Griff was seated on the opposite side of the room, in a seat arranged so he was blocked from view by a trio of musicians, and from the very little Ileth could see of him, he didn’t seem happy about it. The musicians were good.
Dandas was in great demand and effortlessly bathed in the interest, hardly sitting at the young guests’ table. He reminded Ileth of a bee going from flower to flower to flower, collecting and dropping introductions.
Ileth was tired and raw from the long day and bad news. Hungry too, and the soup wouldn’t be consumed until a certain hour had been struck. Adding to her discomfort, with all the great ladies about, her hair couldn’t get up to much. It was at an awkward length, neither long enough to do anything much with nor short enough so it could be just swept back or to the side and ignored.
Dandas had spread the news that the negotiations had broken down.
“Oh, more fighting won’t be necessary,” the Baron said to his brothers and most significant neighbors. “It’s a Republic. Their finances are a mess. Republics always fall. Always. No financial stability. No social stability. It’s as I’ve always said, the egalitarian rearranging of natural order that brings the whole lot down. You can take a whole pail of cream and throw in a cup full of sewage and mix it up—you’ll end up with something that tastes much more like sewage than cream.”
At last the hour of the end of the fast arrived. The soup could be uncovered.
Dandas took his place at the table and shifted the conversation to dragons. Both Galia and Ileth stayed quiet. Galantine manners for this sort of introductory affair seemed to be that you focused your attention on the new guest. Ileth assumed he was trying to be polite and include the prisoners in something that would interest them.
He inquired about the number of dragons they typically had to feed at the Serpentine and received nothing more than “it changes” from Ileth and a stony stare from Galia.
“Naturally, I’m no expert. Only dragon I’ve seen up close is a dead one,” Dandas said.
“Truly?” the Baron’s nephew asked. “In the war?”
“Yes, years ago when I was first with the Fencibles. We’d got the rider on a low pass, knocked right out of her saddle—we didn’t know it was a she until later. We were aiming for the dragon, which shows you how rattled we were, everything went high. Well, the dragon, a great silver beast, it landed to try to recover her body. Can you believe it? A beast like that. Didn’t fly off in terror at all, set down and picked her body up as gently as if she were sleeping.”
Ileth felt the room lurch.
“Perhaps she had coin for it with her,” Dandas continued. “We put thirty or so bolts into its chest as it lifted her, and it dropped stone dead atop her.”
“His ch-chest,” Ileth said. “Silver dragons are m-m-male.”
In a flash she was seven years old again, sitting atop a silver dragon with Annis beside her, having been told her stutter was because she had too much spirit in her.
Dandas said something that Ileth hardly noticed. “What?” she asked.
“His, then,” Dandas said, exasperatedly. “His head is sitting with our banner in the trophy hall.”
Ileth saw red. She’d heard the expression before. Perhaps she’d read it in an adventurous romance. But it had never happened to her despite her temper, not even in her duel with Gorgantern or the fight in the kitchen or when she was grabbed in the Cellars. She didn’t think; her body moved so quickly that later, looking back on it, she was astonished that so much action could take place so suddenly apparently without the brain willing it . . .
In the time it takes to drop a spoon from your hand to the floor she was on her feet. They told her she screamed but she didn’t hear it. She pushed out her hands, connecting with the soup tureen, upending it with purpose so a wave of soup splashed out, flooding across the table toward Dandas. The hot tide struck his glass, utensils, and own soup bowl in a steaming surf of creamy vegetables. The wash drenched him from shirt front to thighs, though a few ambitious droplets managed to reach his eyebrows and hair, including one bit of broccoli that hung on his nose like a desperate mountain climber.
“You mad—” Dandas sputtered, jumping up with soup running off him, teaching Ileth her first truly vile word in Galantine.
Fortunately for Ileth, Galia, and most especially Dandas, they did not break their fasts with a serving of roast beef and carving knife and fork.
She might have climbed straight over the table to get at him, except Galia flew to her. “Ileth, what on earth—”
Talk broke out as she and Galia fled. Ileth realized she was sobbing. She heard the words seizure and attack.
Ileth wasn’t completely rational until they were safe in their little house with the door bolted.
“Oh, Ileth, you always have to be the center of attention.” Galia fell back in her chair with her forearm over her eyes for dramatic effect. “I’m Ileth, I dance around half naked. I’m Ileth, I’ll get into a stupid duel with a stupider man. I’m Ileth, I’m just a frail little nothing pressed up against a stable wall, and tonight it’s Ileth, who just can’t bear to hear of any precious dragons killed in a war we’ve pumping lost!”
Galia drew a few breaths and looked at her coldly. “Caseen told me he thought you were lucky. I think your act just works on him better than most.”
Ileth slumped. Galia thought all the events of the past months were an—act?
“Suppose they decide we’ve violated the terms of our surrender or whatever and they chuck us somewhere else? We can’t fight the Galantines, not just the two of us.”
“Two of us and a . . . and a dragon. We could escape.”
“Oh, I think he’s had the spirit knocked out of him by all this. All he wants is a mouthful of coin now and then between his regular meals. He’s not Fespanarax the Reckless anymore; he’s just a creaky old dragon. I can’t believe I ever suggested bringing you on this. I thought it would be jolly and a spell in Galantine country would mean you’d be made apprentice for sure. Serves me right.”
Ileth, overwrought and on edge, felt the tears coming. But if she let them go, Galia would just accuse her of being overdramatic again. She looked at the floor, as she used to when getting a dressing-down from the Captain.
“I lost my temper,” Ileth said. “I met that dragon. And his dragoneer. Once. When I was a little girl.”
“I’m sorry, then,” Galia said. Her temper ebbed and she rose and put her arm out, clasping Ileth’s shoulder. “We’ve been cooped up together too long. We’ve never lived together, not close. Bound to get on each other’s nerves.”
“I suppose I should . . . apologize.”
“We’ll see how it looks in the morning. Look at it this way, they’ll be talking about that party all summer.”
Dandas and Young Azal arrived shortly after they had breakfasted the next morning. Well, Galia had breakfast; Ileth was still too upset to eat. She just nibbled at a crust of bread and drank water (one of the Baron’s several cats had gotten in and spilled the previous day’s milk and for some reason none had been delivered that morning). Dandas bore a small wooden box.
“You missed a good deal of apologizing last night,” Dandas said from the smoothed area of gravel that served as their doorstep. Azal nodded behind him. “I have one more to do, to the party I’ve most aggrieved,” he said, as they stood aside to let the men enter.
They refused to sit.
Dandas had long since removed the soup from his eyebrows. “I won’t delay any more. It was unforgivable of me to bring up what I saw on the battlefield. My mind was on what I’d heard at Court and how it contrasted with what I’d seen with the Fencibles. All I can offer by way of explanation is that you two are so charming I completely forgot your origins and acted as though you were just Galantine ladies interested in an anecdote about dragons.”