“Lots more, but that will get you started,” the page said. “Busy as a beehive here, sure enough. When I was first apprenticed, I helped the physikers, stitching dragon wings and pulling broken scale. We saw a lot of the dancers. People say that the troupe’s just an excuse to give the dragoneers some—well, it’s venting. They do help keep the dragons calm, even if their outfits would be a scandal in Vyenn. The dragoneers leave ’em alone. Mostly. They earn their tuck and kip, by my oath. I wouldn’t want to extract a highpoon point without a dancer or two around to keep the beast’s mind off the pain. Some of the females like the dancers too, but for the art and music of it being soothing, more than sucking in scent.”
He took her to an entrance that wasn’t much more than a shaped crack in the wall. The crack was surrounded by its own decorative painted border in lively reds and whites. The doorway had been painted with cryptic signs by a succession of artists, or perhaps one gifted painter trying to look like several. She recognized an icon or two of religious symbolism, and one was a mark that a hunter would sometimes carve into trees up north to commemorate the spot where he brought down a beast, but the rest were a mystery to her.
A velvet curtain blocked the short passageway at the inside.
“Master’s page, with Novice Ileth and a message for the Charge,” the page said into the curtain.
“Come in and be welcome.”
He opened the curtain. The rings made a good deal of noise as they moved along the bar, clattering like a basket full of dropped finger cymbals. Maybe they were designed that way.
The voice turned out to be Peak, whom Ileth had met at the pile-in last night. She was massaging her feet with something medicinal-smelling, and the hair about her face was matted with sweat.
“Didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Peak said. The page looked confused but Ileth gave a tentative wave.
“May I land her with you? She needs to speak to the Charge,” the page said. Peak didn’t stop working her feet.
The chamber within wasn’t cavelike at all. It was more like a great tent from a story of an exotic land. It was heated by a little stove with a teakettle on and a pipe to carry away the smoke. Three matching stools sat around the stove. Curtains and rugs and tenting and netting covered it from floor to ceiling. Oil lamps, each of a different design and none native to the Vales, lit the area, either hanging from loops driven into the ceiling or in small alcoves in the wall. There were trunks and cases scattered about, and a folding desk with writing things atop it.
“Ottavia is in Vyenn and not expected back until late.”
“Ileth here has asked to be a dancer.” Which wasn’t exactly how events had unfolded, but perhaps this was some ritual. “I have a note from the Master of Novices.”
“That is news she’ll want to hear. She was hoping for someone from this batch. Does this have anything to do with the pile-in?”
“I’ve been turned out of the Manor,” Ileth said. The news would pass through the Beehive anyway; she might as well own up to it.
“Mmmmm,” Peak said, as though she were the third disgraced girl dropped off that morning.
The page dropped his note on a metal tray by the writing things. “He said the note was important.”
“The Serpentine doesn’t run on fish and dragon wings, but paper,” Peak said. “I’ll see that it’s brought to her attention.”
The page thanked her, said good luck to Ileth, and bowed out. He closed the noisy curtain behind him.
Peak slipped into a quilted robe and put on wood and leather clogs. “I shall dash down and tell Ottavia now. She’s not in Vyenn; she’s arguing with the laundry. I just didn’t want Muggins there to think every time a Master’s page shows up, we jump about like trained monkeys. Now whether Ottavia rearranges her day to sort you out, I can’t know. If not, just wait here. Lie down on the cushions and put your feet up if you like. We all do. You’ll soon learn to be off your feet whenever you get a chance.”
Ileth did not have to wait long. Though she didn’t find the nerve to just lie down on one of the cushions with her feet up, after testing the ointment Peak had been using on her feet by rubbing it between her finger and thumb, she went over to one of the cases that had one of those eye-catching boxes atop it and examined it.
It was at the very least painted with gold, with pearls on the lid and luxuriously heavy. Ileth gulped. She supposed it was safe enough here, in the heart of a fortress filled with dragons, but from the weight of the thing she guessed it would buy a new tin roof and windows entire for the Captain’s Lodge with enough left over to replace every stick of furniture and add a plush carpet or two.
Daring, she opened it. The interior had a small mirror and a perfectly oval seashell with a reclining nude figure painted in it, her long hair artfully maintaining her modesty. It also played a delicate tune. A music box!
She’d seen a few before, though nothing like this one. It sounded as though two sets of different chimes were playing. The tune seemed content to play forever. She closed it again.
She was sniffing at the tea—it was exotically spiced and vaguely smoky—when her new Master (perhaps!) arrived. She swept the curtain aside with a metallic crash that startled Ileth.
Ottavia Imperene, Charge to the Dragon Dancers, was one of those women who combined maiden, mother, and crone all in one person. Her hair was thin and drawn up into a simple bun, with a great deal of gray showing among the brown, which accounted for the crone, and she clasped a light walking stick in one fleshless hand. Lines about her eyes and the firm set of her mouth and a certain air of authority suggested mother. Ileth couldn’t help but be drawn to her eyes, bright with vivacity, and her smooth carriage as she crossed the tented chamber to greet her new novice. Ottavia Imperene was all maiden when in motion.
Peak worked the curtain and retreated behind a wall of fabric to some other, unknown chamber.
They exchanged names. Ileth mentioned the note, but Ottavia ignored it for now.
“Novice, tell me: what brings you to us here?” she asked. Ileth suspected she already knew the story beginning to end—Peak was at the pile-in and she remembered her excited witness of the affair in the stable stall—and just wanted to see what sort of explanation she’d get.
“The Master of Novices suggested I might . . . f-fit in better here, sira. Until . . . until . . . until yesterday I was working down below the kitchens gutting fish.”
“I heard something about a girl who got into a duel with a man. What’s-his-name, the aging apprentice, stuck there like a rotting tooth? You were the duelist?”
“His name was—is Gorgantern.”
She tapped her walking stick, once, hard on the floor. “If I wanted trivia like his name I would have asked you. Answer the question.”
“Yes, sira, I fought the duel—the duel you heard about.”
The Charge to the Dancers walked around her, evaluating her. “You’ve never danced before.”
She wasn’t sure if she should turn and face her when she talked—that would be the polite thing to do—but the Charge seemed engrossed in her calves. “Certainly I’ve danced, sira. Up on—”
“I don’t mean gathering-room parties. I meant as a trained entertainer.”
“No. Not . . . Nothing like that.”
“Your arms are too long.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Proportionally. Were you not fed properly as a child? Big feet, too, but that can be good, if they’re strong. Well, if Caseen will send me no one else, a girl built like a blighter will do. At least you’re pretty. You may grow into a beauty, which makes those arms all the more a shame.”