Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

They went to an anteroom filled with lines of leather hung from wooden pegs sticking out of the wall. He began checking their length and hanging them up according to some scheme, shorter ones at the bottom, longer at the top.

  Ileth helped him finish his sorting and hanging, then spoke: “We had white streamers tied to the dragon wings, I remember.”

  “Yes. We do that for most Galantine trips. Even now that there’s peace. If the diplomats have some great need of getting a message through quickly, it’s still best to send the dragons with truce streamers.”

  “Exactly. Could I have one?”

  “A truce streamer? May I ask why?”

  “No.”

  “I like you, Ileth, so I’ll give you one for exactly that answer. They’re just scrap cloth anyway.” He led her to a much darker chamber, where everything was cast about and not so neatly organized, but much of it was up on shelves, or in barrels or cases. He hunted around a trunk that reeked of camphor, extracted a long piece of cloth, another, a third. Finally a white one appeared. “This one’s too new.” He dug around a bit more and found a ragged, stained one. “Yeah, this is scrap; it would fall apart or get caught on scale and shred as soon as the dragon folded his wings. Not even long enough for a streamer, really. Yor’n now.”

  He passed it to her. Ileth stretched it out in her arms, admiring it like a wedding gown. “Ah! Perfect!”

  “Perfect? Length of old, torn sailcloth?”

  “But it’s white.”

  “Not fit for much these days. I doubt it’s even one from yor’n trip, if you were wanting a souvenir.”

  Ileth thanked him profusely, folded it, and wound it about her waist.

  “Ahhh,” the apprentice said. “That’s the worst-looking sash I’ve ever seen in me life.”

  “But it . . . is a sash.” He was right. It was ragged. She could fix it, somewhat, when she had time. Just not right now.

  She made her long, careful trip across the bridge, wishing she had a glass so she could see how her sash looked with every step. There were all the mirrors in the Well, but she couldn’t go there; Ottavia probably had the troupe doing drills and fatigues right now and she didn’t want to be diverted. She intercepted one of the night grooms she knew, on his way to the Beehive, and begged him to pass word to Ottavia that she was on a commission from Traskeer and would return very late.

  She worked with quill and ink in the Great Hall, hardly heard the midnight bell, and waited. She began to wonder if she’d been forgotten. She put her head down, just to rest for a moment, and the next thing she knew she was being shaken awake.

  There were clattering sounds from the kitchen. “Fates, what time is it?”

  “Not yet four. My relief was late,” Sifler said. “I’m glad you’re still here, but Ileth, I’m exhausted and I have the midmorning watch. I’ll make a mess of it. Give it to me.”

  She passed him her version and some blank paper.

  “I can pay you two figs.”

  “Keep it. When you have a bit of money to your name you can always give it to me. I’ll do this just because. We’ll work on your handwriting together another time.”

  She yawned in front of him. Terrible manners, the Matron over at the Manor would have a fit; you might as well have gas in public as yawn when a man spoke to you, but she couldn’t help it. Sifler didn’t seem to mind. “Thank you, sir,” she said, by making amends.

  “You shouldn’t ‘sir’ me. Well, you should if I’m at my post with my hat on. But otherwise you’re quite the sister I never had, Ileth.”

  “When . . . when might I expect the . . . expect the fair copy, brother?” She meant it to come out as a joke, it was a word strange to her tongue, given the Captain’s Lodge, but it felt nice to say. Brother. She had to stop herself from saying it again.

  “I come off watch at noon. I’ll do it then.”

  They made arrangements to meet when he’d done up her fair copy.

  She thanked him again and fled to the Beehive. As she looked at the clouds and the halo about the lighthouse atop the Beehive, a trick of the architecture projected a ring when the clouds were low and thick; she guessed that rain or a thick fog was on the way. The air felt heavy and her footsteps echoed oddly. In fact, she turned a few times on the Bridge Lane, certain that she heard someone following her. Her own joke about an assassin throwing her off the Long Bridge felt suddenly real.

  There was some light, thanks to the lighthouse and the reflection from the clouds, about as much as a bright full moon. There was nothing about on the road, and now that she was almost to the gardens and the amphitheater there were no corners to duck around or alleys to dodge behind. And no assailants appeared. It could have been birds.

  The only people she met on the road were a couple of novices up early and out the door of the Manor, hurrying to clean the Great Hall before breakfast. They bobbed at her sash and she nodded at them. They wore gloves to save their skin, but it looked to Ileth like the tattered gloves would soon give way and they’d have calluses like everyone else in the Serpentine.

  A thought popped into her head like a struck match. She remembered something she’d been told. Was it by Galia, when asked about getting promoted? She thought so but couldn’t be quite sure.

  “Novices,” she called after the girls.

  They turned, probably expecting a dressing down from a tired apprentice who wanted to take it out on someone.

  “It’s your . . . it’s your lucky day.” She put the figs on her thumb, sent them spinning in their direction. Her aim was true, but her distance was bad, they sailed high. One of them had quick hands and snatched one out of the air; the other found the second coin after it fell. The girls examined their offering. Too bad it wouldn’t buy them new gloves.

  “You were my first,” she said, giving a little bob, meaning the first formal recognition of her apprenticeship.

  One of the girls made a face. Probably wealthy. What was a fig to her? Something your father gave you at the sweet shop after you wrote your name for the first time.

  Still, your first obeisance was supposed to be lucky. She got two out of it. Did that negate it or bring her extra luck? She hoped the latter.

  * * *

  —

  The Dancers’ Quarter was quiet. Ileth passed through the curtain. She heard soft snores from behind the heavy decorative hanging rugs that sectioned off Ottavia’s bedchamber. She dodged down the little triangular alley to the dancers’ dormitory and fell into her rope bed clothed.

  Shatha shook her awake. She heard the clatter of tea.

  “Ottavia wants early drills,” Shatha groaned. Ileth sympathized.

  “You. Found a sash,” Santeel said, yawning. She stressed the word found.

  “I found a sash,” Ileth agreed. “It’ll be better once I’ve worked on it.”

  “You can’t possibly make it worse. That must be a comfort.” Santeel looked a fright. Ileth wondered if she’d slept at all. Maybe one of the dragons had kept her dancing until dawn.

  They drank their tea quickly and went off to the great chamber, each carrying a small music box issued by Ottavia as they had no musician this morning. One of the female dragons stood in front of the mirrors with her dragoneer, that Garamoff whom Ileth had seen in Vyenn, pointing out where the grooms hadn’t properly attended to her scale behind her legs, and the dragoneers apologized.

  “It’ll be taken care of today, Nephalia,” Garamoff said, with the tone of a man reassuring a wife of many years.

  Ottavia knew better than to interrupt a dragon inspecting the work of her groomers. After a few more minutes of complaints about the state of her teeth and claws, Nephalia jumped back up to the chamber above. Garamoff moved off to find the master groomer, muttering about his missed breakfast.

  “The life of a Serpentine Dragoneer,” Ottavia said, looking pointedly at Garamoff’s back as he mov
ed off. “No one writes ballads about scraping droppings off their scales.” Her stare switched to the end of the line that held Ileth and Santeel. “I would rather dance.” She lifted a knee and gave an elegant little flutter-kick for emphasis.

  The troupe lined up in their usual spots where they could see themselves in the mirrors and check their alignment, Ileth out on one wing next to Santeel. They left a gap where Vii usually stood. Ottavia put Fyth in Vii’s old spot.

  They alternated drills, where they rehearsed individual gestures and combinations, and fatigues, exercises that strengthened and gave endurance to the muscles. When Ileth first joined the dancers, she’d been told the drills were fatiguing and the fatigues made your muscles feel like they’d been drilled and drained, and it was as true today as it ever had been. She felt like a first-dayer again when they finally stretched their hot muscles and dabbed sweat out of their hair.

  Santeel excused herself when they took a break for water at one of the trickles, running hard now as it was no doubt raining outside. “It’s repair and maintenance, still,” she said, when Shatha asked her what was on for today. “The next rotation can’t come soon enough. I heard I was being passed up to the physiker, but who knows.”

  Ottavia didn’t look any more bothered by Santeel’s departure than she did Nephalia forcing a late start. She just ate a handful of nuts from the pouch she carried around and massaged her feet.

  They talked a little afterward about routines. What dances they performed only mattered to a couple of the more artistically minded dragons; as long as they worked up a good sweat for the others, their duty was fulfilled. Ottavia’s ideas of developing dragon dancing until it was considered just as respectable an art as painting or music mattered to them, not the dragons.

  The drill-and-fatigue pattern continued through the morning. Finally, they stretched and broke for lunch.

  Midday meals weren’t a part of the culture of the Serpentine, but the dancers often took them because of the enormous energies expended in their drills. Ileth thought of that young physiker, Gift, and his talk about the body just being a system to keep the muscles going. What would Santeel make of him, if she was rotated to the physikers?

  “Ileth, your eye looks better,” Ottavia said as they broke away. “Eating plenty of eggs? Eggs are the best thing to have if you don’t want a scar.”

  Ileth nodded.

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your position with the dancers. I’ve given it some thought. Despite our being short with Vii gone, I think we will be all right. Caseen has submitted the names of no less than eight novices who want to be placed with the dancers—I’ll actually have to choose! So if flying is your dream, I don’t want to deny you that. I’ll make the same sort of allowances for you that I do for Santeel.”

  Ileth was stunned quiet for a moment. “This means . . . means so much to me. Thank you, sira.”

  Ottavia patted her arm. “I hope you have the same energy as Santeel. Honestly, I don’t know how she does it.”

  “I’ll work as hard as I can for you and the troupe, whenever I’m not in the apprenticeship rotations.”

  “Of course. I’ll also give you the same warning I gave her: if our duties to the dragons suffer in any way, you’ll have to leave the troupe. The dragons must be attended.”

  Anything Santeel could do, she could. She put the thought of failure out of her mind. “Thank you for being fair with me.”

  “What may seem fair now may turn cruel. Suppose you fail in your duties to the dragons and the troupe and I give your bed to another girl? Where will you make your bed? Santeel, her Name and money give her options. She could even take lodgings in town and walk to the Serpentine each day, like some of our wealthy dragoneers.”

  Ileth hadn’t considered that. She couldn’t go back to the Manor. She supposed she could throw herself on the Matron’s mercy and play the part of the contrite wayward girl. But to go back to the Manor with its sermons and chore wall and being elbow-to-elbow with dozens of other girls every moment, after the freedom of the Quarter . . .

  “What I’ve taken too many words to say is that you’ll be dancing on the proverbial knife edge, Ileth.”

  After lunch, Falberrwrath called for a dancer. Ileth volunteered. She found him listless and distracted. He said the eggs were about to hatch and it had all the dragons tense but he especially felt it, them being of his line. She set to work, but after two dances, the big red veteran dismissed her. “It’s not helping and I’ve resolved to be more considerate to you humans. Go and give Ottavia my thanks,” he rumbled, turning on his side and sighing. He rumbled something in Drakine, but the only word Ileth understood was war.

  Back in the Dancers’ Quarter, they had a visitor. She found Sifler with three of the troupe waiting on him as he sipped tea, precariously perched on two pillows.

  For someone who confessed absolutely no experience with women, he seemed to be making himself agreeable. Fyth was tut-tutting over his officer’s cap, brushing the fur felt and bemoaning the state of the liner, and Preen was pouring him tea. “A friend of my mother’s had that kind of double-wall tureen, so convenient for parties, but there wasn’t a heating element. The tea stays warm all day with nothing but a little charcoal, you say?”

  Ileth thought of breaking it to him that any man Ottavia admitted to the Dancers’ Quarter would get this sort of fete, but decided his confidence would benefit from the attention as much as his hat.

  Sifler set down his tea and rose. “Ah, Ileth, they were trying to dissuade me from hunting you down while you were dancing.”

  “We didn’t have to try that hard,” Fyth said.

  She explained that Falberrwrath was in a mood and had dismissed her.

  “Still sorry I missed it. I think the last time I saw you dance was the Feast of Follies. The night of the fire.”

  She must have looked pained. He changed the subject. “I have your fair copy,” he said, turning and sending his teacup to the floor. Preen managed to deftly save the cup but not the tea. Sifler apologized and dabbed at the spill with the end of his sash.

  The dancers exchanged amused looks. “Do you want to read it over? I could make a quick correction if necessary; I see there is ink and quills on your esteemed Charge’s desk.”

  Ileth took him off to one end of the common room. Though no one had expressly told her so, she had a feeling men were not allowed into the alley where the dancers slept.

  He couldn’t resist a glance down the short alley with the tiled washroom at the end. “So these used to be some kind of monastic chambers? I’m sure the monks weren’t as fond of pillows, tapestries, and hung veils. All the music boxes are fascinating.”

  “We couldn’t get by without them. There aren’t enough musicians with free time.”

  He handed her the sheets.

  The handwriting was beautiful, line after line filling the page as evenly as well-laid bricks. He’d changed a word here and there, and, embarrassingly, fixed a good deal of spelling. Ileth knew more words than she knew how to spell.

  She must have winced as she read.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No. I’m such a terrible speller.”

  “It’s not universal. There’s a tradition to how things look in matters pertaining to the Republic. I used that. The Philosophical Commission keeps trying to raise money to do an authoritative reference, the Basis, they call it, but it doesn’t have enough subscribers yet.”

  He fell silent as Ileth continued reading. She didn’t know what the Philosophical Commission was and finishing the document was a good way to cover that up, though why she wanted to hide further examples of her ignorance from an ungainly boy she didn’t want to think about at the moment.

  “It’s lovely. I can’t . . . I can’t thank you enough.”

  “They’ll be serving dinner soon. Shall I walk you over? To give it to Tras
keer, I mean, not eat together again.”

  “I need a moment to change. I don’t want to go outside in a damp sheath.”

  Sifler turned that endearing shade of red. “The rain will do that for you. It’s still coming down.”

  She wanted a fresh sheath in any case, so she changed while he put the paper back in his map case so it wouldn’t be wetted. She admired it when she returned.

  “Are you s-supposed to be using S-Serpentine G-Guard equipment for your copy-copywork?” she asked, once they were safely out of the Dancers’ Quarter and the troupe had thanked him for his visit.

  “You’re on a commission, given by a Master. I’m obliged to aid you if I can. You know that. I see you found a sash.”

  “Do you think he’ll hate it?”

  “It looks a bit desperate. I don’t know him well enough to say. Selgernon was more easygoing, but even he would probably ask, Do you think your attire is a credit to the Serpentine?”

  “I’m going to fix it up.”

  “The knot is beautiful. What is that?”

  “It’s called a . . . called a good-luck loop. Sometimes you add one to your lobster trap or your netting if you’ve had a bad season.”

  They hurried out of the Beehive and into the rain.

  * * *

  —

  He parted with her in the Masters’ Hall, entering so he could give her the papers from the map case, once they verified that Traskeer was in.

  “Meeting of Masters, in the old Dragoneers’ Hall. You may be here a bit,” the page said. Ileth watched a novice, this one obviously one of the Matron’s girls new to physical labor, straighten from where she polished the floor to rub her back. Ileth gave her an encouraging smile.

  Sifler wished her luck and departed to his dinner.

  She waited in the small, well-lit writing room, studying the fair copy. She’d hate to be caught not knowing a term Sifler had inserted in the interest of clarity, but if anything he’d trimmed out a few of the military phrases she’d copied from the Heem Strath report she’d named and referenced repeatedly as being a plan for the proposed campaign. She’d added her own ideas for returning the men of the Freesand. The only words that she couldn’t say were hers came at the end, when he added an additional reference to the Heem Strath report in sort of a brief summation. Maybe you were supposed to say the same thing two or three times according to whatever style and rules of an official commission report existed.