It made her so uncomfortable that she forgot herself, bobbed an obeisance, and left.
Ileth had just begun, in the quiet of the Dancers’ Quarter, a letter to Falth at Ottavia’s writing table when she heard a call on the other side of the curtain, then the sound of running booted feet on the East Stair.
“Stop him!” a voice shouted.
She was just in one of her Galantine night-dresses; they were comfortable, even if they weren’t fit for public wear, so she threw the nearest shawl of Ottavia’s she could find on top of it and stepped barefoot into the passage leading up from the kitchens.
Preece was trying to get up the stairs; a kitchen apprentice and two dragon feeders were restraining him.
“Murder! Murder!” the kitchen apprentice said.
“We caught him trying to escape!” a feeder grunted, wrestling with Preece.
“P-P-Preece?” Ileth said, sensing that something had gone drastically wrong. “What’s going on? Help! Dragoneers!” she called, hoping that Dath Amrits was nursing his headachy dragon or that one of the more sensible ones was on the Under Ring.
“He’s a Galantine agent, dance-girl,” one of the men wrestling with Preece said.
“He’s no such thing,” Ileth said.
Other dancers emerged from the Quarter. It felt good to have a few more at her side. If only Ottavia were around! Oh, there was Preen, what rank was she again?
“He’s no . . . he’s no—” Curse her tongue!
“Don’t listen to her, she’s a friend to the traitor Galia,” someone in the mob said.
Preece finally gave up his struggles.
“Who was murdered?” Preen asked.
“Vithleen! And her eggs have been stolen!” the kitchen assistant said.
“One human managed to kill a dragon guarding her eggs?” Santeel Dun Troot said. She had a sleep mask on her forehead. “How?”
“Poison, we think. Her teeth are all blue; the physiker is there now and he showed us.”
Ileth felt her stomach go cold. Dun Huss had been asking about a poison that turned the teeth blue. But what kind of poisoner advertises his intent by asking every learned ear for information about the poison?
“Preece, what’s this about?” Dath Amrits said, cutting through the crowd. He looked haggard and his eyes were badly bloodshot. “You can tell me. Hael is out on Mnasmanus.”
“My dragoneer has ordered me to be silent until he gives me leave to speak, and silent I will remain, even if it costs me my life,” Preece said. “Let me get to the lighthouse. Everything depends on it! The murderer will get away with the eggs if I can’t signal. Oh, if only we’d guessed!”
“I tell you, he’s a poisoner,” the cook repeated. “Everyone knows he and his dragoneer have been trying to acquire the stuff.”
“It makes no sense,” Amrits said. “What sort of poisoner asks every herb grower and physiker in the Serpentine what they know about a substance that turns the victim’s teeth blue, then uses exactly that poison?”
“Exactly!” Ileth said. “If he needs to go to the lighthouse, let him.”
“It may be a signal to his co-conspirators,” Preen said.
“Oh, gutterwash,” Amrits said. “This must be the act of a madman. How’s anyone going to escape with three dragon eggs? It would be like running a race while carrying watermelons.”
A deep note passed through the air above and the rock beneath. The assembled humans felt it in their bones. Ileth had never heard the like; it was like the moan of the earth itself giving birth.
“That’s the Dragon Horn! It’s ‘dragons up,’” Amrits said. Whistles sounded, three long blasts, and Amrits pulled his own replacement (this one was brass) and blew a trio of blasts as well.
The argument dissolved.
Dragons up! Ileth had learned of that signal; everyone in the Serpentine had. It put the dragons and their riders on a war footing. Every dragon who could take to the air and fight would be up, and armed humans would post themselves at the entrances. The Beehive buzzed now, as though killer hornets were attacking.
“Look, I’ll take charge of Preece,” Amrits said. “Dragons up. Fire stations. To arms, now!”
Ileth, when questioned about it afterward, couldn’t say exactly what compelled her to hurry and seek out Fespanarax, leaving the drama on the stairway behind. She learned from one of the grooms passing out pikes that he’d hurried down to be at his niece’s side. Around her, dragons were moving, and dragoneers, wingmen, and apprentices were hurrying to and fro in increasing numbers, gathering equipment and buckling into flying gear.
“It’s dragons up, Ileth,” one of the grooms who liked to watch the dancers said.
Ileth decided, on her own, to try for the Cellars. Some sense beyond reason told her she had to be there. Perhaps it was memories of the Lodger’s final need. The lift was under guard; it would not move, she heard a Guard say, unless under orders of the Charge of the Beehive herself, until the eggs were retrieved.
There was an argument going on in the kitchen. The cooks did not do battle drill often, and an apprentice was arguing that she was useless with a pike but much better with a crossbow.
“You’re on the pike team,” the Guard in charge of the little group insisted. “Here’s the roster!”
“Stuff the roster! I’m the best in my class at marksmanship,” she insisted.
Oh, she needed to think! Ileth used the confusion, and her own trained nimbleness, to duck down the passage to the Cellars. She met only one person hurrying up, a physiker’s apprentice calling for water and a hose. He paid her no attention.
She rounded the familiar intersection. A splash in a corner reeked. She investigated and saw a great puddle of vomit. The track of a wheel passed through it. A food cart?
Odd that no one was barring her way to the dragon’s chamber. But what further crimes could be committed down here? She started down the corridor to the chamber, wondering why Fespanarax’s bulk wasn’t filling the passage ahead and blocking the light. Why wasn’t he guarding his niece?
“Ileth,” the Borderlander said, stepping from the shadows. Eerily, he was in much the same spot Gorgantern had used. It was the best spot for lurking, being the darkest stretch of tunnel.
“I’m looking for Fespanarax,” she said. “Have you seen him, sir?”
“The whole Serpentine is running with hair aflame. We’ll have ten or more dragons in the air soon. Including Fespanarax, I imagine. A rabbit wouldn’t be able to get away, night or no. How far is someone going to get with three dragon eggs? Stupid, even if they have a horse or something. I think the eggs are still concealed here. It’s the only thing that makes sense. While we’re rushing around searching Vyenn and so on, they’ll stay hidden. I’m just betting whoever did it, their mind is working and working and wondering if they made some mistake that gives the hiding place away or if they left a clue about their identity. I’m also making sure they don’t come back and finish the job on the poor mother.”
“Finish the job?”
“Vithleen is still breathing. Barely. But she’s unconscious or she could tell us more. Good thing Dun Huss laid in a supply of the antidote to gravesleaf, or she’d be gone already. Preece gave it to her and those fools in the kitchens hauled him off.”
Ileth gulped. “I’m down here. Do you . . . do you think I did it?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you suspect me?”
“I trust my gut. My gut likes you.” Northerners and their guts. “Also, if you were about to make a getaway with the eggs, it wouldn’t be barefoot and dressed like a whorehouse tart escaping a fire.”