“Oh, they must make you one, now. You brought back Fespanarax. You were basically his dragoneer from . . . from, well, whenever Galia found her future.”
“Yes, we were stuck together for a stretch of seasons. What happened there doesn’t matter much here. I’m a dragon dancer, and you are learning to fly.”
“I bet you’d forget about that if someone rich came along. Like Galia.” The comment didn’t hurt at all; she’d been carved up by expert butchers.
Ileth tried to think of something that would comfort him. “She’ll regret her choice, in the end. The Galantines are tiresome and they treat their wives, well, I don’t see Galia as a baby farm. She’ll wish she were back here, in that hayloft with you, sooner or later.”
“Maybe I should go rescue her.”
“Maybe you should, dragoneer.”
Yael chuckled. “Well, have to get a dragon first.” He scrubbed out his bin with renewed energy.
18
The days passed, the first in which Ileth truly felt returned to her life at the Serpentine. She rose, took a quick cup of tea with Preen and the others, joined in for drills, and then took her aching body back to breakfast. (It was Zusya’s turn to gather it and serve, so she was briefed on Vii’s latest stratagems in the campaign against, or perhaps with, Pasfa Sleng. Duties before suitors, Ottavia said, cutting off the talk and giving everyone their assignments for the day. Ileth’s were still light.) Santeel Dun Troot was in exceptionally good humor—she’d left Ileth well behind during drills and fatigues and now showed the superior leg extension of the two. Santeel’s ability to spot in her turns made Ileth wish she’d practiced more in the Galantine lands. Even Vii had left her behind. Ileth would have a job of it to equal them anytime soon. Once Santeel got her teeth into something, she was difficult to challenge.
Ileth had little to do until the dragons who were having their dinners wanted entertainment as they digested and settled down to sleep. Ileth hoped she’d be spared until she was back in form. She’d thought she’d kept her body in condition in the Galantine lands, constantly drilling on her own and dancing for Fespanarax. She’d been wrong.
She’d been back over a week when one overcast night Ottavia held Ileth back and sat her down on a floor cushion. Ottavia stretched out beside her, bent legs flat on the floor with the flats of her feet together in her usual relaxed fashion that on anyone but a dragon dancer would be an impossibly painful repose. “Ileth, I have news. There’s a jury of inquiry forming—you’re not in trouble, not in even the most minor way. Some of the Masters and dragoneers and Republic assigns wish to interview you about your experiences among the Galantines. I am told they are waiting for the arrival of a representative from the Assembly. I’m afraid you’ll have no choice in the matter; you must speak to them. Would you feel better if I accompanied you? I know I would be nervous, standing before all those men answering questions. I know public speaking is far from your favorite occupation.”
Whatever it was, it would be easier than a mob of Galantine nobles leering at her while she danced for Fespanarax.
“Won’t be necessary, Charge,” Ileth said. “I’ve nothing to hide.”
“Caseen will tell you more tomorrow. He asks that you call on him just after breakfast.”
With little to do until the evening, Ileth decided to go down to her old haunt in the Cellars and see the dragon eggs. She could congratulate Vithleen.
She looked in on the kitchens and realized that she was anxious about running into Yael, but she learned he was at a flight lecture and wouldn’t be pushing his food cart again until after the humans ate and the more active dragons began demanding their dinners.
Taking a pickled egg for herself and a bowl of fresh crayfish, just in case Vithleen was in the mood for something crunchy, she traced the familiar path to the Cellars. All traces of the fire damage from the Lodger’s last fight—it still hurt to think of him lurching down the tunnel, holding his forelimb to his chest—had been removed and the tunnel walls repainted.
The crayfish made the trip for nothing. Vithleen was asleep. Rapoto was there, however, with a few other apprentices she knew from the dining hall. He had a wingman’s uniform now, a Guard officer’s straight sword, and his fore-and-aft-rigged hat under his arm. Rapoto had grown more handsome as the indolent, wealthy-boy baby fat finally left his face under the hard Guard training. She’d heard that their swordplay fatigues were nearly as hard as anything Ottavia threw at them.
It was hard not to form the sort of fantasies about a figure like that. It was hard to even breathe around him.
“You flatter that uniform,” she said.
He smiled. “I was hoping to congratulate you on your release. Yes, while you were gone they rotated me around a bit. I did a spell assisting in the flight cave. Amrits isn’t much of a taskmaster. I pull watches on the walls, and once in a while I have charge of the gate if Captain Tellence has something better to do.”
“Stopped any m-muddy fourteen-year-old girls from entering?”
“Haven’t had that honor yet, no.”
Ileth rounded the corner and peeped in on Vithleen. She looked shrunken, compared to the robust, muscular specimen Ileth had ridden by mistake on her wild circuit of the Vales. But her scale was still healthy. No trace of chalky streaks or patches falling out.
“Is she all right?”
“I’m told she’s doing well,” Rapoto said. “The physikers say it’s natural she doesn’t eat much these days. You can see one of the eggs, just where her neck is lying across her tail.”
The eggs looked to be lying in a little nest of bones. It was hard to tell what might be egg from bits of old bone; they were similar color. After some more guidance from Rapoto, she believed she saw it.
“No danger of the eggs being crushed?” Ileth asked.
“They’re not nearly as fragile as hen’s eggs. Not that I want to start experimenting,” an apprentice with a physiker’s apron said.
With little to see beyond a sleepy green dragon and a pile of bones with some eggs concealed inside, the apprentices turned away.
“Do you know Vithleen?” Ileth asked.
“A little,” Rapoto said. “I know she did a good deal of courier duty. She has a reputation of being friendly, a good learning dragon. I should like to ride her regularly. My ideal is a fast dragon. Fast will get you out of trouble. But Vithleen is not the sort to seek glory in war. I’m sure she’d defend the Serpentine to the last like the rest of us, but she declined to go up in the Galantine War. Left it to the males.”
Ileth thought about mentioning that Fespanarax was fast, very fast, but decided to remain quiet.
“Will you wait for one of her children, then?”
“Oh, I’d have gray in my beard—if I grow a beard then—by the time they have their wings uncased and are thinking about taking on a dragoneer. But they say sometimes, after having hatchlings, the females grow quite fierce and territorial. So maybe she will end up flying to glory after all.”
Ileth, having heard Dandas’s description of a glorious ending courtesy of Galantine crossbows, shuddered. Her imagination was eager to supply a picture of Rapoto lying dead under Vithleen. I wonder what color the males will be? Ileth decided to ask, and was rehearsing the question before speaking it when Rapoto looked at her.
“I have been forced to learn the virtue of patience when it comes to females,” Rapoto said, showing no sign of having heard her. He was staring at her.