She nodded. Almost every girl had heard stories, if not from parents and relatives then from other girls, or books for those with access to them and the ability to read that male dragons found the presence of human women pleasing, pleasing enough to risk the wrath of entire populations by carrying them off. Since Ileth had been quietly collecting dragon apocrypha since meeting Agrath and Annis Heem Strath, she’d heard different versions. They said in folk tales that it had something to do with smell, but no two legends quite agreed on the nature of the smell or ways to increase or decrease its potency. Folk tales of maidens bewitching dragons with songs or dances to distract them, then retrieving some treasure or extracting a promise, were common enough that she’d grown up with childhood rhymes about them and even seen an example in a copybook: a girl hiding behind a fan, revealing half a smile to a serpentlike creature with almost human eyes and stubby legs and wings: CHARM conquers even a DRAGON. The picture had annoyed Ileth, as a real dragon looked nothing like that.
“Ottavia, she’s in charge of the troupe, can tell you more. There’s ancient tradition to it. Goes back a thousand years and more to Ancient Hypatia and the time of that old Tyr you quoted. It’s not dull work. It’ll put you in contact with the dragons in a more important way than trimming and polishing scales while they snooze.”
“I do—I do like a dance, sir.” And it was better than gutting fish.
“That’s the angle. You could even look at it as a promotion. You’ll be around the dragons. If you design to build a life in the Serpentine, that’s always helpful.”
“I have my personals at the Manor. Might I say a few good-byes, too?”
“Not at this hour, I’m afraid. I’ll send a note to the Matron with my judgment and some instructions. She’ll think it just; to her the dancers are a coven of—well, you know her as well as I. Your things will be bundled and delivered to the Dancers’ Quarter.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m sorry . . . sorry for tonight.”
“I understand. And don’t drink any rubbish to flush yourself out, no matter who gives it to you or what they say about it. A girl died that way when I was young.” He looked pained at the thought. He cleared his throat and stood up, using his good leg.
“I won’t,” she said.
“Follow Ottavia’s direction and this night will soon be forgotten. The Serpentine changes with the moon. New excitement every time a dragon lands. If you haven’t figured that out yet, you soon will.”
She nodded.
The smile vanished. He leaned across his map table. The light from the little two-flame oil lamp threw deep shadows into his eye sockets from this angle, and she found herself fascinated in a way by the scarred horror that was his face. “One more thing about the dancers. Some of the dragoneers here fancy themselves rakes—these men will consider your favors easily had in that role, as though you were dancing on a table in the most libertine pipe-den in Tyrenna. Don’t let anyone tell you your job is anything other than working up a good sweat for the dragons. Ottavia is exceptionally deft at handling those sort of situations. Bring it to her and hold nothing back. I hope the lesson you learned tonight sticks. I want everyone to forget it, except you.”
Ileth briefly wished she’d had a man like Caseen as a father, or just visiting now and then as an uncle. Stern but kindly. Interested but neutral. But as Rapoto said, her family was an accident of birth and there was no helping that.
“I’ve lost track of the time,” Caseen said. “Have you heard a bell?”
“The midnight bell rang while I was walking here with Galia,” Ileth said.
“Well, we can’t wake Ottavia up at this hour, at least not for this.”
“I don’t mind sleeping in the hall,” she said. “Discomfort right before a turn in fortune is my style.”
“The chair by the fire is comfortable. It’s stuffed with horsehair. It would only take a few minutes to build the fire back up again. You’d be warm. I sleep in a little room on the other side of the fireplace. Once upon a time this was a clerk’s and manservant’s office and my bedroom the master office, but we live more to a republican ideal now. I much prefer this. I’m a lazy old man. I like a comfortable bed nearby and am reluctant to leave it once warmed, so you’ll be able to sleep later than you are used to at the Manor.”
Ileth asked if she could leave the door to the hallway open. “We don’t want to start another rumor.”
Caseen chuckled at that. “No. I might have to offer to marry you as well and then we might end up with another duel to win your favors. I’m not sure the Serpentine could handle the excitement.”
The Master departed. She heard a groan or two from his inner room as he settled down for what was left of the night. She added a little charcoal to the fire before pulling the chair close and settling in. The chair had a rich, masculine scent to it, some kind of barber oil most likely, and she found it comforting, especially warmed as it was by the fire. Scent can be a powerful signal. She wondered what sort of message her own body sent to the dragons.
At one point in the morning today—no, yesterday—she was sure she’d be dead and cold by nightfall, and here she was, warm and alone and considering her sense of smell and the potential of her own effect on dragons. She’d tempted and dodged two dooms today. And no more hygiene lectures from the Matron! That was almost worth having your name set down in this Blue Book of Doom or whatever it was called. She decided she had much to be grateful for and resolved that it would be a long time before she tempted fate a third time.
Relaxed and with a relieved feeling that could pass for happy, she swiftly slipped into sleep.
PART TWO
First Steps
Life calls the tune. You decide how you dance to it.
7
As promised, Caseen stayed in his sleeping room long after the rest of the Masters’ Hall was busy with activity. She woke, and with nothing else to do she cleaned out the ash from the small hearth and warmed the fire again. She used a bit of the ash and the corner of her skirt to polish the dragon whistle Dath Amrits had given her. Then she retreated to the chair. Novices and apprentices were passing in the hall, tidying and bringing the day’s business. She heard the cat yowl at some outrage.
One apprentice in a kitchen smock came by with tea and toast and peppered fish and left when he saw that Caseen was not out of his sleeping room yet; another boy entered with coal, removed the ash, and refilled the bin with a nod of recognition, and then one of the novice girls from the Manor swept the hall and exchanged a wary nod with her.
“Not kicked out? Herself said you’d be kicked out.”
“He wrote me up in that . . . in that book. In the book and out of the Manor,” Ileth said. “The Master is finding new duties for me.”
“Hardly a one of us slept last night, what with all the whispering back and forth. You wouldn’t believe what’s—”
“I would. Could you ask Quith to roll up my things for me?”
The girl nodded and moved on down the hall with her broom.
Ileth thought about what a sorry figure she must have cut, being thrown out of the Manor in the middle of the night. No wonder they’d talked. The cat peeped in, sniffed at what must have been the scents coming off the tea and toast, and looked at Ileth expectantly. She just looked back and the cat turned away, as if indifferent to the smell of butter, and set about washing its face with its back toward her.