“More than that,” Ottavia said. “Ileth marked them before turning them in to—” Here she whispered names in Dun Huss’s ear.
“So much for oaths and sacred trusts. The Zante boy, he’s from this year’s batch, if I remember? I can’t say that I know him, but I’ve heard he’s of good family. Stupid of him to get involved in this. Griff’s people have a distinguished name but a bad reputation.”
As they traveled down the West Twist to the kitchens, Dun Huss gathered together anyone he saw who wasn’t involved in more pressing business, so they had quite a procession of feeders, grooms, and a couple of wingmen who were only too eager to close their map-reading workbooks and put away the navigation tools. Ileth felt lost in the procession of tall men and stuck close to Ottavia.
In the kitchen Dun Huss paused the party, told the cooks that no one was to leave, and selected one of the older wingmen. He told him to go down and find a fisherman named Leith and inquire about purchasing big whiskerfish. When the rest of the group entered the Catch Basin, he didn’t want the fisherman to throw anything overboard: he was to be wrestled to the deck of his boat if necessary. Another wingman and a couple of muscular grooms were tasked with forming a ring around Griff and his novice to prevent them from hiding, dropping, or disposing of evidence.
He gave his wingman a few moments to go on board and distract the fisherman, then brought the rest of his party into the Catch Basin and wharf with a rush. They caught Griff and Zante on board, sharing something out of a rag-wrapped bottle with the fisherman Leith and his crew. Dun Huss had the apprentice and novice hustled off to the other end of the Catch Basin, under guard of his preorganized team. The Catch Basin workers stood by, knives in hand, ready for anything.
One of the surprised young fish-gutters nodded in recognition of Ileth.
Ileth watched the rest from a collection of onlookers. The ship was searched, and a box with some scale wrapped up in old sacking to stop it from rattling was found. The fisherman denied knowing what the scale was doing in his chart box. He went on to deny ever opening his chart box at all, denied knowing what dragon scale was or that it was valuable, and probably would have gotten around to denying any knowledge that dragons even lived in the Serpentine if Hael Dun Huss had let him go on long enough. Dun Huss told him to be quiet and examined the recovered scale closely, then lifted his head and looked at Ottavia and nodded.
All Ileth could think about, watching her old workmates at the gutting table, was how relieved she’d be to be able to put down her knife and be distracted by the drama of the raid.
As they walked away with the scale, Dun Huss leaned close to Ottavia. “We got lucky there. Leith there’s committed no crime, but I don’t think he knows it. He could have said those were his scale, made up whatever lie he liked. He’s not breaking the law by owning scale.”
“I thought he seemed nervous,” Ottavia said.
“I might have said something about our having capsizing and boat-burning training later, and that sometimes our new riders get confused and set the dragon on the wrong target.”
“That would account for the nervousness.” Ottavia smiled.
“Indeed.”
With that, they moved on to Griff and Zante. They’d been sat on the floor and both looked miserable. Zante was wiping his nose and blinking back tears. Ileth was tempted to tell him to straighten up, as he’d suggested to her after the oathing, but kept quiet.
Dun Huss stood there for a minute, tapping a pair of recovered scale together with a metallic click. He walked around them, click click click click, a circling vulture waiting for one of them to crack.
“Are we in trouble?” Zante asked. “He told me everyone does it.”
“Shut up,” Griff said. His gaze fell on Ileth in the group confronting him, and he did the lip-licking thing again. It must have been subconscious.
“The game’s up, you two. You’re through here,” Dun Huss said. “Zante, your esteemed father will be disappointed. I would think he’d have cautioned you. Do we have to go to the trouble of assembling a jury of Masters, or will you spare us the trouble and just quit in front of witnesses?”
Griff tried denial. “We didn’t sell him scale. Must have been someone else. One of the fish-gutters or—”
“Denial is useless. These scales are as distinctive as Mnasmanus’s. They’re from the Lodger. What’s more, they were marked,” Dun Huss said. “Two little parallel marks on the ones Ileth gathered off the Lodger.”
“You can’t mean it, sir. My family won’t allow it. Sponsorship from the Heem Grifforn to the Serpentine goes back to before the Repub—” Griff started to stand up, but a groom shoved him back down.
Dun Huss’s wingman laughed. “I wouldn’t brag up that family of yours. Half of them left for their Galantine properties when the Republic was declared. They fought with the Alliance of Kings against us.”
Griff flushed. “Yes, and my grandfather fought for the Republic, just as my father did. Did yours?”
Dun Huss held up his hand. “Enough! We will have to decide what to tell your family about your leaving. What do you wish them to hear, that you were caught stealing or that you decided it wasn’t for you and resigned?”
He let that sink in and then continued: “If you were doping him with gambane to make him sleepy so you could pull scale, I’ll see you locked up and starved to death as a poisoner. I know what a dragon’s eyes look like with a gullet full of gambane.”
Griff’s false bravado evaporated like water spilled on a hot griddle. “No, sir. He truly is mazy. I’d never poison a dragon! We tried to feed him, we did, and he wouldn’t have it. We helped the girl as we could, pumped until our backs broke, got him up again and properly clean. Give me another chance—I’ll sleep next to him with a sponge in my hand!”
Dun Huss stepped intimidatingly close to Griff. “Your family is going to be embarrassed by a scandal if they make anything out of this. The more quietly you leave, the sooner it will all be forgotten. If even a whisper of the Lodger being mistreated gets out to the Rotunda upstairs, they’ll want vengeance. Dragons don’t leave the punishment of those who’ve offended them to others. They’ll see justice done with their own eyes and taste some blood. Shall I assemble a jury of dragons?”
“Dragons?” Griff said. “They can’t form a jury. Can they?”
“If you knew your country’s history as you ought,” an apprentice groom said, “you’d know that dragons can serve on juries. Just like any other citizen. Just doesn’t come up is all, courts being built for humans.”
Ottavia gave an evil-sounding chuckle. “It’s not unknown. They do. When that young drake—forget his name—was attacked in Vyenn in sixty-two, the dragons formed a jury and questioned witnesses and came to a verdict.”
The boy slumped. “All right, I’ll leave. Let Zan stay, though. He’s just a kid. His old man’ll hang him upside down until his eyes pop.”
Zante found his voice. “Griff already had the scheme all set up when he took me on! All I did was collect dropped scale. He didn’t give me a penny; just said he’d make sure I made apprentice. I’ll make it right somehow.”
“‘Price is irrelevant when it comes to a dragoneer’s honor,’” Dun Huss quoted. Or at least Ileth thought she’d heard the phrase in some maxim or other. “But, Zante, if you are truly remorseful, you may reenter next summer. We’ve seen that before and it’s worked out surprisingly well for all concerned, provided the novice in question has truly improved himself in the meantime. Your father can tell you Preece was discharged and reapplied. He’s one of the best young dragoneers here, and my wingman. You could do worse.”