Later, looking back on it, she decided she went a little mad, especially when she tore open her dancing sheath to reveal her belly button. But the music was seductive, and what’s the fun of being seduced without a memorable climax to the affair?
After that the Tribe accepted her as a sister in dance if not a member of their clan. They let her practice with them, which took some of the sting out of her increasing distance with Galia. Which led to a bigger surprise.
Taf secretly danced with the Tribals.
Ileth wondered how she engineered it to trick Chapalaine, where everyone seemed to know everyone else’s business. But there she was, barefoot and bare-bellied, with cymbals on her fingers dancing as if she were a member of the Tribe herself. She even wore black clothing altered so she could be mistaken for one of them from a distance, had her hair wrapped back in a kerchief, and wore a thin veil under her eyes with little brass rings sewn into it.
“Ileth, you’ll say nothing to my father!” Taf said, when Ileth recognized her. Maybe it would have been better if she’d pretended she didn’t recognize her.
“I certainly won’t raise the subject with him,” Ileth said. The Galantine language was conducive to equivocation, she’d give it that. “In return, I’d like to ask a favor of you.”
“Well, anything, Ileth dear!”
“What is our good Dandas up to with Galia?”
“Ileth! Really, just because she’s the prettier—”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Ileth said, in her halting, careful fashion when speaking Galantine. “It seems . . . strange to me that he’d lavish so much attention on, well, a prisoner.”
“All he’s said about it—not to me, this is something that I’ve overheard—is that he finds her intriguing and a different, oh, what’s the word he used . . . challenge, I think it was. He says he can’t get the way she speaks to him out of his head. He doesn’t care whether she’s talking about dragons or dandelions, as long as she’s talking. I wish someone would say that about me.”
Did he keep her talking so he had to talk less himself? Was he afraid of giving something away? Ileth was sure she wasn’t the only one who knew that trick. “I’m happy to listen to you, Taf.”
“I mean a man, silly. Why, if some swain with Dandas’s property spoke that way about me, well, they’d have to revive me with oiled salts.”
“So he does have property.”
“His family does, much more than our family. I’m sure if he asked for my hand Father would be beside himself.”
“Has he asked about marrying Galia?”
“Not in so many words, no. Well, not in any words. But his interest is pronounced, and he certainly needs a wife. It’s not like men are about to start having babies without us.”
“If they can f-f-figure it out, they’re welcome to it, for my share,” Ileth said.
“You are a strange one, dear. Don’t tell me you don’t want babies.”
“Never met anyone whose babies I’d like to have. I want a place in the world. Or above it.”
“Do you Vale folk always make the simple so difficult? If you marry well, you do have a significant place in the world. Even if you just marry, well, it’s still a place. You’ve clearly just not been around decent people enough. Oh, I don’t want to argue. The music is starting again, and I rarely get a chance to let myself go. Come, let’s dance.”
The Tribals were early risers, even the morning after the dancing under the moon. They’d spent all night roasting a pig they’d purchased in the village, and Fespanarax ate it with gusto. The one dragon need they couldn’t fill, however, was precious metal. They had some bits of scrap iron they gave him, but Fespanarax hated it. “It’s eating to live,” he said. “I’d rather live to eat.”
Galia, in one of her now-rare sessions teaching Ileth the ins and outs of dragon care, showed that his scale was showing some signs of long-term metal deficit. A white chalky substance had formed at the outer edges of the scale. Galia used a thumbnail to scrape some off and showed it to Ileth.
“Scale rot,” she said. “It’s not bad. He’s getting enough to get by. He could use a few months in the Serpentine eating ore. Or another charity gala where you swing your leg up and give all the significants a glimpse.”
Ileth thought of throwing back a mildly obscene answer in the style of Zusya, who could match any of the Captain’s roustabouts for ribald talk, but Galia was teaching her something for once. Best not to provoke her.
She took the matter up with the Baron. Summer was coming on more strongly than she’d ever experienced in the Vales, and the Baron was out with his daughters, helping set up netting that would shield the more delicate berry bushes from the worst of the sun so the berries would remain plump and sweet.
The Baron listened carefully to her suggestion. He didn’t think another party to raise money would work, so soon after the last one.
“If you desire silver in quantities that would satisfy a dragon, there is a mine to the north. Two mines, one abandoned, and a much poorer one on a plateau that is difficult to get to. The Cowshead we call it, not sure why because I’ve never seen a resemblance.”
“I should mine for it?”
“Oh, heavens no. I would think you commercial republicans would jump at a solution right away. There are hundreds of strong backs there digging away. But as I said, the plateau is high up, nearly a desert. They bring up corn and salted pork and such, but the miners have plenty of silver to trade for other things. I understand beer is very popular. Kegs are awkward to carry up a difficult trail. Bearers are often falling trying to get loads up to them. The trail can’t even be walked by a donkey; there are too many places you take your load off and climb, then pull your burden up behind with ropes. If you could convince that dragon to carry some up, you could sell it for silver ore at a handsome profit. With summer they will want beer up there.”
The Baron offered to set up the arrangement with the brewery on the Green River and pay the starting expenses, if Ileth could convince Fespanarax.
She decided to take it up with him after the Tribals had made a great to-do over him the night before, as it had been a full moon. Ileth and Taf had both discreetly danced as part of the party too.
Ileth was still nervous about approaching Fespanarax. He was so mercurial. Sometimes she could address him and he’d pretend she wasn’t there. She missed the Lodger’s easy, friendly manner. Imagine what she could have learned from him, with months to spend on a pleasant estate and little to do but talk.
She waited for an afternoon when he decided to cool himself with a dip in the duck pond. He emerged, dripping and covered with water plants that he mostly shook off, and accepted her offer to pull the rest where it was trapped in scale and horn. He remarked that the dip had done him some good; he felt so fresh he’d like to fly, but the Baron forbade it.
“I have an idea on how we can get you in the air and earn some silver for you to eat at the same time.”
Fespanarax yawned. “I like the eating silver part. A flight would be a welcome relief from the boredom. We and earn, however, I’m not so keen about.”
“You’d have to work, yes. I think the exercise would do us both good. You especially. You’ve been stuck on this estate for years.”
“Five summer solstices and six winters, I think. I need to establish a calendar for myself. All over a human affair.”