Ileth, whose mind could at least follow his words, even if it wasn’t up to conceiving of such a plan and its myriad of angles and dangles, was about to say that she’d be willing to go along with a lie to retrieve her place in the Serpentine when the Master of Novices spoke.
“For a young man with no interest in politics, you have a sense of it.” Caseen leaned back, scratching his elbows. “Suppose she’s playing her own game of hazard and demands that you follow through on your pledge.”
Rapoto stiffened. “That’s my concern.”
Caseen smiled. “So you’re not the self-satisfied spawn of a great name I first took you for. We may be able to do something with you after all.” He set to scratching at his elbows in thought.
“A family is an accident of birth, sir,” Rapoto said. “I’m here to be something other than a famous name.”
“Good for you. Make your own name. But don’t do anything drastic. Matters may look very different when you’re on the other side of your early years. It’s late, and I can’t keep up with such dramatics of youth. Let me finish with Ileth. Don’t worry, young man, I’m not sending her out into the cold and dark.”
Ileth straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and turned to Rapoto. “Vor Claymass, I’ll face the . . . the rest of this on my own. I appreciate you standing f-for me. Trying to. But please go.”
Rapoto sighed. “I’m sorry, Ileth. Don’t do anything desperate. My family can easily set you up for life.”
“I’m here to set my own life, sir,” she said.
The sir stung, she could see it in Rapoto’s face. Well, he did go fumbling about with her body.
“Half as much consideration an hour ago would have saved you both a good deal of trouble,” Caseen observed, echoing her thoughts. His elbows were soothed and he pointed an index finger at Rapoto. “Now out. Please close the door when you leave.”
Ileth kept her face to the Master, waiting until she heard Rapoto’s boot heels on the stonework and the door shut.
“Well?” she said. “Am I out?” If she was, she might as well throw herself from that cliff the girls sometimes mentioned. To be oathed in, then lose it in the space of a single season. Better to never have a place in the world than to lose the Serpentine.
“You are the victim of an injustice. It’s my sad duty to see that injustice carried out. I’m not happy to do this.”
“Say it, sir, whatever it is. Please.”
Caseen took a deep breath, as though readying himself for some decision. Then scratching at the door interrupted him.
“That infernal cat,” he muttered. Then he blinked several times, rapidly. Ileth wondered what that meant. A slight smile worked its way across the undamaged part of his mouth.
“I believe the first time we talked, I told you the less you saw of me, the better you were probably doing.”
She nodded.
“Things have gone wrong for you here.”
“A b-bad start is still . . . a start.”
The muscles in Caseen’s face that still worked registered surprise. “Where did you get that?”
“I thought it was just a saying. I must have heard it up north.”
“Ah. Still, it’s true. I first read that phrase when I wasn’t much older than you. It’s one of the maxims of an old dragon of history, one of the Tyrs from across the Inland Ocean. He briefly ruled Hypatia, you know.”
Ileth had no idea what he was talking about, but she thought it best to keep quiet and listen.
“Back to the matter at hand. A certain amount of foolishness we can overlook. But if you don’t know, I’ll be explicit. Women with child can’t continue here. There’s a home in town for young women who gain a more permanent legacy from an act like this. Don’t look as though I’m going to chase you off with dogs; we can wait until the winter solstice and have a look at you then.”
“There’s no chance, sir. I understand the mechanics of all that.”
“I hope you understand motherhood better than dueling, then. Ileth, I must show official disapproval in some manner. The people who send their famously named children don’t expect us to allow their sons and daughters to rut about in haylofts.”
“Stable. It was a stable stall.” She could have added that Galia was the one rutting about in a hayloft, but getting someone else in trouble wouldn’t help her predicament.
“It doesn’t matter if it was the king’s old bedchamber in Asposis. We can’t have it.”
She couldn’t look at him, and not just because of the burns. Miserable, she hung her head. In the Lodge, she’d seen so many girls get moonstruck over a boy, and she’d sworn to herself to be different, to follow her star to a dragon’s back and on that to horizons she couldn’t imagine—and yet it happened to her as easily as a strong wind could blow a dry leaf across a yard. Stupid, Ileth! So stupid! Stars in their courses, she’d be sniveling next. She dug her nails into her palm, hard. That stalled it.
“But on to your case. I get the impression I won’t have to write any kind of explanatory letter to your mother and father, no matter what happens a few months from now?”
She shook her head. The chopped hair was too short to hide her face.
“There will be talk; there’s no avoiding it. I will have to put your name down in the Blue Book.” He gestured to a blue-dyed leather ledger book on his desk. “Before I was Master of Novices, when your name went down in this book, you were out the gate and never allowed to return. I believe that even the best of us can make a serious mistake, especially at your age, so I’ve improved on the tradition, I like to think. Now you are given a second chance when your name goes into the book. Another serious problem, and you are thrown out and I draw a line through your name, so that you are never readmitted. Some who go down in the Blue Book choose to leave voluntarily and reapply the next year with the slate wiped clean. Would you like to do that?”
Ileth had no friends, no resource to fall back on to support her for a year. This was her one chance with the dragoneers. “No, sir.”
“I understand. Nothing to go back to.”
She nodded.
“We’ll remove you from the Manor. I must reinforce the Matron’s discipline, and a swift banishment will make an impression on your sisters there.”
Sisters! Yes, well, that’s one way to think about them. If only Santeel hadn’t started shouting her head off!
“We have two apprentice girls living and working in the dragoneer hall, but that’s a distinction, even if you’re just wiping windows and sweeping floors and fetching morning tea. It would be counted as a reward. I can’t send that impression. Since you’ve proved yourself hardy and have shown a certain amount of physical courage in that dueling business, and are, well, worldly, I could put you in with the dancers.”
“Dancers, sir?” There’d been a dancer at the pile-in, that Peak girl.
“Yes. Don’t get the wrong idea, it’s for the dragons. It’s not Sammerdam’s face powder grotto here. Not at all. You don’t know we use them? I forget how new you are. The Catch Basin isn’t exactly in the center of the Beehive. Yes, we have a troupe of dancers. They have a curious history here. At one time they were Auxiliaries, not even part of the dragoneers, more like experts on retainer. Eventually they had to be put under Serpentine discipline. Too much trouble among the dragoneers over them.”
“Why do the dragons need dancers?” Ileth asked.
“Surely you’ve heard stories and legends about dragons and human women.”