Dun Huss ignored him, especially once he started filling a cup on a chain from his obscenely placed keg tap. “Did Galia tell you, Ileth? She passed her survival, brilliantly. I’ve made her my wingman.”
Ileth had heard something called a “survival” mentioned a few times, some sort of test with a dragon in the wilderness for senior apprentices, but the exact nature of it was still a mystery to her.
Caseen raised a drippy bowl of his soup in salute to Dun Huss. “I hadn’t heard. Always was the best of her year, Galia. Is the eve of the Feast of Follies the best time to announce that?”
“Unofficial. I talked to her this morning and she accepted. Thought she deserved to have a bit of a spree tonight without anyone thinking the worse of her on the news. I’ll officially present it to the Master in Charge in a day or two.”
“I think it’s wonderful,” Ileth said.
“The way she flew in in that duel.” Dun Huss smiled. “If I’m ever up against it, I want her coming in the same style.”
“Legally it wasn’t a duel anymore, Hael-me-lad,” Amrits said. “I’d blown it over. She could have run him through, claimed she was defending our future Speaker of the Assembly here.”
“As you mentioned flying in, sir, d-do you know anything about-about a music box?” Ileth haltingly relayed the mystery of her ivory music box from Sammerdam.
Dun Huss glanced at Dath Amrits.
“Don’t look at me, I gave her my silver whistle, and she sniffed about it being just nickel, the ungrateful whelk. Well, must be off. See if there are any thirsty townies from Vyenn about trying to give up on lust. Convince her to reconsider.”
“I am sorry, I don’t know anything about a music box, novice,” Dun Huss said.
Caseen shook his head at her as well.
“I see Galia,” Ileth squeaked. “I must con-congratulate her. Master, dragoneer.” She handed the soup cup to a man at the washtub.
“Just your humble servant tonight, Ileth,” Caseen said.
Galia stood against the thick decorative railing of the Long Bridge, looking out at the lake and the lights of Vyenn. They were feasting down there as well; what she guessed to be the high street was all lit up.
Her costume was mostly made of feathers and lace. Like most of the things she did, it seemed expertly sewn, and if she was trying to look ridiculous, she had failed. She looked almost elegant. If a young woman wearing a bunch of chicken feathers couldn’t actually look elegant, Galia came about as close as possible.
“I give up. It can’t be cowardice,” Ileth said. Galia turned.
“Ileth! I saw you dance. You can’t have just been doing it since summer! You looked like you’d been practicing for years!” Galia squeezed her hand, then looked her up and down. “You’re doing . . . poverty?”
“Greed,” Ileth said.
“Oh, courses, I’m sorry. Greed! Don’t know why I thought poverty. Good for you. It’s—um, very daring, but you dragon dancers can get away with anything. You asked about mine, didn’t you? I caught some of the novices clucking a little while after I told them off and put them on extra mending. They called me an old mother goose. I didn’t have money for goose feathers so I made this with chicken feathers and a few stained doilies of the Matron’s. But I’ve resolved not to peck at them all the time. If geese peck. Do they? I’m from the city.”
“Will you be around to peck?”
“I saw Dragoneer Dun Huss speaking to you. Did he tell you?”
She nodded.
“I still think I’m dreaming. Me, a wingman, to Hael Dun Huss. Or wingwoman. I’ll have to ask Kithiminee what she was called if she ever gets back. The language of the Serpentine isn’t designed for us, is it?”
“I’d settle for toilets designed for us,” Ileth said. “I get tired of-of-of squatting in cold pee.”
Galia laughed. “You’re so bad, Ileth. Or do northerners joke about such matters all the time?”
“As a wingman do you have a . . . have a dragon?”
“Sort of. Has no one told you how it works? Wingmen are always associated with a dragoneer. They are available to help him accomplish whatever commission has been handed to him. Sometimes they fly with one of the roster dragons, dragons who haven’t paired up with a dragoneer; other times they care for their dragoneer’s dragon. They might take his place if he’s injured. Please let that never be the case with me!”
Ileth thought there was an unusual amount of emotion in the last for cheery, confident Galia. They talked a little, and Ileth learned that wingmen can be given commissions, take on an apprentice, and do practically all of what a dragoneer does.
“May I ask you something, Galia?”
“Oh, I’ve been running on. Yes, please do!”
“Is there some tradition about dancers? Not becoming dragoneers?”
Galia worked her lips in thought. “I don’t know. I haven’t heard of it happening, but I’ve only been here a few years. They’re in their own world, like the physikers and tinkers. An important world: they keep the dragons happy. I know our men like them just as much as the dragons, for the most part. Ottavia’s always losing them to marriage or—well, you know. The mothers’ lodge in Vyenn,” she finished in almost a whisper.
Galia brightened. “But you know, I’ve never heard of a woman fighting a man in a duel, and you did that, didn’t you? So why not? That’s what you joined for, right? You’re not the marriage-market type, or a sage looking to write the definitive new dragon tome. I thought you might be a moonraker, but then that affair with Rapoto—speaking of whom, here he comes.”
Ileth turned, and there was Rapoto with Santeel at his side, tight on the bride’s arm. Rapoto had on a sleeping-jacket and a silk night-hat with such a long drape to it that it could also serve as a scarf while you wore it.
“Sloth!” Galia guessed.
“I’m not very original, I’m afraid,” Rapoto said. “Right the first guess.”
“Didn’t you do that last year?”
“It didn’t take.” Rapoto smiled. “Ileth, your dancing was lovely. No sloth, you.”
“Not onstage, sir. Thank you.” Rapoto didn’t seem to appreciate the honorific tacked on. He edged closer to her and she stepped over to replace a wayward feather on Galia to keep from being trapped between Rapoto and the bridge rail.
“Is no one going to guess mine?” Santeel Dun Troot said.
The assembly turned to Santeel. She wore something like a jester’s outfit, well-fitted, with diamond-shaped cutouts showing off parts of the body a woman of her name could only reveal on a feast night like this. The weighted-tassel skirt she wore was stylish and expensive-looking and opened up in strips when she walked. Part of her face was obscured by black greasepaint.
“Oblivious!” Galia said.
“Ignorance?” Ileth asked.
Santeel glared. “I had it made especially for me. I’m incomplete!”
“I should think so,” Galia said. “They left out half the material.”
“You know, Galia, for someone from Sammerdam you’re a bit of a prude. I’m serious. I wish to finish my journey to adulthood here, ready for a citizen’s responsibilities to the Republic.”
“Uh-huh. I thought your family came from old aristocracy,” Galia said. “And your father was part of the Royalist gang in the Assembly.”
“Their convictions are not mine. Don’t we mix as equals here? Didn’t I stand as second to Ileth, a nobody from north nowhere?”