It wasn’t the fault of the music, either. She worked out the music ahead of time with the Baron. When she asked if there was someone who could play an impeller, he chuckled. “Oh, those things. No, they’re not much used among families of significance, just the tavern singers. Young lady, why have one instrument doing three jobs badly when you can have three proper musicians?”
Three proper musicians he did hire, and Dun Huss joined their company with a borrowed drum.
She couldn’t dance on a proper floor. They talked for a bit about taking one of the great winter doors of the barn down, but that seemed like a good deal of work and she suspected she’d just get splinters. So they raked the surface of the hippodrome out as well as they could and put down fine fresh sawdust. If the horses didn’t trip on it, she wouldn’t. She was a bit worried about the floorlights setting the whole place alight and spent some time arranging them on old platters and serving trays, so even if she lost track of where she was and knocked one over it wouldn’t roll into the sawdust.
The Galantine ladies had some simple cosmetics and she used them as Ottavia had taught her, when they spoke of court dancing. Ileth did her best, highlighting her eyes and cheekbones, exaggerating the corners and sockets of her eyes so they showed up more to the audience, but in the little mirror it looked amateurish, nothing like what Santeel or Peak could do with the same tools.
“Be the performer, be the performance,” she said, repeating one of Ottavia’s predance encouragements. The idea was that someone else took your place onstage; it wasn’t you at all, but a different—far more confident—person who handled your body while you were in front of the lights.
The reflection frowned at her. The performer didn’t care for how she looked.
She grabbed a rag, wetted it, and washed the paint off, and instantly regretted it. Her face was pale and nervous, her eyes wide and scared.
“Shows how m-much you know,” she said to the performer in the mirror.
Summoning the most courage she’d needed since the morning of the duel, she marched out to the great barn-arena. She tried to ignore the fancy carriages and chariots parked outside, patient horses munching at nosebags from loosened harnesses.
In the end, she did only three dances, though they planned out music for five. Ileth blamed it on Fespanarax, who took the invasive audience as an opportunity to look even more pathetic than usual, despite an excellent dinner of roast pork. But it wasn’t Fespanarax who put her off so much as all the staring men. She tried to concentrate on the dragon, tell herself that she’d been watched before, but it was so much easier with the whole troupe about her. It felt ugly.
If only Fespanarax had roused himself and shown a little interest. She could have had him as her audience and ignored the Galantines.
She tried not to think about what must have been going through their minds as she went through her evolutions in her dancing sheath. At times, even the musicians seemed to lose track of their instruments, when the music would break down as they watched. Dun Huss pounded away at his drum until they picked up the tune again. She concentrated on Fespanarax. He was the audience, even if he couldn’t be bothered to look at her.
In the end, she gave up. She ran lightly over to the Baron, smiling as brightly as she’d been taught, and explained that the dragon wasn’t responsive after three dances, and her troupe’s tradition was to stop so as to save their feet and not annoy the dragon overmuch.
The audience applauded and the musicians thumped their instruments. Ileth picked out three different men in the audience at three angles, made eye contact, and bobbed a deep obeisance, smiling.
Then she fled, before they could see the tears.
The next day the Baron himself called for them. They received a note with the first sun and the milk that he would visit them early.
“There’s something I’d like you to see. Young Ileth, especially. Don’t be alarmed, it’s a very pleasant surprise for you.”
Their first thought, when he took them toward the barns, was that the negotiations had concluded and there was a courier from the Serpentine bearing a message that they were free to return.
There were no strange dragons, so a message was unlikely, unless a courier had dropped it tied to a rock.
But there was a stout gardener standing there next to a large bucket. They approached it, the Baron giving a little chuckle. Ileth noticed that it reflected the morning sun.
Silver coins filled the bucket right to the brim.
“Well!” said Dun Huss in his slipshod Galantine. “Your generous stench overwhelms us, Baron Hryasmess. I appall and salivate you.”
Galia, whose Galantine was improving by the day in dragon-sized leaps and bounds, did not follow the talk but her jaw dropped open at the amount of coin.
“That’s just . . . the Baron’s relatives and friends?” Galia asked.
The Baron either didn’t understand her or pretended not to. “You are too kind, sir, it’s the least I can do. There’s enough left over to give the other dragons a mouthful in memory of their visit here. As, sadly, I believe it must become a memory all too soon, except for those two of you who make me and my family so happy by remaining. If I keep you from your duties any longer, your diplomats can fairly accuse me of plotting against the Republic by delaying its gallants.”
The Baron produced some bowls from his overcoat and carefully counted out coins into each one. “I imagine it’s the tradition for the dragoneers to give these to the dragons. I don’t want a Galantine Baron accused of trying to bribe your dragons!”
Mnasmanus flapped his wings in eager anticipation, and the others joined him. “Go ahead,” the Baron urged. Dun Huss led the way, with Preece and Galia following, each bearing silver to their dragon.
“Our young Ileth, as your exhibition provided the alchemy that filled this feed bucket with silver instead of corn, I believe you should present this to our resident. Who knows, this may be an omen of your future! No, I can do better. May this be an omen for your future.” He reached into his pocket and produced two heavy gold coins. “One for you, and one for the bucket.” He pressed the coin into Ileth’s hand.
“Very generous, sir,” the gardener said.
“I shall not forget your aid in your wage account this month, Leafway. But perhaps I won’t be as generous as I might have been, as you’re breaking in on my conversation with our young performer here.”
The Baron gestured to his gardener. The gardener’s thick shoulder muscles bulged as he picked up the bucket.
“What, my dear girl, is this the famous republican stolidity? You smiled wide enough last night. Perhaps you are still fatigued?”
Ileth stared at the coin. It weighed more than the little mirror Santeel had given her. “I don’t see how—”
“Didn’t you know? You were dancing at an almsgiving event. Do you know the phrase?”
“The words, yes. I’m . . . I’m not sure of their significance, Baron.”
“Significant families from my and neighboring lands gathered to see an exhibition of your dragon dancing. Word of your—art got around quickly and arous—hmmm, inspired curiosity. A combination of pity for our languishing dragon and interest in seeing you perform opened purses and accounts for a halfday[5] all around.”
They walked into the hippodrome. Fespanarax stirred and rolled his head so he could eye them. Baron Hryasmess, speaking of the Galantine tradition of charity that was as famous as their tradition of hospitality, paid no attention to the giant creature that could blast him out of existence and continued speaking to Ileth as though they were the only two present.