Ileth wondered if she should tell the dragoneer that he was spoken of as a Galantine gallant. He’d probably find it amusing.
“No, anybody. The dragons do much of . . . much of the work, a-after a-all.”
“But aren’t you supposed to sit atop and shoot—oh, I’m terribly sorry. Father said I was not to speak to you of military matters. I think it violates some terms of your captivity if you’re questioned about those. Oh, he’ll turn white if he finds out. Don’t say anything.”
“We were just talking. You didn’t ask for the keys to the Serpentine.”
It didn’t have keys, but there was no harm in letting the Galantines think it did, if Taf had been asked to find out what she could about the dragoneers. Taf’s friendliness did seem a bit forced at times. Reconnaissance through rag parties? Or perhaps she truly was just silly.
Eventually, Taf left, though her conversation never faltered even if her energy did. “I should have a long nap,” she said on the way out. “I’ll send someone over for the baskets. Keep whatever you like. If you need scissors and needles and such, we have plenty.” She embraced them each and kissed their cheeks as though they were about to depart again.
“Oh, faith,” Galia said when she left. “I am sick of trying on clothes. I hope it’s not all going to be like this.”
“You l-learned lovely and hideous. A bad start is still a start,” Ileth said.
“Ha! That’s one of Caseen’s favorite sayings.”
“The food’s good,” Ileth said. Taf had been right about the farina; it was excellent and filling. Ileth felt renewed. Which was just as well. She’d hoped to try dancing for Fespanarax again that afternoon. “I don’t know when I’ve tasted milk like this. I wonder if it has something to do with the grass?”
“Eh, never much cared for it. You know, they say travel is supposed to broaden your mind. I don’t think that’s true at all. I can’t wait to get back home to the Vales. I hope the diplomats work it out soon. Sewing parties and nannying isn’t my air.”
“Too . . . too bad. You have the . . . have the clothes for—for it now.”
Galia threw a blouse at her.
Her afternoon session with Fespanarax went no better than her morning one. But that evening she did sort out five reasonably good outfits from the prospects. The only problem was they were all a bit bright in color and overruffled for the Serpentine. But they’d do. She wasn’t strictly out of uniform; she did still have her novice’s pin. And her silver whistle.
If the Baron owned his own version of Caseen’s Blue Book, Ileth went into it that first week.
As the awkwardness grew into familiarity with Chapalaine routine, Taf begged Ileth to dance with her “if you are not too fatigued by your travels.” Ileth was later to learn that for women from significant families, a trip around the garden might require a short spell with supported feet on a “respite,” the specially designed chair-sofas distributed about the place for use by the women (especially when pregnant). There were respites everywhere, indoors and out, in Chapalaine.
Ileth agreed. One of the Baron’s sisters-in-law went to a keyboard instrument hidden behind one of the curved stairways and played a sedate parade-dancing air. Ileth took Taf’s hand and followed the fairly easy steps, just marching back and forth across the room and turning properly to return with an obeisance thrown in here and there.
“It quite looks something when there are hundreds of couples lined up doing it,” Taf said. There was some argument over what to play next and they had a livelier tune. Taf danced well and the foot placement and poses were similar to what she’d been taught as a dragon dancer, except the leg movements went no higher than little kicks and extensions and heel-or-toe to ankle movements. They were merry enough, though, and being able to dance raised their spirits.
“My father tells me you are some manner of specialist in dance?” Taf asked.
Ileth did her best to explain, in her taxing and limited Galantine, that the dragons enjoyed watching humans dance for them.
“Like my father watching the dogs run after a thrown fur-sock?” Taf asked, accepting from a servant on Ileth’s behalf a second small glass of the syrupy wine they offered after dinner. “He does so enjoy doing that and the dogs are happy to occupy him all afternoon at it, if he lets them.”
“Something like that. They don’t . . . join—take a part. Just view. Sometimes they . . .” She was tired from travel, rich food, and wine, and trying to form her words into Galantine and keep her mouth limber was exhausting, but for some reason her stutter lessened a little in the foreign tongue. “Sometimes they call for more speed by slapping their tail. Or shaking limbs—wings. Like applause, in . . . in music-time.”
“We should like to see how you dance for them. Do we not, Father? Shall she dance, Father?” Taf asked.
The Baron, engaged in a conversation with his brothers, turned his head. “By all means, enjoy.”
Ileth looked over at Dun Huss, and he nodded.
Well, they’d requested a dragon dance, so she would offer one to them, as a good guest . . .
“A court-dance tempo would be best,” Ileth said to Taf, who ordered a tune from her aunt.
She definitely couldn’t dance in the overdress, so she passed the straps over her arm and let it drop. The men’s work shirt hung low on her in any case.
A startled squawk from one end of the room was followed by the Baron’s wife covering the eyes of the boy who had come to call them to dinner.
Ileth started to dance, legs free in her shirt and sheath, but she’d barely warmed her muscles with some turns on earth leg, low kicks, and jumps when the Baron, seeing her attire, or rather the lack of it, put a stop to the music.
“My dear,” he said, smiling at her and picking up her dress, shielding her from the audience with it and his own body, “your presentation is very—uhh—naturally athletic. But your talents are, your talents are talented, and such talented—such a performance is wasted here, since we have so little experiences against which to judge it. Like performing music for an audience of the deaf. Perhaps we can arrange your exhibition, an exhibition of your dance, that is, in the dragon-shelter, so those creatures can benefit from your skill. My, what they do teach you in the Vales. I knew your Republic cast away certain traditions and institutions, but—well, you perhaps should have warned us,” he finished quietly, his smile as gentle and unmoving as if it had been painted across his face.
Five more days passed, much as the others had. Fespanarax ignored her, but more and more often he ignored her with his nostrils pointed in her direction. He hardly ate. She wondered if a minimal appetite was a worse sign than no appetite at all. Supposedly as part of their training at the Serpentine they’d rotate through the physiker’s, if the Masters judged you smart enough to handle such work, but that was for apprentices. Galia didn’t remember much about appetite issues from her training—“it’s all stitching and feeling for broken bones”—and wasn’t much help.
She did pass on the request for precious metals, through Young Azal of Chapalaine. Both Ottavia and Fespanarax had suggested them.
She received an answer from the Baron himself, with a request to put on a formal exhibition of her dancing. He was doing what he could to get some coin together, and it would help matters to have something novel to show his guests arriving with offerings.
In the end, she agreed. In her later years she didn’t much care to think about that night. For one thing, excepting Galia, the only women to attend were the Baron’s wife and two women of the household staff who’d heard stories and were curious. The rest were men, not just men of the family, but it seemed every significant man and elder son from the Baron’s lands had been invited.