Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

  Amrits wiped suds out of his eyes. “What brings this?”

  “Figuring and totaling. Your bellowing’s making my writing go all spidery.”

  “How are the accounts?” Dun Huss asked.

  “More or less, less and less,” the Borderlander said, spitting the quill into the basin. “The Charge can sign off on them tonight if he likes. If he doesn’t object to my columns looking like a mountain switchback.”

  “He gets ornery because he has to take his socks off to do the math,” Amrits said out of the side of his mouth, jerking his chin at the Borderlander.

  “Gets it right, though,” Dun Huss said, holding a shirt up to the sun. “The last time you handled the accounts, we had a financial panic in Sammerdam.”

  “Would help if you didn’t turn in a whole quarter’s worth of your dragon’s expenses under the heading ‘sundries,’” the Borderlander growled.

  “But they do get turned in on time,” Dun Huss said.

  “We’re all terrified of Old Bore, Ileth,” Amrits said, arranging his wet hair. “He has a reputation for extreme behavior when vexed that nothing can account for, and the proof drips before you now.”

  The Borderlander asked about her injury. His eyes narrowed when she haltingly explained that it was just an accident when she fell into a tangle of people at the end of her gauntlet run.

  “That’s a gash from a weapon. A jagged weapon for ripping. Animal claw, serrated blade, could have been a broken bit of glass or hunk of shell.”

  “What?” Dath Amrits asked, standing up.

  “It happened so fast,” Ileth said. She told the story about the tailer tradition. “A bunch of us fell together. It might have even been before that; I didn’t feel it, I was being knocked about so much running the gauntlet.”

  Dun Huss left his laundry and came closer for inspection. He made a noncommittal noise. “Accident or not, you’re fortunate it didn’t get infected.”

  “I’d say you had an enemy,” the Borderlander said.

  Ileth repeated that she couldn’t believe someone in the Serpentine wanted to hurt her. But the fact that these three men thought her wound suspicious gave her pause. But who would wish harm to her? Santeel Dun Troot? Santeel had been upset when she found out Ileth had been reporting on her progress at the Serpentine to her family, but Santeel wounded with words and wit, not a broken bottle-end.

  “If I had, they’d have pl-plenty of ch-chances at me in the Beehive. No one had a weapon. One b-boy had a dragon-tooth on his brace-bracer. I might have caught on it.”

  Amrits turned away, losing interest, but the Borderlander just shook his head.

  Ileth nodded. “I do . . . I do have one question. How do you submit a report about your find-findings in a commission?”

  Dun Huss turned from his laundry. “A commission? From who?”

  “Master Traskeer.”

  “He’s a stiff reed,” Amrits said, sitting down and pushing soapy water off the gazebo bench.

  “Don’t criticize her Master in front of her,” Dun Huss said. “What did he ask you to do?”

  “F-find a problem in Vyenn and report on . . . report on it.”

  “So he brought back that old chestnut,” Amrits said. “He always did like filling up sheets of paper.”

  “What did you find?” the Borderlander asked.

  “A blight on the window-box posies in the high street?” Amrits asked.

  Ileth shifted her feet, wondering how to form it into words. “Idleness. Boats and barges at their moorings. Just rotting.”

  “The river’s like a limb with a tourniquet at the Scab,” the Borderlander said.

  Ileth liked the Borderlander. He was so direct about everything. “It reminded me of the Freesand. The Rari killing off trade.”

  “Oh, yes, you grew up there,” Amrits said. “Pirates and slavers both, yes?”

  Ileth nodded. The Rari pirates. She’d seen one as a girl, when the Captain turned out the Lodge to watch a pirate being hanged. He hadn’t taken them to the actual hanging, as that scene wasn’t fit for young female eyes, but she’d watched him being pulled through town.

  He must have been some person of importance because of his rich red attire, a warm rolled and channeled vest, though it was still wet enough to drip as he was hauled from the docks. His beard was also scraped and shaped and tended, cut into crisp, severe angles. The bracers and belts taken off him and displayed to the crowd had gold and gems, and he had a fine seal hat set into a stiff cylinder. He seemed amused by the crowd shouting at him more than anything.

  She’d snuck out later to see his body, coated in tar to preserve it, though the tar hadn’t put off the crows who’d made a mess of what tender flesh they could get at. Stripped of the fine clothes he was just a fleshy, tar-painted man with a beard dangling from a rope by a stretched neck. The sight was horribly fascinating, but it made her glad the Captain had returned them to the Lodge before he was hanged. For some reason she wondered whether they put the tar on him before or after he was dead as she snuck back in through the attic vent.

  “Good choice. A dying town’s a problem,” Dun Huss said, bringing her back to the Serpentine sunshine.

  “He wants my commission in writing,” Ileth said. “I don’t know how to begin.”

  “Here’s a title: A Presentation of the Findings of the Ileth Commission: A Town Going Ti . . . Belly-Up.”

  Dun Huss ignored Amrits. “Yes, he’ll expect it on paper, unless he expressly ordered you to make a verbal report. Fair copy, or you’ll get your ear chewed about it not being fit for the Republic, so labor over your handwriting and grid your paper faintly with a pencil beforehand. There’s a good guide-grid in the writing room in the Masters’ Hall you can use. Even an indifferent hand looks better if the lines have been precisely spaced.”

  “Aren’t you rather giving his game away?” Amrits asked, lying down on the balustrade so he could dry in the sun. “He wants to burn in a lesson in his own miserable way, and if she puts it all in correct, you’ll spoil his fun.”

  “An apprentice of the Serpentine has asked me how to do her duty. I’m going to do everything in my power to instruct her.”

  Amrits ran his tongue around his teeth under his lip in thought. “For my sins, girl, I spent a term at the old Horn and Drum in Asposis. Blacktower Military Academy for Boys. I only lasted a year before they kicked me out and the Wheezer sent me off to the Serpentine. I understand Traskeer went there as a boy too, before my time. They used to pound it into our heads that it wasn’t enough to just describe a problem, you should present a solution.”

  “You were a flat-hat at Blacktower?” the Borderlander asked. Ileth thought it was the first time she’d ever seen him startled. “You?”

  Ileth had heard of Blacktower. She’d listened to her fellow novices talking about which boys went there when she was first sworn in and lived in the Manor. It was a strict military school near the old court city of Asposis. “Blacktower Boys” were destined for high office and great responsibility; before the Republic, they had been called the King’s something-or-other.

  “Briefly,” Amrits said with a wink. “It didn’t take. Never developed the taste for being bent over the bombard and beaten the way some there do.”

  “Do you have any ideas for a solution, Ileth?” Dun Huss asked. “It’ll look better if you suggest one.”

  For once she was ahead of Dun Huss. The Captain never let his charges tell him about a problem without suggesting a solution. “I think s-so. Don’t know how to put it down correctly.”

  “I’ll be happy to look it over for you,” Dun Huss said. “Show it to me before you make your fair copy, if you like.”

  “Oh, now that really is cheating,” Amrits said. “He’s testing her.”

  “Remember when he came back when Sel resigned?” the Borderlander said. “Talked about to
o much chaff in the wheat, said we were overenrolled because we were setting up for a war that wasn’t going to ever happen?”

  “Let’s not talk about that in front of an apprentice. Ileth, don’t alarm your fellow apprentices. Master Traskeer expressed an opinion not shared by the Charge, the other Masters, or the dragons. Nobody’s being cut for the sake of cutting.”

  “I’m no talker,” Ileth said.

  Amrits cleared his throat.

  The Borderlander and Dun Huss both glared at Amrits. “What? Are you expecting a joke about the poor thing’s stutter? My throat’s closed up with dust and dry air, that’s all. Ileth, quit taking forever about that water. A Dragoneer of the Serpentine is in need, girl.”

  The Borderlander made a move for the basin he’d dumped on his head.

  Dun Huss stood. His laundry was already visibly dryer in the heat despite the lack of wind. Ileth savored the faint smell of his soap flakes baking in the sun. “Don’t bother, Ileth, I’ll get it. I must go in anyway and find if I have a spare button to fix this shirt. Go about your duties.”

  “And get that wound checked for black rot,” the Borderlander said. “Anyone mad enough to want to tear your face up would be mad enough to dip the edge in something foul. It’s too red around the top for my liking. Make sure he smells for sepsis.”

  * * *

  —

  The physiker’s office was empty and his apprentice was out as well. A novice boiling out dressings said he’d been called into town on an emergency. Ileth wondered if one of the town or waterfront boys had taken a dirt clod to the eye.

  That meant Ileth was first in line for soup in the dining hall. After soup, she walked back along the winding central road leading down to the Long Bridge and the Beehive that gave the Serpentine its name. The lavender was in fragrant bloom in the park. Some Guards were practicing with crossbows, shooting at straw targets drifting about the pond in the middle of the gardens. Ileth appreciated the small economy; a miss wouldn’t ruin the bolt, though it meant wading about in the pond to retrieve it.

  She heard a hail, saw a familiar figure waving as he hurried toward her. He became caught up in his braces, trying to put them on.

  “Ah, there you are,” Sifler said, straightening out the suspenders. “Saw you from the wall.”

  His tunic was unbuttoned, which was strange, and he was out of breath. “Sifler. You’re not on watch?”

  “No. Off duty. The walls are a good place for solitude. Saw you and wanted to have a word.”

  Ileth wondered if he’d been watching for her. He seemed tense, as though he’d nerved himself to confront her.

  “Th-that’s f-f-funny. I wanted to speak to you, too.”

  He looked nonplussed. Sometimes the old tricks were the best ones, ambushing the ambusher. “Me?”

  She explained that she needed to turn in an official report, as an answer to a commission, but she didn’t know how to organize it and her handwriting wasn’t suitable for such a matter.

  “You’ve heard about that, then?” Sifler asked.

  “What?”

  “That I make fair copies for money. You’re the first girl to ask me about it.”

  “You make money with your handwriting?”

  “Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

  “It is . . . it is now.”

  “Not much, especially to some of the Names here. Fates know I need it, though.”

  “I thought you had a great Name.”

  “I do, among the greatest, as I’ve been told constantly since I was old enough to pronounce it properly. There’s just no money attached to it. I don’t mean I’m written off or anything like that—the family’s bankrupt. On the pile. Every debt collector and his dog has our Name in the book with a red line through it.”

  “I’m s-sorry. None of my business.”

  “I’m not ashamed; I didn’t run up the debts. But I understand you’re poor as I am.”

  Ileth wanted to hear where he got that understanding, but she supposed the boys gossiped too. Instead she asked, “Will becoming a dragoneer restore your name?”

  “In the end, that’s why I’m here. Or maybe I should say in the beginning. There’s no business left for me to go into. The dragoneers are a last throw of the dice. Something may happen that will allow me to enter politics a hero, maybe even marry into money.” He explained it with a cares-to-the-wind joking tone that reminded her a little of Amrits. Misfortunes were easy to shrug off when you lived with them your whole life. Or you got a lot of practice pretending such old wounds didn’t ache.

  She tried to share his joking tone. “One less m-mouth to feed, too.”

  “No, I’m it. I had a younger brother for three days, I’m told, but something got into his blood, and my mother got so weakened by the same thing that they couldn’t risk more. She’s been weak ever since.” The cheery tone was gone.

  If Ileth could do anything well in conversation, it was change the subject, a favorite tactic of hers. She did so.

  “I did w-want to ask you about w-writing. I need . . . I need to improve mine.”

  “Well, our stars are aligned today, it seems,” he said. “It’s just a trick of working the quill or pen, if you have such available, and practice. Rather than just having me write it out for you, I could teach you.”

  “I can’t . . . pay you. No money. We’re shipwrecked on the same raft.”

  “Well, I do have a sort of offer of exchange. My proposit—my offer is this: I’ve never mixed much with women, you see. Not even my mother. I get a lot of chafe from the other fellows about it; they’re very raw in their talk. For all the books, I don’t know the first thing about women. You could make me a bit worldlier about such matters. But obviously it would have to be a secret.”

  Ileth froze. Was the little monkey asking what she thought he was asking?

  She was about to tell him to jump the wall and get his experience with a sheep when a dragon-roar sounded from across the Long Bridge, muffled somewhat by the Pillar Rocks. It came up through the window galleries that let the sun in on the dragons’ meeting Rotunda, so loud that it startled the pigeons and gulls that infested the place there. They rose in alarm and a patrolling hawk swooped and took his chance at the sudden flurry of rising meals.

  Ileth didn’t see whether he caught one. She was too busy running for the Long Bridge.

  She flew over the cobblestones of the bridge. Another roar sounded. She’d heard enough dragons being loud by now that she knew it was different from the first.

  By the time she was in the passage up to the Rotunda ring, she’d left Sifler far behind. His suspenders betrayed him again.

  The Rotunda where the dragons met, her troupe danced, and lesser humans looked down from the gallery above was a flurry of action centered on a triangle of fang and scale. A red she knew, a garrulous old dragon named Falberrwrath, had his griff down, snapping at a smaller, slightly younger but more muscular silver she didn’t know. The silver kept rearing up on his hind legs, flapping his wings in Falberrwrath’s face much as a human might slap another. Taresscon, the senior female of the Serpentine, made a third corner of the triangle, bellowing in Drakine but keeping out from between the jaws of the two males.

  Ileth knew she was a favorite of Falberrwrath, not that it would count for a fig when a dragon’s fighting blood was up. Some human females just made for more pleasing company to certain dragons; some mixes of scent and motion were extra soothing.

  Ottavia and the dancers huddled out of the way with their musicians. Ottavia pulled her dancers toward a passage; if a dragon loosed a careless burst from its fire-bladder, she could lose the entire troupe and her with it in a blast. Grooms and dragoneers were similarly sheltering in alcoves and the passage off the Rotunda. Two other dragons, purple Mnasmanus and Taresscon, the senior female, had retreated up on hornlike perches midway between
the Rotunda floor and the gallery, keeping out of the way as they called down in Drakine.

  No, Ottavia didn’t quite have all her dancers. Vii crouched between the two, her costume torn, a little blood running from her scalp. Wide eyes filled with fear moved from dragon to dragon as she dodged lunges, hunting for a way out between the stomping feet and swinging necks.

  The silver came down from his rear, lost his footing as a sii* slipped, and Falberrwrath was on his neck in a jump like thunder. He managed to hold down the silver and open his jaws for a bite at the neck. If they rolled now they might crush Vii, who’d had to throw herself on her belly to avoid a wing.

  Taresscon intervened at last, turning quickly, and with a swing of her tail she cracked Falberrwrath on the snout. He backed off—more importantly, stepped off the silver’s neck—and the glare seeped out of his eyes. His gaze swept the room and he seemed unsure of himself. He gave a snarl as he looked again at the silver.

  Vii took the opportunity to crawl away from Falberrwrath’s sii, but in her fear or confusion she ended up nearer the silver.

  The silver was back on his feet in an instant, griff rattling and wings rustling.

  Ileth took her chance. She was sweaty from her run, after all, and she felt the heat trapped under her overdress. She took off for the center of the Rotunda, passing around the gap in the floor that led down to the flight cave.

  “ILETH!” Ottavia screamed.

  She put herself between Falberrwrath and Vii . . .

  Ileth’s Drakine was very limited; about all she’d learned to do was pronounce names correctly, use a few honorifics, and engage in the odd politeness. She fired off all three: “Falberrwrath, old hero! Be easy, now.” As she got under his snout, she shrugged off her overdress.

  Even she could smell the odor of the long day in the sun coming up off her body.