Ileth thought it best to remain silent, as she hadn’t been asked anything.
“Health good? Apart from the stutter? Are you a fainter? Get out of breath? Are you much used to running?”
“I’ve run all the way up the outer stairs, and back down again.” Maybe she had something to be grateful to Gorgantern for, after all.
“Do you read music?”
“No.”
“You know what we do here?” the Charge asked.
“You dance for the dragons.”
“I said ‘we,’ so you should use it too, if you’re to join us.”
“We dance for the dragons, sira.”
“Why did you come to the Serpentine?”
She’d never heard it put so directly. “To be around dragons.”
Ottavia twitched her nose. “When you did dance, at parties and so on, how did it make you feel?”
“Feel? I . . . loved it. When I’ve had an opportunity.” There weren’t many gatherings in the Freesand to begin with, and even fewer invitations to parties to a girl from the Captain’s Lodge. The Captain didn’t care for music.
“Do you have reservations about joining us? Think you’ve fallen into a den of whores?”
She gasped at that. “No!”
“Then you don’t know much about the world. In Asposis or Sammerdam, court dancers not all that different from our method are often involved with the scions of great names. They like to take them as lovers and show them off, like a hunting falcon or the latest in racing horses.”
The Charge said all that with a matter-of-factness, as if she’d been discussing nothing more controversial than the weather. She went on: “’Tis quite the cockade for the bucks to have a dancer on your arm at certain gatherings. Much better than an actress, I mean, any jade can put on a wig, some face powder, smudge her eyes, and call herself an actress. Being a dancer takes training and work. I can watch someone walk through a crowded room once and I’ll tell you whether they’re a dancer or no. You’re not a trophy here, you’re a skilled dragon-tender. We’re here for the dragons, not the men. At least not under me, or the woman who instructed me, or the woman before her. Even if you wish to be more like the dancers in Asposis. No social climbing on your back.”
“Understood, sira.” Her Charge seemed to demand precision when you answered her. Ileth was more than a little frightened by her demanding manner.
“Relax, girl. I believe most any girl can dragon dance well enough to soothe a dragon if she works hard at it.” Ottavia wasn’t just formidable, she was a mind-reader. “It’s just a matter of practice, sweat, and being able to keep to the music.”
Mentally, Ileth added that at least you didn’t have to speak much when you danced, unless it was far different than she imagined. “I should like to try,” she said.
“Excellent! Don’t worry about never having danced before. It would have gone worse for you if it turned out you were a professional. I won’t have to break any bad habits.”
The Charge summoned a dancer named Zusya. She was curvier than Ottavia or Peak but moved with restrained energy, like a held-back horse eager for a gallop. “Zusya, I’m sorry to steal your day off. Find Ileth here a berth, do a pass-round for some training clothes, teach her to stand for drill, and then feed her. Add her to both drill lists indefinitely. That should be ample for today. You can be excused all of tomorrow, Zusya. There’s nothing on. Go into Vyenn if you like. I’ll manage myself if there’s an emergency.”
Like Ileth, Zusya was dressed in a ratty men’s work shirt that was even more of a bad fit for her than Ileth’s, but she’d tied her apprentice sash at the waist and turned the bottom into a slanted fringe.
“With certainty, sira.” Zusya spoke rapidly and well, but her phrasings didn’t sound quite right and she accented her words as one who’d learned Montangyan as a second tongue. Her eyes had an intriguing shape to them.
“First, your berth . . .”
As in the Manor, the dancers lived in tight quarters, dividing their bed-space with curtains. Ileth and the other dancers, with the exception of their Charge, lived in a dim, triangular tunnel called the Notch. It reminded Ileth of a cramped part of a ship she’d once visited with the Captain (who had once commanded her), a deck where the sailors slept in piggy warmth called the in-between. A man of ordinary height could just stand outside the curtains, and the cavern roof sloped down to anchored woodwork holding rope-net beds with mattresses and bedding. The Notch opened up on a cistern room that had Sammerdam-style taps for drinking and washing, and a wood-walled toilet cabinet and drain in the corner for elimination and disposing of wash water. A nice wooden lattice in the cabinet built around the drain saved your feet from soil.
In the center of the Notch, where it was widest, an iron stove warmed the place and had a few pots hanging over it for cooking. “The big red-painted one is for boiling laundry, so don’t be a clever-clog like Vii and try and win our favor by making a big bowl of Mother’s famous soup in it,” Zusya said. “Don’t go off and leave your monthly dressings in it to boil clean either or you’ll be up at the midnight bell doing drills and fatigues with Peak birch-thrashing you to tempo-count.”
Zusya turned around and continued speaking while walking backward through the sleeping quarters. It made Ileth nervous, but whenever she looked about to plow into something—like the steaming stove—she executed a brisk hop and navigated around it. “This was once quarters for an order of monks. Supposedly they watched the dragons sleep on astrologically important days, and how the dragon slept foretold the future. Something like that. They’re long gone.
“Here’s yours.” She pulled aside a curtain and Ileth examined the lightless corner. A bed with rope supports and a linenless, sweat-stained mattress were all the room held, unless you counted some circles of guttered wax candles atop a little shelf carved into the wall.
“Some put their religious statues or icons in that. I have a spare caduceus you can hang on the wall, if you do your devotions,” Zusya said. “Don’t despair, there are usually linens on market days and you can paint if you want. Has your family money for a good mirror? It would be so nice to get another good mirror in here. I am aware that there is no window. Sunlight is hard to come by in the Beehive, I’m afraid. To make up for this we do our reading and sewing outside in almost any weather. Or study. Do you have tutors come?”
“No.”
“Ah, well, more time for drills or attending the dragons, then.”
“It’s fine. It’s actually roomier than my Manor space.”
“You’re next to Vii. The next spot after Vii’s, the one with the yellow curtain, is Preen’s. She has a wonderful tea-kit with a huge well that she puts guttered candles under. Has tea on it all day. We’ve had as many as nine taking tea with her. Her father is in the tea trade. Or maybe it’s he owns ships that bring the tea. I forget. He sends her the stuff by the tenweight.”
Ileth was used to old leaves livened up with flower petals or a bit of dried fruit. Real, first-steep tea!
“Sorry, you’re newest here so we’ve put you on the end farthest from the stove and next to the washroom. As the newest your job is cleaning the sinks and sluice. But have a cheer, we’ve room for one or two more, so if someone else joins you’ll be senior to them! Vii will be happy you’ve arrived. She won’t have to be the scour anymore. You’ll see her at drills tomorrow morning; she went into Vyenn.
“We eat out of the dragon kitchen. Pure laziness. Such a walk to the dining hall. Occasionally we’ll all go as a troupe, but it’s hard to get everyone together off the music. The fish in the kitchens is all right. It’s almost always fresh, but the other stuff that comes in barrels . . . just watch yourself and trust your nose. Pickled eggs are safe. I eat them instead of meat, and so do the cooks, to get them through the day. The cooks haven’t an idea between them. It’s not worth your life to touch the beef and mutton!”