Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

  With that, the dragoneers mounted. The Borderlander rode behind Serena. Every one of the family save the old man was there to see them off. The widows kept close, holding hands. Gandy kept looking at her cousin and Ileth, as though watching the two principals in a staged drama. Comity and the two remaining gentlemen spoke about their own upcoming departures.

  “We’ll keep low until we’re well away from the coast,” Dun Huss said. “It’s too light out for these supposed gargoyles, but there might be ships on the bay.”

  Ileth searched the horizon toward the Rari coast. Everything was shades of winter gray: gray land, water, the mountains of the far coast with perhaps a hint of blue.

  “So much effort, and cliffs just over there,” Catherix grumbled. Ileth wasn’t about to argue with a dragon, but she fell into line with the others.

  The dragons set themselves up to face the wind. Ileth felt cold air blowing in from the northwest. It would be a chilly flight.

  Before she could get her thoughts properly in order, the dash began and they were aloft. They circled once, low, over Sag House.

  Ileth marked Astler waving with great sweeping arm gestures and felt a pang. Gandy waved both ends of her red-and-white scarf. She watched the figures shrink. It was a new experience to leave someone behind.

  She turned her nose to the dragon’s course. If they’d flown on this course, they might have passed right over the Captain’s Lodge, but the dragons turned inland and flew at treetop level to the west-southwest, toward Stavanzer. She only saw one person out, a man loading firewood onto a heavy cart. He dropped his armful when he saw dragons approaching and instinctively stepped behind his cart. Ileth waved but he didn’t return it.

  Once well clear of the coast and with the Blue Range going green with trees, they climbed. Catherix took her usual position above and behind the rest. It was more work for her, but the dragon would do things her own way, much like her rider. Ileth, with little to do but try to ignore the cold and not to impede the wind too much, glanced above and behind them now and then, musing that the dragons resembled their riders. Mnasmanus, like Dun Huss, was very polished and attentive to duty, Telemiron, like Serena, was physically different but almost supernaturally talented in other areas. Etiennersea was happy to be forward, the center of attention. Catherix was a loner, even when flying with other dragons. Did the dragons somehow sniff out a kindred spirit when choosing a rider? If so, what sort of spirit did she have? Was there a stuttering dragon who liked music? Maybe she was wrong; Etiennersea wasn’t like Dath Amrits at all. Quite the opposite really, she seemed a very serious and responsible dragon. Maybe he was the outlet for a silly side of herself she didn’t dare show, like those stories of kings keeping fools and jesters about to keep from feeling the weight of responsibility all the time.

  Catherix rocked, startling Ileth out of her thoughts. Dun Huss on Mnasmanus was pointing first at Catherix, then south.

  “We break off,” Catherix called back.

  Ileth signaled with an exaggerated nod, indicating that she understood, and gave a dragoneer salute, not sure of the exact protocol but it felt right. Catherix put on speed and overtook the others. Ileth gloried in the honor of having the salute returned, dragoneer-to-dragoneer. How many people could claim such a moment? And gone again, only a memory already . . .

  Ileth watched the dragoneers turn into silhouettes and then vanish into the clouds.

  Catherix rocked in the fluky winds of the Blue Mountains, passing between the peaks south. She found some air to her liking and rose again. Ileth huddled deeper into her coat collar.

  Ileth, always too ready to look under mental rocks for the dark side, considered Dun Huss’s words on her commission. Cutting dragons would be a calamity for the Republic. Had everyone forgotten that it was the dragons who saved them—repeatedly!—against the Alliance of Kings? And as a mere trifle of a side effect, cutting dragons meant cutting the people who took care of the dragons. She wondered what was in the cases. Something with Governor Raal’s seal? Estimates by Taskmaster Henn and that big man from the shipping lines? Folded maps with close-written plans? Obviously something had been decided and the Serpentine needed to know right away.

  Ileth returned her concentration to her dragon and the landmarks passing below.

  The flight back, in fine cold weather with Catherix happy to be able to fly at her most comfortable pace rather than keeping to the speed set by Etiennersea, was the sort of travel that made the rest of the Serpentine’s service worth it. She could watch the pattern of the clouds on the land below, pick out little farms and crossroad taverns, even count herds in winter pasture. She wondered if anyone was marking the dragon above, knew its name, nudged a friend—That’s the Borderlander’s dragon, mate.

  They passed over the double wall of the Blue Range and the heavy forest between. She’d heard wingmen talk of their “survivals” in those woods, where you had to care for a downed dragon on your own with nothing but your wits. She marked the blue of the Skylake beyond.

  Either the air was warmer here or she’d begun to go numb.

  The Skylake was a blue deeper and darker than the horizon above. She admired the triple peak of the White Sisters opposite the Serpentine and then the fortress itself as she approached.

  It felt good. A homecoming. It was like her spirit was drawing life from the landscape beneath; every smoking chimney and huddled herd of sheep and fallow field of oats fed some of its bounty to her.

  “No dragons. Room for fun. You chance flight cave, yes?”

  Ileth was game. She slapped the dragon’s shoulder. Then she paused. Suppose a fluke of wind sent them crashing into the side of the Beehive? Suppose her cases of plans went into the Skylake?

  The Borderlander had told her not to always give Catherix her way. Had that been a hint? Was this a test, something secretly arranged, to see if the joy of a fun stunt would make her forget her duty? “Another time,” she shouted. “Land carefully, on the road.” Catherix made a stomach-churning tight turn and swooped in toward the Pillar Rocks and the road where dragons usually landed. Well, call it a compromise.

  Despite the sudden descent, Catherix alighted as gently as a soap bubble blown from a child’s hand. Ileth had never experienced such a gentle dragon-landing.

  “Ileth on . . . on Catherix with d-dispatches,” Ileth said to the apprentice who came dashing from the little landing office in the shelter of Mushroom Rock. Did she have to add “arriving” as if the dragon had just floated down like a blown dandelion seed?

  The attendant checked the lock and added a note to the log. “Case and lock intact. For the office of the Charge only. You’d better wait with them. I’ll send for Dogloss.”

  “Food. Plenty food, plenty, while we wait,” Catherix said.

  “I’ll see to it,” Ileth said, dismounting. She watched a messenger run for the Charge’s tower. It occurred to her that the Old Tower was convenient for news from an incoming dragon. Perhaps that was why the Charge had reestablished the office there.

  The landing shack was used to dragons coming in hungry and had a pot of warm fish stew ready. She dumped it in a feeding barrow, brought it to Catherix, and Ileth stood there with the cases, watching the dragon eat until Dogloss arrived.

  The dispatches were duly handed over, and he double-checked the case-count and seals before accepting them. “Fine work, Ileth. See to your dragon.” Your dragon. Ileth’s heart skipped a beat.

  She led Catherix across the Long Bridge like arriving with a locked case of secrets was an everyday event in her life. She feigned a bored expression as an apprentice said something in a novice’s ear as they walked past, Catherix still running her tongue about her snout to get the last of the oily fish stew inside.

  Back at Catherix’s shelf on the Upper Ring she loosened her saddle girth and unhooked the reins from her ears, not that Ileth had made any use of them. Ileth removed the sad
dle—a few idle grooms followed in the wake of the newly arrived dragon and helped her.

  “Where’s the old scarecrow?” the groom asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Ileth said, honestly enough. “He s-s-sent me back with me-messages.”

  She patted the Borderlander’s great trunk with its odd collection of buttons set into the lid. Now that she’d seen Galantine uniforms up close, she recognized a few. She wondered what they meant. Odd that none of them were partly melted or scorched, though; Ileth thought most of the dragoneers’ enemies ended up burned to ash.

  * * *

  —

  Ileth spent the next few days visiting Catherix three times a day, getting back into her Serpentine rhythm. Her lot had started riding the few Serpentine horses out the gate on longer endurance runs.

  Horses seemed delicate and sensitive compared to the dragons. Cleaning them took no time at all, and they accepted their grooming without complaint. The dragons, on the other hand, were giving the humans an earful about everything. They complained about the quality of the food. Fish heads, tails, and other offal were being ground up and made into “meal” with oats and other fillers. The dragons were calling it chicken feed or worse. Some were refusing to eat it, Catherix among them.

  Ileth, whose first job in the Serpentine had been gutting and filleting fish for the dragons, sympathized. Fish heads were fish heads, no matter how finely you ground them and what you added to mask the flavor. The feeders were unhappy because the dragons took it out on them, and the grooms had it even worse. Dragon excrement was foul, extremely foul, but compact and quick to clean up and dispose of. This filler diet tripled the size of their evacuations and added gas eruptions from both ends of the digestive tract. The Beehive’s usual vaguely sulfurous oily smell now had sewage overtones and the sickening smell of rotting fish. Some of those working the rings where the dragons lived were tying kerchiefs over their faces and sprinkling them with cheap scent or pine oil.

  Ottavia kept the smell at bay by spraying the curtain with cheap, colorless farmer spirits distilled from potatoes.

  “Why are we feeding the dragons such rot?” Preen asked.

  “Money’s short,” Santeel said.

  “Short’s not the word for it,” Ottavia said.

  Ileth knew how much the dragons judged the quality of their life by the taste of their food. She’d heard from more than one dragon that service with the dragoneers meant not having to bother with hunting or diving for your food.

  “Will they stand it long?” Ileth asked.

  Ottavia frowned. “Shrentine told me there have been complaints. Any dragon who wishes to hunt this winter is being given leave, I understand.” Secretly, Ileth wondered if this was part of the reduction in the number of dragons.

  The dragoneers and Serena returned, and shortly after Ileth turned management of Catherix back over to the Borderlander, a note came to report to the Charge’s tower.

  She’d been at practice that morning and hadn’t yet eaten, which was just as well, as she felt sick to her stomach as soon as Ottavia handed it to her, with its usual “at your convenience” formulation. But there was nothing to do but hurry to meet her fate. Delay would only make her guts go even more sour and brand her a coward. Whatever the news, it would be a relief, and afterward she could have breakfast. She put a rose knot, her favorite, in her apprentice sash and felt ready for whatever the meeting would bring.

  Dogloss admitted her to the Charge’s office.

  Traskeer was in the office as well, drawing the warmth from the room like an open window. His face was its usual unreadable mask. Charge Deklamp stood next to his desk, impassive, and the always impressive Dogloss quietly rearranged letters on the blotter.

  She saw the bottom of the map of the North Province and Pine Bay, but someone had thrown a tablecloth over it as a screen. Judging from the lumps in the cloth, there were pins or some other markers stuck in the map. There was a heavily notated roster of dragons on the Charge’s desk.

  “Ileth, sorry to call you in here. This is a conversation more appropriate for Charge Traskeer’s office, but he happened to be here, and I wished to be present. You’re not in any trouble.”

  Ileth’s heart eased off its pounding. Why did she feel doomed? She wasn’t standing before a jury. Was Traskeer going to make an issue of her theft of the streamer?

  “But it is a difficulty for us, and it has to do with you.”

  “Is this about my sash?”

  “Nothing to do with your sash, Ileth. It looks fine,” Traskeer said. “In truth—”

  Deklamp held up his hand. “I told you I would handle this, sir. I sent Ileth north; it’s my responsibility.”

  Responsibility and someone as important as the Charge having to pass on whatever this news was to her couldn’t be good. Ileth felt the room sway.

  “Please, sit down,” Dogloss said. He moved to a chair, turned it so she might sit. She did, trying not to make it the collapse that it was.

  “Sir, whatever it is, please—”

  “Perhaps a small drink?”

  “No, I’d—no, thank you, I’d rath-rather j-just hear it, sir.”

  “Well, it’s like this. Delicate matter. I don’t suppose you know that Governor Raal is claiming you are his natural daughter.”

  “Daughter!” Ileth said.

  The Master in Charge held up a letter. “It bears no seal; personal correspondence with stationery marked as Stesside House. He puts it here, plainly enough, in the letter. Not quite the same as swearing to it in front of a jury, but in his own hand and signed.”

  “Daughter,” Ileth repeated.

  “We’re as confused as you. You’ve never heard anything about your parentage? Even a hint?”

  Ileth was grateful for a moment to pretend to think, to put her feet back on the ground and steady the swaying room. She sorted her words.

  “Plenty of stories. Some noticed that the man who . . . who ran our lodge often kept me close to him when we went into town, so that meant I was his natural daughter. There were also rumors that I was a Name’s daughter being hidden away out of embarrassment. Hateful talk. I tried to forget those stories. As for my mother, the less said about those the better. Gossip is always worse when a woman’s being carved and dished up.”

  “Too true,” Deklamp said. “Did any of the stories feel right to you? Do you match any possibilities in looks or temperament?”

  It took her a while to get the words out. Physically, she supposed she resembled the Captain more than Governor Raal, as he was from a Galantine family. It all seemed so very strange.

  The group of men absorbed what she said.

  “We can’t do anything with village gossip,” Traskeer said. “What do we do about Raal’s claim?”

  The Charge of the Serpentine took a deep breath. “Ileth, I may have to ask a great deal of you. You’ve always given us the impression that you were a proud and devoted young woman in our service. We have a few Names here who—well, they’re marking time, making connections, getting the Serpentine associated with their family Name. You’ve shown yourself the kind of apprentice here for the best reasons. Tailer or no, I believe you one of the best of your draft.”

  The praise felt cold. Ileth knew something awful was hovering behind it, like the sugar that came with the medicine. Her voice cracked as the words came out: “You’re sending me away. The Serpentine will no longer be my home.”

  My home. It felt so natural. Much more natural than my father.

  Charge Heem Deklamp set his face as though she’d slapped him. “The dragoneers are a shield of the Vales, of our Republic. Our Republic is in a great deal of trouble. Our markets are reeling; such allies as we have think we’re going under, that the Republic will collapse. Our trade with the east is being stifled. We have in mind opening the sea lanes in the north so our ships might get out that way—the
shorter route, when all is said and done. As you are from the Freesand, you can probably guess what we are planning. I’m sure you can appreciate how much better life could be if shipping could once again flow freely out of North Bay—Pine Bay, did you say you call it up there?—again. A military success would restore the spirit of our people, give confidence to our allies, stabilize the markets, get the banking cartels to believe in us again and reopen lending.”

  “Ileth is a good worker,” Traskeer said. “But her interests don’t extend to state finance. Why are you sharing all this?”

  “I want her to have a sense of the weight and importance this campaign could have.”

  Ileth stiffened a little at the word campaign. She hadn’t heard the word used to describe whatever was in the works yet. A campaign meant dragons fighting and arrows and burning ships. The Serpentine was an intricate machine whose ultimate purpose was war, and now it was on the table in front of her.

  Ileth returned her attention to the Charge. “I understand the difficulty. I don’t see how I could make a difference.”

  Traskeer spoke next, and she had to look at him: “The Governor has us over a barrel, you might say. It has to do with the political structure of the Republic. Key members of the Assembly, trusted with such matters, are discussing the campaign right now and their approval seems likely but not certain, which is why there is so much secrecy. War is expensive, for both the Assembly and the Governor.”

  Ileth’s education had been as deficient in politics as it was in philosophy or the sciences. She knew that the people of the Vales voted for who would lead them in the Assembly, and the Assembly voted laws into action and authorized money to be spent, wars to be started, all the matters handled by kings and queens in other lands. She knew that governors were powerful, carrying out the Assembly’s laws and acting much in the way a king would in directing their provinces with their own funds and finances. They also acted in a group in the Assembly in some manner, but she wasn’t sure of the details.