“Ottavia, this one too many times,” the dragon-dame rumbled. Ileth actually only made out Ottavia’s name and the word one; Zusya had to explain to her what she said. It took some time to get an ear for Shrentine’s pronunciation. But at least she tried. Ileth had heard that some of the dragons talked to humans only in Hypatian, figuring they’d learned one human tongue eight hundred years ago and it was too much bother to learn another.
“Your hands still need work,” Shatha said from beneath an elaborate wig. “Your fingers were all over the place when you stepped. Your costume—”
Peak nudged her aside with something that might have been a pinch.
“Four rounds, all prettily done, before you started to give out,” Peak said. “Vii, you could learn something from her. You’re still thinking too much and getting behind the music. Shows in your face. Ileth gets it wrong, but she moves with the beat.”
Ileth nodded through the criticism, bobbing out thank-yous with body language. That was the lovely thing about dance: you didn’t have to speak.
“Delightful! You live through the music!” Dax said, coming forward. He had a funny way of standing when talking informally with “his girls,” as he called the dancers, with his hips askew and facing a different direction than his shoulders, and his head somewhere in between. Ileth still didn’t know quite what to make of him; she’d been taught from an early age to square off your body so it aligned with the person you were addressing. But he meant no insult; he never addressed her, or anyone, in anything but a kindly tone. He kissed her somewhere in the neighborhood of each ear, swinging the impeller on its strap neatly behind him. His beard smelled of sandalwood oil and he had sweat streaking the powder under his traditional musician’s wig, which he’d donned for the occasion. Wigs, especially on men, were old-fashioned and frowned on by the more opinionated of the Republic’s assigns, but Dax, she was learning, did things his own way.
“Promising,” Ottavia said, bringing up the rear of congratulations.
That night Ileth found her bedding wetted. Someone had dumped a bucket of water onto her sleeping pad. It would take days to properly dry. She didn’t say anything, wondering if it was some welcoming ritual. She rolled up the pad and dragged it down to the kitchens and spent an hour toasting the worst of the wetness out of it while the cooks, cleaning up after sending up the dragons’ dinner, invented obvious jokes about her no longer being a virgin dancer until they became bored and left her alone. Once it was dry enough that hanging would do the rest, she upended her crude wooden bed, hung the mattress on it, and slept on the floor.
Ottavia roused her early the next morning, chopping off the other end of her shortened sleeping time. Only Preen was up, at the little stove boiling a big pot of water for her tea-well, but then she was always the first to rise. She liked to read in the quiet before the day began. Her trunk had a layer of books at the bottom beneath all the sheaths, wraps, scarves, and hose of a dragon dancer.
Ottavia waited to speak until she was fully awake. She had that lamp-oil smell of the dragons on her—she must have been around them either very late or very early. She supposed, living in the Beehive, that they all had a slight airborne dragon-taint, though after a few days your overwhelmed nose simply gave up and you ceased noticing it so much unless you thought about it.
“I have a job for you, Ileth. Kind of an odd one, but it’s within your abilities and I’m caught between frying pan and fire. It will take you away from us for a while—no, not like that, still in the Beehive. You can bring a support down and do your drills and stretches.”
“Yes, sira,” Ileth said, wiping the sleep out of her eyes.
“I’m always short dancers, but it’s worse than usual. I committed to a performance in Zland and Peak is taking a couple with her for that, so my dancers will be overworked keeping up here. Good thing for us some of the males and dragoneers are out for the hunts. But to your case: the job is basically companionship for an old dragon. So old he’ll never leave here again, I expect, until he breathes his last. All you have to do is sit with him between your drills, and sleep down there to keep your smell about. You impressed the Masters sitting on the doorstep, I hear. I should think you could sit next to a dragon for a good long while.”
Ileth had picked up enough of the currents in traveling up and down the Serpentine that she knew that anytime you were assigned a dragon it was a matter of importance. She was wide awake now. “Yes, sira.”
“We call him the Lodger. If he has another name nobody’s told me. He sleeps most of the time, only eats now and then. That’s the problem, I understand. He hasn’t eaten for weeks now. A few days with a dancer might rouse his appetite. It’s worked before. Then again, it might not, so whatever happens, don’t worry—it’s not your fault. As I said, he’s very old. The physiker says he’s older than any tree, even redwoods.”
Ileth nodded.
“You don’t have to do anything fancy except move about at his nose end where he can smell you. He’s down in the Cellars, so it’ll be quiet for you.”
“May I . . . ask a question? Not to do with this Lodger.”
“Feel free.”
“Why is Peak . . . going to Zland? Are there dragons there?”
“Oh, no, this is a bit of a couple things. People like entertainments, and dragon dancers are curiosities. Peak and two others will perform in a music hall. It’s been a nightmare working out the music, and Fates know what she’ll do for scenery. But there’s a great deal of interest. I had a letter saying they’ve added another week of performances and begging my forgiveness. That’s Zland for you. Never know what those people will go mad about.
“Our costumes would be considered obscene in Asposis or the rural districts. Zland is artsy and freer about such things. It’s because this famous painter, Risso Heem Tyr, have you heard of him? No? Well, he lives there now. You could say he’s the center point of the Republic’s art culture; it all revolves around him. About two years back he showed up here to paint a dragon on commission, and as sort of a side project he did a series of studies of the dragon dancers—I was one of his models, I’m not too modest to say. I’d like to see the actual painting of me sometime; all I saw was sketching on canvas. They caught on for some reason, maybe the costumes again. One way and another he’s made enough money to build the finest house in Zland. He’s paying for the trip, with a generous allowance for the dancers besides, going to do his sketches when they practice and so on. I thought Peak would be ideal for him. She has the most beautiful head of hair in the Serpentine, Heem Tyr is famous for the detail he puts into hair, and she knows how to use it when she dances. If any of us should be in a painting, it should be she.”
Ottavia was about to accompany her to the Cellars when Shatha woke up with a leg cramp that made her cry out and Ottavia knelt down to work the muscle loose.
Ileth, curious about this dragon, wanted to be off on her task. And she was fiercely hungry now that she was fully awake.
“I can find my way. I’ll ask in the kitchens and pick up some breakfast while I’m there.”
She gathered up her little basin of hygiene tools, took one of the extra supports kept in the Notch for morning stretches, stuffed a spare drill-sheath into her sleeve, and set off for the Cellars.
Outside the kitchens she ran into the Duskirk youth, pushing a huge sort of wheeled bin filled with smoked fish.
She fell into step beside him. He didn’t object to her company and the fish were beyond caring. After a few stuttering pleasantries, she asked him for directions to this “Lodger.”