The Serpentine held its breath, certainly none more so than Yael Duskirk.
Ileth had so many what-ifs tormenting her about the whole affair. What if there hadn’t been a mix-up and Duskirk had done the courier run with Vithleen? Could he still have poisoned the dragon who flew him on his first commission? The Lodger had taught her not to think about that which she had no control over and instead concentrate on those matters in her control, but in each case, she could have altered the flow of events.
Perhaps she still could. She started rehearsing a speech. If Vithleen died, it wouldn’t matter, but if she lived . . .
She danced away the doubts and gloomy thoughts. She realized she was developing a style all her own, in the quiet hours when no one was watching, except a dragon or two lounging after dinner and looking to be lulled to sleep. You were, after all, what you did, and that different version of Ileth who danced didn’t spend much time on the what-ifs. There was music to follow.
Exhausted from dance, she mechanically ate and mechanically slept and made it through the terrible days of question and doubt. Santeel caught her rehearsing her speech and cautioned her against speaking in favor of a friendless apprentice who poisoned a dragon atop her eggs. Even Dun Huss was only speaking out of tradition; even the most wretched convict in the Republic traditionally had one person assigned to speak for him.
Ileth stuttered out that Yael Duskirk had been the first person in the entire Serpentine to speak to her as a friend. If need be, she’d be the last friend to stand by him.
Vithleen awoke after six days. Falberrwrath was beside her when she did so. Vithleen knew who she was and was glad to see her eggs with the little dragons dreaming quietly within but was otherwise confused; she’d been dreaming that she was flying above thick clouds, and every time she dropped down she couldn’t find a familiar landmark, so up she went again; the only odd thing about her dream was that she grew stronger each time she fought her way above the clouds rather than weaker.
It did take her some time to fully recover and remember the names of the humans attending her.
Ileth asked Hael Dun Huss to be allowed to address the jury before the sentencing. It was no great difficulty for him to get her on the roster of people addressing the jury, as nobody but Dun Huss himself was willing to speak for the boy. Selgernon, the Master of Apprentices, was ill; the shock of one of his apprentices committing such an act had shattered his already frail health, so Dun Huss took it upon himself to speak up for the boy.
The jury room was at the up end of the Serpentine, in a very old hall with ornate arching woodwork that got dusty, illuminated by candles that left the jurors looking forbidding and shadowed in their special double gallery with dark stained glass behind. You had to look up at them. The dragon sat below the gallery, her body in a basement chamber and her head looking out from a wide gap beneath the jury balcony.
Ileth’s speech was longer than her oath. She stuttered her way through it, just like her oath, but this time it didn’t make her feel miserable. Her words and the truth behind them were important, not how she said them, and a foolish man’s life stood in the balance. She described herself as a dancer, and talked of how dancers supposedly could bewitch dragons. She believed it could work the other way too; it was hard, when you stood before so immense and powerful a creature, not to be swayed by the words of an ancient creature who could breathe you out of existence. She spoke of how the Lodger had restored her confidence in herself with a few kindly words here and there and given her the desire to bring justice to a thief like Griff. Then she described Fespanarax, a powerful dragon good at getting what he wanted out of humans. She told them of her precious silver dragon whistle, the first token of esteem anyone had given her in her entire life, and how at a few words from him she gave it up to be eaten so quickly he hardly could have tasted it. Fespanarax in his greed was skilled at weaving lies and truth around each other; who knows how he had worked on Yael, used his disappointments against him. She finished saying she couldn’t claim to know anyone’s heart, but that while Yael Duskirk had failed the Serpentine, he had recovered the eggs.
“After first stealing them,” the dragon on the jury said. But the human jurors had exchanged looks as Ileth spoke.
Dun Huss spoke briefly, emphasizing that as a feeder Duskirk was used to issuing herbs and potions that would help dragons sleep, and that, in the end, he’d come to his senses and tried to atone for his crimes by saving the eggs. He’d confessed fully and made no attempt to offer a defense of his actions.
So Yael Duskirk was spared his poisoner’s death, but even an attempt at murder was a forfeit of his existence. He was sentenced to labor in the mines at the Widowsend.
“It is not the end for him,” Hael Dun Huss said, discussing it with Ileth and Preece later over late-night tea in the dining hall. “If he can avoid an accident, after a few years the fact that his crimes came before full legal citizenship, his confession and attempt to make amends by—ahem—saving the eggs by cutting them off Fespanarax, plus influence from a few dragoneers, might get him removed from there and put into the Auxiliaries.”
Dun Huss was willing to write a letter in his favor, in a year or two when his crimes weren’t so new. He would look up the boy’s birth date and plead for some kind of suspension of sentence in exchange for enrollment in the Auxiliaries when he turned eighteen.
The dragoneer poured Ileth a little more tea, carefully turning his body so any accidental splashes wouldn’t hit his purple sash. “We all make mistakes when we’re young. Provided they’re not irrevocable, you can start anew. A bad start is still a start, after all.” He smiled at Ileth. “I think you’re fond of that expression.”
“True, sir,” Ileth said. “As I’ve a-always tried to say.”
19
Between the trial of Yael Duskirk and Vithleen’s recovery, Ileth met with a jury of unnamed official questioners who asked her, in detail, over the course of two days all that she could remember about events in the Galantine lands. They screened the room in such a way that she couldn’t make out their faces clearly, though she had ample light on her thanks to a skylight. She tried to be completely honest. She found the process exhausting. They questioned her closely about the news of Vithleen’s clutch. As far as Ileth could tell, there was no way for the Galantines to have learned of the eggs through her; the first she’d heard of them was when she returned to the Serpentine. Yet Fespanarax’s returning to the Serpentine with a supply of poison implied that the Galantines released him with the idea of having him steal the eggs. The consensus of her jury seemed to be that since negotiations delayed the dragon’s return again and again, the rescue of the children from the plateau gave them an opportunity to return Fespanarax as their agent without questions being asked. Ileth happened to be caught up in greater plots than she knew, which dulled the shine of her Galantine title.
Therefore there was a spy, or several spies, for the Galantines within the Serpentine. It would be easy enough for anyone to communicate with other spies in Vyenn, who could then send secret messages back via courier down the river. A simple boat trip down the river could get you to the border.
When they formally dismissed her from questioning they did so with a promise and a request. A promise that her excellent and useful observations would be noted, and a request to not say anything about suspicions of Galantine spies.