“You learn fast.” Vithleen walked out into the courtyard; the building they stood behind shone spotlessly white, formal white with black storm shutters flung open. Some old women swept the cobblestones and the stairs leading up to it, ignoring the dragon and rider. The Guards—Ileth couldn’t tell if it was the same group as last night—leaned about the black iron fence chatting.
Vithleen reared up, hopped about a bit, waved her tail, and then belched again, loudly enough to rattle the rows of small square windows in the dragon stable.
“Your cheering section is out front,” the assistant said. “I think old Vor Gorts went back to bed. Or he’s eating one of his breakfasts and reading the newssheet. Sorry he isn’t seeing you off.”
Ileth was curious about that ritual. She’d heard Santeel complaining about newssheets, sort of a long gossipy letter everyone could get, but had never seen one. She kicked herself for not asking the assistant to pick one up on her errand. It would be fun to know all that happened recently among the important personages of Sammerdam. Quith would treasure it.
They moved around to the front, alerting a few children who’d snuck into the alley to peep to return to the others and let them know the dragon was coming. All sizes and standards of clothing were represented in the mob, here to see a dragon take off. Ileth hoped they weren’t expecting her to throw coppers or something; she didn’t have so much as a fig on her. The excited shouts and talk from the children washed over her like a surf.
“Good crowd for a winter day,” the assistant said.
It hardly seemed like winter here, a bit chill and damp, but then again Sammerdam was chosen partially for its climate.
“Give her room, would you,” Ileth said, making waving motions.
“They’ll back up once I start beating my wings,” Vithleen said. “Mount up.”
Vithleen rustled her wings out and the children scattered. Then she seriously warmed her muscles and Ileth felt the familiar force of the air buffeting back at her. Vithleen gathered herself—
“Out of the way, out of the way,” the assistant said, running ahead of them . . .
And with a leap they were off. Ileth looked back. The assistant had sensibly flung himself to the ground. He appeared to be the only one who needed to pick himself up; she couldn’t see that they’d bowled over any children.
As they rose, Ileth had a good view of the huge, multistory building in the center of the plaza. It was some kind of arena-amphitheater, with two balconies and a stage. The center of it was bigger even than the Beehive’s Rotunda. She’d heard that the people in Sammerdam loved the circus; maybe this was where they exhibited.
Smoke rose everywhere, making its own weather above the rooftops. Streets crossing canals filled with sliverlike boats stretched out in all directions with parks making up blocks of gray, dead winter branches. The delicate network reminded her again of a spiderweb, provided the spider had a few drops of wine before weaving it.
“Where now?” Ileth shouted.
“Asposis—then home.”
“Fates be with us, then.” They’d made a rough sort of diamond through the heart of the Vales.
The excitement of taking off wore away and the muscle ache had returned, with a stiffness layered on top of the pain that made riding difficult. She couldn’t even relax into the dopey trance she’d managed last night. But she kept on. Maybe she could put a balm “on account” at the next stop. Asposis wasn’t terribly far from Sammerdam.
Though the day started out well, it turned into a nightmare. Less than an hour into the flight Ileth had to ask for her to land, and quickly . . .
“First time in Sammerdam?” Vithleen said, sympathetically.
“Yes.”
“The water. First couple times you drink it, it’s a bit—unpleasant. I forgot you were new. Here’s a tip—bring a good flask of white vinegar and mix some in whenever you drink it. Vinegar cleans water just as well as it does wounds. You’ll soon get used to it.”
“Vinegar. I’ll remember that.”
She’d heard that the Republic’s standing armies and Auxiliaries got vinegar rations whenever they were on the march to put in their water. It was also good for washing wounds and making cool compresses.
They put down in a winter field and Ileth took care of what desperately needed taking care of. The rest of their journey was slowed by three more breaks until Ileth clung on, foul and empty.
“You’d best just have tea at Asposis. Maybe some salty boiled broth,” Vithleen suggested. Ileth smiled wanly, though Vithleen couldn’t see it. She was supposed to be taking care of the dragon, not the other way around.
Asposis, tucked in mountains just big enough to be picturesque, wasn’t as big as Sammerdam, but it was stately and the views were splendid from any angle on the ground and doubly so from the air. There were two frowning rocky hills at the south end of the box valley, shaped like two great cats who had settled down to keep an eye on each other, one with a few ruins, and the other a fortress that was known as the “old castle” (though she did not know at the time that the actual “old castle” was the ruins on the smaller rocky hill across the way) according to Shatha, who’d grown up there.
Ileth had learned a good deal about Asposis since coming to the Serpentine; about a third of the dragoneer apprentices and novices called it or the villages around it home. Most swore it was the most beautiful spot in the Vales: a mix of mountain scenery, cultivated gardens, and tended waterways. A curving lake not quite in the center of the valley had the city (though it wasn’t much larger than Vyenn) of Asposis at its southern end. The rest of the lake had many fine homes around it and a finger of land with an old observatory tower, and a wooded area with an impressive castled house where the king had lived until the Republic. Some of his family still lived there, she knew, and were among the most important society in the Vales, but they took no part in politics and only occasionally acted to set the tone for manners. Quith often talked about them and the families close to them, speaking of them collectively as the “old guard.”
Not all was ideal around Asposis, however. She saw untended gardens and houses that had fallen into disrepair, with trees growing right up to the windows.
They only stopped briefly, in the courtyard of the fortress now flying the red-and-white flag of the Republic, and saw nothing of the city itself, beautifully set along the lake and the most famous promenade in the Republic. There were no Auxiliaries here, just men in splendid, spotless uniforms each with a sheathed sword or a Guard’s pike, their arms matched up and held properly. They conducted elaborate marches and countermarches and shifting of columns as Vithleen arrived. She would have liked to stay and examine some of these male specimens up close, clean-shaven save for a carefully groomed mustache or two, for she’d never seen such brilliantly turned-out young men and wouldn’t have minded watching their military evolutions until she was entirely recovered from the fatigues of mail duty, but perhaps it was just as well. She couldn’t imagine how she looked, and she felt sweaty and dirty indeed after the pell-mell activity and digestive illness, without a chance to even change her sheath.
She and the dragon stayed only an hour to rest and refresh themselves before taking off again, this time with two satchels of messages. Ileth felt fatigued by more than the flight.
“The Headwaters, and home!” Vithleen said, by way of encouragement.
They reached the Antonine Falls where the Skylake emptied into the Tonne just as the weather turned on them. They touched down just long enough for them both to take a warm drink while mail satchels were exchanged. She couldn’t see much of the famous river. The Tonne flowed down all the way to the Blue Ocean in the south, and the bit of it that looped through the Galantine lands—Reester, as in “the Reester Question”—and the midriver fortress known as the Scab had been the subject of the suspended war the diplomats were trying to bring to a close.