.”
“And I,” Sylve chimed. “I am Mercor’s, in life or death.”
“Of course,” Jerd conceded, and Greft added, “For me, also.”
The assents rounded the circle of gathered keepers. When it came back to her, Thymara bit her lip and held her silence. Sintara reared up out of the water, standing briefly on her hind legs to look down on her. “What?” she demanded of the girl.
Thymara looked up at her. “I belong to myself,” she said quietly. “To get, you must give, Sintara.”
“I saved you from the river!” The dragon’s outraged trumpeting split the darkening sky.
“And I have served you from the day I met you,” Thymara replied. “But I do not feel that our bond is complete. So I will hold my thoughts until such time as a decision must be made. And then I will leave it up to my fellow keepers.”
“Insolent human! Do you think that you—”
“Another time.” Mercor cut into their quarrel. “Render to Baliper what is his.”
“Warken wouldn’t have had a problem with it,” Lecter said decidedly. He straightened from where he’d been leaning on the railing. “I’ll do it.”
“I’ll help,” Tats said quietly.
“Keepers’ decision,” Leftrin announced, as if they had waited for his permission. “Swarge will show you how to use a plank to slide his body over the side. If you want words said, I’ll say them.”
“There should be words,” Lecter said. “Warken’s mother would want that.”
And so it went, and Thymara watched it unfold and wondered at the strange little community they had become. I am and am not a part of this, she thought as she listened to Leftrin say his simple words and then watched Warken’s body slip over the railing on a plank. She wanted to turn her head away from what would happen next but somehow she could not. She needed to see it, she told herself. Needed to see how the keepers and their dragons had become so intertwined that such an outrageous and macabre request could be seen as reasonable and even inevitable.
Baliper was waiting. The body slid out from under its draping and as it entered the river, the dragon ducked his head and seized it. He lifted Warken, his head and feet dangling out either side of his mouth, and carried him off. The other dragons, she noted, did not follow him, but turned away and half swam, half waded back to the shallows at the edge of the river. Baliper disappeared upriver into the darkness with his keeper’s body. So it was not a simple devouring of meat that humans would otherwise discard. It meant something, not just to Warken’s dragon, but to all of them. It was important enough to them that when Baliper’s demand had been initially refused, they had massed and made it plain that they would not let him be denied.
The other keepers reminded her of the dragons. They dispersed quietly from their places along the railings. No one wept, but it did not mean no one wished to. Seeing Warken dead, really dead, had brought home the reality of Rapskal’s absence. He was gone, and the chances were that if she saw him again he would be like Warken, battered and bloated and still.
The keepers congregated in small groups. Jerd was with Greft, of course. Sylve was with Harrikin and Lecter. Boxter and Kase, the cousins, moved as one as they always did. Nortel trailed after them. And she stood apart from all of them, as she so often seemed to do. The only one who had refused her dragon. The only one who never seemed to know what rules the group had discarded and which ones they kept. Her back ached abominably, she was river scalded and insect bitten, and the loneliness that filled her up from the inside threatened to crack her body. She missed Alise’s company, but now that they were back on the barge and she had her captain’s attention, she probably wouldn’t want to spend time with Thymara.
And she missed Rapskal, with a keenness that shocked her.
“Are you all right?”
She turned, startled to discover Tats standing at her side. “I suppose I am. That was a hard, strange thing, wasn’t it?”
“In some ways, it was the simplest solution. And Lecter had spent a lot of time with Warken; they partnered in the boats most days. So I’m willing to believe that he knew what Warken would have wanted.”
“I’m sure he did,” Thymara replied quietly.
They stood for a time, staring over the river. The dragons had dispersed. Thymara could still feel, like a fire radiating cold, Sintara’s anger with her. She didn’t care. Her skin hurt all over, the injury between her shoulders burned, and she didn’t belong anywhere.
“I can’t even go home.”
Tats didn’t ask what she meant. “None of us can. None of us was ever really at home in Trehaug. This, here, on this barge tonight, this is as close to home as any of us have. Alise and Captain Leftrin and his crew included.”
“But I don’t fit in, even here.”
“You could if you chose to, Thymara. You’re the one keeping a distance.” He moved his hand, not putting it over hers, but setting it on the railing beside hers so that his hand touched hers.
Her first impulse was to move her hand away. By an effort, she didn’t. She wondered both why she had wanted to move it away, and why she hadn’t. She didn’t have an answer to either question, so she asked Tats a question of her own. “Do you know what Greft said to me about you?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “No. But I’m sure it wasn’t flattering. And I hope you recalled that you know me far better than Greft can ever hope to.”
So at least it hadn’t been a male conspiracy to get the lone uncommitted female to make a choice. That made her opinion of her fellow keepers rise slightly. She kept her voice level and noncommittal as if she were speaking about how pleasant the night was. “He came out when I was on watch last night and asked if I’d chosen you. He explained that if I had, I’d best declare it clearly, or let him know at least so that he could enforce my choice with the others. He said, otherwise, there might be a lot of competition. That some of the other keepers might even challenge you or start fights with you.”
“Greft is a pompous ass who thinks he can speak for everyone,” Tats said after a profound silence. Just as she was ready to dismiss her experience with Greft as an aberration, he added, “But I’d like it if you said to everyone that you had chosen me. He’s right about that; it would make things simpler.”
“What ‘things’ would it make simpler?”
He gave her a sideways glance. They both knew he was treading on shaky ground now. “Well. One thing is that it would give me an answer. One that I’d like to have. And another is—”
“You’ve never even asked me a question,” she broke in. She spoke hastily and was appalled to realize that she’d just pushed them deeper into the quagmire.
She wanted to run away, to get away from this stupidity that stupid Greft had triggered with his stupid lecture. Tats seemed to know that. He put his calloused hand over hers. She could feel the softness of his palm against the scaled back of her hand. The warmth from that touch flooded through her, and for a moment her breath caught. Her mind flashed to Jerd and Greft, entwined and moving together. No. She forbade the thought and reminded herself that her hand under his was probably cold, slick with scales, like a fish. He did not look down at the hand he had captured. He took a breath and puffed it out. “It’s not a question. Not a specific question. It’s, well, I’d like to have what Greft and Jerd have.”
So would she.
No! Of course she didn’t. She denied the thought.
“What Jerd and Greft have? You mean mating?” She didn’t completely succeed in keeping accusation out of her voice.
“No. Well, yes. But they also have a certainty of each other. That’s what I want.” He looked away from her and spoke more gently as if she were fragile. �
��I know Rapskal has not been gone that long, but—”
“How can anyone seriously think that Rapskal and I were anything more than friends?” she burst out indignantly. She jerked her hand out from under his and used it to push back the hair from her face.
He looked surprised. “You were always with him, all the time. Ever since we left Cassarick. Always sharing a boat, always sleeping together…”
“He always lay down to sleep next to me. And no one else ever offered to share a boat with me. I liked him, when he wasn’t making me cross or annoying me or saying strange things.” Suddenly her diatribe against him seemed disloyal. She halted her words and admitted in a whisper, “I liked him a lot. But I never imagined I was in love with him, and I don’t think he ever thought of me that way. In fact, I’m certain of it. He was just my peculiar friend who always looked on the bright side of things and who was always in a good temper. He always sought me out. I didn’t have to work to be his friend.”
“He was that,” Tats agreed quietly. For a moment, that mourning silence held, and during it she felt closer to Tats than she had for a long time. Thymara broke the silence at last. “What was the other reason?”
“What?”
“You started to say and I interrupted you. What was the other reason you thought it would be best if I declared that I was—that I was with you.” She tried to find a better euphemism, couldn’t, and gave up on it. She looked at him directly and waited.
“It would settle things. Put an end to speculation. There is, um, some bad feelings. From the others. Nortel has made a few comments—”
“Such as?” she asked him roughly.
He became blunt. “That I’m not one of you, and that you belong with someone of your own kind, someone who can really understand you.”
“That sounds like Greft stirring the pot again.”
“Probably. He says lots of things like that. Late at night, around the fire. Usually after the girls have gone to sleep. He talks about how things are going to be, when we reach Kelsingra. According to Greft, we’ll build our own city there. Well, it won’t be a city at first, of course. But we’ll settle there and make homes. Eventually others will come to join us there, but we keepers will be the founders. We’ll make the rules.
“And when he talks like that, he unfolds things so logically that it does start to seem like it must be the way he says it’s going to be. And usually, it comes out like he says it will. When we found out that Jerd was, well, going to have a baby, he said someone would have to be responsible, even if she didn’t know whose it was. And he said he’d set the example, and he did. And then, later, he said that Sylve was too young to have to make decisions for herself. He picked out Harrikin for her, because he was older and would have more self-control. He told him to start out by being her protector. And he did, and it worked out that Sylve chose him.”
“Sylve said that?” She was shocked.
“Well, not directly. But it’s obvious to all of us. And Greft said that even though no one could figure out why you’d chosen Rapskal, that was how it was and no one was to interfere. It made me angry at first. I didn’t think you’d ‘chosen’ him. But I was, well, I was with Jerd when he said it. So I couldn’t very well say…” He let his words trickle away, took a breath, and tried again. “And everyone respected what he said. No one tried to come between you two. But Rapskal is gone now. I hope he’ll turn up, but if he doesn’t, I wanted you to know that I was, well, waiting and hoping.”
She decided to put an end to all of it, immediately. “Tats. I like you. A lot. We’ve been friends for a long time. And I’m sure that if anyone can understand me, it’s you. But I’m not ‘choosing’ you or anyone else. Not now, and maybe not ever.”
“But…not ever? Why?”
Her annoyance blossomed. “Because. That’s why. Because it’s up to me, not Greft, not you, not anyone else. I won’t be told I have to ‘choose’ as if there is some time limit and after that, it will not be my choice anymore. I want you and Greft and everyone else to know that perhaps not choosing one of you is a possible choice for me.”
“Thymara!” he protested.
“No,” she said flatly, forbidding whatever it was he was going to say. “No. And that’s the end of it. You can tell Greft that, or he can come and talk to me and I’ll tell him.”
“Thymara, that’s not—”
Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a distant sound. At first, Thymara thought it was a horn. She’d heard that Carson was going to look for other survivors, but wasn’t sure if he’d left already or was going to go in the morning. Then she heard the sound again and realized it was not a horn but a dragon calling.
From the mucky shallows, first Mercor and then Fente replied. Kalo chimed in with his bull’s roar, and Sestican echoed him.
“Who is it?” Tats demanded of the darkness.
Thymara’s heart leaped in sudden hope. She strained her ears, listening to the distant dragon’s response. Then she shook her head in disappointment. “Not Heeby. Heeby is shriller than that.”
Arbuc suddenly trumpeted, a clear and long call. Silver-green, he moved out of the shallows and into the current. The moonlight touched him, and he seemed to gleam with joy. He swam steadily down the current, toward the unseen dragon. When he lifted his voice again, his thoughts rode loud on it. “Alum! Alum, I come for you!”
Tats and Thymara leaned on the railing, craning and trying to force their eyes to see farther into the blackness. The other keepers were joining them, and she heard Captain Leftrin’s bellow, “Who is it? Has anyone sighted it yet?”
“It’s the silver!” someone on the stern yelled suddenly. “It’s the little silver dragon! And Alum is with him! They’re both alive.”
“Silver! You’re alive!” There was no mistaking the joy in Sylve’s shout of greeting to the dragon. He turned his head toward her and, for a moment, looked almost intelligent.
“I’m so glad!” Tats exclaimed, and Thymara nodded silently. She watched the homecoming, sick with envy. Alum tried to embrace his dragon, but Arbuc had grown too large. He transferred from the little silver’s back to Arbuc’s broad one and then leaned forward against his dragon as if by pressing his heart against him, he might become one with him.
What was wrong with her? Why didn’t she have that sort of a bond with Sintara? Or with anyone? She glanced at Tats surreptitiously. He leaned far out on the railing, grinning. Why didn’t she announce she’d chosen him? Why couldn’t she be like Jerd and charge into things? Jerd had obviously sampled a number of males. Now Greft had proclaimed she was his, and she didn’t seem displeased with that. Would it be so hard? To just take what was offered, without making a commitment?
The silver, obviously pleased with himself, lashed river water to a froth with his tail and then, spreading his wings, “flew” in a series of splashes to join the other dragons in the shallows. The other keepers crowded the aft railings, laughing and shouting and pointing. She began to drift in that direction.
Without warning, Tats took her hand again. He tugged at her until she turned back to face him. “Don’t be so sad. Rapskal and Heeby might still be alive. We won’t give up hope just yet.”
She looked up at him. He wasn’t that much taller than she was, but the expedition had changed him. He’d muscled out, his shoulders and chest built up by the paddling in a way that was very different from the muscles of a tree-climbing gatherer. She rather liked it. Her eyes moved over his face. The small tattoo of a horse, legacy of the slavery of his infancy, was only an unevenness against his windburned skin in the fading light. The spiderweb was nearly gone. This close to him, she could smell him, and that, too, was not unpleasant. Her eyes met his and she realized how dark they were. His smell suddenly changed, and she realized she was sucking on her own lower lip as she studied his face. She saw him take a breath and dare himself.
She acted before he could take the decision from her. She leaned in, turning her head slightly and puttin
g her mouth on his. Was this how it was done? She had never kissed anyone on the mouth. Awkwardness and worry assaulted her. Tats’s arms suddenly moved up and around her, pulling her body against his. His lips moved on hers. He knows how to do this, she thought, and knew an instant of fury at where he’d learned it. Well, she wasn’t Jerd and whether she kissed the right way or not, he’d soon discover that she did things her own way. She shook her head slowly, moving her lips back and forth against his. Scale on softness, she thought, and briefly lost herself in that sensation. His hands wandered up her back and their touch on the tender area between her shoulder blades made her twitch with pain.
“What is that?” he demanded.
Embarrassment flooded her. “It’s nothing. I got cut in the river. It’s sore.”
“Oh. Sorry. It feels really swollen.”
“It’s sensitive.”
“I’ll be careful.”
He bent his head to kiss her again. She let him. Then, from somewhere else on the boat, she heard someone’s voice raised in a question. Someone replied. They weren’t alone here. Not really.
She pulled her mouth from his and bowed her head. He folded her in close to him and kissed the top of her head greedily. She felt his warm breath, and it sent a shiver down through her. He laughed softly at that. “Is this my answer?” he asked her, his voice deeper than she’d ever heard it.
“To what question?” she asked, sincerely puzzled.
“Are you choosing me?”
Almost, she wanted to lie to him. She didn’t. “I’m choosing to be free, Tats. To not have to choose, not now, not ever if I don’t want to.”
“Then, then what does this mean?” He hadn’t released her, but there was a stiffness to his embrace that hadn’t been there before.
“It means that I wanted to kiss you.”
“And that’s all?” He leaned back from her, and she looked up at his face.
“For now,” she admitted. “That’s all.”
She was meeting his gaze now. A trick of the light moved stars in his dark eyes. He nodded at her slowly.